Seventh Entry

At the end of the corridor stood a plain wooden door. Closed, but not locked. I didn’t think to pause. Still lost in the fog of memory, I moved as if the space belonged to me… like I was returning, not intruding. Foolish. Reckless. I opened the door without caution.

Inside: darkness, but no mystery. My eyes adjusted instantly, granting me the superior sight I sometimes wish I lacked, as it only reminded me that this miserable environment was likely my destined bane. Five figures stood upright, perfectly still, clad in rusting armor, their flesh long given to rot. Corpses, yes, but not at rest. They stood like men frozen mid-breath, held together by something far crueler than muscle or will. Necromancy; a magic older than lesser gods.

They saw me the moment I saw them. I felt it. I backed away, not quickly enough. I pulled the door closed with a trembling hand, but their footsteps had already begun.

I turned, ready to run. Wait, no… I intended to retaliate. Clutching the component strap of my wand, I began to call frost to my fingertips, ready to freeze the threshold shut after making some space between me and the door. But the stone beneath me had other plans. It groaned, splintered, and cracked like bones under strain, causing me to drop my casting. The fissure split across the hallway with unnatural speed, and behind the door I heard the clatter of armor, still incoming.

Then Ragar’s footfalls—Ragar’s presence—breached the archway.

She was running.

I held my hands up. “No, stop!”

Too late.

The floor gave out beneath her, mere strides away from me. The tunnel’s maw opened wide, swallowing her into a pit lined with iron. I dropped to my knees at the edge, my breath shattering into a cry before I could catch it. It summoned the thundering steps of the others.

Astonishingly—absurdly—Ragar landed virtually untouched. Only one spike got her, grazing the side of her thigh, but her feet found purchase in the spaces in between. While falling, she had moved between the iron spikes as if gravity had been a suggestion. A Ragar field note for a later time: rogues defy the world’s rules in ways I will only envy rather than know.

There was no time for relief. The door behind me splintered, groaned, cracked open. I had forgotten to bar it. The undead spilled through, slow but sure, their hollow eyes fixed on me.

Ahead of me: ten feet of empty air and jagged iron.

Beyond it, I saw Jack, already crouched, clawed hand extended to Ragar. Raph’æl stood beside him, fingers trembling, fumbling a spell, then dropping into muscle memory and reaching for his holy symbol instead. And Finnegan, arms open wide towards me, shouted something I could barely hear. His voice passed through me like wind through a canyon.

All senses warped. My vision tunneled. There was nothing but the echo of a life I now barely recognized. A life that wasn’t truly a life. Not until the day the blessed sunlight finally graced my entire being.

No. I refuse to die in darkness.

I stepped back. A skeletal hand grazed my shoulder. Another raised a rusted sword. I surged forward.

I didn’t think. I just ran.

I launched myself over the pit, eyes closed—because I couldn’t bear to see if I had failed.

For one long moment, I was weightless.

Then: the ground beneath me trembled. A hand, firm and real, seized my shoulders.

Finnegan.

He steadied me. Pulled me clear.

I open my eyes. Ragar scrambled out of the trap with Jack’s help, yelping about ghosts. Beside me, Raph’æl raised his symbol to the air, his voice breaking into a sharp and commanding Elvish prayer. The undead halted.

I stood there, my heart shattering in my ribs like glass on stone. They all asked what had happened, the words tumbling over each other with urgency and concern. I hardly registered them. I stood on solid ground, but I felt hollow and floatless, still hovering somewhere above the pit I had nearly died in.

Ragar spoke first. “I ran for her,” she said plainly, as if the choice had been obvious. “Didn’t see the trap until I was in it.” The irritation in her tone was unmistakable.

My voice emerged from somewhere deep, buried beneath layers of shame I didn’t want them to hear. “I’m… so sorry,” I said as evenly as I could, but my throat burned with every syllable. I didn’t look anyone in the eye. I didn’t dare. Behind the brass mask, my teeth were gritted, my eyes were already flooding. My idiocy had nearly gotten her killed. And again… again… I had to be saved.

