Shatter-Root Ravine felt like the world's cracked tooth. The kind of place where wind got stuck between the stone and started whispering secrets to itself.
Allen stood at the edge, boots sunk an inch deep into brittle ash. Dead roots jutted from the walls like skeletal fingers, tangled and petrified by time. Black vines hung like execution ropes. The sky above—what little filtered through the mist—was pale and cloud-choked, an anemic kind of light that made everything below look unreal.
He adjusted the strap across his shoulder, checked his blades one final time, and descended.
The courier had died somewhere down there. Thal—name meant nothing. Probably someone who'd done his job too well, trusted too long. The satchel he carried was locked, contents unspecified, but the job posting was clear: retrieve it, if there's anything left.
There usually wasn't.
Allen moved quickly but silent, hugging shadows as the ravine narrowed into a funnel. The ground underfoot crunched like dried bone. Twice, he paused—once to listen to a scuttling sound he couldn't trace, and once when a pressure in his chest told him something was wrong.
He found the body near a split in the stone—slumped at the base of a twisted tree whose bark had peeled away like old skin.
Thal's face was gone.
Not torn. Dissolved.
Parts of his coat were blackened, curled like paper set to flame but never touched by heat. The satchel was still attached to his belt, miraculously intact. Sealed with a rune-lock. Tricky, but not impossible.
Allen knelt, checking the surroundings before reaching out.
The wind stopped.
A whisper scraped across the back of his spine.
Then he heard the legs.
Skittering. Fast. Surrounding.
He spun just as the first willow spider dropped from the tree above, long limbs gliding like ribbons. Its body was narrow and segmented, colored like dead leaves, but its eyes burned emerald. Eight of them. And each held a glimmer of something that didn't belong to the natural world.
Allen moved sideways, slashing out. The blade caught nothing.
Another landed behind him. Then two more to his left, one to his right.
Six!!!.
Thin bodies, long as wolves but faster. Limbs too many. Mouths hinged with barbed, twitching fangs.
He didn't speak. No curse. No call for help.
Allen drew his second blade.
And then they attacked.
The first two came in low, coordinated. He pivoted hard, carving through the left one's reaching limb—blade meeting resistance, cracking through chitin. Black ichor hissed as it sprayed across his arm.
The second spider lunged. He ducked, slashed upwards—caught it across the face, one eye bursting like a blister.
A third leapt from behind. Its limb hooked his shoulder, driving him to the ground.
He rolled with the momentum, came up in a crouch, reversed grip and stabbed under its abdomen, feeling the blade catch and twist. It shrieked, fell twitching.
One down.
But the others were already there.
The next blow came from his blind side. Something spiked into his ribs—fangs. The pain hit slow, like fire through wet cloth. He spun, cutting the creature's leg clean at the knee joint. It hissed, backpedaled, vanishing into the mist.
Two more charged.
Allen stepped between them, forcing them to crowd each other. One's limb jabbed forward—he caught it, redirected the strike, and slammed his elbow into the joint. The other tried to flank, but Allen flung a poisoned dart into its mouth, watching it stagger.
He felt light-headed.
Poison. The fang that had hit him. Already working.
His vision blurred at the edges. The stone turned slick underfoot.
They pressed.
He moved on instinct now, cuts aimed more by training than focus. One blade spun into a defensive arc, the other a blur of counterstrikes. He cut across a mandible, felt claws rake his thigh, ducked low—then a spray of webbing hit his back, sticky and thick, yanking him into a wall.
The force knocked the wind from him. He grunted, lashed out blindly—steel met leg, severed it.
But he was slower now.
Another spider approached, this one limping. He'd injured it before, but not enough. It reared up, fang dripping, green venom sizzling as it hit the ground.
Allen reached for a flask.
Fumbled.
Too late.
It bit into his forearm. Deep.
The scream never made it past his lips.
He drove his blade straight through its skull. Both dropped.
He couldn't tell how long he lay there. Seconds? Minutes?
The sky above turned gray, then darker.
The remaining spiders circled, hesitant. Two bled ichor, one missing a leg, another with a face half-peeled.
Allen stood.
Barely.
He injected himself with one of Shardu's mixtures—anti-coagulant, stimulant. The taste of copper filled his throat. His heart kicked like a mule.
He surged forward.
One spider lunged—he dropped, drove his blade through its underbelly. Didn't wait to confirm.
The last two snapped at him, more cautious now. He faked left, turned right, slashed low. One retreated.
But his legs were failing.
Blood loss. Poison.
The last spider lunged again, jaws wide.
Allen threw his blade.
It embedded in the eye. The thing screamed.
He staggered, gripped a root, and dragged himself past the twitching bodies.
No victory. No clean escape.
But he was moving.
He glanced at the satchel ,still on Thal's corpse.
"Too far."
His vision was blurring ,lungs drowning, fingers shaking.
And then he ran. Sheer will.
"Hold on... don't pass out"
Those were thoughts running within his mind.
****
The path back blurred. He didn't remember how many times he fell, only that the stone kept moving, trees stretched too far, and his limbs buzzed like struck iron.
He stumbled into the Codex's perimeter sometime past the dead hour. His coat was torn, soaked in blood, mud, venom. One eye swollen shut.
His lungs wheezing.
Shardu found him.
Or maybe Allen collapsed first.
Didn't matter.
The alchemist's voice sounded like it came from underwater.
"Seven hells… what did you do, kiss a nest?!!"
His mouth moved. No sound.
Shardu caught him before he hit the ground.
Then there was only darkness.