"What do you save?" the voices ask.

The question hangs in stale air. Not an idle query, but a blade against purpose.

I do not answer immediately. Instead, I consider.

Haven's walls press against my thoughts. Children hungry. Defenders weary. Supplies dwindling while corruption spreads across the land.

Knowledge could save them. Power could protect them.

My bones shift, fragments of dragon and wolf stirring with ancient hunger. Commander Ikkert's remains, the greatest piece, stays silent, neither urging nor forbidding.

But Carida's bones, nestled in my rib cage, pulse once.

I step forward.

"Show me," my grave-voice rasps.

The dwarven husk nods, armor creaking at joints never meant to bend this way. It leads, and I follow into streets that should not exist.

Buildings rise from the abyss.

Towers spiral upward without support, their surfaces unmarked by tools. Not built, but grown.

Not stone, but something between matter and dream.

"The first kingdom," the voices overlap. "Before dwarves. Before men. Before gods drew breath."

We descend a staircase carved with faces. Each step bears a different visage—some almost human, others reptilian, still others bearing no resemblance to anything these bones remember.

Their eyes follow as we pass, silently screaming.

"Knowledge preserved," the husks continue. "When their kind faded, we remained. We remembered."

The dwarven husks gesture toward streets between impossible towers, toward knowledge offered freely.

I follow, keeping Aeternus ready.

Dragon fragments stir beneath marrow, sensing ancient power. Wolf bones yearn to hunt through strange streets. Both urge caution yet bristle seeking power.

Buildings mar streets with odd angles their walls neither stone nor flesh but something between.

Windows like hollow sockets watch our passage, some weeping clear fluid that evaporates before touching ground.

The street beneath shifts subtly with each step. Not stone, not earth. Something that breathes without lungs, that pulses without heart.

A tall watcher gestures toward a structure resembling a temple. Its entrance splits with only darkness beyond.

"Knowledge waits," the voices continue. "Take what serves your purpose."

I enter.

Within, light pulses from no visible source.

Shelves of bone line walls, each filled with objects that should not exist. Books bound in material neither leather nor cloth and small orbs that emit sounds like distant screams.

"The dwarves know only iron and fire," the husks say from behind. "We know flesh. Bone. The spaces between living and dead."

My gaze moves across artifacts far older than Haven itself. Weapons forged from material no mortal smith could work. Armor, amorphis, yet holds form.

"Take," the voices urge. "Learn how to reshape bone. How to command the dead. How to strengthen walls, against fire, against dwarves."

The dragon bones surge within me. Take it. Claim power. Strengthen our frame with ancient knowledge.

Wolf fragments growl.

I hesitate.

Beyond the entrance, blank-eyed watchers observe, bone-fingers still scraping patterns in ancient stone.

"Your questions," I rasp. "Ask."

The husks tilt their hollow heads. "Questions?"

"Demon Kings. Dukes. Corruption spreading." My voice grates against stone. "What do you know?"

The dwarven puppets exchange glances, a pantomime of consultation though all serve one will.

"Surface concerns," they dismiss. "We remain below. The dwarves barred our expansion, so we took what space remained."

I press. "Great corruption. Know nothing?"

A moment passes before they answer. "We feel its echoes. The realm above fractures along ancient lines. Gods fall. New powers rise."

Their voices merge and separate. "We care little for what happens beyond our domain. Kings rise, kings fall. Corruption is merely change viewed through mortal eyes."

Their knowledge is limited. Their isolation complete.

Yet the artifacts remain, promising power without comprehension.

I turn back toward the shelves.

Take them, the dragon urges. Claim them for Haven.

My bones creak as I reach.

Then Carida's presence shifts against my ribs.

Not words, not thoughts. Simply weight. Reminder of promise. Of the simplest truth that drives these bones forward.

I withdraw my hand.

"What else?"

They lead away.