Then, from the edge of the hall, something drifted through us like fog through a graveyard.

A ghost.

It didn’t acknowledge us at first, only muttered one phrase over and over in a threadbare voice: “Must protect her… must protect her…”

No aggression. It was sorrow.

Raph’æl was the first to engage, his clerical instinct drawing him forward with gentle words and soft gestures. Barred from his faith or not, he still walked it. Jack stepped forward next, his voice low as he recalled something about the manor, about who once hid in this wretched space. And I— I dug through the archives of my own memory, trying to recall the names I had seen etched on plaques or whispered in Phandalin’s conversations.

And then it all came together, piece by fragile piece: this ghost was once the husband of Linene Graywind; owner of the Lionshield Coster. A protector, perhaps, even in life. Now lingering, unpassed. Trapped by violence and loss.

Finnegan, ever curious, ever bold, asked the spirit what bound him here. It turned slowly—its eyes like cloudy glass—and lifted a trembling hand toward the room we had first entered. That strange, serene pool.

It rasped a word I could not hear from where I stood. Finnegan and Raph’æl exchanged glances and gestured us to follow.

We returned at once, our feet unwilling but compelled, drawn toward that unnaturally still water. Its glow felt deeper now, its shimmer more suspect. Ragar, who had been the first to disturb it, was also the first to move again. While the rest of us hesitated at the edges, she pressed her palm to the stonework and felt something—some loose breath in the wall itself.

A hidden entrance, cleverly concealed.

The passage behind the stone gave way to a vast cavern, its width broken by a jagged fissure that split the chamber like a wound. Water trickled faintly somewhere in the dark below, but the sound was distant—swallowed by the chamber’s breadth. A single rope bridge stretched across the divide, sagging slightly at the center, its age and condition clearly not intended for grace or safety. To our right, a narrower path invited us to slip along its edge—claustrophobic and slick, like a secret best left unspoken.

We peered into the fissure, expecting only shadows. But two bodies awaited us there—goblinoid in shape, but horribly wrong in form. Their skulls were malformed, swollen at the crown. And their eyes glowed like hot coals, a dull orange hum. More undead?

As we debated the suspicious sight and whether to trust the bridge, a now-sickeningly familiar sound brought the room to a halt.

That voice again.

The one that had crawled through our minds before. The one that licked its words into our ears like a tongue against ice.

“What is it that you hold dear, Syldithas Myerrheacmeath?”

I couldn’t breathe. It said his name as if it had always known it. Each syllable drawn out, relished. I saw Jack stiffen, his hand snapping instinctively to the intricate metal of his sidearm.

“Your secret… how do you make that device work… hmm… black powder?”

Jack snarled, retracting his grip.

“No… you call it gunpowder.”

The voice fed on his reaction. I could hear its joy in the way the pitch rose, the way it savored the syllables.

And then—“Fanescaaa.”

I went cold.

The air around me tightened. My “name”… this temporary moniker… had never sounded so exposed.

I know nothing, I reassured myself. I am empty. I am safe. But the voice was already pulling the thoughts from me as they surfaced, like blood from reopened wounds.

“Hmm. You don’t know his name…”

What?

“…But you’ve heard it through your ears. How does that make you feel? Heheh.”

My fingers curled into my palms, crossed behind me, pressed to the small of my back. I kept my mind as still as I could, a glass surface over deep water. It had to be lying. It couldn’t possibly know. It couldn’t take what even I didn’t understand. I wouldn’t give it anything. I wouldn’t let it hurt them.

And yet I felt it. Gnawing at the edges of my temporary doubt. Almost gleeful.

The others weren’t spared.

“Ragar Shayrook, you are foolish; you could have gone to the next town; you didn’t need to stay. You knew the treatment wouldn’t work. You were desperate.”

