The first boot clanked onto the rooftop stairwell before anyone spoke. The new arrivals kept their weapons slung, but their posture was all coiled tension. Loose shoulders. Ready hips. Fingers near buckles and hilts. Not nervous. Just not assuming anything.

Xander stepped forward, watching as they emerged into full view. Six soldiers in staggered formation, with the front man clearly marked by the hybrid look of field expedience and command. Helmet scuffed. Armor cobbled together but functional. Blade across his hip. Crossbow in his hands. His eyes locked on Xander the same way Cabbot tracked birds.

"Sergeant Darvos," the man said, nodding once. "Fort Octave recon, second fire team. This is Corporal Hask."

The corporal gave a quick dip of the head. Younger than Darvos by a few years, maybe more. Solid build. His armor was cleaner and newer. Probably just got lucky with some quest drops.

Darvos took in the rooftop. "We heard the bear from two blocks over. Sounded like a thunderclap. That was your crew?"

"That was the warm-up," Zoey muttered from behind the HVAC unit.

Jo didn't look up, still watching the street. Kane gave a shrug as if it wasn't worth commenting on.

Xander nodded. "As I said, we're an adventuring team from Starlight Oasis. Checking the fallout of the world event."

Darvos stepped slightly forward. "Commander Rex of Fort Octave sends his regards. He instructed us to head to Starlight and make contact. It's fortunate we ran into you here. The Commander would like to extend an invitation for talks."

The phrasing caught Xander. Talks. Not coordination. Talks.

He did not feel surprised. Not really. Everyone was still scrambling to protect their corner of the cataclysm. But if they couldn't get past that… if it was all still just talk while the world still burned under their feet…

He kept his posture easy, but reached up to unclip the helmet he'd worn through the fight. His hair was plastered to his scalp, soaked with sweat and grit, and he looked like he could use a good shower. As he pulled it off and rolled his shoulder once.

Hask stiffened as his hand had dropped to the hilt of the sword at his hip. The moment stretched just a hair too long.

"Sarg, you seeing this?" the corporal said. "His eyes."

Xander met his gaze.

There was no hiding it. Even in the morning light, the gold was visible. Not a glow exactly. More like embers behind glass. It wasn't just color, it was a presence. Wrong in a way that looked right, which made it worse.

"It's part of an ability," Xander said flatly.

"Still looks like it could laser through a wall," Zoey laughed, breaking the tension.

Darvos raised a hand toward Hask. It wasn't scolding, just a check. Hask took the cue and stepped back, tension easing. The others said nothing.

"Anyway," Xander said, "Commander Rex. I'm guessing he's doing alright?"

"He is," Darvos said. "Better now that we've got a buffer zone and have established the Fort Octave safe zone."

"Good," Xander said. "Last I saw him, he was a major. What's this 'Commander' business?"

Darvos exhaled as if he'd been expecting the question.

"Rantoul was a fallback evac zone," he said. "Officially. But when Rex's unit arrived, it was already chaos. No senior brass was left on site. Only stragglers, lost units, and locals. He pulled it together."

Jo finally turned from the ledge, arms crossed. "He made himself in charge."

Darvos shook his head. "He didn't need to. He is the senior officer. That's how it works."

"Because he was the best choice for the position?" Ford asked.

"Because he organized everyone and kept them alive," Hask replied.

Xander didn't argue. He remembered Rex from the long march through Saint Joseph, remembered fighting side by side to hold the line and gut the corruption out of the council. The man had led well enough back then, but never struck him as someone looking to carve out a kingdom. Rex hadn't been ambitious. Just tired of watching poor leaders get people killed.

It reminded Xander a lot of the qualities JT had. Solid judgment. Zero ego. Leadership that did what was right for everybody.

"Did he give you any other information to pass along?" Xander asked.

"No," Darvos frowned. "He said it was better he explain the rest in person."

Xander chewed on that silently. He stared out past the station roof, toward the gutted city blocks where the citadel now squatted like a tumor on the skyline. A week ago, they were knee-deep in undead, fighting tooth and nail just to keep the safe zone intact. Now, a soldier from another safe zone was offering them a diplomatic invitation wrapped in vague warnings and tighter timelines.

"So that's the pitch? Come to Octave. Find out what the big secret is."

"Not a secret," Darvos said. "Just too important to deliver secondhand."

"And why now?"

"Because the Cult of the Simulation is moving," Hask said. "And Rex thinks your safe zone has something to do with their plans."

That hit harder than Xander wanted to admit. Not because it was a surprise. He'd known this was coming. The cult would never be content to hide in the cracks forever. The sabotage runs during the steam engine mission weren't random. There had been a plan behind them, that much was obvious. They timed every attack and designed every move to inflict maximum damage. They'd hit the rail yard supply teams with perfect timing and then staged a false flag riot to draw the undead into range like it was a chess move.