At the street's end stands a circular plaza, its center dominated by a basin filled with liquid too thick for water, too clear for blood.

Something pulses beneath its surface, not a heart, not flesh, but ripples of movement suggesting life without form.

"Approach," the husks urge. "See what we offer."

I stand at the basin's edge. The liquid shivers, responding to my presence. Within its depths, shapes coalesce—Haven's walls, its people, its struggles reflected in perfect detail though I left them leagues above.

"We see all things," the voices whisper. "Past. Present. What might be."

The liquid ripples again. Now it shows demons testing Haven's defenses, finding weakness in the eastern wall where mortar crumbles. Children huddling in cold cellars as supplies dwindle. Commander Sarah Ikert, aged yet not not much older than I left her, plotting defense with too few soldiers.

"Knowledge," the husks repeat. "Power to protect them."

The liquid stirs again.

This time it shows me leading an army of bone and sinew, creatures like these watchers but bound to my will. Haven's walls stand reinforced with similiar architecture of deeper dark and taller towers. The people within grow fat on food that never spoils, their eyes vacant with the bliss of ignorance.

No demons breach those walls. No corruption touches those streets.

But something essential is missing from their gazes.

I step back from the basin. The liquid settles, images fading.

"You hesitate," the husks observe. "Why?"

My hollow gaze moves past them to the watchers with their bone-fingers and empty eyes.

To the husks of dwarves, puppets moving to Arkashoth's will. To the massive presence pulsing in the depths, the faces swimming in its bulk.

I understand now.

Haven survives in their vision.

It endures. But its people lose something vital, the spark of choice, the spark of will, of struggle that makes their lives meaningful.

They become like these watchers. Present but empty. Moving but not living.

"Not this way," my grave-voice scrapes.

The husks tilt their heads in unison. "You refuse our gift?"

Echoes within me call out, demanding, needing, I cannot answer, not yet.

I drop into the hollow place between borrowed memories.

*****

The space within has no name.

Not a void. Not emptiness. Something between thought and bone. Where fragments that compose me exist as echoes.

Commander Ikert's essence takes form. Not flesh. Not phantom. A presence. Heavy with duty.

"You would reject power?" His voice holds command, "Haven cracks. Children starve. What is pride against need?"

The wolf stirs. Not an animal, but hunger given form. It circles. Restless.

"The strong survive," the wolf growls. "Take what makes us stronger. Flesh and fang demand it."

Dragon fragments appear. Cold. Ancient. Their presence, a shadow in this hollow.

"We know this power," the fragments whisper. "Older than any kingdom. Not good. Not evil. Force to be used. Take it."

Soldiers gather. Men. Women. Those who held lines. Their voices, weary yet resolute.

"We died holding line," they say. "If this power saves one child, take it."

Their words crash. Waves against unmoving stone.

Then, another shape.

Not Carida. She is bones and vow. But a truth remains. Her shape flickers, a feeling not a form. It resists, firm.

"This is not how Haven survives," her voice rings, clear. Certain.

The other fragments recoil, surprised.

Dragon scales lose their shimmer. The wolf stills. Ikert's presence fades.

"You would refuse?" Ikert questions. "You know the risks. The odds."

"We could be unstoppable," the dragon hisses.

The wolf paces, "More will die. We grow stronger."

"We held our ground," the soldiers answer, "we sacrificed, that the line may hold."

Carida's form, never clear, now pulses. Light against shadow.

The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

"The line holds," her voice resonates, "because of how. Not merely that it stands. It must mean."

Commander Ikert shifts. His presence, a weight in this hollow place, flickers with… not doubt, but consideration. "My daughter, clear-eyed," he admits. "Always."

The wolf closes in. "At what cost? Your Haven requires strength if it is going to survive."

"Haven falls without a soul," Carida counters, her essence a steady pulse against the shadows. "What is protected must be worth protecting."

