Session 22

Miquitzil sat back at last, rubbing at a scab on his knuckle before flicking it into his mouth.

“I have an idea,” he said. “We flood the lower level with mist. We won’t be able to see the creature — but neither will it. No petrifying gaze if it can’t get eyes on us. I’ve no intention of being turned to stone in this place, and I doubt any of you do either.”

They talked it through. The fog would make their own strikes less certain, but it would do the same to the basilisk. In the end, survival won out over precision.

“There is one hiccup,” Miquitzil added. He tapped the heavy tome in front of him. “I’ve worked out how to use the transformation chamber below. But I don’t have Fog Cloud prepared.” He scrubbed at his eyes, exhaustion dragging at every word. “So, before we do anything, I need to sleep. Then I’ll prepare the spell.”

He exhaled slowly. “Properly.”

With that, he finally lay down, surrendering to rest after a long night buried in Netherese texts.

The others didn’t waste the time.

Felwar insisted they start with the hemispherical chamber beyond the smashed secret door. Whatever had broken it open had done so violently. Dzaan frowned when they mentioned it, saying it wasn’t their doing — and that they’d barely gone inside at all.

The chamber was unsettling in its simplicity. Smooth stone walls curved inward, bare and untouched by rubble or decay. It felt less ruined than sealed.

And then there was the ceiling.

Or rather, what had once been the floor.

A stone altar was fused seamlessly into it, hanging above them. An eight‑pointed star was carved into its face, precise and unblemished. No dust. No cracks. It looked untouched by the tower’s fall, as though time itself had passed it by.

They exchanged glances. This was old magic. Careful magic.

“Boost me up,” Felwar said.

Raine lifted him onto his shoulders. Felwar studied the carving for a moment, hands hovering, then pressed his fingers to the star.

The air shimmered.

A crystal bottle snapped into existence atop the altar, glowing with luminous blue light — and immediately began to fall. Felwar gasped, but Raine reacted without hesitation, snatching it out of the air before it could smash against the stone.

He passed it to Thelonius, who set it carefully aside and examined it. The liquid inside was thick, clinging to the glass like oil or thin honey. A soft inner glow swirled within it, slow and deliberate, as though the magic itself were breathing.

Felwar tried the altar again. Nothing. No matter what he did, it offered no second gift.

Raine lifted the vial and pulled the stopper free.

“Should we wait for Miq?” Thelonius asked.

Raine hesitated, then shook his head. “I might be able to tell what it is.”

He smelled it first — clean, mineral‑sharp, with a cold note that didn’t belong to anything natural. He dipped a finger in and tasted a single drop. Sharp. Sweet. A faint tingling on his tongue.

Nothing happened.

“I might need more,” he muttered, tasting it again. Same flavour. Still no effect.

They took it back to Miquitzil at once. He hadn’t fallen asleep yet, and the look he gave them said exactly how close he’d been.

“This is ancient Netherese magic,” he said after examining it. “Not like anything you’ll find today.” He sighed and began a ritual anyway.

When it was done, his expression hardened. “Whatever this is, every drop has to be drunk by the same person.”

Thelonius pointed at Raine. “He already tasted it.”

Miquitzil looked up sharply. “Is that true?”

Raine nodded. “I was trying to understand it.”

Miquitzil sighed. “Then you’re the only one who can benefit. If you drink it all, you’ll be able to cast a minor illusion. You’ll become a spellcaster — a child of Mystryl, in a sense.”

Raine didn’t hesitate. He lifted the vial and drained it.

The magic slid into him like cold water poured directly into his thoughts. The world sharpened. Threads he had never seen before unfurled behind his eyes, waiting to be shaped. Images came to him not as dreams, but as choices — things that could be made real enough to deceive the senses.

When the vial fell empty from his hand, Raine stood very still.

Then he smiled.

“Yes,” he said quietly. “You’re right. I can cast a spell now.” He paused, listening inward. “It’s… intoxicating. I can see why wizards do what they do.”

