Zeek continued leading his companions through the shifting halls and corridors, ever deeper into the Heart of Sorrow. After long, they stopped in a chamber that, on the map, seemed the safest place to gather their bearings. Kerris was alert, weary eyes darting back and forth, almost expecting Lilliana to ambush them again.
"She won't strike us here," Zeek said, his voice tired, "At least, not for some time."
Kerris turned to him, her gaze still flittering about the room, "How could you know?" Zeek lifted the map, placing it gently before her as they surveyed its contents.
"There," he said, pointing toward an inky stain on the map, "She's there, likely waiting for us." He let out an anguished sigh, "She always was patient, she'd wait day and night for me whenever I'd leave her alone." His voice had become but a whisper, choked by a life no longer his.
"You really knew that witch," she shouted, barely hiding her disgust.
"That witch was my wife, once. She used to be the epitome of divinity in Estus, an idealistic priestess with a lineage going back to the angels that fell from heaven and built the city itself. The monster you met," he paused, attempting to hold back near-unbridled emotion, "That thing isn't the woman I knew, and, once she's cleansed, she'll be our only bastion keeping this… this corruption, ichor, whatever this is from expanding any further."
Kerris sat quietly, her malice toward Lilliana festering as she recalled the deaths of those she'd spent years beside.
For a few hours, the party rested and collected their things in a grim silence. The quiet seemed to permeate the psyches of the bruised adventurers.
A crunching sound filled the chamber, the sound of broken bones and crumbling pillars. Kerris, on watch, looked about her companions as despair blossomed from the pit of her stomach, nausea brimming fresh pails of vomit up her throat as she envisioned her beloved friends being butchered. Another crunch reverberated through the exterior corridor as the band of adventurers quickly prepared to move. Zeek pulled the map from his pouch, audibly gasping before setting his jaw, "Grigor."
Verris glanced toward the crest-fallen rogue, "A friend of yours, I assume?"
Another crunch.
A dark-red blotch sauntered in their direction on the map's face.
Crunch.
"He's a wraith of the labyrinth Verris," Zeek spat, "No friend of mine."
Crunch.
The sounds were getting closer, steady, purposed steps; a gargantuan beast stomping through the halls, shattering the stone floor beneath it.
A silence fell, so oppressively still that Kerris could hear her own heart thudding in her chest. A gurgling sound came from just beyond the chamber's entryway before a soundless veil fell over the room.
"It's him," Zeek whispered under his breath.
A massive hand gripped the stone wall from the outside. The skin was a pale, milky gray, covered in open wounds that refused to close, black blood slowly oozing from them. A twisted face peered around the corner, blackened eyes and an ever-expanding smile of sharpened yellow teeth, "So glad you came back, rat," the colossus spat through its maw, now spanning from ear to ear, the flesh parting beside what were once his lips.
"Of course no one put him down," Zeek sighed to himself.
"It calls," the behemoth hissed. One gargantuan step after the other, it skulked into the open chamber, the remains of another adventurer still crunching under one of its feet.
"By the gods..." Amon breathed, his usual composure shattered; he recovered in an instant, his hands ignited in white-hot flames. Heka sensed the raw, chaotic energy of their foe, and erupted from his robes. She was no longer a subtle wisp but a storm of smoke and ash, the ends of her chain-linked dress coalesced into razor-sharp tendrils that lashed through the air. Amon conjured a scythe of pure magma, smoke pouring off it into Heka's shrouded form.
"With me." Verris' voice was little more than a growl between gritted teeth. His eyes met Amon's as the two took their stance in the presence of the monstrosity before them.
Zeek took slow, cautious steps toward his companions, Kerris flanking him with a readied bow. "This one is not like the others."
"I've never seen any beast as massive as this," Kerris said, shocked.
"Every giant must one day fall," Amon quoted grimly. The son of Kemet raised his flaming scythe, sweeping it towards the creature's legs while Heka's smoky blades sliced at its arms. The attacks connected, searing the blackened flesh and leaving deep gouges, but the wounds began to close almost immediately, sluggish black ichor welling up to seal the damage with unnatural speed. Verris followed with a crushing blow from a pulsating Regalia, already bloated from the blood of Kerris's fallen comrades. Grigor laughed, his eyes never leaving Zeek as he swung his massive hand, clearing the space before him.
From the relative safety of the room's shadows, Kerris drew her bow, her movements swift and practiced. An arrow hissed through the air, striking the possessed Grigor in the shoulder. It was a perfect shot, yet the arrowhead simply bounced off the corpse's hide with a dull clink. She fired again, aiming for the glowing eye, but the arrow shattered against its brow; a cold dread, chillingly familiar, washed over her. This wasn't a creature of flesh and bone; it was a walking piece of the labyrinth, a vessel of the same impossible horror that had consumed her friends. Her hands, steady only moments before, began to tremble.