The dragon uncoils, a slow, deliberate movement, ancient knowledge in its unfurling. "Truth," it admits, slow. "Power corrupts."

The soldiers murmur agreement.

I listen. Bound by all of them, yet ultimately bound by none. What rises within me now is not a choice, but a recognition of truth.

I am the vow. I am the purpose. I am death's champion.

And beyond this hollow place, beyond the offer of the Arkashoth, lies perversion, not protection.

Decision forms. Not a sudden spark, but the slow, inevitable grinding of stone against stone.

Conviction.

I rise. Returning to bone, to the shell that carries these fragments.

*****

What do I save? I have the answer.

Not flesh that rots.

Not blood that cools.

These are fleeting things, gone with the first frost of death.

Not kingdoms fallen to dust or the broken pieces of faded glory.

Those are phantoms, their meaning scattered long ago with the remnants soldiers who gave that last full measure.

The answer forms slowly, not as words but as truth settling into marrow, in the hollow spaces they do not own, between borrowed fragments of will and bone.

"Hope," my death-rattle voice answers. "I save what remains."

The dwarven husks, their movements stiff, incline their heads as one. A mockery of understanding.

"Hope," they repeat, devoid of warmth their voices cannot hold. "An abstract."

"A reason," I correct. My gauntleted hand, still bearing traces of balverine and dragon, clenches. Not in threat, but in certainty.

The nearest husk tilts its head.

Empty eyes stare with nothing behind them..

"Explain."

I do not explain.

I show.

My free hand, the one not grasping Aeternus, moves to my chest. To the protective cage of overlapping ribs, where Carida's remains rest.

The husks watch, blank eyes focusing on the movement, their borrowed attention drawn into the ancient promise.

I do not draw her bones out.

Not yet.

Instead, I speak past them, to the watchers lining the impossible streets beyond.

To the Gravemind pulsing beneath our feet. To the ages-dead place.

"Haven," my voice scrapes. "It matters not the walls. The stone. The iron. It matters that they try."

My gauntlet taps the bone cage, a sound like stones knocking together. A small sound. And meaningful.

"They fight. They bleed. They starve." I continue, my voice gaining force and not volume, "And in the face of horror, with demons beyond their walls, they still choose."

I turn, slow, facing the dwarven husks, the watchers and of Arkashoth who pulls their strings.

"Choice," I say,. "That is what remains."

The husks are silent. Unmoving.

Behind them, the watchers continue scraping their meaningless patterns, their existence is a prison of endless, hollow existence.

The Gravemind does not reply, not in words. But I feel its regard, a pressure in the spaces between, pushing at all the little, broken pieces, trying again to bind, to claim.

It fails.

"This," I raise Aeternus slightly. "This is not choice. Your fate," I sweep the length of corrupted, beautiful, and ancient blade, "It offers nothing."

The husks step back, armor creaking. "Then you choose to become part of us."

The watchers surge forward.

I meet them.

The first falls before it completes its lunge. Aeternus cleaves through elongated skull, splitting blank orb. No blood flows—only dust and ancient whispers.

The second fares no better. My blade severs bone-fingers before finding hollow chest. The creature collapses, form already dissipating.

But they are many, and I am one.

Bone claws rake across my chest, catching ribs, pulling. Where they touch, fragments loosen from death's current. They seek to dismantle rather than destroy.

I twist away, letting damaged pieces drop rather than remain vulnerable to their touch. Dragon plates along my spine shift to cover exposed areas while wolf instincts guide my movements.

Another watcher lunges. Aeternus meets it halfway, edge burning with blue-white fire. The blade passes through elongated torso, leaving twin halves that crumble into ancient dust.

"You cannot win," the dwarven husks call from beyond the melee. "We are legion. We are patient. We endure."

Three more watchers close in, bone-claws extended. I pivot, blade sweeping in tight arc that catches two. The third slips beneath my guard, fingers finding purchase on my leg. Bone fragments pull free from my frame, drawn toward the massive presence pulsing beyond.