Dzaan’s voice followed smoothly. “If you can cast illusion, then you can use the transformation ritual below. Once we get past the basilisk.”

“Speaking of which,” Miquitzil said at once, already turning away. He waved them off. “Out. I am sleeping now. Do not wake me.” His eyes narrowed. “And stop tasting potions.”

So they left him to it.

Thelonius, Raine, and Felwar resumed their search of the spire, spreading out through the ruined chambers. They worked methodically, picking through shattered furniture, collapsed desks, splintered shelving, and the refuse of centuries. Most of it was worthless — rotted wood, cracked stone, warped metal — but they were patient.

At last, Thelonius let out a sharp shout.

He held up a heavy, four‑pronged key, its darkened metal etched with fine, unfamiliar lines. “I bet this fits the chest on the roof,” he said, excitement breaking through his usual restraint. He glanced at Felwar. “The one you couldn’t pick.”

They repaired their makeshift ladder beneath the chest — broken tables and chairs lashed together into something barely trustworthy. It creaked and shifted as Thelonius climbed, hauling himself up toward the upside‑down chest bolted into the corner of the room.

“I’ve got you now,” he muttered.

The lock turned with a dull, satisfying click. The lid sagged as it released, and Thelonius caught it with his arm as dust spilled down around him.

A cushion sat pressed against the opening. When he brushed it aside, it fell apart at once — brittle cloth tearing, stuffing collapsing into dust.

Beneath it lay four potions, intact by sheer luck.

One was deep crimson, clinging thickly to the glass. Another shimmered with a pale, opalescent sheen. A third was clear, threaded with drifting motes like suspended sparks. The last held a cloudy blue draught that looked cold even through the vial.

He passed them down carefully, then searched the chest for anything more. There was nothing else.

Satisfied, Thelonius climbed back down, dusted and grinning despite himself — victorious, at least this once, over the tower’s stubborn secrets.

Raine examined the vials, holding them up to the light cast by the upside‑down continual flame sconces. He lingered there a moment, curiosity tugging at him as it always did, then relented.

“We’ll get Miq to check these before anything else.”

Miquitzil woke many hours later, to visible relief from Thelonius, who had spent the long wait actively suppressing his instinct to talk. Staying quiet had clearly gone against his nature, and it showed.

Miquitzil set the vials out in a careful line. He completed the ritual slowly, deliberately, the last threads of magic settling back into the Weave as his expression sharpened with understanding.

“These aren’t trinkets,” Miquitzil said. “They’re potent, indeed.”

He indicated the vials in turn.

“The red one grants immense strength. Giant strength. Briefly.”

He moved on.

“The warm one is healing. Powerful enough to close most wounds, I imagine.”

The sharp‑smelling vial earned a longer look. “This one protects against acid.” He hesitated, turning it over in his hands. “I don’t know if that protection extends to clothing or gear. Assume it does not.”

The last vial he studied in silence. “This interferes with age,” Miquitzil said. “It would make you younger.” His mouth tightened. “I don’t like this one.”

Dzaan pushed himself up from the table where he had been sitting, quiet until now.

“I’ll take it,” he said evenly. “I’m no spring chicken. And if I become real, I’d rather not do so bent and worn.”

“No.”

Felwar’s voice was flat. Final.

Dzaan turned to him, surprised, then frowned. “You’re all young. You’ve no need of it. I am—”

“I said no,” Felwar cut in, not raising his voice.

Hurt flickered across Dzaan’s face. Disappointment followed close behind. “Why?”

Felwar didn’t hesitate. “I don’t like you.”

Dzaan blinked. “Why?”

“Because you’re him,” Felwar said. “And he died for his crimes.”

Dzaan’s jaw tightened. “You put a great deal of faith in judges and executioners,” he replied quietly. “The Dzaan I know would not have done what he was accused of. Nor would I.”