The general hadn't just shown up by accident. That army hadn't stumbled across their walls.

The cult had lured it.

And even though they'd held back horde and clawed back a win that should've been impossible, the cost was brutal. Too many dead. Starlight's walls were patched with scrap and prayers. The clinic hadn't had a quiet night since.

So no. He wasn't shocked the Cult was moving.

He was just pissed it had only been a week since the last round of Cult bullshit. Five minutes. That's all he wanted. Five damn minutes without someone trying to end the world again.

Behind him, Zoey sighed quietly. "Of course it does."

"What does he know?" Jo asked.

Darvos didn't answer, just shrugged.

Xander stared east, toward the spires. He wanted to say yes. It made sense. Starlight had steam engines, Octave had soldiers, and the Cult had already shown they knew how to pull strings. Any alliance mattered.

But he wasn't leaving until he got a closer look at the citadel. Especially those two outbuildings.

"We're already here," he said. "Leaving without eyes on the raid zone is asking for a knife in the back."

"Your call," Darvos said. "We were told to find you and make the offer. Join you or wait. Either way, we delivered our message and invited you."

Xander turned to the team.

"Jo, you good?"

She nodded once. "Yeah, I have a ladder over here. We can just drop straight down. Let's do a sweep of the citadel grounds and then beat feet back to Starlight."

Cabbot, silent until now, walked up between Xander's legs and sat pointedly at the ledge, staring toward the citadel like it owed her money.

"Alright, let's make this quick," Xander said while scooping Cabbot up and placing her on his shoulders as he moved to the ladder nearby.

Xander dropped from the rooftop first, landing with a crunch of gravel just outside the rusted service ladder. Jo followed in silence, boots steady. The others came next, Ford with a grunt as he adjusted the strap on his bushcraft belt, Kane clanking down like a walking slab of iron, and Zoey skipping the last rung entirely to hop onto the pavement with a soft thud.

Darvos and his squad moved like ghosts in comparison. Professional soldiers who didn't waste motion because they'd learned what it cost the hard way.

The street ahead stretched east, six blocks of fractured asphalt and hollow quiet. The wind had picked up just enough to move the layer of dust covering everything into slow, curling drifts between the empty storefronts and shattered intersections. It didn't feel abandoned. It felt paused. Like the city was waiting for something to happen again.

Cabbot shifted on Xander's shoulders, her tail twitching once against his back. Silent. Watching. Judging everything.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

Xander moved out in front.

No bodies. Just bloodstains dried into concrete, and the warped skeletons of vehicles burned to the axles. At first glance, it looked like a battle had torn through this section of the city. But the longer Xander looked, the more wrong it felt.

The violence was obvious. The aftermath wasn't.

"Did you see any bodies on the way in?" he asked, glancing toward Darvos without slowing.

The sergeant grunted. "Plenty. Up until a block north of the train station. Then nothing. Just like this."

"Someone cleared them," Xander said.

"Someone or something," Darvos replied.

Zoey turned slightly, scanning the alleyways. "This is worse than bone piles. At least then you know what you're stepping over."

There were signs of a struggle everywhere. Broken windows. Impact craters. A full SUV was wedged halfway into the front of a bank like it had been thrown. The blood had dried in long drag trails, some of it streaked in ways that didn't line up with the direction of the fight. Not random violence. This had been a war zone.

And now it looked like a cleanup crew had gone through with surgical precision. No monsters. No carrion. Just the wreckage of everything else.

The Simulation flickered into Xander's vision.

Trace the Vanishing Dead Quest Notification! Where are all the bodies? While leaving a bunch of rotting remains around probably isn't the best for the overall health of the player base. Black plague anyone? However, someone seems to have collected and taken player remains somewhere only in this area, which is odd. Difficulty: Easy Completion Objective: Discover what is taking the remains and where Rewards: Peace of mind, isn't that enough?

Accept? Yes / No

Xander clicked accept. The message vanished.

Another day, he'd chase that trail. But not now. Right now, the goal was the raid site. Not a side trek through whatever was eating bodies off the street.

The citadel came into view two blocks later.

It didn't rise so much as press outward, like a root system trying to crack through the pavement from below. The black stone was slick in the light, not wet but somehow reflective in a way that bent perspective. It wasn't built like the old world. No right angles. Just gothic architecture and vertical menace, shaped into spires that pierced upward like the bones of something left behind.

And it wasn't alone.

Two squat buildings flanked it, one to the left, one to the right. Built of the same material, same green-glow aesthetic, but closer to mausoleums than strongholds. None looked open.

"There's our front door," Kane said, slowing up.

The entrance was a massive set of iron double doors set into the heart of the citadel. They stood fifteen feet high and at least half that wide, framed by etched stone that pulsed faintly with a sickly green light. From a distance, the lines looked decorative. Up close, they moved.

