Connor's voice crept through the damp air, bouncing off moss-caked stones as he trudged forward. Nora's limp body hung over his shoulder, her silver hair trailing across the blood-streaked floor with each step. The scent of rot clung to the walls, sharp and bitter, as though the passage itself was rotting away.
"Kragnir's tomb," he murmured, his tone low and reverent. "Built when dragons still carved kingdoms with their claws. Abandoned when men forgot how to fear." His voice dropped further, almost as if reciting from an ancient, forbidden text. "Centuries of fools scrabbling through dirt for secrets… Albert thought himself different. Spent years dissecting rubble, convinced he'd unlock the dragons' magic. Pathetic."
Nora's head lolled against his back, her vision swimming as serpent carcasses slid by—scales shimmering like oil in the dim light, their slit throats gaping. The slurp of Connor's boots in the muck synced with her nausea.
"But Albert did find something," Connor hissed, pausing as the passage opened into a cavern. A dark pool dominated the space, its surface disrupted by the touch of a cascading stream. "Crawled out of the tomb—changed. Not wiser. Just… hungrier."
He lowered her to the ground, her fingers twitching uselessly as he drew a dagger. The blade kissed her palm, and blood bloomed, trickling into the water. Crimson tendrils unfurled, and the pool began to boil.
"The secret wasn't in the tombs," Connor whispered, his gaze fixed on the serpentine shadows writhing beneath the surface. "It was in the builders."
The water erupted. Coils of scaled flesh lashed upward, their tails twisting into a spiraling stairway glistening with mucus. Nora gagged at the stench of bile, her stomach twisting painfully.
"Ask yourself," Connor crooned, hefting her onto his shoulder again, "who carves a tomb… for a dragon?"
His boots sank into the living steps, each squelch reverberating into the abyss.
—
"Gerral… Gerral… Gerral!"
Gerral's eyes flickered open. Clark's corpse lay beside them, his skin mottled purple, and the pool of blood under him had turned into a dark sludge. The clot sealing Gerral's wounded neck pulled tight with each breath, and pain struck when he tried to shift his position.
Alan crouched closer. "What happened?"
"Connor," Gerral whispered. "He...struck me. Then... Nora was…" His throat tightened; he pressed his hand against his ribs as he fought to organize the fragmented memory.
Milla gripped his shoulder. "What happened to Nora?"
Gerral shook his head until pain forced him to stop. He recounted his tale to the group: how he encountered Nora in the tomb, the travelers who turned into monsters, the fight with Ouroboros and her lackeys, and how they escaped with Connor while Clark held the assassins back. But then Connor suddenly went feral and attacked him. Were it not for Gerral's wood shield, Connor's blade would've severed his neck. What followed was a haze. How Clark's corpse came to lie beside him—lifeless and rigid—remained a mystery.
"Could it be an assassin disguised as Connor?" Milla asked. "Why would he attack his own ally?"
"I wouldn't call him an ally," Sylas muttered, eyes locked on Clark's lifeless form. "This wound... struck from behind. A coward's kill."
"You're saying Connor did this?" Milla pressed.
"Yes," Emma answered before Sylas could speak. "His magic lingers in the blood—I'd recognize his mana signature anywhere."
Alan's gaze darkened. "The real question is... what happened to Nora?"
The group fell silent. Shadows flickered across the stone walls, cast by Sylas's hand. Gerral winced, the pain in his neck reminded him of his own battered state.
Emma cast a worried glance toward Alan. "We can't linger," she said quietly. "Whatever happened here, we need to move before more trouble finds us."
Alan nodded. "Agreed. Sylas, help me."
The group moved through the passage with Alan and Sylas supporting Gerral until they reached the next cavern. Its structure differed little from the others—an open clearing with a central tomb. They laid Gerral down against the cavern wall.
"Do you have a healing potion?" he pleaded with Milla.
"Healing potion? Are you crazy? One of those vials costs 10 gold!"
"Right… only seasoned hunters would carry those around," he sighed.
"Here." Sylas produced a potion out of nowhere and handed it to Gerral. Milla's eyes widened.
"Where did you get that?" she asked.
"From here," Sylas shook his magic bag.
"You had a healing potion this whole time? Why did you waste my ointment?!" she shouted.
"I'm saving it for later."
Milla slapped his head. "Save my ass!"
"Ouch! Stop hitting my head, you brute!"
Alan sighed, finally understanding how Sylas' swollen face had come about.
The healing potion surged through Gerral's veins, stitching torn flesh together like invisible needles. He clenched his teeth against the biting heat.
"It feels like I'm being attacked by a swarm of hornets!" he groaned, writhing.
"Oh, quit whining," Sylas scoffed, crossing his arms. "It's a healing potion, not one of Milla's bandaging sessions—it won't leave you with more bruises than you started with."
SMACK! Another slap from Milla.
"You witch! I swear, one day—!"
"What? What exactly are you going to do?" Milla leaned in, taunting with that mischievous grin on her face.
"I'll—I'll make you pay!" Sylas declared, puffing his chest with shaky confidence.
Milla's smirk deepened. Without hesitation, he ducked behind Alan. "Just—uh—at a later date. No rush."
When the healing ebbed, Gerral's breath came easier—no longer stabbed in the neck with each inhale—but the ghost of Connor's blade still aches between his collarbones.
He braced himself against the wall and took a tentative step. Then another. He straightened his back and checked the fading scar on his neck. Not whole. Not unbroken. But standing.
"By the way, who is that?" Gerral gestured to the lanky boy lingering a spear's throw from their huddle. The stranger's eyes darted between them like a cornered rat, fingers picking at the frayed hem of his tunic.
"Oh, that's Chase. Found him curled up in one of the tombs," Alan answered, wiping his blood-crusted fingers against his thigh.
Gerral clenched his fist, "is he—"
"Yes. He's real. Not some shapeshifting monster. I made sure of it." Alan gestured to Chase's bandaged leg.
"What do we do now?" Emma asked. "We need to find Nora, but this place is a maze. Where do we even—"
"Chaser!"
A brittle, sing-song voice cut through the cavern, startling everyone. Chase's leg buckled, and his breath hitched. All heads turned toward the tunnel's mouth.
It spits out a girl holding a runt of a puppy with a missing foreleg in her arm. Her twin braids swung like pendulums as she skipped forward like a playful child. Yet, a wicked curve played her lips as she flicked the puppy's lone paw through the air, dismissing its soft yelp.
"There you are," she crooned. Chase recoiled, his wide eyes darting between her and the group as though he might vanish if he moved fast enough.