More converge.

A watcher slips through my defense, fingers catching my rib cage. I feel Carida's remains shift within as bone fragments begin to separate.

No.

My free hand closes around the watcher's skull.

I squeeze.

The creature's blank orbs crack, fissures spreading across its form. It crumbles, black matter oozing through fingers.

But more replace it. Always more.

"Futile," the dwarven husks call. "You delay the inevitable."

I do not answer. Words waste breath I do not possess.

Instead, I push forward, blade-first into the mass of watchers. Their bodies press close, trying to overwhelm with numbers.

Pain I shouldn't feel lances through borrowed memories. The watcher pulls, trying to separate pieces that form my core.

I twist, letting several ribs break free. The watcher staggers back, clutching worthless fragments. Already new bones emerge from within me, replacing what was lost.

The massive presence of Arkashoth pulses nearer now. Its impossible form shifts between states, solid, liquid, vapor, something else entirely. Faces swim within its bulk, their mouths opening and closing in silent screams.

I focus on the watchers first. They are the vanguard, the physical manifestation of Arkashoth's will. Their bodies press closer, a tide of bone and shadow threatening to drown in sheer numbers.

Aeternus carves a path through their ranks. The blade's edge glows brighter with each strike, hungry for the strange not-flesh of these ancient guardians. I follow in its wake, wolf-skull low, spine curved for maximum force.

A watcher's head tumbles from its shoulders. Another loses both arms to a sweeping cut. A third splits from crown to groin, black ichor erupting in a pressurized geyser.

But they keep coming. For each one dismembered, two more emerge from the shadows. Their blank eyes burn colder, their bone-fingers scrape more frantically against stone.

Then Arkashoth itself engages. A limb like liquid stone smashes the plaza where I stood a heartbeat before. The impact cradles the ancient rock, sending fissures radiating outward.

I leap aside, bones rattling with the force of my dodge. Another appendage sweeps horizontally, forcing me to drop flat against the ground. Wind I shouldn't feel rushes overhead, carrying the scent of ancient graves and forgotten deaths.

The dwarven husks circle now, their armor creaking as they close in. Their weapons—broken axes, rusted hammers—rise in unison, ready to strike when Arkashoth forces me into their reach.

I roll beneath another sweeping limb, coming up with Aeternus thrusting forward. The blade pierces a husk's chest plate, punching through ancient metal. The puppet shudders, voices screaming from its throat, then collapses.

But the armor rises again, empty now, moving with the same jerky motion. Nothing was killed because nothing lived within it.

A watcher lunges from behind. Bone-fingers pierce my shoulder, sinking deep between joints. I pivot, letting the momentum tear my arm free rather than trap me. The limb skitters away, fingers still twitching with borrowed purpose.

I compensate, shifting weight to maintain balance. The watcher holds my severed arm aloft like a trophy, blank eyes gleaming.

Then it screams as Aeternus, wielded one-handed now, cleaves it from hip to shoulder. The blade burns cold fire, hungry for the not-flesh of these ancient things.

The watcher collapses, black ichor pooling beneath it. This time, it does not rise.

Aeternus remembers. The blade knows these things, or something like them. It remembers how to grant them true ending.

I adjust my grip, channeling will through the sword. Blue-white energy ripples along its length, memories of final stands, of oaths kept beyond death.

The next watcher that rushes forward meets Aeternus at full strength. The blade passes through its body with barely a whisper of resistance. The creature stops mid-stride, blank eyes widening. Then it crumples, body dissolving into shadow that does not reform.

Arkashoth pulses violently. The faces within its bulk contort in silent rage.

Six watchers converge at once, their movements blurring into a coordinate attack. I meet them with renewed purpose, Aeternus tracing arcs of blue-white energy through the gloom.

Each strike now finds true purchase. Each cut grants final rest.

