Silence wraps the chamber as Lormenos fades into shadow.

He leaves behind the rusted platform and its tired chains, lowered to some hidden landing below.

Only echoing footsteps remain.

I twist away from humanoid form and transform back into something meant for caves and movement.

A faint glow shivers in the surrounding gloom.

A single lantern sways, its iron handle warped, the glass panels caked in centuries of grime.

It drifts onward with slow arcs, as if guided by phantom hands.

I follow.

The lantern's light catches ancient maps drawn on burial linens.

Their edges flutter, revealing paths that shift and change with each ripple of cloth.

No route stays fixed, they twist into new configurations.

There is no certainty of path.

My serpentine form coils across weathered stone.

The platform's chains rattle beneath as I move, each link groaning with age.

Aeternus slides along my tail-spine, ready.

Fragments of prayer echo from above.

"Guide us through shadow..." The words fade, then silence.

More burial cloths descend, their surfaces marked with the desperate scratches of those who came seeking direction but found only tests.

The chamber is formless, endless, yet it isn't.

Walls that should be solid expand and then contract.

What was once a sacred place for lost travelers has become a corruption of its purpose.

I pause at the platform's edge.

Below, paths branch in impossible directions, some leading straight up walls, others diving into chasms that shouldn't exist.

This is the proving path.

It is a maze born from a fallen god's madness.

Carida's bones, secured within my coils, pulse with a subtle warmth.

Her essence seems to resist this place, as if recognizing the wrongness of a guardian deity twisted into a judge.

The lantern stops its arc, hanging motionless over the first fork in the path.

Its light catches carved words that mar old stone.

"The lost must prove worthy of finding."

The lantern drifts ahead without a bearer, yet its path seems deliberate.

I follow its uncertain light.

Black crystals line these passageways, their faces catching and fracturing the lantern's glow.

My tail-mounted Aeternus scrapes softly against the wall.

The blade's edge finds purchase in corruption-weakened stone, ready to anchor or strike as needed.

Ancient wards pulse in the walls, I feel their hostility.

These were meant to protect, to shield sacred paths.

Now they radiate a broken malevolence, like something meant for purpose gone feral.

Their magic brushes against my bones with old spite.

The corridors bend at angles that deny natural law.

Paths curve upward into spirals that should be impossible to traverse, yet the lantern leads onward.

Its flame gutters but refuses to die, as if sustained by the same twisted will that warps this place.

I pass toppled pillars, their broken forms similar to shattered ribcages.

Ancient dwarven faces peer from worn stone, features eroded into formless shapes.

The lantern pauses.

The lantern's light reveals a chamber ahead where the floor has completely collapsed, leaving only narrow ledges along the walls.

The gap stretches wider than any jump could cross.

Each new limb ends in a sharp point, perfect for finding purchase in ancient stone.

The iron mask and Carida's remains stay secured within my coiled center as I test the first grip.

My clawed legs click against the wall, finding tiny cracks and imperfections.

I move sideways like a monstrous insect, countless legs working in sequence.

The wall's surface crumbles in places, forcing quick adjustments as I skitter across vertical stone.

A section of the ledge breaks away beneath several legs.

I compensate instantly, other limbs digging deeper while the dislodged ones find new anchor points.

The fallen stone tumbles into darkness below, its impact lost to the depths, a darkness between deeper dark and the domain of fallen divinity.

The lantern waits patiently on the far side as I traverse the gap.

My bone-legs work mechanically, each movement precise and measured.

Where the wall curves inward, I adjust my spine's arch to maintain contact.

Where corruption has eaten holes through stone, my legs stretch longer to bridge the gaps.

Movement flickers at the edge of my vision, a flash of chitin, followed by a hiss.

One survivor from the brood before.

It does not belong here.

I pivot, readying to kill.

The shape retreats into cracks, remembering its kin's fate.

The lantern leads downward.

We descend a spiral ramp carved by dwarven hands.

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The lantern halts at a junction where three paths converge.

Then a warning.

ONLY THOSE WHO WALK THE PILGRIM'S PATH MAY PASS

My serpentine form stretches across weathered stone.

The meaning becomes clear, this is why Lormenos appeared in humanoid shape.

The paths were built for pilgrims who walked on two legs, not for creatures that slither or crawl.

I gather my scattered pieces.

Bones click and realign as I shift back to skeletal knight form.

The transformation leaves me smaller, but the iron mask stays secure, along with Carida's remains.

