The ash-black stone of the second outbuilding drank light like it resented reflection. Unlike the citadel and first building, there were no windows or glowing runes, just a single door of solid iron and sealed tight. It sat hunched beneath the shadow of the citadel like a cyst, as if the city had grown around it by accident and now regretted the oversight.

Xander stopped ten feet from the threshold to take in the scene. It was as if something just inside the door had paused mid-step and was watching through a peephole. Waiting for them to break in.

On his shoulder, Cabbot tensed.

"Hold here," Xander said.

Kane and Ford eased to a stop, flanking Darvos' patrol where they fanned out along the sidewalk like a loose net. Zoey drifted up next to him, bow low, eyes higher. Jo mirrored her from the opposite side, a half-step behind but already reading the angles. Professional silence followed. The kind you earned after enough near-deaths made words redundant.

Darvos shifted beside him. "Not to be rude," he said, "but I've got to ask. The cat?"

"Rescued her in a dungeon right after the reboot," Xander replied, keeping his voice even. "She decided to stick around."

Darvos made a low sound, not quite a grunt. "Didn't think I'd ever see something like in my life. Ghost cat. Strange new world."

"Neither did I." Xander reached up and scratched the back of Cabbot's head without looking. Her ears flicked in a way that could have meant approval or disdain. Knowing her, both.

Hask edged up behind them, glancing toward Cabbot. "Is it… dangerous?"

"It's a cat. Cats are always ready to throw smoke and punch above their weight class," Xander said. "But no, she's not dangerous to people. She's my companion."

Which only made the soldiers exchange glances. The polite kind, with no comments but a clear look of doubt.

Cabbot chose that moment to stand up, arch her back, and stretch as if they were wasting her morning. Then she turned toward the second outbuilding and gave a hiss while her tail snapped twice.

Cabbot stared at the iron door, hackles continuing to rise. Then, in one smooth motion, she stepped down from Xander's shoulders and phased into nothing. Gone without sound.

Darvos whistled low through his teeth. "Does it normally just vanish like that?" He asked.

Xander watched the door a second longer before replying. "She. And yeah. Comes and goes. But that…" He finally turned. "She's pissed at whatever's inside, and she's usually right. Everyone on your toes."

Darvos didn't argue. He looked over his shoulder and made a subtle hand motion. Hask peeled off and took position on the far side of the entrance, signaling two of his team to cover the flanks. For a moment, Xander had a bit of jealously at how well they moved as a team. That's what professionals looked like when doing a job.

Dismissing the thought, Xander stepped closer, just shy of the threshold.

The first outbuilding had felt dusty, dry, filled with stale machine oil and disuse. This one was different. The scent here was metallic and sharp, like scorched copper braided with old incense and something sour beneath it all. Acrid. Like blood that had burned too long on hot stone.

"Set up a position here," Xander said, nodding to Kane and Ford. "If it goes south, storm in on my call."

Ford nodded once, already adjusting the grip on his staff, eyes distant. Kane simply shifted from foot to foot, shield low but ready.

"I hate these damn undead tomb-buildings," Zoey said, falling in behind Xander as he reached for the door handle. "Next time we scout, let's do it somewhere with sunlight and birds."

"Speaking of birds. Anyone notice there are no birds?" Jo said from behind. "Not here."

She wasn't wrong. The entire block had gone unnaturally quiet. Even the wind felt like it was holding its breath.

Xander steeled his nerves and pulled the door open in one swift motion.

The slab of iron gave with a rusted groan and revealed a narrow entry hall descending into the dark. There were no torches or ambient lighting. Just stone steps and the feeling of icy dread. It made Xander's skin crawl.

He turned his head slightly. "Jo, Zoey. With me. Here we go."

Darvos gave a short nod. "Hask, stay with the line."

Xander stepped over the threshold and into the dark.

The moment he crossed, the smell they'd caught outside surged forward and hit like a wave. It wasn't rot. It was death itself, soaked into the stone and hanging in the air like something a cloud waiting to be noticed.

Three steps down, a green phosphor glow flickered to life along the seams of the walls. It wasn't bright, but bright enough to give shape to the hallway ahead.

