Dane's shield caught the gnoll's claw with a clang of steel, driving the beast's arm wide. He twisted on his heel, just like Armand had taught him, and drove his fist into the creature's ribs. A flash of force rippled from the impact, sending the demon stumbling back, a snarl erupting from its ruined throat.

It wasn't dead. It wasn't meant to be. They were training.

The others had all taken turns, testing themselves against the corrupted remains. Stronric had gone first, a whirlwind of brutal, crushing strikes, each swing a statement: I am stronger than you. He fought like a siege engine given legs and a soul, unstoppable and inexorable. Watching him was like watching the end of an argument.

Bauru had gone next, quicker, leaner. His steps were measured, his pace a constant circle. His strikes landed from odd angles, sharp and efficient, like he'd already mapped the creature's movements before it attacked. He didn't overpower it, he out-thought it, like he was solving a violent puzzle.

Then Rugiel. Morgal's hammer.

Her movements had grace, but they struck like the mountain itself had fallen on the beast. She fought like a smith, every blow forged, weighted, placed with purpose. The demon-gnoll hadn't so much fallen as crumbled under the force of her final hit.

And now it was his turn. Dane fought differently. He wasn't as strong as Stronric, not as fast as Bauru, and lacked Rugiel's perfect control. But he had his fists, his shield, and something in his blood that let him channel energy through his strikes. His punches didn't just hurt, they shattered. They cracked bone and flung bodies. In a real fight, if he cut loose, he could end this in seconds.

But that wasn't the point.

Killing it would teach him nothing. So he held back.

Strike. Step. Block. Counter. He moved through the rhythm, adjusting his footwork the way Rugiel had shown him. He braced his shield low, shifting his weight the way Bauru advised. And when the gnoll twisted wide, he caught the opening, Stronric's voice in his head: "Gut's open if it lunges," and landed a punch straight into its side. The beast folded, hacking up black rot, but rose again.

It always rose again, its flesh knitting itself back together. It fought like a dying fire, spasming, flailing. Its body was broken, twisted beyond reason, yet it moved as if something else controlled it, something that didn't care if bones cracked or tendons tore. Its strikes were wide, desperate, and fast, but uncoordinated. Still, it was fast. And strong. And relentless.

Dane's shield took a hit too hard, his elbow flared with pain. He pivoted and struck again, catching the demon across the face. A shockwave snapped its neck sideways, but it didn't fall. His breath caught. His knees buckled slightly. Sweat poured down his back, soaking his tunic. His muscles ached. His shoulders screamed. He'd landed blow after blow, but unlike the dwarves, he didn't have the fuel to keep burning. Stronric had fought with endless power. Bauru had barely seemed to breathe. Rugiel hadn't broken a sweat.

I can't match that, Dane thought bitterly. But I'm still standing.

The gnoll's claws raked toward his side. He twisted away, barely in time. Another swipe, and this time his shield was too slow. The blow struck him full in the ribs. He felt the force through his armor, white-hot pain blooming across his side. He stumbled, swung wildly, and hit nothing. His vision blurred. His legs shook. And then they gave out.

Dane hit the ground hard, stars bursting behind his eyes. He tried to rise, one arm pushing at the stone, but his muscles wouldn't obey. The gnoll loomed above him, black veins pulsing, maw opening.

I could've killed you, he thought. I should have.

The claw came down…

And vanished in a spray of gore.

Iron screamed.

Stronric's axe cleaved through the beast, shearing it in two. One half flew, the other crumpled in a heap of twitching limbs and shriveling flesh. The Wraith-Thane planted his boots beside Dane and turned to the corpse, axe still humming with fury.

He glanced down at Dane.

"Ye fought well, lad," Stronric said, offering his hand. "But yer blood's still runnin' too warm."

Dane took the hand, shame and relief clashing behind his eyes.

"I was doing fine," he muttered.

Stronric snorted, pulling him to his feet. "Aye. Until ye weren't. So many forget the importance of trainin' and drills. When yer mind's too exhausted, the body will continue to fight the only way it knows how. That's why we drill."