Aeternus returns to my grip.

The lantern's light strengthens, as if approving the change.

The carved message pulses with faint blue energy, an echo of Lormenos's original divine nature.

My boots scrape stone as I take the first step.

The ramp spirals down until stone gives way to void.

A rusted chain-bridge spans the chasm, its links thick as my arm.

The lantern drifts across without weight or care, leaving me to face the crossing alone.

I extend a rib to test the first chain.

Metal protests with a hollow groan but bears the weight.

Ancient dwarven craft, meant to last ages.

Link by corroded link, I advance.

The bridge sways with each step, forcing me to grip the side chains.

Wind whispers up from below, carrying scents of deeper caves and forgotten things.

Halfway across, the planks beneath my feet shift and crack.

Not simple rot, something moves in the infinite dark below.

I feel its mass displacing air, sense its bulk parting the void.

The chains shudder as it passes unseen beneath.

I do not look down.

The crossing demands focus.

The far side opens into a corridor stripped bare of craft.

No patterns decorate the walls, no guidance or offered warnings..

The lantern burns brighter, leading across uneven growd.

At a fork ahead, it turns left without hesitation.

From the right path seeps a golden glow, light, inviting yet wrong.

The lantern has led true so far, I follow its path through the dark.

The lantern's light catches movement ahead.

Pale shapes unfold from alcoves, their forms wrong in ways that defy description.

No eyes mark their faces, just smooth flesh stretched tight over bone.

Their hands reach out, many fingers grasping at nothing.

Aeternus swings through the first creature.

The blade passes clean through without resistance.

The thing's head tilts, a sound like wet cloth tearing emerges from where a mouth should be.

Its hands find my shoulder.

The touch burns with impossible weight, fingers sinking between my joints.

Bone creaks as it pulls, trying to tear pieces free.

More shapes emerge.

Their steps drag across stone, heads swaying in patterns that make no sense.

The corridor fills with the sound of their breathing, wet, heavy draws of air they shouldn't need.

I slam my elbow back, breaking the creature's grip.

Fragments of my shoulder scatter but I maintain form.

These things seek to dismantle, to separate bone from bone.

Another lurches close.

I dodge its reaching hands but back straight into a third.

Its fingers sink deep into my spine, pulling.

Pain I shouldn't feel lances through borrowed memories as vertebrae start to separate.

The creatures pull at my bones, but something is wrong.

These sensations shouldn't exist.

I am bone and magic, not flesh and nerve.

Realization hits.

Their fingers sink between my joints, but find no purchase in fear or agony.

I am death's champion, these shadows of suffering hold no power over one who has already passed beyond the hold of flesh.

My grip on Aeternus tightens.

The blade hungers.

I swing Aeternus in a wide arc.

The blade passes through pale flesh, but this time I channel death's certainty through the strike.

The creature's form shudders.

The creatures' touch means nothing.

I am bone given purpose, beyond their attempts to inflict mortal pain.

Aeternus carves through the mass of pale flesh.

Where before the blade passed harmlessly, now it cuts and ends.

Their forms collapse, not into blood or gore, but into wisps of forgotten suffering.

My bones click and realign, shedding their grasping fingers.

Each creature that falls adds to my certainty, they are echoes of old pain, given shape by this corrupted sanctuary.

Perhaps those who fell to corruption, who lost their way on the Proving Path.

One lunges from behind.

I spin, bones grinding as I pivot.

The thing's face splits open, revealing an endless throat.

Its jaw unhinges, mouth spreading wider than its head, desperate to swallow bone and memory whole.

I drive Aeternus up.

The blade pierces through the crown of its skull.

The creature's throat ripples, teeth clicking against metal as it tries to bite down on the sword.

Its hands find my ribs, fingers elongating into hooked talons that scrape between bones.

The mouth stretches impossibly wider, throat distending as it tries to drag my skull between its jaws.

I twist Aeternus, feeling resistance as teeth shatter against the blade.

Layers of pale flesh peel away to reveal more teeth underneath, more hunger.

Its neck bulges and writhes, throat muscles working to pull me deeper.

I brace my free hand against its chest and push.

Bones crack, mine or its, I cannot tell.

The creature's ribs cave inward, revealing a writhing mass of tongues and feeding tubes where organs should be.

Aeternus burns bright.

The blade ignites the thing from within.

Its flesh bubbles and splits.

The endless rings of teeth char and crumble.