This was not a warehouse. Not even close.

The stone here was patterned. Shallow runes lined the walls, not the kind used for enchanting or traps. These almost seemed like they were prayers. Dozens of them, layered and repeating, carved so densely they nearly blurred together. He couldn't read the language, but the shape of the supplication was familiar.

This place was a shrine or a prison pretending to be one.

Jo moved beside him, her voice low. "We sure about this?"

"No," Xander said. "But I want eyes on whatever's down here before we mark it for JT."

They moved in a slow, careful formation. The corridor opened after twenty paces into a wide, circular chamber with vaulted ceilings and a shallow dais at its center. The floor was covered in ash, thin but deliberate, swept into patterns that looked ritualistic at first glance and military on the second. Marching lines. Encirclement formations. Some kind of ritual diagram done in soot.

A single stone plinth stood at the center of the room, unadorned and too precisely placed to be accidental. On top rested a skull, lone and undisturbed, its surface pale and intact, with no signs of fire, damage, or age. It looked less like a remnant of violence and more like an offering.

Behind him, Jo drew in a sharp breath, the kind that came with recognition more than surprise..

Zoey stopped moving.

"Xander," Jo said.

He turned. Her expression was tight, but not closed. Something in her had shifted.

"I've seen this crest," she whispered, tapping the hilt of her blade where it touched a carved seal in the wall. "Right here. Back in Saint Joseph."

Xander looked. The emblem was cracked but still clear. An inverted crown tangled in iron thorns had been carved deep into the stone. He didn't recognize it with certainty. But the way Jo stared at it, the shift in her voice. That was enough. It came from a part of her story she hadn't shared. And whatever it meant, it wasn't nothing.

A chill rolled up Xander's spine.

He stepped away from the plinth, circling wide to get a full view of the chamber, finally letting his eyes take in the rest of the space that had been so easily overshadowed by the altar.

Ash covered everything. Not just scattered piles or burnt traces but whole streaks drawn in long, uneven lines across the stone that formed symbols dragged in soot, smeared by hand or bone or worse. At first glance they looked random, but as his focus adjusted, the structure emerged. Spirals. Crossed circles. The jagged crown. One set near the far wall had been overdrawn again and again, the lines dug deep into the soot like someone had tried to make it stick in the stone through sheer pressure.

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Darvos swore softly under his breath. "They match. Almost exactly."

Jo didn't say anything. She was already moving toward the closest wall, following one of the larger sigils with her eyes. Her face had gone pale, jaw set tight. The fingers on her hilt twitched once but didn't draw.

"I've seen this before," Darvos continued, stepping up beside Xander. His voice was lower now, flatter. "We've found three sites across our patrol routes with these patterns. Every time, it's the same. Ash symbols. Candles. And a body count."

Jo stopped in front of one of the larger marks, her back straight but not relaxed.

"This was in Saint Joseph," she said. "In the tunnels, under the high school. I didn't get a good look at all of it... but the lines are the same."

She didn't sound scared. She sounded like someone trying not to rage.

Xander gave her a look. Not one that needed words. It was the look that came after spending years as a couple combined with months of fighting side by side and sharing space too small to fake anything. A question, quiet and clear. What do you need from me?

Jo caught it. Didn't blink. She mouthed later, then turned back to the wall, the muscles in her neck pulled tight like she was holding something back by will alone.

The copper stench thickened near the edge of the room. Half-burnt candles sat melted into stone recesses, and the remains of alchemical gear lay strewn along the edges. Flasks held dried crusts, blackened circlework scorched into the floor, and torn ritual parchment had been folded and wedged under a broken tile. Whoever had worked here had done it in a hurry, or in a frenzy.

Or both.

There was blood too. Smears on the floor, some in sweeping gestures, others in tight concentric marks. One wall bore handprints dragged downward from eye height, the kind that left streaks.

