The city of Verdazza woke beneath a molten sky, the sun bleeding through heat-rippled clouds like oil on canvas. The air smelled of lilacs, burnt salt, and something far fouler the reek of rot just beneath stone, of sap turned sour, of bodies once human now something else.
The bells of Santa Liriana tolled across the domed rooftops, their cracked brass throats struggling to remind a dying city that it still lived. Verdazza had been beautiful once before the bloom. Before the DarkShroud forest crept down from within and bled its curse through root and spore into the veins of man.
Beyond the marble fountains and lemon courtyards, the district known as Il Manto Nero brooded behind barricades of stone, timber, and alchemical sigils. Ashen smoke still curled from scorched houses. Thick, glistening vines pulsed through the cobblestone streets like veins beneath flesh. The air hung heavy with the stench of rot and burnt chlorophyll, and from time to time, a distant screech echoed from within the sound of something no longer human.
Now, the district quarter lay barricaded, trapped beneath a quarantine that shifted like a failing dam. Behind its makeshift palisades of lumber, rubble, and rusted pikes, the Virulenti nested.
They had once been citizens masons, fishmongers, scholars. Now their limbs bloomed with black-green tendrils, cracking through joints, bursting through jaws. Their eyes had gone glassy, their movements twitching between rigid agony and wild, unnatural speed. They moved with the rhythm of the Floroscuro the parasitic plant-creature said to have come from the Deepwood's heart, bringing its blight to all things living.
Verdazza's soldiers, the Milizia di Fiamma, stood guard with weary eyes and cracked helms. Glyphs were etched into the streets at their feet. Nearby, red-robed Magisters of the Bloomed Veil whispered prayers to the ancient spirits of flame and salt, their fingers glowing with restrained power.
"Three gone this week," muttered one guardsman, his helmet askew. "They pulled 'em out with vines in their mouths. Like the rest."
"Silence, Marco," snapped his captain, Savario Bellandi. "Eyes open. Be on the alert on this bastards."
At the western gate, beside a checkpoint covered in hanging alchemical charms and bundles of charred herbs, stood a team of three strangers to this city, but not to its kind of trouble.
Caelum, broad-shouldered and sharp-eyed, leaned against a rusted cart, his lynx-like ears twitching at each distant scream or thunder of cannon. His leather-and-metal armor clinked softly as he flexed his shoulders, adjusting the twin maces at his back. A wrist-mounted crossbow gleamed faintly in the morning light.
"Still smells like piss and incense," he muttered, nose wrinkling.
Beside him, Sylva, the half-elf, stood with her longbow slung across her back and one hand resting on her short spear. She wore her usual light armor stitched with warding runes that pulsed faintly like dew-soaked leaves in morning sun. Her almond-shaped eyes scanned the barricades.
"They've reinforced the main trench since last month," she said quietly. "Means the breaches are getting worse."
Behind them, partially hidden beneath the shade of an awning, the third figure moved. Lucien Vale, cloaked and gloved, his face obscured beneath a dark helm with a visor like a crow's beak. He wore a long coat reinforced with leather and steel, a modified musket slung over one shoulder, twin short-swords strapped across his hips. His left arm, faintly metallic beneath its leather sheath, ticked quietly as he adjusted his grip.
He stepped forward without speaking, presenting a wax-sealed writ to the barricade captain.
The guards two city militiamen and a red-robed Magister of the Bloomed Veil glanced between each other, uncertain, before the magister spoke.
"Questo è valido... sì," she muttered in heavily accented Englodian. "You are those sent by Castelmercia, yes? To retrieve the archivist?"
Lucien nodded once.
The magister's brows knit. She leaned closer, lowering her voice. "He was last seen at the Archivum Tower. A tower deep within the containment zone. You are sure... you wish to go there?"
Caelum snorted. "Not particularly. But we're being paid."
The magister's expression was bleak. "Then may the Fiorvigil keep you." She gestured behind her. "Speak with Captain Rinaldo. He leads the forward purge today. He will open the breach for you."
As they moved past the checkpoint, Caelum grunted toward Lucien. "She didn't even ask if we wanted masks. That's always a good sign."