“I trust them,” Felwar said.

Dzaan studied him for a long moment. He glanced to the others, searching for support, willing someone to speak on his behalf — but Thelonius, Raine, and Miquitzil were already turning away, checking gear and readying themselves for the fight with the basilisk.

“You’re young,” Dzaan said at last. “Wisdom comes with age.”

Thelonius clapped his hands loudly and without warning, startling everyone but Krintaas, Dzaan’s undead guardian.

“Alright then,” he said. “Let’s kill this basilisk and get on with it.”

They moved to the chamber with the rough‑hewn hole leading down to the level below — the level that held Dzaan’s transformation chamber, and the basilisk. Raine stepped to the edge and peered down.

Like the rest of the tower, the space below was lit by upside‑down sconces bearing continual flame. What little they could see of the chamber looked empty.

Thelonius stretched his neck one way, then the other, rolling his shoulders before murmuring the words of a druidic spell. He smiled as the magic settled around them.

“As long as you stay within thirty feet of me,” he said cheerfully, “you’ll be exceptionally stealthy. Quiet as a rat.”

Dzaan’s eyebrows rose. “Don’t you mean as quiet as a mouse?”

Thelonius grinned, entirely unbothered. “No.”

Felwar rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “How do we get back up here? We’ve already used all the rope getting down.”

Raine shrugged, wholly unconcerned. “We’ll use whatever junk is lying around down there. We won’t be in a hurry. It’ll be fine.”

That did not sound reassuring, but no one argued.

Thelonius shifted into his house‑spider form and skittered down the rough‑hewn hole. The chamber below held no immediate threats — just more smashed wizard furniture and the same scattered detritus seen throughout the ruined Netherese tower.

Felwar glanced at Miquitzil. “On three.”

Miquitzil nodded.

“One. Two. Three.”

Felwar vanished in a soft puff of mist, reappearing a heartbeat later on the floor below. The instant his boots struck stone, Miquitzil released the spell he had been holding. Fog Cloud blossomed outward at once — thick, cold, and harmless — rolling through the lower level and spilling back up into the chamber above.

Within moments, visibility collapsed to nothing. Anyone caught in the fog could barely see their own hand held out in front of their face.

Quiet as a rat, Felwar crept forward, hands extended. Thelonius’ owl familiar had provided a rough layout of the level, and Felwar’s task was simple: reach the far end of the corridor and open the closed door they believed led to the transformation chamber.

He didn’t get far.

A sound drifted from a room to his left. Sniffing. Scraping. The slow, heavy movement of something large. Then a deep, vibrating growl — not unlike a cat’s purr, but twisted into something far more menacing.

Felwar froze.

He hadn’t been heard. At least, he didn’t think so. The basilisk — for that was surely what lurked in the room beside him — sounded unsettled, disturbed by the sudden change in its surroundings. The fog. The silence. It moved by scent alone, nosing through the room, bumping into old debris as it went.

Behind him, Raine climbed down through the rough‑hewn hole, followed by Dzaan and his undead guardian. There were plenty of handholds, and the descent itself was easy enough, even blind in the fog. The drop to the floor was less certain — none of them could see their landing — but they hit without injury.

Raine moved by feel alone, guided by breath and instinct, easing through the fog until he found Felwar waiting beside the closed door. They didn’t speak. They didn’t need to. One to either side, blades ready, they became still points in a shifting cloud.

Then they waited.

And waited.

Somewhere ahead, something decided it had had enough.

The basilisk came at them in a sudden rush, a heavy shape bursting through the fog with a furious hiss. Deprived of its most terrible weapon — its petrifying gaze rendered useless by the mist — it fell back on simpler tools. Front canines like six inches of iron‑hard death. Claws long and curved, built to tear, rake, and drag prey screaming to the ground.

It struck blindly. Violently.