Runes slid across the arch like oil under glass. Constant motion, but never shifting position.

"I don't like that," Ford muttered, backing up half a step.

"No one asked you to," Jo said as she took a step back herself.

Even the Octave patrol had slowed their pace. Darvos signaled a halt, and none of them moved forward again. That said plenty.

Xander stepped just close enough for the Simulation to register the interaction.

Congratulations! You have discovered the Gravenreach Citadel. The fortress of General Malgrath rises like a blackened crown from the ruins of Champaign, its walls veined with corruption and guarded by skeletal sentinels. Within its gates, phantom soldiers endlessly clash in spectral drills, siege engines creak under the hands of revenants, and eternal pyres feed on the bones of the fallen. Though Malgrath was once pushed back, his retreat was no defeat. He gathers strength in the crypts beneath and waits for the day when the drums of war will sound again, sending his undead legions to march forth and drown the living in darkness.

WARNING: This raid dungeon requires a minimum of twenty-five players.

WARNING: Players have not successfully cleared this raid dungeon. If not defeated within five months and twenty-three days, General Malgrath will regain his strength and once again wreak havoc upon the area.

"We can't touch the raid yet," he said aloud after reading the message. "But we got the information we came for. JT isn't going to be happy. Twenty-five people minimum, and if it's not cleared once every six months or they overflow. That's going to be a shitshow since we can't get any intel on what's in there."

"Let's check those outbuildings."

Zoey pointed toward the nearest one, a dome-roofed crypt-looking structure with a sealed iron door and a rusted lantern hanging above it.

"You think they're mini-dungeons?" she asked.

"Or storage for what comes out of the big one," Jo said.

"They're worth checking," Xander said. "Even if they're empty, I want a sense of layout."

A low hiss came from Hask's repeating crossbow. The corporal pivoted, fired twice in controlled succession, and dropped two shamblers that had wandered around a collapsed firehouse across the street. Bolts hit with enough force to crack skulls. The bodies collapsed and didn't move again.

Zoey raised an eyebrow. "I want one!"

"Quest reward," Hask said.

She looked like she wanted to push for more, but didn't. Just nodded once and kept walking.

Xander scanned the street one last time. The undead weren't pressing, but they were present. Loitering in clumps of one or two, drifting aimlessly, like they'd been forgotten by whatever force usually held them together. No direction or urgency.

That felt wrong too. The description of the citadel made it sound like an organized force would be outside.

"I've got lead on the left building," Xander said. "Jo, right side. Zoey, center. We'll keep eyes sharp, check for entry points."

Ford didn't move.

"I really don't like this place," he said. "None of this feels like regular undead. It's worse."

Kane stepped forward, but even he didn't breach the line between sidewalk and citadel grounds.

"You want us to push in?" Darvos asked.

Xander shook his head. "No. Hold here with Ford and Kane. We're just getting a feel for the edges."

The outbuilding looked even more bunker-like up close, a squat dome of that same black, gleaming stone, its surface veined with the same faint green glow that traced the citadel. There were no windows or symbols above the door. Just a rusted lantern hook and a thick slab of iron for a handle.

Xander pushed the door open and stepped inside, with Jo and Zoey close behind. Not tactically ideal. Three members of the core team diving into an unknown structure with no backup in sight. But the building wasn't large, and if things went sideways, the plan was simple. Retreat, regroup, and let the heavies handle cleanup. Still, it nagged at him. Walking blind into anything in this city felt like volunteering for an obituary.

The door creaked wider and admitted a wave of stale, dry air full of the smell of dust and machine oil. A faint ozone bite that reminded him of broken electronics.

The space beyond was bigger than it looked from the outside. Not unnatural, just deceptive. The bulk of the citadel loomed close behind, throwing off perspective and masking how deep the outbuilding actually ran. At least twenty meters wide, maybe more. Tall ceilings arched above them in smooth, continuous stone. The interior had the bones of a warehouse. No shelves, but the floor was lined with neatly stacked wooden crates that reached chest height or higher, all arranged in methodical rows like someone had taken inventory recently and wanted to keep things tidy. Each crate bore the same jagged insignia, a crown encircled by broken chains. The image was familiar, but not quite placeable.

Zoey tilted her head as she stepped around the first row, her voice low. "That mark... I saw it during the siege. One of the banners in the back lines. I'm going to assume it is Simulation flavor for the General's army."

Xander jabbed the butt of his spear into the edge of a crate and popped the top panel loose. The wood gave easily, dry and splintered but intact. Inside the box was completely empty. Not even a scrap of packing cloth.

Jo checked the crate nearest her and got the same result. "Either someone took everything recently," she said, "or these were never filled to begin with."

Cabbot, still perched on Xander's shoulders, let out a slow, breathy chuff, more irritation than concern. Her tail flicked once against his back.