What remains dissolves into oily smoke that reeks of old meat and forgotten graves.

My borrowed bones resettle, clicking back into proper alignment.

More press forward, their bodies twisting in ways that deny proper form.

I meet their advance with equal strikes, each blow channeling the same force that first raised me from battlefield soil.

The power from which Aeternus burns bright.

They try to surround me.

I've learned.

I do not stab, I cut.

Three fall and topple forward.

No blood flows, these are not living things, merely echoes given form by a corrupted divinity who consumed those who walked the path.

My blade slides through bone and sinew that shouldn't exist.

Where before I sought to pierce their cores, now I understand, they have no vital points to target.

They are surface and hunger all the way through.

Their bodies hit stone with wet sounds.

The fallen shapes twitch, try to reform, but Aeternus's touch leaves them unable to hold shape.

They collapse into puddles of pale matter that steam and fade.

More press close, their faceless heads tilting at impossible angles.

Hands reach, fingers stretching into hooked claws.

Their forms ripple and twist, trying to find purchase on my bones.

I pivot, letting Aeternus's edge lead.

The blade cuts through extended limbs.

Severed fingers scatter across stone, dissolving before they land.

The creatures recoil, their shapes contracting as if finally sensing pain.

My borrowed bones click and shift, maintaining perfect balance as I strike again.

No need to pierce or stab, a clean cut is all it takes.

These things may wear flesh, but they are hollow underneath.

Three more lunge forward.

Three more fall.

Their forms collapse like empty sacks, unable to maintain substance once split open.

The hunger that drives them spills out as mist, dispersing into the dark.

The lantern's light catches their writhing shapes as they topple.

For a moment, I glimpse faces in their dissolving flesh, ancient pilgrims who lost their way, transformed by isolation and despair into these feeding things.

They sought guidance once.

A massive shape rises from the writhing mass of pale flesh.

Bodies meld together, forming a tower of agony that scrapes the corridor's ceiling.

Countless hands sprout from its surface, each finger twitching with desperate hunger.

Where the creatures before were empty echoes, this thing pulses with collected suffering.

Six different heads emerge from its bulk, faces twisted.

Rows of teeth line its torso, marking where other victims have been absorbed into its mass.

I grip Aeternus tighter.

The monstrosity surges forward, dozens of arms reaching to tear me apart.

I dodge the first wave of grasping hands, but others snag my bones, trying to pull me into its bulk.

Teeth snap at my skull, hungry to add another face to its collection.

But I am forged from the Field of Broken Banners, tempered by countless final stands.

These hands find no purchase in my purpose.

Where they try to separate bone from bone, they meet only the iron certainty of death's champion.

I drive Aeternus deep into its form.

The blade pierces through layers of compressed bodies, each one a pilgrim lost to this corrupted path.

The monster's flesh tries to close around me, to drag me deeper into its mass.

I push forward.

Aeternus burns bright, igniting the thing from within.

Its multiple faces howl in unified agony as the blade's power courses through its twisted form.

Hands clutch uselessly at my bones as their substance begins to dissolve.

The blade erupts from its back in a spray of pale matter.

The towering form shudders, its collection of bodies starting to separate.

Where Aeternus touched, its flesh cannot maintain cohesion.

The massive thing collapses.

The writhing pieces fade until only smooth stone remains.

The corridor falls silent.

I gather my scattered pieces, clicking them back into place.

The lantern resumes its path, drifting ahead through darkness untouched by the battle.

My bones settle into familiar patterns as I follow, each step measured against ancient stone.

The iron mask stays secure within my ribcage, alongside Carida's remains.

Their presence anchors me, a reminder of purpose beyond this corrupted sanctuary.

Light catches on black crystal formations that seem to grow denser the deeper we travel.

Their faces reflect the lantern's glow in ways that deny proper angles, creating patterns that strain borrowed memories.

The corridor narrows.

Walls press closer, forcing me to turn sideways in places.

My sword arm scrapes stone as I navigate the tight space.

Aeternus's edge leaves thin scratches in the rock, marking my passage through this twisted maze.

The lantern pauses at each junction, its flame steady despite the stale air.

No wind moves here, yet the light wavers as if responding to currents I cannot sense.

I trace my free hand along the wall, feeling the transition from worked stone to raw rock.

The dwarven craftsmanship fades, replaced by surfaces that seem almost organic in their formation.

The path grows less certain, more primal.

The lantern's glow strengthens, pulling me forward through the winding dark.