Lucien's voice was low, rasping through the mask. "We're already too deep for such comforts."
The purge line stretched along a low wall of limestone and hastily mortared rubble. Militiamen stood in firing positions behind heavy pavise shields. Several Magisters knelt in formation, drawing sigils into the dirt with silver chalk, while nearby smoke-belching braziers filled the air with scorched lavender and ghost pepper both known to repel the bloom.
Captain Rinaldo greeted them grimly. A broad, dark-skinned man in worn cuirass, he wore the grim expression of someone who had lost more than just soldiers.
Captain Bellandi stepped forward, offering a half-salute. "Adventurers. You're late."
Lucien's voice rasped beneath his helm, low and measured. "Had to avoid the southern roads. Bandits with fine smiles and faster blades."
"Charming," he said in clipped low Englodian. "You'll move behind the clearing crew. We open the gate. You enter. Once past the main square, you are on your own. The Archivum tower lies on the far edge. Tallest structure west of the basilica."
"and our target?" Sylva questions.
"Name's Magister Emilio Quirrenza," Bellandi added. "Historian. Scholar. He's last report was three days ago. Get him out if hes human and if he's not, well" he didn't finish the sentence.
"We are not surgeons," Caelum growled. "We finish what's broken."
"Nevertheless. We've had no word since then, last scouts said he's last location is the Archivio Vecchio, north of the Piazza Del Santo. Do not linger too long." Bellandi continued.
Lucien gave a brief nod. "Understood."
The gate ahead began to groan open, its iron hinges strained from repeated ice magick repairs. Steam hissed as containment sigils cracked. Then came the wind sickly warm despite the shade, thick with spores and rot.
"Avanzate," Rinaldo barked to his men. "Bruciate i mostri! Nessun ritorno!"
(Advance. Burn the monsters. No retreat.)
The clearing squad surged forward shields locked, torches lit, torches flame hissing. Militiamen barked in dialectal Englodian, smoke trailing behind them like banners of war.
Behind them, the Magisters unleashed magick: gouts of blue flame, roots turned to spears, and spores shattered mid-air, earthshaking roots, and airbursts of null-aether. From within, the rot screamed in protest.
With the remaining Magisters knelt in dirt, chalking glyphs with silver powder. A brazier coughed smoke laced with lavender and ghost pepper known to burn spores on contact. Above them, a warded banner fluttered, bearing the eye of Saint Talanis.
The sound of combat erupted like a chorus of snapping bones and firecrackers.
"Let's move," Caelum snarled, his maces already drawn.
They entered the breach.
They emerged into Piazza Dell'Addolorata, once a flower market now overrun with thorny growths. Buildings leaned inward like whispering corpses, their walls covered in creeping black-vine, their windows shrouded in vines. A shattered statue of the was seen bled ivy from her eyes.
"Stay close," Sylva whispered. "They could be anywhere."
And then they came.
The Virulenti.
Twisted forms, vaguely human, now corrupted by black-green tendrils that burst from their torsos and faces. Some crawled like spiders. Others staggered with the jerky gait of broken marionettes. One howled mouth opened far too wide and hurled itself from a rooftop.
They surged from the alleys, a dozen malformed bodies, their skin pale, choked in tendrils that pulsed like veins. One leapt from a rooftop, its arms outstretched like broken wings. Caelum met it midair with a mace to the jaw. Bone and vine burst outward in a sick spray.
"CONTACT!" he roared.
Sylva loosed an arrow, spearing a shrieking child-like figure through its fungal eye. Two more crawled on all fours toward Lucien who raised his musket, the modified chamber glowing with heat. One pull of the trigger, and a bursting glyph shot split both creatures in half.
"Reloading," he called, already moving.
The fight bled into the ruined gardens of the square, where fallen trellises and overturned carts provided cover. Tendrils erupted from beneath the cobblestones, grappling boots and ankles.
Sylva chanted under her breath, her spear tip flaring with greenish light. With a thrust, she pinned a Virulenti through the gut, vines curling up her shaft until Caelum crushed its skull with a downward swing.