In the far corner, half tucked behind a collapsed support beam, lay a body. Xander moved toward it slowly, spear in hand but lowered. The corpse wore a ragged coat layered over ritual robes, with both sleeves torn at the arms as if the garment had been yanked off someone else and hastily reused. The skin was mottled and bloodless, marked with old scars in patterns too precise to be random. Across the chest, loose threads hung where stitched symbols had come undone, dangling like spilled entrails. The entire body looked wrong. It looked as if someone had discarded it.

Darvos crouched beside it, brushing aside the folds of cloth with practiced ease. "Cult robes," he said. "Same stitch pattern. Same cut."

He rolled the body slightly and pulled up the sleeve. Ink coiled along the underside of the forearm, jagged and angry, freshly applied despite the state of the corpse. A crown of shattered links wrapped in chains.

Darvos didn't even look up. "Confirmed. Black and red ink. Broken chain, spiked crown. This one was active in the cult."

Xander nodded once, then took in the room again.

More bodies.

They hadn't seen them right away because they hadn't been dumped. They had been placed. Arranged. One in each quadrant of the room. One near the entrance behind a statue. One in a seated pose against the far wall. Another curled in a sleeping position, like they'd lain down and never gotten back up. A fourth, arms crossed over its chest, still wore the shredded remains of a paramedic's uniform.

None of them looked like they'd fought, as there were no defensive wounds or signs of struggle.

Zoey stepped back from one corpse near the dais, covering her mouth with the crook of her elbow. "Okay. This is worse than your exploding zombie trick," she said, voice muffled but clear. "Seriously. It's like they posed for the world's worst group photo."

"Not scavenged," Xander muttered. "No claw marks. No missing limbs. These were... preserved."

Darvos stood, gaze never leaving the ring of bodies. "This is why Commander Rex wants you to come. The Cult isn't hiding anymore."

Xander didn't respond right away. His thoughts returned to the scene in the Saint Joseph High School basement. Everything he had seen there came flooding back as he took in the nearly identical scene before him. Rage replaced disgust as he thought about the architect of it all.

Victor.

Victor had been at Saint Joseph. Hiding behind a mask of authority while the rest of them were too busy putting out fires to see what he really was. And Xander, with all his instincts and all his suspicion, hadn't seen it either. The structure of this place, the patterns scorched into the walls, the ritual work. Every inch of it echoed what had happened back there, the same foul logic applied with surgical cruelty.

And all of it traced back to a man Xander had been close enough to kill. Close enough to stop before the rot could spread. But he hadn't. He'd let it pass, too focused on the collapse in front of him to recognize the one still coming. And now, every sigil drawn in ash felt like a failure carved into stone. Everybody laid out like an accusation.

Xander's hand curled tighter around the shaft of his spear.

A soft update blinked in his vision.

Trace the Vanishing Dead Question Update! You've discovered part of the missing population. But questions remain. You asked where the bodies were. Now you need to ask why. Difficulty: Easy Completion Objective: Discover what is taking the remains and where Rewards: Peace of mind, isn't that enough?

Of course.

He closed the notification and stepped back from the nearest corpse. They weren't going to get answers here, not complete ones anyway. This place wasn't a tomb. It was a stage.

And whoever had played god here wasn't done.

He stepped forward without meaning to, the edge of his boot skimming the inner line of a ritual circle half-faded beneath ash and dried blood. The soot cracked under his weight.

Something shifted behind him.

Zoey's voice cut the silence. "Uh… guys?"

One of the corpses was moving. Slowly. Its limbs jerked with an unnatural rhythm, like a puppet yanked upward by tangled strings. The eyes snapped open all at once, clouded and milky but aware in a way that made Xander's gut tighten. It didn't groan or lurch. It simply stood.

[Analyze] Animated Corpse | Level: 7 | Status: Hostile | Class: Fighter

Jo moved before it fully rose. Her blade swept in low and angled, clean through the torso. The corpse dropped in two pieces with a wet, folding sound that didn't match the weight of flesh.

"Nope," Zoey said, backing toward the door. "Nope, nope, nope."

But it was already too late.

Another body twitched. Then two more. Bones popped, shoulders rotated with a grinding twist, and then they began to rise. All of them. Every corpse they had counted.

A dozen in all.