Steel rang. Leather tore. Fog boiled with motion as the fight became a brutal game of cat and mouse, predator and prey trading places with every heartbeat. Raine struck where he heard breath and bulk. Felwar answered with quick, precise blows, vanishing and reappearing in flashes of steel and spell.

The basilisk found Felwar first.

Its jaws closed hard, poison flooding through the bite, burning as it spread through his veins. Felwar grunted but held his ground — and his magic answered.

Frost exploded outward from him in a sudden, vicious bloom. Ice crusted his armour, the air snapping sharp with cold as jagged rime tore back into the creature’s flesh. The basilisk recoiled with a screech, scales cracking, breath steaming white in the fog.

It came on anyway, lashing out again, claws raking toward Raine — only to shriek as they scraped uselessly across his steel shirt, sparks flashing briefly in the haze.

Raine answered with a heavy blow. Felwar followed. Then again.

The basilisk thrashed, snapping and hissing, its tail smashing into unseen stone, but its strength bled away with every failed strike. Deprived of its deadly sight and outnumbered, it was just another beast in the dark.

It staggered. Felwar drove his blade clean through one eye. The creature twitched once.

Then went still.

Miquitzil let the spell go.

The fog thinned, then peeled away entirely, retreating like breath in cold air. As visibility returned, Raine and Felwar stood over the carcass, breathing hard, blades wet, the echo of violence ebbing back into the tower’s long‑held quiet.

That was when Thelonius returned.

He slipped out from beneath the door at the far end of the corridor, still in his house‑spider form, and raised his voice as loudly as such a body could manage.

“Through there,” he called. “The special room. Just as Dzaan said it would be.”

Raine wiped his blade clean. Felwar exhaled slowly. The moment of danger passed, replaced by something sharper — anticipation.

They called the others forward.

Miquitzil climbed down into the lower level, moving carefully now, eyes already searching. Dzaan followed close behind, excitement plain on his face, Krintaas looming at his back — nearly seven feet of armoured bone and dead muscle, sword in hand, as solid and undeniable as any living guard.

They stopped him before the threshold.

No hands were laid on him — not with the undead guardian so near. Instead, they called him back, voices firm but controlled.

For a moment, it looked as though Dzaan might argue.

Then he didn’t.

Jaw tight, he stepped aside and inclined his head, allowing Miquitzil to enter first.

Felwar opened the door.

Miquitzil edged inside.

The chamber was exactly as described in the tome he had read — From Shadow, Substance: Comprehensive Criticism of Illusion Realism — just scarred by time and violence.

The walls curved inward, every surface carved with dense, interlocking runes. Cracks ran through them like fractures in old bone, breaking channels that should have carried power cleanly. What had once been the floor — now the ceiling — bore the same inscriptions, spiralling inward toward a golden crystal disk nearly five feet across. Beneath it hung a shallow stone dish, worked smooth, like an altar turned upside down and waiting.

The air hummed. Subtle. Constant. Felt more in the teeth than the ears.

As Miquitzil stepped fully inside, the chamber reacted.

An illusory figure flickered into being, standing upside down against the ceiling — a long‑faced human wizard, unmistakably the same figure carved into the statues at the spire’s entrance. He spoke at once, his voice sharp and archaic, spilling words in Loross that only Miquitzil, and perhaps Dzaan, could understand.

“Behold my masterpiece. Here, illusion is given flesh. Here, shadow becomes substance. Shape your illusion. Place it upon the crystal disk. Let my rune chamber complete the work.”

The image frayed, then vanished. Silence returned.

“This is the transformation chamber,” Miquitzil said quietly, letting the others know what the figure had said. “Illusions made real.” He gestured to the cracked runes. “But it’s damaged. The magic still flows, but not cleanly. I can’t promise outcomes.”

They gathered inside.

Up close, the craftsmanship was staggering despite the damage. The sigils still carried power, stubbornly threading through broken paths. The golden disk waited above them, patient and indifferent.

“So,” Thelonius said, eyes bright. “We test it.”