But they are many, and I am one. Their bone-fingers rake across my skull, my ribs, finding gaps in my defense. Pieces of me scatter across the ancient plaza, skittering against stone. I lose a leg, then half my chest, then three vertebrae from my spine.

Yet I endure. Each lost fragment calls to be replaced. Dragon bones shift to reinforce critical joints. Wolf bones provide swift reflexes when most needed.

And still they come. A tide of ancient watchers, bone-fingers scraping, blank eyes burning. Behind them, Arkashoth writhes, its massive presence stretching toward the ceiling of this buried kingdom.

I stand my ground, Aeternus blazing in my grip. The sword remembers endings. It knows how to grant rest to things that should not be.

One by one, the watchers fall. One by one, they dissolve into shadow that does not reform. Their bone-fingers cease scraping. Their blank eyes dim.

The dwarven husks retreat, armor rattling as they abandon the front line. Their voices rise in discordant alarm, a chorus of uncertainty and fear.

Arkashoth surges forward,

It towers before me, not as the fluid mass of before, but concentrated malevolence given form. Its height scrapes the distant ceiling.Where its body meets the ground, the ancient stone weeps black tears that smoke when they touch air.

Faces press against its surface - not just the dwarven dead, but older things. Creatures from ages when the world was young.

Its limbs - if they can be called that - unfold from its core. Some resemble tentacles of liquid shadow. Others branch like lightning frozen in flesh. Still more appear.

No sound emerges from its mass, yet I feel its fury. It pulses through the chambe. The pressure builds against every bone, trying to find purchase, to separate what death has joined.

Dragon memories thrash within me, recognizing something older than their ancient wars. Wolf instincts howl, urging retreat from a predator beyond their understanding. Even the soldiers' echoes fall silent, their countless battles offering no reference for this horror.

I plant my feet. Aeternus burns cold in my grip.

The thing above me is vast. Unknowable. A god of the depths that predates gods themselves.

But I am death's champion. And I have faced gods before.

I brace for impact, Aeternus raised in guard position.

The first blow comes quick.

Force that slams into my skeletal frame. Bones crack. Joints separate. I am flung backward, skidding across the ancient plaza until stone stops my momentum.

I rise, pieces realigning. Aeternus never leaves grip.

It reaches again, it attacks, arms that aren't arms lash out in their many.

I dodge the first, pivot around the second, but the third catches me mid-stride. The impact shatters my left leg, sending bone fragments skittering across the plaza. I compensate, weight shifting to my right side, already drawing new pieces from within to replace what was lost.

Arkashoth presses its advantage. More appendages strike, a flurry of blows too fast to entirely avoid. One clips my shoulder, spinning me around. Another catches my side, cracking ribs. A third sweeps my remaining leg, sending me crashing to the ground.

Aeternus slips from my grip, clattering against stone just beyond reach.

Arkashoth looms above, its impossible body blocking out what little light exists in this buried kingdom. The faces within its bulk watch my fall, silent screams becoming silent laughter.

I reach for Aeternus, bone-fingers stretching. The blade lies just beyond grasp, its edge glinting with blue-white energy.

Arkashoth's appendage rises for a final blow, a massive limb of shadow and stolen flesh poised to crush what remains of my form.

My fingers touch Aeternus's hilt. The sword pulses, responding to desperate need.

As Arkashoth's limb descends, I roll aside, grabbing Aeternus in one motion. The blow misses by inches, cratering the ancient stone where I had lain.

I rise to one knee, bones creaking as they realign. Aeternus blazes in my grip, calling to something deeper than borrowed memories.

It calls to Atropos.

The runes along the blade shift, ancient script rearranging into patterns of ending. Power builds within the steel, drawing on the legion's final oaths. Aeternus grows hot in my grip, resonating with wolf bones and dragon fragments alike.

Arkashoth senses the change. It recoils, massive body rippling with uncertainty. The faces within its bulk contort in sudden fear.