Dane gave a breathless chuckle, but winced as he tried to straighten. His ribs burned like fire.

Then Serene was there. She darted to his side, kicking up ash, her hands already glowing with soft golden light.

"Hold still," she murmured, pressing her fingers just beneath his arm. "You've cracked something, maybe two. Just breathe."

He hissed through his teeth, but the pain began to ebb. Warmth spread through his chest. His limbs stopped shaking. His heart slowed.

"Thanks," he said quietly, looking up at her.

Serene offered a brief smile. "Don't thank me. Thank the gods you've got dwarves watching your back."

And then the tent exploded.

The blast hit like a hammer, sharp and sudden. A column of flame tore into the sky from the far side of the plateau, wood and canvas shredding in a spray of smoke and burning parchment. The roar deafened them, a wave of heat slapping across the stone.

Serene flinched, throwing her arm over Dane as flaming debris rained down.

Stronric's head snapped toward the noise, his eyes going wide.

"The maps," Rugiel shouted.

Ash choked the air as the party reached the blast site. The command tent was gone, erased like a name scraped from stone. No trace of canvas or rope remained, only a wide circle of scorched earth and splintered wood. Blackened poles jutted from the stone like the ribs of something ancient and dead. Shreds of parchment floated through the smoke, curling and burning midair before disintegrating into ash.

Rugiel reached the edge first.

She dropped to one knee in the soot, moving with a stillness that did not suit the urgency around her. Her hand trembled as she sifted through the wreckage. Beneath her fingertips, a scrap of parchment clung to the stone, half a map, its ink warped and burned. She turned it over once, then again. It broke apart in her palm.

Her lips moved. No sound came.

Then, soft but heavy as stone, she whispered, "They're gone."

Stronric stood behind her, silent and grim. He crouched beside her, ash swirling around his boots. His eyes scanned the ruin like a smith judging the cracks in a failing blade. Then he reached down and lifted a piece of blackened metal, twisted beyond recognition. Only the edge of a familiar hinge remained.

A map clamp.

He let it fall with a hiss of breath. His jaw clenched. Muscles in his neck flexed beneath the collar of his mail.

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"This wasn't an accident," he growled. "No fire starts itself in a dead camp."

"They were real," Rugiel said, rising slowly. Her voice held no anger, but it was colder than the mountain air. "Maps of the surface. Towns. Forts. Grain routes. Intelligence no dungeon beast should ever hold. Someone wanted them destroyed."

The others gathered slowly, drawn by the smoke and silence.

Serene lingered near Dane, her arm still half-outstretched from shielding him. The golden glow in her hand had faded, replaced by a troubled stillness. Bauru said nothing, but stood beside Stronric, watching the wind as if it might carry whispers. Lirian had already drawn a blade, just resting it low at his side, his eyes never still.

Then Giles spoke.

"Perhaps," he said, voice tight and clipped, "it was all but a play. A performance, meant to win sympathy or fear."

They turned.

Giles stood a few paces away from the scorched crater, arms folded. His cloak fluttered in the wind, his face unreadable. But there was a weight behind his eyes—less confusion, more judgment.

"Mayhap zere never were maps," he continued. "Just tricks and ash. Parchment and ink, conjured to stir ze blood. Convenient, is it not, zat zey burn only once zey are questioned?"

Rugiel's gaze locked on him. Still silent, but her poise had shifted, no longer sorrowful, no longer composed. Her stance was war-tempered now. Balanced. Ready.

Stronric straightened.

"Watch yer tongue, manling," he said, voice like a rising quake.

Giles met his stare. "You showed us pages, claimed they held truth, but offered no chance to study, no time to confirm. And now, there is nothing left but soot. You speak of sabotage, but I see no culprit, only coincidence."

"Giles," Serene said, voice low and pleading, "don't."

But he pressed on. "Zese dwarves speak ever of honor, of what is owed, of blood and debt and right. But I begin to wonder, was zis ever about truth? Or was it about control?"

