What is grief.

Three words.

Three simple, unimportant, inconsequential words.

Yet those words found themselves at the forefront of my mind, and they refused to leave. Like they desired to brand themselves into the recesses of my thoughts, as if a burning iron held them to the brunt of my questions and incessant thinking.

The worst part? I didn’t have an answer.

Maybe one day I would have my heart torn asunder by the forces of emotion by an event I could not control, but that day wasn’t now, nor would it be for a long time.

I sat there, back hunched as my mind raced around an unending circuit of questions that demanded answers, yet didn’t dare to make a sound lest they incur the attention of something they didn’t dare disturb. Thoughts burning in a silent blaze as if they only came to life after the fact.

And I couldn’t stop them.

I couldn’t control them.

But I could ignore them.

Pulling my head back in a strained motion, I gazed up to the ceiling as if pleading to a faulty being for mercy, and only after what felt like an eternity did I force myself to stand. Slowly I pulled myself to one knee, slowly I raised myself from the slouch I had held but moments before. And when I did, I was forced to behold the travesty that lay around me.

Four bodies, three of which I paid any mind to. The closest to me was the first to fall, Rayner, but calling it a body would be a poor imitation of justice. The only loose remains being the shreds of clothe and flesh scattered about the floor in an uneven circle, no trace that it was even a human before death.

The second was Atkin, the headless corpse still lying there with its arms casually crossed, as if it died without even realising. The head being nowhere to be seen, as if it simply ceased to be, which was concerningly close.

And the third, Malcolm. His body the farthest from me, slumped forward against the far wall, his body ragged and bathed a deep red, as if a cruel mockery of art, his blood painted against the wall as an accent to the green from the spider before.

His was the most intact, with ‘only’ his chest almost completely gone, and one of his arms lying lazily on the floor beside him. Wobbling forward, my vision still swimming slightly from the shriek the ant made, I made it to Atkin’s body and collapse down to my knees, reaching out to scavenge for anything I could make use of. Swiping his pack and sword, I next move to Malcolm in hopes he had something.

Straining slightly, I push myself back up and walk to Malcolm, my body finally gaining some semblance of cohesion again, though my arms and hands were still unable to feel anything. Pulling his body away from the wall, I loose the cloak from his shoulders and shift it around on my back until it looked at least something like some proper clothes. Though it wouldn’t last very long given the fact that there were five holes in the back of it that were drenched in blood from the ants legs skewering him.

Moving away from his body, I adjust the belt I snagged from Atkin until it rested on my waist. Normally it would sling over your shoulder, but I was a fair bit bigger than Atkin was so it only barely fit around my waist. Cinching the scabbard of his sword into the belt, I took a quick look over the scene around me one last time.

The ant, impaled by a plethora of crystalline blood spears that seemed to be slowly losing their shape.

Rayner, or at least what was left of him, lay close to the middle of the room, the few scraps of his armour being the only thing left.

Atkin, headless and oblivious lay not far away from him, his body disturbed from me taking what I could use from him.

Malcolm lying on his side by the wall, the crater ringed by hairline cracks spreading through the wall displayed a vivid image of what had happened to him. I’d have taken his sword over Atkin’s given the size, but it was shattered in two, unusable.

Looking over it, I recognize the still feeling of indifference. It had held strong throughout my looting, and still persisted as a plain demand for efficiency and practicality, with no room for pointless emotion. Yet I knew that that wasn’t completely true, there was something else. But I continued to ignore it, my body still ached, and I could tell that the blood was restless. And most of all? Ants aren't solo creatures, they’re hives. And a single one wiped out a team of experienced raiders, and nearly killed me as well.

There was no doubt in my mind that I had to move and find a place to catch my breath. Hell, I didn’t even know what to now aim for. Getting out of the crypt? Probably a safe bet, but how I was supposed to do that was lost on me for now.

Continuing to ignore the lack of empathy, I look over the cavern in hopes of finding some little clue to follow. There were none. There was, however, an incentive to follow one of the three tunnels more than the others. That being the only unknown, with one of them being where we came from, and the other almost definitely leading to more spiders, it left me with a fairly decent final option.

Trudging down the path, I kept my eyes and ears peeled for anything that could hint at danger. Following Atkin’s advice, I didn’t try to strain my senses, but simply leave them open. Would it work? Maybe, it had proven effective once, so in theory it would continue to prove a good method.

Slowly creeping through the tunnels as far as I could remember their paths, I eventually reached around to the pack I had taken from Atkin and pulled out the parchment he had a map on. By this point my hands had regained feeling, but they still had the dull numbness you get when the weather is cold enough to be annoying, but not enough to warrant during the heat on.

