The void curtains draped across my back and tugged at something deep inside my chest. Before it could sink its roots, my cloak bubbled outward and pushed it away.

As colors returned, I joined Alice in taking in the expanded room. It was more of a spacious cavern adjusted to fit the monolithic statue in the center. Near the corners, pillars of dull iron stretched to the ceiling where jagged rocks and veins of glowing blue crystal stabbed down. From the pillars, extended iron chains that disappeared into the slab of marble in the center of the room.

Around the cavern was the smattering of broken, giant-sized furniture. In the corner, the remains of a bedframe, with the raggedy stretch of gray fabric, spilled across the floor and over lumps of rubble that stuck through the material.

We slowly approached, heads on a swivel.

The marble slab produced its own glow, one that shined dull red. It intensified toward the center, where chains slipped in between seamless cracks.

As nothing attacked us, I knocked my axe against the floor and winced at the echo that reverbed around the cavern. We waited, and as the silence continued I opened my mouth to speak but stopped as one of the chains swayed.

I stared at the pillar. Another chain rattled. We prepared ourselves and backed away, moving to the edge of the black portal while the metal continued to dance.

The red glow around the marble flared as runes snaked around the stone. They swirled toward the center in uneven lines that flickered in and out. As the first chain stilled, the runes flashed once before a loud crack split the marble down the middle. Air rushed out and pushed us back while spiderweb lines spread throughout the slab.

I sensed the rush of mana a second before the stone turned into a hail of rubble. I stood before Alice and my cloak fanned out, buffeting the blows.

“Groooough!”

The roar shook the room and pieces of stalactite crashed to the floor. Alice spun me around and I took in the towering figure.

He stood as tall as the slab with skin made of pale-green stone. Patches of scaly crystal replaced parts of his body, creaking with his breath.

And hooked into his limbs, one for each palm, and another for each calf, the iron chains ended in barbed tips that impaled his flesh with crystal patching fusing it into the exposed meat.

He was far taller than Rock-splitter, a giant that dwarfed the titan. As he dragged his hands down, the pillars flashed runes that jerked his limbs back into position.

“I said no!” the keeper roared.

Bulging muscles pulled the chains taut, creating a crackle of energy that crashed into the stalactites above. Stone crumbled, but the blue crystals absorbed the energy before the ceiling was destroyed.

One by one, he moved his limbs free from the remnants of stone attached to his legs and dragged himself forward. The pillars continued their attempt to pull him back and managed to bring him to his knees.

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When he looked up, his eyes settled on us.

“Here to collect your pound of flesh? I refuse! I refuse you to play your game!”

Alice stepped forward. “We do not seek to harm unless provoked.”

He grunted and slammed his fist against the floor, cracking it. But the stone repaired itself once he lifted his fingers. The material flowed like water, leaving behind smooth stone in its wake.

“Do no harm, they say. Lies! I refuse! You will not take what is mine!”

“Are you a Keeper?” I shouted. He opened his mouth, and the air pressure changed, so I quickly held up my hand and conjured a flame. As the flames turned emerald he froze. “I’ve met another of your kind. We’re not here to hurt you.”

When his arm snapped behind him, he merely grunted and forced another lightning bolt into the ceiling. His arm extended and his fingers splayed, but they stopped just short of reaching us.

“That vitality… Has another fallen so low? Does your hunger never end, wolf?!”

“I was given this freely, for helping him. I took nothing.”

As the chain dragged his arm back, it revealed a miasma of green that roiled across the floor. It leaked from his mouth and the puddle around his legs. Before I could sniff the air, the liquid crystalized and cracked when he adjusted his weight.

Consume the blood!

It was as enticing as Rock-splitter’s but so much more. Within the blood, it carried an age and a thrum of power. Saliva filled my mouth and I took a step forward but stopped myself and gripped Alice’s shoulder as she did the same.

“You are not wolves… Pups. They sent pups to collect their harvest?” the keeper shouted. A rumbling chuckle filled the room and he smashed his fist into the ground. “Pups?! You seek to bring me so low as to taunt me inside my prison?!”

“We don’t know what you’re talking abo-”

“You! What is your name?”

I stepped forward. “Cain.”

“And you, other pup?”

“Alice,” she said.

He readjusted, moving his arms behind his back as he sat on his knees. For the first time, the chains stopped rattling, and the runes slowly faded away. Whatever magic was set into the chains, seemed satisfied with his current position.

“Tell me the name of the Keeper you met.”

“Rock-splitter.”

“Not one of them…” his eyes dimmed before his fingers ripped stone free and launched them into the pillars. “I am Nameless. Why are you disturbing my rest?”

“You have no name?” Alice asked.

“Stripped from me as many things.”

This is the second Keeper I’ve met chained down.

“If you're a Keeper,” I said, drawing his attention. “Why are you chained?”

“Truly a freshling. Was it not enough to strip me of my name? My pride?”

“We know nothing about you or this place.”

Slam!

His arm snapped back into position behind his back as the chains tore at his flesh. Blood rained down like a waterfall before it crystalized and floated up and into the crystals above.

“You are just like them. Another pawn pretending to be more than a tool! You want to know why you are here? Why you are thrown into this realm of death and ash?”

I tightened my grip and let the flames spread up my shoulder. Freki swirled in my shadow and Alice tensed.

Nameless lowered his head to the floor and growled. A crunch echoed and blood dripped from the bite in his lip.

The blood oozed out, but his eyes flashed and the blood became a torrent of green that stretched high. The flames called and my core thumped as the desire to devour gripped my chest.

But the flames shifted, turning from brilliant green to muted gray, the colors leaching out of the flames and into the air before dispersing into crystalline dust. And as the flames lost its vibrancy, they took on a new shape, humanoid, but beastly. Instead of hands were claws the length of blades, and where hair would be was the multitude of spikes that spun with wisps of crystal flames.

The creature wailed and lunged for my neck, but its legs gave out and it crashed to the ground in an explosion of dust that buffeted my legs.

“You are here to drain my blood, you furry leeches!”