Lucien slashed through the legs of a crawling figure, then plunged his blade into its heart. Its scream was guttural not quite human anymore.
More poured in from alleys and windows. The garden plaza became a battlefield. Vines slithered up from cracks. One wrapped Caelum's ankle until he tore it free and crushed its source with his boot.
Sylva's spear danced between torsos, stabbing deep. A tendril latched onto her wrist until Caelum's mace shattered it.
Lucien dispatched a crawling Virulente with cold precision, blade to spine.
Then the square went still.
Only the groan of distant tendrils and the snapping of wet branches reminded them the fight never truly stopped.
"We go straight through the Basilica district," Lucien said, cleaning his blade. "Avoid the riverfront. It's overrun."
"Works for me," Caelum said, shaking blood from his fur. "But we move quick. I don't like the way the walls sway here."
Sylva crouched, hand pressed to the earth. Her eyes widened. "The Bloom is moving."
Lucien turned. "Where?"
She looked toward the heart of the district the tall, leaning tower wrapped in writhing vine.
"Toward the Archivum."
They pressed on into a city that breathed rot, beneath a sun that felt more like judgment than warmth.
The streets beyond Piazza Dell'Addolorata narrowed into alleys choked with vines and shuttered homes. Once sunlit canals were now murky veins, choked with floating debris and hunched shapes that barely moved beneath the algae-scummed surface. Balconies leaned like mourners, and crumbling frescoes of saints wept black mildew.
Every corner whispered danger.
"Careful," Sylva said in a hush. "These walls hide more than rot."
Lucien raised a gloved hand, signaling a halt. His visor scanned the rooftops gutters where vines curled like waiting fingers. Caelum shifted behind a broken cart, maces drawn, ears twitching.
A cry echoed down the alley.
Not the gurgled screech of a Virulenti but a human voice, desperate and raw.
"Aiuto! Per l'amor degli eoni, qualcuno!"
(Help! For the love of the aeons, someone!)
"Over there!" Sylva pointed to a collapsed house with smoke rising from its ruined hearth.
They moved in formationLucien leading, musket readied. Inside, amid shattered beams and spilled bricks, they found a trio of militia soldiers, bloodied and huddled in a half-collapsed dining hall. One of them held a short pike at the ready.
Another cradled a woman and two children beneath a broken table, shielding them from the shadows that stalked just outside.
The eldest soldier rose shakily, a young man no older than twenty, his cuirass cracked and splattered with sap and blood. His left eye was bandaged with a blood-soaked cloth.
"Chi siete voi?" he demanded, voice taut with fear. "Siete... vivi?"
Lucien lowered his weapon slightly. "We are travelers. Hired to retrieve someone from the Archivum Spiralis."
The soldier stared at him for a heartbeat too long, then sagged in relief. "Grazie al cielo... We were escorting civilians when the Bloom cut us off. They're everywhere. We're trapped."
Caelum moved to the door, eyes sharp. "Not anymore. But we're not here for rescue. Can they move?"
The soldier hesitated. "One of the children was bitten. We do not know if the infection has taken root."
That changed everything.
Sylva knelt beside the child barely six years old, his leg wrapped hastily in cloth soaked through with purple-black ichor. The boy whimpered as she unwrapped it. Tendrils already pulsed beneath the skin.
"Too late," she whispered. "If he stays, he becomes one of them. If he leaves, he spreads the rot."
The mother sobbed. "No, per favore... È ancora mio figlio..."
(No, please... He's still my son...)
Lucien stepped forward. "We'll escort the rest. But the boy... cannot leave this zone."
The soldier didn't argue. He looked at the child for a long moment. Then drew his dagger.
They left in silence. The mother's wailing echoed down the alley until it became part of the city's greater grief.
They entered the Via delle Ombre, once a thriving square lined with florists and tailors. Now, flowering vines burst from cracks in statues, and bones lay half-buried beneath overturned market stalls. In the square's center stood a burnt-out chapel, its bell tower blackened, doors shattered. Faint flickers of light danced within lantern flame.
Lucien crept forward, raising a closed fist. The others halted as he whistled low
two sharp tones, followed by one.