Looking over the map, I quickly pinpoint my rough location and try to find a quick path to one of the few strongholds that were marked on it. There was a reason why I described it as a parchment with a map on it, that being that it literally was. It wasn’t an actual map, it was a list of things and random information with the traces of a map scribbled on a good portion of it.

It served its purpose, but it was annoying. Putting the parchment back, I make a new mental note to find a good map.

The note system that the voice in Reldrav had would be a nice thing to have around now…

Pushing my wayward thoughts aside, I begrudgingly made my way towards the stronghold. I’d charted a course that would be a bit longer than it needed to be, but also would prove the simplest and easiest. I’d still most likely have to fight at two points along the way, but I’d live through it.

Wandering around, I stopped from time to time when I’d hear a rumbling sound or anything that would raise my concern, while taking the time to pay attention to my surroundings. It was still more of the milky crystal, but small nooks of other things did slowly show up in the far corners of the tunnels.

I’d counted three things of interest, and then slotted anything new I’d see under those four. That being strange luminescent moss similar to the biodome-like cavern we had been in before dropping to this level. The occasional normal rock, though when I say normal I mean not special, they were very much not simply the random grey or brown rock from way before with some being made of reds and greens, with a few dark blue patches from time to time.

And the fauna.

Miscellaneous creatures that I crossed paths with undetected somehow. I’d seen a few spiders at the start, before things pattered out to an even more scarce amount of creatures that would fit the description of elementals or golems if what Rayner had mentioned were to be believed.

The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

I had my doubts when he had talked about them, but I couldn’t ignore them by this point. At first I had followed a stereotype from earth, with golems being big bulky humanoid rocks that rumbled about, and elementals were wisps of energy or something.

Those kinds did apparently exist, but these could be more likened to just normal beasts made of stone, with some not even looking like they were stone and more like they were just moving statues with absurd details.

On the elemental front I kind of guessed at what they were, because I didn’t know what else they could be. Describing them as blobs of energy could be correct, but you had to take that literally as I had seen two ‘elementals’ that were literally just vague clouds of mist that moved about at slug's pace without doing anything.

After a considerable amount of walking, I came to the first of the two places I had to worry about according to the map, and I instantly knew that I was in the right place the second I saw it. If you think back to quite a time ago, you’d remember when the kobolds had drawn out the more castle-like hallways, and then later when we had passed through some before the biodome.

This was exactly the same. A long, dark stone tunnel with random intervals of torches mounted onto the walls. Most were out and didn’t provide any light, but a few gave off a strange fire that looked a bit too pale to be considered ‘normal’.

The only difference with this hall aside from the torches was the fact that it was insanely big. And that's me saying that at being somewhere around seven foot something. If I were to guess it would be something obscene like fourteen by ten in height and width.

Thinking about it, it wasn’t that crazy in truth. If I could be some seven foot reptilian thing then there could easily be giants and what not. But that led to a point of concern, if their halls were this big, did they really like grand architecture? Or was I about to face some volley of massive creatures.

Holding at the mouth of the halls, I wait to see if I could hear anything worth noting. Finding nothing, I flex my arms and give my physical a once over to make sure I was up to chuff from the ant. It had been a fair few hours by this point if I were to wager a guess at my internal clock, but I didn’t know if it had changed since my new body, let alone the fact that I hadn’t slept, nor did I need to.

Gleaning a fair report of nothing amiss past the runes being a bit hungry, there wasn’t much more I could do to heal.

Stepping onto the floor of the same dark stone as the rest of the tunnel, I notice that as I progressed that my vision went a few shades greyer now that the faint glow of the crystal that the caves had provided had left me, yet again reminding me that I could see in the dark.

I didn’t know what I was expecting, but the halls were uneventful. The occasional adjacent room or branching path was scattered about, and after a while I began to notice bigger rooms and more purpose built areas. Where the small rooms from before had looked vaguely like old barracks and small storage rooms, there were now bigger areas that looked like gathering places as it slowly went from a set of blank hallways to a proper area of life.

I hadn’t heard a thing, not a single rustle, no rumble of the caves from time to time, and no sign nor sound to suggest that this place had inhabitants. By this point I was faintly ignoring it, but there was something inside me that said something wasn’t right.

Maybe there was a war or take over that wiped out those that lived here, but there were no corpses or signs of battle. Everything was pristine, as if every creature had simply left without packing anything.

After what felt like hours of silently crawling the halls in silence and periodically checking the map, I notice something that didn’t add up. The map said that there was a T-junction that I would then follow down a long hall before it turned right, but it instead turned into another split path.

Immediately I whirled around, half expecting something to be there, but I was still met with an empty hall, devoid of life or movement. Unsure what to do, I decide that turning back would be my best bet, see if I wouldn’t find where I had taken a wrong turn.