“A thousand gold pieces.”

Raine shook his head at once. “A thousand anything is a lot to deal with if this goes wrong.” He stepped beneath the disk, already focusing. “Let’s start smaller. And cleaner.”

He didn’t look back. Just raised his hands.

The others saw it then — the way his expression shifted as the Weave caught hold of him.

For a heartbeat, nothing happened.

Then the chamber answered.

The runes flared, light racing along fractured paths, skipping where cracks broke the flow. Pale radiance lifted from the walls and ceiling alike, drawn inward toward the disk. The air grew heavy. Charged.

The dish hummed.

And then gravity reclaimed its due.

Two handfuls of diamonds struck the floor with a sharp, unmistakable clatter.

Real.

No one spoke.

Then Thelonius laughed. Dzaan stared. Even Miquitzil looked impressed.

Raine bent and picked one up, turning it slowly in the light. “Seems real.”

Felwar stepped closer, still half‑disbelieving. He examined another stone with care, tested its weight, its edge. Then he nodded, impressed despite himself. His gaze drifted back to the dish, seeing it anew — not as a curiosity, but as something quietly terrifying. Anything you could imagine, made solid.

Miquitzil nodded once. “Let’s try something organic.”

He considered. “A stew. Hot. Simple.”

Raine frowned, then complied.

The illusion formed. The runes flared again. A wooden bowl appeared above the dish and dropped at once, striking the floor and splitting. Hot fish‑eye stew spilled outward, steaming, rich with scent.

Miquitzil knelt, dipped a finger, tasted.

He nodded. “Real enough.”

He returned to the walls, studying the cracks more closely now, hopeful but wary.

Dzaan didn’t wait.

“You’ve seen enough,” he said. “Gems. Food. It works.” He met their eyes one by one. “I’ve been honest with you. I gave you the guardian amulet. I told you about the basilisk. The books. Everything I said was true.” He spread his hands. “It’s my time.”

The room went quiet.

At last, they agreed.

Krintaas lifted Dzaan beneath the disk. Raine cast the spell again, this time shaping nothing at all.

In truth, Raine was the spark the chamber needed. Miquitzil had tried to explain it earlier — life, intent, the spellcaster as catalyst — but Raine had tuned out long before the theory was done. What mattered was instinct.

So he cast the spell and imagined nothing.

He hoped that was enough.

The runes flared.

The change came slowly. Then all at once.

Colour deepened. Breath filled lungs. Weight settled into flesh.

Dzaan laughed as he was lowered, the sound real now — breathless, wild. “It worked,” he said. “It worked.” He jumped for genuine joy, heels clicking against stone.

He rushed Raine before anyone could stop him and kissed his cheek. “I can taste the air. My hands. Everything.” He laughed again, giddy and disbelieving. “It worked. Thank you, Raine! Thank you, Brave Hearts.”

They didn’t stop there.

Next came the rope and grapnel — something practical, something useful. A way back to the level above.

Raine shaped the illusion carefully: fibres twisted tight, iron hook balanced for weight. For a moment, it held.

Then Miquitzil stiffened. “No.”

The runes in the chamber flared unevenly, angrily. Light skipped where it should have flowed, dimmed where it should have gathered, surged where cracks broke the channels.

The rope darkened. Swelled. Lost its shape.

It struck the floor in heavy, wet chunks, splashing and spreading with a sickening thud. Everyone recoiled as the mass drew together and rose.

A vast black pudding spread beneath the disk, ten feet across, its surface alive with slow, hungry motion.

A tendril lashed out and struck Miquitzil. Acid hissed as it burned through flesh and winter cloth alike. The ice hunter screamed, staggering back.

The runes dimmed. The golden disk went dark.

Thelonius, still in his house‑spider form, skittered away first — but the thing was faster. Another tendril snapped out, splashing acid across his tiny legs, burning the hairs away in an instant as he scrambled for cover.