“Hah!” Ragar’s scoff cut through the air like a blade through soft leather. Aware of the echoes she caused, she murmured the rest. “What do you know about desperation?”

It did not answer. A satisfied silence.

“Suuuper, you’re not as good as you think—and you know it.”

Super’s nonchalant smile—the one that seemed etched onto him like a mask—momentarily soured. But only momentarily as he began to shuffle away. He chose not to feed this thing. Either the fortitude of a monk or the aloofness of the grung at play.

“Finnegan Wraithwood, why do you hold back? You could be so much more. So why do you play the fool?” Finnegan opened his mouth, some witty retort likely set to go… but it never passed his lips. Instead, he lowered his eyes to his tome, his body strangely still. Genuine contemplation?

And then…

“Oh, Raph’æl Ward.” Something in the voice changed. It sweetened. “You are running from the darkness of your past.”

I turned just in time to see Raph’æl stumble backward, one hand bracing against the stone wall. He slid down it like a man struck by invisible arrows.

The voice fed on it.

“You’re running from people who may or may not even be chasing you! You truly are a coward in every sense!”

I grimaced within. This was no longer a taunt. It was… a hymn. Jubilance. It found what it was looking for: control over one of us. Each word cracked him further, folding him in on himself like parchment under flame.

Somewhere across the bridge, Ragar had already gone; her steps swift, her intentions obvious. She was hunting. She was done listening. The rest, seemingly inspired, took to the bridge carefully—Finnegan first, then Jack. Super hesitated only long enough to give me a look I couldn’t decipher before bounding up on the cavernous walls, easily slipping past the most precarious corridor.

One by one, they scattered.

Again.

I cannot deny that I wanted to stay behind. Part of me… no, all of me… ached to kneel beside Raph’æl. To place a hand on his shoulder. To offer my arm as an anchor so he could hoist himself up. It was absolutely nothing to offer considering all he had done for us. In truth, I just… wanted so bad to harness that beautiful power I saw at the town square between him and Finn. Healing without the pain of casting.

But no. I had yet to earn such a precious thing. With him or with anyone. Proximity is not a healing spell. Touch is not absolution. And if I could not reach him, then I would silence the thing that could. Even if it meant turning my back to him as he crumpled under the weight of his own past.

I whispered an apology he wouldn’t hear and took my first step onto the bridge.

Each board beneath me groaned painfully. I held my breath, half expecting the sound to transition right back to that rotted, cruel voice. But it didn’t. Not yet. When I reached the other side, the air felt heavier, the ground colder, and the scampering of what I hoped was my traveling companions echoed from all sides. The bridge behind me disappeared into shadow, and before me, carved from the stone, were stairways descending into what looked like storage chambers.

My feet carried me toward the sound of Jack’s voice—loud, certain, grounding. Primal instinct, perhaps; he was the strongest of us, after all. Or perhaps something gentler: trust. Trust that if the world crumbled beneath us again, he’d know how to keep his footing.

But I didn’t even make it down the steps.

Jack barreled through the doorway backward, eyes flashing, boots stumbling, one hand already gripping his weapon while the other slammed the door behind him.

“Make way!” he barked, bounding past me with heat in his voice. “Better to fight ‘em out in the open!”

I didn’t need to ask. I heard them. The dragging of metal. The low hiss of unrest. Another tide of undead had been stirred from their shallow slumber.

I turned at once, shadowing Jack’s retreat, the two of us bounding back into the larger chamber. Finnegan appeared from the opposite stairwell, his face grave, shaking his head before the words even reached his lips.

The scrape of bone on stone echoed up behind him.

Surrounded.

While the others drew steel, I reached into the purse tied at my hip, my fingers fiddling through the clutter of coins until they found the one I needed—an old silver piece, uneven and bitten by its unconventional use to me. No shop would take it, but the gods didn’t mind its sincerity.

I scraped its edge against my sickle, whispering the invocation. Just enough silver dust to spark divine resistance. Protection from Evil and Good. A shield born of creed, not metal.