Zeek was trapped, not by chains, but by the crushing weight of his own guilt as the corpse's glowing eyes fixed on him. A guttural, familiar voice echoed in his mind, gurgling, "You left me in the dark, Zeek. You ran." Flashes of memory, vivid and unwanted, assaulted him: Grigor's dying gasp, the feel of the blood-map coming to life in his hands, Lilliana's face twisting from love to something else as the Heart of Sorrow began to consume her. The air grew thick with the labyrinth's signature corruption, a psychic poison that seeped into his soul, whispering failure and despair. He fell to his knees, clutching his head as the world dissolved into a nightmare of his own making.
Darkness consumed Zeek's vision, he was surrounded by the faces of all the comrades and mercenaries he'd fed to the labyrinth, a mountain of corpses heaped around him. For an eternity, blood was all he could see as if it poured from every crack on the walls surrounding him, then, for but a moment, a spark flitted before him, and then another. Something tugged on him, black tendrils wrapping around him as the bloody masses began to fade from view. Flames danced before him, sparks flying along the arc of Amon's scythe as it cut through the air. Zeek rose to his feet, his mind still clearing as his hand dug into the pack at his waist. Crystals hummed with magic as he palmed then, hurling them at the giant's feet.
"Kerris, shoot the crystals!"
Between the shadows, Kerris's eyes glinted, followed by the twinkling of her next arrow. The first crystal burst into a mound of ice, encasing the behemoth from its foot to its calf. The second exploded into a corrosive green cloud, melting the skin and muscles off the bones of the titan.
With a groan, Verris pushed himself to his feet, a trickle of blood running from the corner of his mouth. His fury had burned away the pain. "WHERE IS HE?!" he roared, charging again. He ignored the creature's torso, instead swinging Regalia low and hard. The mace connected with Grigor's kneecap, and this time, the result was spectacular. Bone, supernaturally hardened but not invincible, shattered with a sickening boom. The monstrous corpse let out a bellow of rage and pain as its leg buckled, sending it stumbling to one knee.
"Now! Bind it!" Amon commanded, seeing the momentary advantage. Heka's form dissolved and surged forward, a tidal wave of living smoke that wrapped around the stumbling corpse, ashen chains forming and wrapping themselves around it. The creature thrashed, but the Heka's binding held fast. Seizing the opportunity, Amon unleashed a torrent of concentrated fire, engulfing the bound monster in a roaring inferno. The corpse writhed and roared, the smoke of Heka's form sizzling and steaming where it touched the superheated, corrupted flesh, making it even more powerful.
The combined assault was taking its toll. The flames ate at the corpse's form, and Heka's bonds tightened, squeezing the ichor from its wounds. The raw power of the creature began to wane. Shaken from his stupor by Amon's shout and the roar of the flames, Zeek looked up. Through the inferno, he saw the face of his companion, twisted in an eternal scream of agony. This was his fault. All of it. A cry, torn from the deepest part of his soul, escaped his lips. He leapt forward, a blur of motion, his daggers held in a reverse grip. He didn't aim for the head or the throat. He plunged both blades deep into the creature's chest, right where Grigor's loyal, betrayed heart had once beaten.
A soul-shattering scream erupted from the corpse, rage-filled eyes never straying from Zeek as it cracked Heka's bindings. Ichor dripped down its still burning skin as the wounds began to heal during the brief respite. Zeek looked on in horror as one gargantuan hand pulled back, preparing to smash him into a fine red paste.
"Move you dumb bastard!" Verris appeared; Regalia flew to meet the beast's blow. The sound was unlike anything Zeek had ever heard. Regalia, with all her strength and prowess, bit into the mad titan's forearm, crunching and tearing through muscle and bone with a nauseating crunch; Verris didn't fare much better. The blow meant to devastate Zeek landed with a destructive crack, sending him crashing into a wall across the chamber under the weight of the giant's dismembered hand; the sound of crumpling metal shrieking under the sheer magnitude of it all was almost too much to bear.
The titan let out a chaotic roar, its fierce gaze settling on his target once again. Limbs leaking, oozing; there was nothing but a stump where its hand once was. Zeek's eyes were alight with a raging fire. In an instant he was back on his feet, a blur careening towards the battered behemoth. Blade shimmering in one hand, four crystals in the other; three crystals were crackling with barely contained lightning, and the other with a churning black and white essence at its center.