A reply came: one short note.
Militia code.
He stepped into the doorway slowly, musket angled down. Inside, the pews had been overturned into makeshift barricades. Three figures two soldiers and one bloodied magister looked up from behind a stack of prayer benches.
One of the soldiers slumped to the side, pale and clutching at his chest. Vines crept from under his skin. The other soldier, his face smeared with soot and blood, snapped to attention and aimed a flintlock rifle before realizing who stood before him.
"Fottuto inferno," he swore. "You're real. Thought we were all spectrals already."
Lucien lowered his hood just slightly. "We're looking for Magister Quirrenza. Your captain sent us through."
The soldier nodded, glancing at the wounded mage beside him. She wore the sigil of the Ashen Archive, though her robes were scorched and one hand had been replaced by a bramble-wrapped bandage.
"He's alive maybe. Was last seen near the Archivio Vecchio. That way." He pointed toward a vine-choked alley beyond the chapel ruins. "But the Virulenti… they refuse to enter it anymore. Something's different there."
Caelum stepped forward, eyes narrowing.
"What's your name, soldier?"
"Corpo Lucano, milizia flamante." He gave a tired half-salute. "We're all that's left from our squad. The others… we burned them. They turned too fast."
Sylva knelt by the mage. "She's been touched by it. You'll need to cauterize the wound."
"We already did," said Lucano bitterly. "And then it spread to her eyes."
Lucien's gaze lingered on the mage's face bandaged. Her lips trembled.
"Kill me… if I become one of them…" she whispered in broken Englodian.
"Tu non sei ancora perduta," Sylva replied softly.
(You are not yet lost.)
Lucien stood. "We'll clear the way ahead. Stay hidden. Barricade the chapel once we pass."
Lucano gave a curt nod, tightening his grip on his rifle.
As the trio stepped through the broken apse and into the alley beyond, Lucien paused at a wall covered in creeping green thorns. A mural, once hidden by vines, had been exposed by weathering. It depicted a blooming flower with black crystals instead of petals and an eye in its center.
"Interesting," he murmured.
Caelum cocked his head. "What?"
"Nothing." He shook his head and moved on.
It was not long until the Virulenti surged forward like a broken tide.
Caelum roared and met them head-on, his twin maces spinning into a blur. The first blow crushed a creature's vine-covered clavicle with a wet snap, the second cracked through an eye socket, showering crystallized spores into the air. Green-black fluid spattered across his gauntlets. He didn't stop.
To his right, Sylva loosed three arrows in rapid succession. One buried itself in a Virulente's throat, pinning it to a wall. The second pierced a bloated joint, sending the creature stumbling. The third was dipped in a vial of alchemical solvent when it struck, the target ignited, tendrils curling and shrieking in oily flame.
"Behind you!" she cried, her voice clear as bellglass.
Caelum ducked instinctively as one of the wall-crawlers launched from above, claws outstretched. Lucien intercepted it mid-air with a thunderous shot his modified musket barked smoke, the custom slug ripping through the thing's torso. It hit the ground and twitched, trying to crawl with half a spine.
They regrouped beside a broken cart. Blood steamed where it splashed the cobbles, sizzling faintly against the charged mana crystal fragments that now littered the earth like sick snow.
Lucien scanned the alley with a sniper's calm, sliding a new cartridge into his musket's side port.
"Six down. Two retreated."
Sylva turned to Caelum, wiping blood from her cheek.
"They're fast"
Caelum spat. "You can say that again i got almost bloody jump by those-"
A shriek rose again, not from Virulenti this one, human.
Lucien raised his hand silently and led them forward
They passed under hanging roots and shivering fog. Ahead, the black spire of the Archivum Tower across the Basilica District rose like a finger from the earth in the, crooked and looming.
The next assault had begun.
The Basilica District loomed ahead its cathedral towers twisted by vine and time. Once, this district housed nobility and clergy. Now it was overgrown with the floral infection, architecture wrapped in unnatural petals and blackened roots. Ivy cascaded from broken stained glass like blood.
"Over there," Sylva said, pointing. "A trail of burned sigils."