I stand, bones settling into proper alignment. My wolf-skull rises, empty sockets fixed on the ancient horror before me.

"For Haven," my grave-voice rasps.

Then I strike.

Aeternus cleaves upward, trailing blue-white fire in its wake. The blade meets Arkashoth's form, cutting through impossible flesh and shadow. The entity shrieks—not in sound but in vibration, a pulse that shakes the very foundations of this buried kingdom.

Black ichor erupts from the wound, a geyser of ancient corruption that hisses where it touches stone. Arkashoth recoils, its massive body contracting around the injury.

But I press forward, Aeternus leading each step. The sword remembers endings. It knows how to grant rest to things that should not be.

Arkashoth lashes out with desperate fury. Appendages strike from every angle, seeking to overwhelm with sheer force. I weave between the blows, bones shifting to accommodate.

Each time Aeternus finds purchase, Arkashoth shrieks anew.

Each cut separates part of its impossible form, sending broken pieces crashing to the plaza below. The faces within its bulk scream silently.

The remaining watchers falter, their blank eyes dimming as Arkashoth weakens.

The dwarven husks collapse, puppets with severed strings.

I push harder, driving Aeternus deeper into Arkashoth's core. The blade burns with cold fire, hungry for the ancient corruption that sustains this horror.

Arkashoth's form begins to unravel.

Pieces of its impossible body slough away, dissolving into shadow that does not reform. The faces within its bulk sink deeper, trying to escape the blade's judgment.

But there is no escape from ending.

Dragon bones lock into place along my spine, plates shifting, while wolf bones shift limbs. The borrowed fragments work in concert, one for strength, one for speed.

Arkashoth writhes before me, its massive form diminished but not defeated.

I surge forward, wolf bones driving my legs forward while dragon plates maintain my center.

Aeternus blazes in my grip, calling for one final strike.

The blade knows where to cut.

Arkashoth's remaining limbs flail wildly, desperate to prevent what comes. But wolf bones guide my dodge, slipping between massive appendages. Dragon plates deflect what blows land, protecting vital joints and Carida's remains within.

There, beneath layers of impossible flesh and stolen faces, the core pulses.

I strike.

With a final thrust, Aeternus pierces Arkashoth's center. The blade sinks to its hilt in ancient horror, blue-white fire erupting from the wound.

Arkashoth convulses. Its massive body contracts, then expands, then shatters like glass struck by hammer. The explosion sends me flying backward, bones scattering across the plaza.

When I rise, piecing myself together once more, only shadow remains where Arkashoth stood. The watchers lie broken, their bone-fingers stilled. The dwarven husks slump against pillars, bones and armor.

The buried kingdom grows quiet. All around, the city of deepest dark falls, collapses.

I retrieve Aeternus.

I turn to leave, bones shifting back into familiar patterns as I prepare for the climb ahead. Carida's remains rest secure within my rib cage, undamaged by the battle.

Aeternus cools in my grip.

The blade remembers, as I remember. Some victories leave marks beyond broken stone.

As I move toward the tunnel that will lead back to dwarven roads and Maha Marr's.

A voice ripples through the chamber.

It comes not from throat or mouth, but from the ancient stones that surround.

"They will still fall," it whispers. "Haven. The dwarves. All mortal things."

I pause, wolf-skull tilting to listen. The words carry weight,, an echo of ages past and ages yet to come.

"We offered eternity," the voice continues, fainter now. "We offered preservation. Without us, time claims all."

"Yes," my grave-voice answers. "But they choose how they face it."

The voice does not respond.

Around me, the buried kingdom continues its slow collapse.

Pillars crack, arches crumble, ancient stone returns to dust.

The watchers' remains dissolve.

I begin the long climb upward, toward light, toward life, toward Haven's walls.

Let them choose. Let them live. Let them face what comes as free beings, not preserved echoes.

It is enough.

Next, the Dwarves.