Raine tore his sword free and drove it into the mass.

The blade slid through as though cutting thick oil. No resistance. No pain given. He yanked it back with a curse as acid hissed along the steel, pitting and scoring it, fumes curling from the wounded metal.

Miquitzil struck next, slamming his staff down with both hands.

The pudding recoiled — barely. Its surface shuddered, as if irritated rather than harmed. The staff blackened where it struck, the wood softening, sagging, ruined.

“We can’t fight this,” Miquitzil said, voice tight. “Get out. Now.”

Behind them, the pudding spread wider within the transformation chamber, swelling as it moved. It stood a full ten feet high now — a black, pulsating mass, its surface rippling with slow, deliberate hunger. The stench of acid filled the room, sharp enough to sting the eyes. Ancient stone blistered and popped where it touched, runes and carvings eaten clean as the thing flowed across them.

Felwar was the first to break. He turned and sprinted out through the doorway into the corridor, boots hammering stone, then vanished in a blink of mist, reappearing in the first chamber above as he hauled himself clear.

Miquitzil followed, skidding to a stop beneath the tunnel in the first chamber and looking up. Too high. Too far. Behind him, in the room beyond the door, he knew the thing would come — patient, inevitable.

“A deal,” he shouted upward. “Can your guardian lift me?”

Dzaan leaned over the edge, pale and shaking. “Yes,” he said. “If you and your friends do what you can to keep Krintaas safe. I need him.”

Miquitzil nodded at once. In truth, he would have agreed to anything.

Krintaas stepped forward without hesitation. The undead guardian crouched and lifted Miquitzil bodily, raising him toward the opening. Miquitzil caught stone and rope and hauled himself up, breath ragged but alive.

Thelonius called his owl and leapt, spider legs locking around a talon as wings beat hard, the familiar easily ferrying him up to relative safety.

Raine was last.

He backed toward the doorway, never taking his eyes off the pudding as it pulsed and grew within the transformation chamber. The thing turned with him, not rushing, not slowing — simply adjusting, always aware.

Then Raine made his move.

He darted through the doorway into the corridor and slammed the door shut behind him with all his weight.

For half a heartbeat, the door held.

Then the black mass thinned.

It seeped beneath the door like oil, spreading into the corridor and reforming on the other side, already reaching.

“Damn.”

Raine ran.

He launched himself toward the tunnel, fingers catching stone as the pudding spread wide beneath him, a waiting thing. Acid splashed across his calf as he climbed, a burning kiss that drove him higher, faster.

Above him, the tunnel narrowed.

Below him, the thing did not stop.

It never did.

Raine hauled himself up, boots scraping uselessly as the tunnel narrowed and forced him flat. The stone bit into his palms. The stink of acid filled the space behind him, close enough now that every breath tasted wrong.

A tendril brushed the rock inches from his heel.

“Move!” Felwar shouted from above.

Raine lunged, slipped, then felt a hand clamp around his wrist. Felwar braced himself, teeth bared, and hauled with everything he had. Raine scrabbled, fingers tearing, then found purchase. Another pull and he was half out of the tunnel, legs still dangling over death.

Below them, the pudding flowed upward, reshaping itself to the stone, climbing walls and ceiling alike. Not fast. Not slow. Just coming.

Thelonius hovered nearby on his owl, already clear. He should have gone. He knew it.

He didn’t.

He wheeled back, dropped down to the lip of the tunnel, and threw his hands wide. Words tore out of him, sharp and desperate.

Stone erupted inside the passage.

Jagged spikes punched up through the tunnel floor and walls, a choking forest of stone teeth. The pudding reached them and slowed, its surface tearing and reforming as it forced itself through, black flesh snagging and ripping, acid hissing against fresh rock.

Still coming.

Felwar turned, eyes wild, and raised his hand again. A tiny, charged seed snapped free, bursting on impact with force and light.

The pudding split.

Two masses slid forward instead of one.