Indeed, scorched stone traced a path eastward magickal glyphs left in charcoal, likely by the very man they sought: Magister Emilio Quirrenza, scholar of history, master of magecraft and magick. He had fled here weeks ago after a failed containment experiment in Boscoscurro.
"It's a warning," he murmured. "This place is twisted now. The Bloom is not the only thing in play."
Caelum spat. "Let me guess. Crystals?"
Lucien nodded. "Dark ones. Shadow-bound. The kind that hum beneath your bones."
A sudden shudder ran through the cobblestones.
From the broken basilica, figures emerged. Not the shambling of the Virulenti but purposeful, heavy-footed.
They were once city guards.
Now they were Hollowed.
Their armor hung on them like rusted skin. The veins beneath their flesh pulsed with blackened crystal, shards protruding from their arms, eyes glowing violet. Unlike the Virulenti, they still held weapons and they moved with discipline.
"Back!" Lucien barked.
The party took cover behind a fallen marble column as the Hollowed advanced with eerie coordination.
Sylva loosed an arrow it struck one of the Hollowed in the throat, but it didn't even flinch.
"They're shielded by something," she hissed. "magick shield? Crystalline armor?"
Lucien reloaded his musket, this time sliding a silver-tipped cartridge etched with runes.
"Only one way to find out."
He fired.
The shot struck the lead Hollow directly in the sternum. A thunderclap echoed and the creature exploded in a spray of black shards and shrieking mist.
"Ward work," he said coldly. "Aim for the heartstones."
Caelum roared as he leapt from cover, twin maces cracking the knee of one Hollowed guard. The creature swung a halberd at himmissed by inches before Sylvaine skewered its side. Lucien, moving through broken pews like a ghost, fired again then drew both short swords to block an oncoming blade.
The Hollowed were strong but not invincible.
For every one that fell, three more emerged.
Soon, the district echoed with the sounds of ringing steel, screaming vines, and the howl of unnatural voices.
Caelum took a blow to the shoulder, his armor denting inward. "We need to MOVE NOW!"
Lucien slashed open another enemy's throat and backed toward the staircase at the edge of the district.
"North tower," he growled. "That's the Archivum!"
Sylvaine's spear arced, knocking one final Hollow from the upper stair. "Then run!"
They dashed through the final arch, breath heaving, weapons bloodied, boots slipping on petals and ash.
Behind them, the Basilica District burned, set aflame by a delayed firetrap left by the fleeing magisters.
The path ahead led to the Archivum Tower, half-shrouded in shadow.
It stood tall and crooked, its spire tilted, wrapped in thorned vines and dark crystal that pulsed like a heartbeat.
"Last chance to turn back," Caelum muttered.
Lucien looked up at the tower, then at the sun slowly lowering toward the horizon.
"Too late for turning," he said.
They entered.
The Archivum Tower opened with a whispering moan.
Not a sound from hinges or broken wood, but from something beneath the threshold as though the tower itself breathed. Its double doors, of darkened oak and silver inlay, stood cracked ajar. Vines had torn up the floorboards.
Black moss spread like mold down the columns.
Inside, the air was heavy with rot and arcane static. The walls once lined with tomes and scrolls were gutted, paper shredded into confetti that hung in the air like ash. Bookshelves had been overturned, and runic chalk markings burned dimly along the spiral stairs leading upward.
Lucien stepped through first, musket held low, scanning for tripwires, runes, or worse echoes. His left hand glinted as he tapped a hidden rune beneath his coat. His voice, low and sharp, echoed across the ruined hall.
"Eyes open. This place's been claimed."
"By what?" Caelum asked, his voice lowered.
Sylva brushed her fingers across a bookshelf warped by mana. "Not just the Bloom. The crystals here… they're different."
From deep above, a groan answered. Like stone grinding over stone, like a voice trying to recall what it once was.
Lucien's eye twitched beneath his visor. "We're close."
They ascended the spiral stair cautiously, passing rooms where infected scrolls coiled around bones, or shattered magical wards sparked feebly in vain. The tower had fought a losing war.
Then, at the summit the observatory level they found him.