"Empty crates in a warzone." Xander said. "That's always a good sign."

The noise came without warning. A sharp scrape above and to Xander's left, claws dragging across wood.

Jo turned instantly, sword half-raised, eyes already tracking movement across the top of the nearest stack.

"Left," she snapped.

The first zombie dropped over the edge of a crate behind her and hit the ground hard. The second followed an instant later, landing between Zoey and Xander with a wet thud.

[Analyze] Shambling Zombie | Level: 6 | Status: Hostile | Class: Fighter [Analyze] Shambling Zombie | Level: 7 | Status: Hostile | Class: Fighter

The first didn't get a chance to act. Jo was already there, blade flashing in a tight arc. Her strike didn't pause for flesh or bone. It passed through the thing's neck and shoulder cleanly, sending its head spinning away in a lazy arc while the body slumped into a twitching pile.

The other one surged toward Zoey, too close for her to draw back her bow. She jumped back, nearly tripping over a discarded lid, her bow caught in the wrong grip.

Xander stepped in without thinking.

He angled his spear low, letting instinct pull Radiant Smite to the surface. The moment the tip struck dead center in the zombie's chest, light flared through the wood, then through the flesh. The impact triggered in a burst of divine pressure that tore through the creature from the inside.

It exploded.

Rot and viscera sprayed across the crate wall, the floor, and all three of them. Xander took most of it across the front of his armor. Jo caught a sheet of it along her boots. Zoey, closest to the point of impact, got tagged in the face and upper chest like she'd been standing under a burst pipe.

The smell hit next. Hot and chemical. Like something had been rotting in a storm drain for two weeks, then set on fire.

Zoey let out a sound that could only be described as a dying hawk gagging on spoiled meat.

Jo slowly turned toward Xander, expression neutral but unreadably cold.

He wiped a clump of something unidentifiable off his chestplate and managed a half-hearted shrug. "Sorry. It was that or let it hug Zoey."

"Next time, let it hug me," Zoey said, her voice strained through clenched teeth as she peeled a string of guts off her shoulder. "Seriously."

Cabbot, who had wisely phased into the crate stack moments before the blast, emerged on the other side pristine and unbothered. She looked at the mess, looked at Xander, and issued a pointed, haughty huff before leaping gracefully to the next row of crates like the entire affair had wasted her morning.

"Glad you're fine, miss flippy tail," Xander muttered.

They waited a beat to make sure nothing else was moving. Nothing stirred in the shadows. No fresh spawns dropped from the ceiling, and the only sound was the slow drip of fluid pooling beneath the ruined bodies.

At the far end of the room, a reinforced metal door stood half-recessed into the wall. The words INTAKE STORAGE were stenciled across the top in peeling white letters. A low hum buzzed from behind it. Faint, but steady. Like whatever power grid ran through this place had only half-failed.

"I hope we're not looking at another mechanical dungeon," Xander said as he grabbed the door's handle.

Congratulations! You have discovered the Gravenreach Logisitics Annex. Originally constructed to serve as a secondary intake and distribution hub beneath Gravenreach Citadel, this facility once processed supply shipments and rations for extended siege operations. Now, its shelves are empty, its conveyor systems fractured, and the corridors echo with corrupted remnants of its final inventory cycle. Proceed with caution. Structural integrity is stable, but a hostile presence is confirmed.

WARNING: Players have not successfully cleared this dungeon. If not defeated within five months and twenty-three days, General Malgrath will regain his strength and once again wreak havoc upon the area.

He turned slightly. "Warehouse dungeon. After that, the description really isn't helpful. It could be an undead dungeon or a mechanical dungeon."

Zoey shook gore off her gloves and shot a look at the door. "Feels like a place to burn our supplies and smell like ass for the rest of the day."

"You want to clear it?" Jo asked.

Xander shook his head. "Yes, but not today. We're here for recon. JT can send Harvey or one of the other teams to sweep it later. I don't want to spend a mana bar getting killed by a forklift zombie."

That got a small snort from Zoey, but she didn't argue.

They stepped back out into the daylight slick with gore, bits of rotten viscera clinging to armor seams and tangled in Zoey's hair. Xander had wiped his face with his sleeve, but it hadn't helped. Jo didn't bother.

The Fort Octave patrol looked up first, hands drifting toward weapons until they registered the trio was in one piece.

Kane blinked, took in the mess, and gave a flat, unimpressed snort.

"You smell like you lost the fight."

Corporal Hask took one look and stepped back, expression unreadable under his helmet.

Sargent Darvos just waved his hand in front of his face. "You find anything useful in there?"

"A couple of corpses and poor decisions," Xander said.

"Alright," he said, turning toward the next building. "Let's keep going. I want to get this done so I can grab a shower."

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