We were outnumbered—badly. For every swing Jack took, a second foe lunged for him. For every arc Finnegan traced with his sword, another weapon clanged against his shoulder. And from the distant corridors, the sounds of Super’s skirmish told me we were not alone in this.

But this wasn’t Cragmaw. I wasn’t a shadow on the fringe, trembling and ashamed. I stayed near the two of them, rotating between one wounded and the other, channeling healing into their torn flesh with hands that remembered how. It came naturally now. Not all magic demands pain.

“Where—the hell—is Ragar?” Jack spat, punctuating every other word with a strike.

And just then, like the punchline to a cruel jest, she appeared—barely—at the edge of my vision. But her eyes weren’t on us. She was watching something else. Following something deeper. She didn’t turn to help.

It stung.

I wish I could say it didn’t. That I had the patience, or the grace, to understand. But… she had been the first I had ever truly chosen to protect. And for a flickering moment, I wondered if she ever saw me at all.

No matter.

If I cannot prove myself to them, then I will prove myself worthy of them.

I touched the worn leather strap of my wand, found the alabaster chip tied to it—my anchor to ice—and called forth a swarm of packed frost. The air screamed as it left me, the magic crackling loud and bright against the ghost’s armor.

And then my body reminded me that I was only mortal.

Pain bloomed in my hands—pins, needles, fire. My breath came too fast, too shallow. An uncanny nausea overtook me. What was happening? This is new. I did not realize until the battle was long over, but I had never casted this many spells one after the other before. I reached for my sickle. It slipped from my grasp and clattered to the stone. My knees followed. My fingers no longer answered my will, feeling like knives were piercing every single digit.

One of the undead flanked Jack and turned to face me. Its blade lifted.

I didn’t scream. I couldn’t. I braced to roll, to move, to do anything—anything but run. No more running.

A rush of wind. Steel crashing against steel.

And there he was.

Raph’æl.

It was as though fate had placed him between the sword and my being. His shield caught the blow with a deafening clang. I could not see his face, but his was posture unyielding. A barrier not just of iron—but of will.

Raph’æl had thrust himself between me and death… again.

A prayer left his lips—low, sure, resolute—and with it came the shimmer of radiant force. A second shield bloomed into being beside him, not of wood or iron, but faith itself. Spiritual Weapon. It struck with purpose, crashing into the foes closing on Finnegan and driving them back.

For the first time since we stepped into this cursed place, I believed we might leave it whole.

My fingers closed around the grip of my sickle, not for defense, but with purpose now—because of him. Raph’æl had steadied me once again, and I felt something fierce and unshakable climb up through my ribs. It wasn’t rage. It was something quieter. Braver.

I turned, drawn toward Super’s skirmish. His strange, wraparound smirk remained fixed in place as his rapid fists drilled into the ghost’s armor. That was, until a heavy axe bit into his side and made his whole frame buckle. A mask of ease, cracked by the reality of pain.

I surged forward, slid to his flank, and hooked my sickle up under the undead’s elbow just as it reared back for another strike. The arm gave way with a sickening pop and clatter, weapon flying free.

“Please,” I spoke poignantly but projected my voice as strong as I could, “run. You dying here won’t help any of us.”

Who was I to speak like this? Tactician I was not… but maybe my words could help give way to reason. Super paused—long enough for me to feel afraid he might not go. But he nodded once, without a word, and leapt away, vanishing into the chaos beyond.

Two more of the creatures loomed over me. My hands trembled with the ghost of my previous spellwork, the nausea still churning under my ribs like a storm not yet passed. I buried it. Smothered it. Summoned again.

A dozen spheres of bitter frost blinked into existence and struck down with brutal precision. One undead crumbled beneath their weight—bones shattered, armor cracking with a sound like thunder under hail. The other was shoved back, its sword arm limp and dragging.

I clutched the edges of my mask. My breath stuttered. I could feel the bile clawing at the back of my throat, threatening to betray me.

No. Not now. Steady. You have to stay steady.