A sound like breaking glass whispered through the chamber as a crystal broke on the colossus, lightning exploding at eye level. Another, more electricity searing its way toward the beast's heart, and another preceding a pillar of electricity that shot through the shrieking giant.
"This ends here. I won't let this place take anyone else from me," Zeek boomed. One final crunch signaled the black and white crystal shattering as he spread the essence across his blade; the dagger turned the cruelest black of sunless night before a glowing stream of white aura spiraled around it. For a moment, the monstrosity before him shrank as the searing, spiraling aura of the blade closed in. The blade sank into the titan; silence coated the room as Zeek sliced and stabbed like a man lost in madness. The room faded as he struck again and again with his infused blade. At first, black ichor flew from each wound, every puncture opening a spring of the night-kissed fluid, but as the white glow continued to permeate the monster before him, black sludge gave way to sticky red clots… blood. A hand on his shoulder brought him back.
"I think…he's dead." The voice was weak and raspy, but not entirely unfamiliar. Zeek slowly turned to see a battered Verris behind him, blood still spilling from his gritted teeth. He'd managed to remove the heavy hand that had nearly laid him low, but the deep dents in his armor were catastrophic. The chest plate had collapsed on one side, his sword arm was broken and mangled from the sheer heft of the blow he'd tried to deflect. Verris nearly fell to his knees, putting all of his weight on Regalia.
"Verris… you're..." He stopped short. He couldn't speak the words lest they make the injuries more fatal somehow.
"Debt's…paid," he rasped. Verris coughed, blood pouring from his lips. He held Regalia's hilt, knuckles white, resting his weight on the pulsing mace. coughing up a pool of blood.
"Not yet, we've still got some time before we reach the Black Garden at the center. You can't be giving up that easy, can you?" Anxiety was creeping into his voice, the sense of impending loss was so familiar, yet so sharp.
"You're right," he said, voice waning, "You can't do anything yourself. When this is over, I'll make that boy try his hand at Regalia."
"Elias? You'll have to let me know how that turns out, my friend," Amon said, forcing a sad smile.
"I think…I'll leave that…to you…your highness." Verris's hand slipped, and the mace clattered to the stone as he crashed to the ground with a metallic thud. His eyes were unfocused, and as a golden haze enveloped him, Heka looked to Amon and shook her head, "I cannot heal him, I'm sorry." Her gaze shifted towards the ground, frustrated in her inability to save this life she'd grown so accustomed to.
Amon walked to Verris, his dying breath already dissipating in the air. Regalia shamelessly absorbed the blood of her previous wielder before the prince of Kemet could remove her. His hand was encased in ash as he picked up the pounding mace, still glowing from fresh blood. "I will give your son the best Kemet has to offer. You have my word, and that of Kemet's true royal lineage."
Kerris sank to her knees, tears welling up in her eyes as Zeek began a slow march towards his fallen ally. "We'll get Regalia to him," she whispered, a hand brushing against her father's armor, "I promise."
He looked at the wounded faces of the others. Kerris, pale and trembling. Amon, his flames extinguished, his expression grim. The time for secrets was over. The weight was too much to bear alone. "The blight... the Shepherd... the monster in the labyrinth... it's Lilliana. She's the source of it all."
With a shaking hand, Zeek reached into his pouch and pulled out the map. Its surface, usually a hive of shifting lines, was now strangely still, almost peaceful. He held it out for them all to see. "And this," he said, his voice cracking, "this is what remains of the real Grigor. The soul of the man whose body we just destroyed. He's been bound to this parchment since he died saving Lilliana and me. We could've left, saved us all the terrors that fill this place, but we pressed on after his sacrifice; we wasted his final gift. He's been our guide this whole time, as he was in life." He paused, gathering himself. "Lilliana gave her life for my hubris. We could've escaped together. We should've…but I needed to clear this place, to find what was at the center; I was just justifying every mistake along the way, all the while Grigor was writhing in the map. Suffering. Trapped." Zeek's gaze met each of theirs in turn, letting the final, devastating truth fall. "And it's all because of me." The words dropped into a pit of absolute, stunned silence, a silence filled only by the echoes of betrayal and the dawning of a horrifying, world-altering truth.
"I won't let this place take you like they did your men, Verris." He fished out five red crystals before cracking one over the freshly fallen corpse. A flame erupted from the broken shards, engulfing the body in a searing heat until it was devoured entirely. "I brought one for every one of us. If we fall…" Zeek paused, "this place will not be able to corrupt or turn us." Slow, grim nods came in response. Come what may, their lots had been cast, and the end was soon upon them. Silence fell over the group as they lamented the loss of Verris: a mercenary, a fighter, a father, and a friend.