Following the walk I had already taken, I eventually came to a junction again, but it also didn’t line up with the map, as if it had shifted…

Wait a minute.

Turning around, a feeling of deja-vu slips into my thoughts as I see a path that I had stopped at before. The same one I had been at when I realised I must have made a wrong turn. At least I was now convinced that something was messing with me. Walking to the wall, I scar an arrow into the stone with my claw before continuing down the path as if to retrace my original steps. Light steps turned into a hurried pace, and before long I was at yet another junction, and the strangest thing was scratched into the wall. It almost looked like a jagged arrow, as if some lost soul had been trapped in a maze and put down a mark to know they had already been there.

Now feeling more annoyed than anything, I give a mental ‘fuck it’ and just turn around again, throwing a coin toss that something might be trying to push me in a certain direction.

And sure enough, after a period of walking that would have had me back in that loop, I still wasn’t there, and I’d walked by a pattern of rooms I hadn’t seen before. A dilemma seemed to present itself to me, do I seemingly follow this path, or try and brute force my way out and go against it. In theory, both would work, but I didn’t quite like the idea of endlessly wandering the same repeating hallways for days on end.

Letting out an aggravated grumble, I follow the way that the halls seemingly wanted me to go down, mentally and physically tensed for whatever may appear in front of me. And I find a continuous line of new paths and rooms, as if they were there to mock the fact I had even thought to try going against them.

It was uneventful, quiet, silent, and unsettling. It hit me like a ton of bricks. It was still a soundless series of halls only broken by my own footfall, but there was something different, something gliding through the air in a form of calling. Slowly and gently pulling everything along its course.

I instantly had a bad feeling, but there was nothing I could do. No path to turn back to, no room I could wait in as I hope and pray for time to take me out of this place, and no choice but to try to keep myself calm as I continued to walk forward. And my attempt at not panicking paid off, the hallways falling away until it was one long path that led on for far too long as the amount of torches lit climbed to a point of not a single one being out.

Far along the hall to the point I could have sworn there was a light fog, I noticed a break in the straight line I had been following that opened into a cathedral-like structured room with high arches. If before the halls and rooms had been constructed for giants, then this one was as if it was made to house mountains in how it seemed to stretch on into such a vast space.

Lingering at the doorway to the room, I take a moment to marvel at the grand scale and art of everything. Murrells lined into the pillars that supported the ceiling spiraled along their surface before reaching the roof and splaying out to cover even more of the stone that the place was made of. In place of where windows might have been there were indents in the wall that held majestic statues that looked carved straight out of the hands of old sculptors from greece.

Only slightly catching up on the thought that this was an entirely different world, I shook my head and instead made strides into the room before me, assuming that whatever it was that had forced me down this path had wanted me here.

It was as you would assume a place of worship in this style to look, stone pews line the floor that led up to a small raised platform at the back of the room. I say small, but that's only in comparison to the rest of the room, it was easily raised up some six feet if compared to my height.

Standing at the foot of the platform, I gaze across the blank stage. There were a few places that looked like some piece of stone had been ripped off of the floor, leaving the slight scraps of their bases in place of where they once were.

As if on a whim of curiosity, I used falsehood and glanced at the stub of rock that looked like it had belonged to a podium or raised part of the stage.

Curiosity had definitely been a leading factor in how and what I’ve done up to this point, that and more of a demand and requirement to staying alive was to understand myself and my surroundings. Regardless, it had been a boon and a curse. While on one hand it kept me occupied and had already given me some good results or just been generally useful, it had also caused a number of ‘issues’ to say the least. And now, I wouldn’t really know which group to slot this situation into.

Looking at the stage, I first deal with the slight swimming confusion that arrived with using the eyes as the very perceived world changed, and only then do I notice that the podium had been restored in this sight. And standing at it was a slightly hunched figure, as if it was reading over a book that had been placed there.

Surprised, I take a step back from the sheer shock of the shape just appearing. And it got even better after that, having been the source of surprise, the shape almost seemed to notice me and glances up from its podium. It made a slight motion like it was making a double take, also seemingly surprised that I had found it, only for it to just as quickly raise one of its arms up to point at me before disappearing.

Confused, I stop using falsehood and watch the world return to the mask it hid behind from the eyes of many. Tilting my head to one side in contemplation, I’m distracted by a deafening rumbling crack that filled the room. Turning around, I don’t notice anything at first until I catch a slip of movement in the corner of my eye from the far wall.

Bringing my full attention to that spot, I stare at it confused as there was nothing there except the statues that had been carved into the walls. Though saying there wasn’t anything was a slight oversight, because there was a change that had occurred, a very minor one that was so ignorable that I almost missed it.

The heads of the statues had been turned toward me. And their eyes now held a faint glow of the same pale fire that lit the torches of the halls.