And then—

’crk-CHK.’

A strange sound, mechanical and sharp, echoed through the chamber.

Jack.

He had stepped into the center of the fray with that long, uncanny staff slung from his back, now extended and gleaming. He clicked something—primed it, I think—and looked beyond us with a wry grin. “Cover yer ears!”

We did.

Deafening was not enough to describe it. The blast was like the voice of a god of war. A single eruption, and two heads—humans once upon a time—spun free of the wretched bodies that carried them. They dropped before they even understood they were gone.

I stared. The purest shock and awe. The force of that… thing. That metal staff. That unholy chorus in his hands. Jack was no mage, and that was no spell. But it might as well have been.

“Keep ’em covered,” he called, now wielding a smaller version of the same tool—quick as a dagger, but louder than anything I’d ever known. Bang. Bang. Bang. The last of the undead fell, their ribcages shattered like porcelain under heel.

My ears rang. My head spun. My stomach twisted with the effort not to vomit inside the mask. The battle was done, but my limbs didn’t believe it yet. I couldn’t move—not until I forced myself to.

I had to reprioritize. The threat wasn’t just the dead anymore.

We had to get out of here.

Home would have to wait.

I had barely pulled myself upright when Super appeared at my side again, bouncing back with that impossible energy he seemed to summon at will. He gestured vaguely toward the gash in his shoulder, a half-tied bandage already blooming red.

“Hey, could you, uhh… do your sparkly thing to that, please?” he asked, as though he were ordering a drink at a tavern and not bleeding down his arm.

My mask may have given the impression of cold silence—perhaps even annoyance—but behind it, I smiled. Not just because of him. Because, in that moment, I needed the absurdity. I needed the simplicity. After everything we’d endured in that place, I was grateful for levity, however thin. I placed my hand gently over the wound, summoning just enough healing to stop the worst of the damage. My stomach turned again at the now very apparent warning that my magic wells were low, but I held it down.

The warmth of that moment was quickly shattered by the barking tones of the others—shouted words, sharp and bitter, echoing through the stone walls like thrown knives. My head ached. What I thought to be arguing was… interrogating. Ragar had returned, stone-faced and silent, emerging from a side room none of us had reached.

In her hands, she held a staff I did not recognize.

“We need to leave,” she said without looking at any of us. “Now. There’s no time.”

But the voice—that voice—was not done with us. Its hiss returned like steam from a dying fire, coiling inside our minds.

“No, NO! What about our deal?!”

Ragar didn’t flinch. She didn’t blink. She strode up the steps of the cellar entrance. “You said you wanted my friends in exchange,” she replied aloud. Her voice was dust. “These people are not my friends.”

There was no scream—only silence at first. A hollowing stillness that pulled the breath from our lungs.

And then—like glass breaking inside the skull—came the voice again, but this time a shriek. Not mere sound. A curse.

“You… deceiver!”

I staggered as it tore through my head like hot iron. My knees buckled.

Super collapsed behind me on the steps. Finnegan, too, toppled where he stood. Jack and Raph’æl caught them just in time, shoulders locked beneath their arms, dragging them as best they could. But they were no better off.

“Rrgh, come on!” I growled, forcing my legs to move, forcing my fingers to reach—grasping Raph’æl’s wrist without even thinking. I pulled him toward the exit, Super cradled against him. My vision swam.

We were almost there.

Almost free.

And just before the door to the world above burst open, that voice returned one final time, purring with the cruelty of a thing unbound.

“Ragar… I’ll tell your sister you said hello…”

Then, at last—air.

We broke into the night. Cold. Sharp. Real.

The dead grass crunched beneath our knees as we all collapsed together outside the cellar, every limb trembling, every chest heaving. The stars above us didn’t care what we had suffered below. They blinked in silence.

We were alive. Conscious.

But we were splintered. Hurt. Afraid.

And the answers we needed… they would have to wait.

For now, it was more than enough that we were still breathing.