Stronric stepped forward. His boots ground against scorched gravel.

"Ye dare accuse my kin of deceit?" he said.

"I say only zat you've given cause to doubt," Giles replied, chin rising. "And zat doubt grows heavier with every silence."

Rugiel moved beside Stronric. Her cloak still bore the ash of the ruin, but she didn't brush it away.

"We found the truth, Giles," she said quietly. "You only doubt it now because it slipped beyond your reach. It was not lies that burned. It was proof."

"And who do you blame for zat?" he asked. "Kara? Me?"

She didn't answer.

And Giles saw it.

He stepped forward. "You are serious. You truly believe one of us set zis blaze."

Stronric's fingers curled around his axe. His voice lowered to a warning growl.

"I think," he said, "ye're three words away from finding out what it feels like to bleed in silence."

Giles's hand drifted to his sword.

And then Armand stepped between them.

"Zat is quite enough," the knight commanded, his voice striking the air like a drawn blade.

He planted himself between them, cloak flaring in the wind, hand raised not in threat, but authority. His eyes, hard and clear, turned first to Giles.

"You shame yourself, Giles de Robillard. Zis is no court of whispers. You speak like a knave among soldiers, and I will not allow it."

Then to Stronric.

"And you, honored Thane, you forget zat your strength is not only in arms, but in command. Let not wrath steal what wisdom has won."

The moment held like a sword drawn at half-sheath. Still. Trembling.

Then Kara's voice drifted in from the edge of the smoke.

"Fires spread fast in this wind," she said, not looking at them. "Perhaps next time, we store evidence somewhere safer."

No one replied.

Rugiel turned away, her jaw tight, hands hidden in her sleeves. Stronric's gaze lingered on Giles a moment longer before he let out a breath through his nose and turned back to the crater.

The wind shifted again, and with it, the last ashes of the maps scattered into the sky. The last embers of the tent still glowed behind them as Stronric turned from the crater.

"Enough," he said. "We've lost the maps, but we've not lost the trail."

He nodded toward the far slope, where black stone had peeled away like the lid of a coffin. The entrance yawned wide, tall enough for giants, carved smooth and wet like fresh bone. Red mist still poured from within, curling low to the ground, dense and heavy as blood.

The party gathered. Tense. Silent.

Stronric led the way.

They descended in a single line. Torches and enchanted lanterns flickered to life, casting pale, flickering light against the stone. It wasn't natural stone anymore. Not truly. The deeper they went, the more the walls changed, smooth in some places, warped in others, like wax left too near flame. In one place, vines curled along the tunnel walls, brittle and blackened, their leaves long dead but still clinging to the rock like dried veins.

What had once been roots now twisted down from the ceiling like ropes, pulsing faintly with red light. Some still held the echo of their original shape, thick swampy creepers, but others were fused with bone or cracked with sulfur lines. The scent of rot was sharp beneath the earth, but not the rot of time, it was fresher, sweeter. Wrong.

"The stone is wrong," Rugiel said softly, brushing her fingers across the wall. Her fingertips came away with a fine green dust, like powdered moss, but it shimmered faintly. "It remembers being wood. Shaped not by tools, but by hunger."

No one argued.

Even their footsteps sounded strange, muffled, swallowed. The tunnel absorbed every sound, leaving only the whisper of breath and the occasional tap of steel against stone. They walked for what felt like an hour, maybe more. There were no turns. No side paths. Only a single, sloping tunnel, ever downward, swallowing light and hope in equal measure. Now and then, the remains of something older caught the edge of their light, a crumbled arch woven from petrified reeds, a totem pole formed of fused skulls and tree bark, or the shattered husk of what might once have been a herbalist's shrine, its offerings long since withered to black mold.

This place had been a forest once. A marsh. A cradle of mystic animals and medicinal wonders. Now it was a corpse, still twitching.

The tunnel ended.

The space beyond opened into a chamber far too vast to belong underground. It stretched wide and long, its corners drowned in red mist, its ceiling rising into shadow so high it seemed to touch the bones of the mountain. The air was still but not dead. Listening. Waiting.