Emilio Quirrenza or what remained of him.
The room's domed ceiling had collapsed partially, allowing beams of summer sun to filter through, illuminating a circle of crystal and blood. In the center stood the Magister tall, robed in remnants of ceremonial white, now darkened by mold and soot. His limbs were elongated, skin stretched thin over obsidian growths that jutted from his spine and skull.
His eyes were gone.
In their place, voidglass shards, pulsing purple-black.
Around him lay the broken bodies of Virulenti and militia alike, twisted and still smoldering from recent battle.
Caelum whispered, "Archons preserve us…"
"Quirrenza?" Sylva whispered.
Taviano's jaw opened, unhinging like a beast, and let out a keening wail a sound like wind through dying bells.
Then he moved.
With unnatural speed, the Hollowed Magister launched himself across the room striking with talons wrapped in crystalline armor.
Lucien barely blocked the first blow with a crossguard, thrown backwards across a shattered desk. Caelum met the second strike head-on, his maces slamming into the creature's side. The Hollow shrieked and retaliated, smashing him through a bookcase.
"Sylva!" Lucien barked. "Heartstone! Center mass!"
She fired two arrows in quick succession. One scraped Quirrenza's side. The second struck true, embedding deep in his torso. He howled but did not fall.
"Too much shielding!" she cursed.
The Magister lifted both hands, gathering dark energy into an orb of shrieking violet flame.
Lucien rolled to his feet and fired a rune-bullet. It struck Quirrenza's left arm mid-casting, and the limb exploded in a mess of crystal and gore. The spell fired wide, tearing a crater into the wall.
"His body's fighting the infection," Lucien hissed, "but the crystal's winning."
Caelum rose, bloodied, armor cracked. "We kill what's left."
He charged his maces a blur of spiked silver, battering through the Hollow's defenses. The creature lashed out in turn, slicing across Caelum's shoulder but Lucien intercepted with his short swords, driving them into the Magister's side.
Still, he would not fall.
Sylva leapt from above, short spear in hand. She drove it into the Hollow's back, piercing deep near the spine.
The creature screamed once a man, now only rage.
Lucien stepped forward, aimed his musket point-blank beneath the jaw.
"Rest now."
BANG.
The Hollow crumpled, spine cracking, black ichor spilling across the stone.
Silence returned, broken only by the heavy breathing of the trio.
Sylva pulled her spear free with a wet sound, wiping it on torn drapery. "That… was the Magister."
Lucien knelt beside the body. "No longer."
As Caelum looted the shelves for anything untouched by corruption, he called out, "Over here. A chest warded, but intact."
The faunasian and elf worked quickly, Sylvaine unraveling the faded lock sigil while Caelum pried the lid.
Inside: a small ebony box, lined with velvet and etched with unknown runes. Within it: scrolls black parchment, silver ink, symbols unreadable even to Sylvaine's elven lineage.
"These aren't city codes," she muttered. "This is… in strange tongue."
"Bring it," Lucien said. "That's our reward."
He searched the Hollow's corpse one final time and found something on a chain around Taviano's ruined neck: a silver locket, engraved with a name in old Virellian script.
"Alarico Quirrenza."
He pocketed it without a word.
The tower shook.
Outside, the sky darkened, not with sunset but with smoke and flame.
The Magisters' Final Purge had begun.
From their high vantage, they saw plumes of fire erupt across Verdazza's northwest quarter. The barricades had been opened, cleansing flames consuming the infected zone. Militia mages stood at a distance, chanting, summoning burning winds. Civilians fled what they could.
The flames surged toward the tower.
Lucien pulled his cloak tighter. "We leave. NOW."
They escaped through a secret servant stair, barely ahead of the fire.
The Archivio Vecchio crumbled behind them, fire devouring the tower like a hungry god. Smoke curled into the bloated summer sky. The stench of burning rot fouled every breath.
Caelum led, limping but upright. Sylva moved beside him, drawn bow in trembling hands. Lucien brought up the rear, musket slung across his back, cloak hem scorched and trailing ash.
But they weren't alone.
The flames had stirred the Virulenti.