“Again!” someone yelled.

Felwar fired once more. Another seed burst. One half collapsed into steaming sludge, hissing and bleeding away among the spikes.

The other did not stop.

“Up! Up!” Thelonius cried.

They clambered, hauling themselves through the tunnel and into the upper chamber, rope biting into palms, lungs burning. Dzaan glanced back, horror on his face.

“My things—”

“No time,” Felwar snapped, dragging Raine the rest of the way clear. “We’ll look after you.”

Dzaan swallowed hard and nodded, trusting the promise because there was nothing else left to trust.

Behind them, the remaining pudding forced itself through the spike field, slower now, torn and gouged, but relentless all the same. Always a hair behind. Always there.

They had only scant moments to act.

Felwar dropped to one knee and began strapping on his crampons, fingers numb and clumsy with cold and fear. Raine did the same, the metal biting into leather as he worked. He glanced up to catch Dzaan’s expression — wide‑eyed, stunned, frozen by more than the cold.

“I don’t have those,” Dzaan stammered. “I don’t—”

“You climb between us,” Miquitzil said, already moving. He drove his spikes into the dirt and stone at the base of the tunnel, tested the rope once, and started up the spiralling passage.

He glanced back and beckoned sharply. “Now.”

The tunnel twisted upward in a slow spiral, the stone walls slick with frost. With every turn, the ice grew thicker, glassier, more treacherous. Cold air flowed down from above, clean and sharp, carrying the bite of the surface with it.

Dzaan swallowed and followed, wedged between them as best he could. Felwar stayed close behind, one hand never far from Dzaan’s belt. Raine came next, teeth clenched as he hauled himself upward, boots scraping and slipping. Behind them, Thelonius and his owl followed, wings beating hard as they circled and scouted ahead.

“It’s still coming,” Thelonius called, his tiny voice strained. “Slow — but it’s coming.”

Up they climbed.

The ice betrayed them again and again. Dzaan’s foot slid once, then again, and he would have fallen if Miquitzil hadn’t seized a fistful of robe and Felwar hadn’t hauled him upright from behind.

“Don’t look down,” Felwar growled. “Just climb.”

They climbed.

Higher. Harder. Every breath burned in their chests now, fogging in the air. The cold deepened, cutting clean through sweat and fear alike. Light crept down the tunnel ahead of them — pale, wrong‑coloured, reflecting green as the Frostmaiden’s Rime began to dance across the ice.

Behind them, somewhere deep in the tower’s throat, the sound never stopped.
Wet. Patient. Coming.

Then the tunnel widened.

They crested the edge and spilled out onto the tundra beside the shattered Netherese spire, dragging themselves clear, lungs burning as the cold bit hard and immediate. The ancient stone loomed nearby like a broken finger of the past. Beyond it, the snow lay under the eerie green wash of Her rime, dim and sickly, colouring the darkness rather than banishing it.

For half a heartbeat, there was only wind.

Miquitzil emerged first.

He took two steps into the open, eyes adjusting to the low, unnatural light — and froze.

“Dogs!” he shouted.

Forty feet away, two bugbears were already moving off, each hauling a sled dog by the scruff of its neck. The animals yelped and struggled, paws scraping weakly at the snow as the grey‑white shapes dragged them toward the dark.

The cry carried.

Two more bugbears rounded the curve of the spire, weapons half‑raised, silhouettes resolving slowly as they tried to place the sound and the sudden figures clawing their way out of the earth.

Further around still, another pair worked at the sleds, hacking at harness lines with crude blades. They paused, then straightened as they realised something had changed.

Harsh, guttural shouts cut through the night.

Weapons came up.

Six bugbears now, spreading out around the spire, forming loose angles in the gloom. The dogs cried out again, sharp and desperate in the cold air.

The Brave Hearts were still catching their breath. Still half turned toward the tunnel.

And beneath the ice and stone, far below them, something wet and patient was still climbing.