And then light.

A massive rupture split the ceiling, jagged and blackened like a wound torn by giants. From it, sunlight poured down in long, golden beams that cut through the haze. The light didn't reach every edge of the chamber, but where it landed, it illuminated the wellspring's heart, a circular platform twenty paces across, carved of old stone and ringed in now dead moss.

It should have been beautiful.

The architecture had once mimicked nature itself. Carvings of trees adorned the outer walls, great oaks, tangled roots, vines that curled up columns like ivy turned to stone. Once, green mosses still clung in patches to the cracked floor, now brittle and yellowed. Statues of forest creatures stood at uneven intervals, many collapsed, or half melted stags, badgers, great jungle cats, birds midflight. Their marble hides were marred with scorch marks, or defaced with sharp, bloody runes.

This place had been a sanctuary.

And now it stank of death.

Gnoll corpses littered the floor, dozens at least. Some lay in heaps, others sprawled in unnatural postures, limbs twisted as if they had fought their own bodies. Others had been torn apart entirely, shredded by claws or blades or worse.

But they were not alone.

Between the fallen half-submerged in stone or sprawled near the outer walls lay the twisted remains of wild beasts. Massive pumas with too many eyes, bears with jagged bone spines curling from their backs, a tiger whose maw split open across its chest like a second, grinning mouth all lay scattered. Even gentle animals, deer, badgers, river wolves, were present, now bloated, bloated or ruptured with tumors, their hides stretched across unnatural limbs.

The smell was overwhelming, rot and bile, wet fur and sulfur, but beneath it all was a cloying sweetness. Like flowers crushed beneath heat. Like something once sacred, now spoiled. The wellspring still sat at the center of it all.

A great stone basin carved into the raised circular platform, surrounded by concentric rings of carved glyphs and animal forms. The basin had once held water, now it roiled with a black-red sludge. The fluid churned without motion, as if something breathed beneath it. Faint pulses of crimson light beat from its surface in slow, sick rhythms.

"Stop," Serene said.

The party halted.

She dropped to her knees, pulling her pack open with hands that trembled despite herself. From it she drew two books, a leather-bound field journal and a thick, worn tome marked with the sigil of the Healing Order.

She flipped through pages frantically, then stopped on a sketch, aged ink drawn in smooth lines. The very chamber they stood in, open to the sky, surrounded by carved creatures in a circle of peace.

"This is it," she breathed. "The Wellspring of Verdancy. It wasn't just a legend."

She looked up, eyes wide with grief. "This dungeon… it used to be a place of healing. Druids came here to gather herbs, yes, but they protected the spring. Adventurers sought it to collect vials of its water, its magic could cure corruption and disease. It was sacred. Living."

Rugiel stepped closer, staring down at the nearest glyph, now smeared with blood. "You said it was."

Serene nodded. "It's been twisted. Violated. They didn't just kill the wildlife. They used them. Changed them."

Bauru was already moving, inspecting the ground. "Look here," he muttered, pointing toward a deer's body sprawled beneath one of the ruined archways. "This thing's ribs are fused with stone. Look at the way it's grown. This wasn't natural. This was… forced."

"Not just forced," Lirian said, crouching by a collapsed pillar. "Directed."

He pointed to a ring of fresh, dark carvings. "This is ritual. Blood magic. Demonic. I don't know what language this is, but it wants to anchor something. Not summon. Not expel."

"And the spring?" Rugiel asked, her voice cold.

Serene looked again to the basin. The churning blackness within. The shimmer of crimson light beneath the surface.

"It's not a spring anymore," she whispered. "It's a mouth."

Stronric stepped forward, axe raised loosely, his shoulders squared.

"This is where they came," he said quietly. "The gnolls. The beasts. Maybe even druids. This is where they ran to."

He looked to the shattered statues, the broken bodies, and the basin pulsing with filth.

"But what in the deep hells found them here?"

The chamber answered with a scream.

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