In alleys choked with smoke and vines, shapes slithered. Screams echoed through distant quarters. Other parties hadn't been as lucky.
Sylva pointed. "There via del Averno. The barricade's past the basilica!"
They turned and found the street in chaos.
Verdazzan militia manned a failing barricade of carriages and rubble. Behind them, magisters in crimson robes hurled firebolts at the tide of Virulenti surging down the street.
Lucien sprinted ahead. "Incoming from the Archivio! Friendly!"
"By the Aeons! Open the gap!" a soldier shouted.
Caelum and Sylva followed, ducking a firebolt mid-run.
A Virulenti burst from a doorway. Lucien stabbed it twice steel twisting deep before Caelum dragged him through the opening.
"Move or I'll carry your teeth in a sack!" Caelum shouted.
Then came the brute.
Towering Body of numerous bodies and tendrils. It crashed into the barricade like a battering ram. Musket fire barely slowed it.
"Magisters!" cried a militiamen.
The red-robed casters raised their hands, chanting as one.
A golden beam split the air flame incarnate cutting the brute in half.
"Fall back to Gate Two!"
The trio joined the retreat, pushing through the narrow gate beyond. It slammed shut with a clang. Above, magisters etched it with a shimmering shield wall.
They were safe, for now.
The return to the city-state of Carminessa was quiet.
No cheers. Just creaking wheels and the sobs of survivors. Through scorched avenues and ruined canals, the caravan moved past grieving families and shuttered homes.
At the Adventurers' Hall, they stood before the council noble robes, perfumed fear, eyes sharp as knives.
"You recovered the scrolls?" one asked.
Sylva offered the sealed silver box. "No tampering."
"And the target?"
"Hollowed," Lucien replied.
A hush swept the chamber.
The head councilor sighed, and rub his temples. "Unfortunate. But expected."
A scribe stepped forward with a heavy pouch of coin, placing it on the table.
"Your agreed reward."
Sylvaine accepted it. "Pleasure doing business."
As they turned, another voice calm, precise
Asked: "All of you survived?"
Lucien paused. "By luck and steel."
Night fell as they entered the adventure hub in the nearby city-state of Dulvessa a bustling port where mercenaries, magisters, and wanderers gathered in one place.
The trio walked through the iron-banded doors into La Taverna delle Stelle, nestled beneath balconies of ivy and hanging lanterns. The air smelled of firewood and peppered stew, a blessed contrast to the rot and ruin they'd crawled through.
Caelum slumped into his chair, tossing his cracked gauntlets onto the table with a groan. "Never again," he muttered. "You hear me, Sylva? You drag me into another library full of screaming crystals and I'll chuck you out a window."
Sylva smirked faintly, though her hands trembled as she unstrung her bow. "Noted. Next time: something simple. Like a basilisk den."
Lucien remained standing, watching the tavern doors for a long moment before finally removing his coat. His metal arm hissed softly as the gears inside realigned. With slow care, he placed a silver locket on the table between them.
Alarico Quirrenza..
Caelum eyed it. "Family?"
Lucien didn't answer at first. Then, softly: "Someone the Hollow remembered. Even as the crystal took him."
Sylva stared at the locket, then at him. "You think they feel it? What they become?"
Lucien met her gaze. "I know they do."
Silence fell over them again.
Then, a tavern girl approached with a notepad and a tired smile. "Welcome back. What'll it be?"
Caelum straightened, rubbing at a bruised shoulder. "Meat. Anything roasted, not grown from a corpse, and preferably not still moving."
"Same," Sylva said.
Lucien raised a brow. "Wine. The dark kind."
The girl nodded and vanished, leaving the three in flickering lanternlight.
They didn't speak of the scrolls. Not yet. Nor the final scream of Quirrenza. Nor the cinders that still choked Verdazza's skies.
They sat with the weight of what they had done and what they had brought back.
Eventually, Caelum lifted his mug, foam spilling over the side.
"To the dead," he said, voice quiet.
Lucien added, "And what we carry from them."
They drank.
Beyond the open shutters, the bells of Verdazza tolled, soft and distant an echo through the smoke.