[Analyze] Animated Corpse | Level: 8 | Status: Hostile | Class: Fighter [Analyze] Animated Corpse | Level: 8 | Status: Hostile | Class: Fighter [Analyze] Animated Corpse | Level: 9 | Status: Hostile | Class: Fighter [Analyze] Animated Corpse | Level: 10 | Status: Hostile | Class: Fighter [Analyze] Animated Corpse | Level: 9 | Status: Hostile | Class: Rogue [Analyze] Animated Corpse | Level: 9 | Status: Hostile | Class: Rogue [Analyze] Animated Corpse | Level: 10 | Status: Hostile | Class: Rogue [Analyze] Animated Corpse | Level: 10 | Status: Hostile | Class: Rogue [Analyze] Animated Corpse | Level: 8 | Status: Hostile | Class: Ranger [Analyze] Animated Corpse | Level: 9 | Status: Hostile | Class: Ranger [Analyze] Animated Corpse | Level: 9 | Status: Hostile | Class: Ranger

"The circles were a trigger," Xander snapped. "They're trapped corpses!"

Darvos was already shouting. "Hask, bring them in! Shields up, form a wall!"

Xander turned, one hand shooting toward the doorway. "Kane, Ford! Haul ass!"

The crash of boots and armor followed as the rest of the squad piled into the chamber. Kane was first, shoulder lowered, shield raised. He slammed into one of the rising dead with the full weight of a brawler's charge, knocking it clear of the ritual circle and into the stone wall hard enough to splinter bone.

One of Darvos' soldiers burst through the doorway, coat still flaring from his sprint, and thrust a hand toward the advancing undead. A surge of pressure rippled outward, unseen but brutal. Three of the creatures were lifted clean off their feet, hurled backward in a violent arc that ended in a bone-crunching impact against the far wall.

They hit hard. They didn't stay down.

Ford stepped clear of the formation, staff raised. A tight flash of gold burst from the tip, and a searing lance of holy energy cracked through the room. It struck one of the corpses center-mass, burning a clean hole through its chest. The thing staggered, charred through, then crumpled.

Hask dropped to a knee, fired two quick bursts from his repeater, and muttered, "I told the Commander this wasn't going to be a milk run. Bet me ten rations I was imagining it."

Zoey didn't hesitate. Her arrow flew past Xander's shoulder, striking clean through the neck of another and pinning it to a support beam. It still writhed, but the spine had gone limp.

Xander met the next creature head-on. Spear forward, he caught it just before it reached Ford, drove the tip up under the jaw and through the skull with a wet crunch. Unlike previously, this time he didn't trigger any holy abilities. Instead relied on old fashion steel and leverage to avoid another exploding corpse episode.

However, the battle wasn't one side as two more swarmed Kane, arms outstretched, clawing past his shield like feral dogs. One latched onto the rim, snarling without a voice, while the other wrapped bony fingers around Kane's forearm.

Ford stepped in behind them to slam his staff onto the floor while casting another spell. The spell bloomed outward in a cone of golden light, vaporizing both creatures in mid-grapple. What remained was dust and tattered rags that never hit the floor.

"More coming!" Darvos warned.

A sixth, then a seventh, clawed its way to standing. For every one that fell, another dragged itself into the fight. Xander felt the press of momentum trying to shift against them.

"Line up!" he barked. "Contain, don't chase!"

They moved, not with fluid precision but with the clumsy urgency of two squads unused to sharing a battlefield. Footsteps overlapped, a few calls doubled up, and for a second it looked like no one had the same playbook. But muscle memory took over fast. Kane dropped into position, shield snapping forward as Zoey slid to anchor the far side, her bow already drawn. Hask locked in beside Ford without a word, firing between steps in a rhythm that didn't need coordinating. One of Darvos' soldiers knelt mid-stride and loosed a volley of crossbow bolts, each one tipped in something volatile. Two of the corpses ignited like kindling and still kept crawling.

The clash tightened, every swing, block, and cast happening in a blur. Xander caught a streak of blond near the rear, one of Darvos' soldiers triggering a spell while laying hands on a wounded scout. The glow was soft, not cleric-bright. Something else. Support class, maybe. He didn't have time to guess.

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