[Day 19 — Morning — South District]
Heren lived in a small house at the end of an alley that Kira’s map marked as "accessible if you know how to find it."
The door was open.
Kira knocked before entering because in Veltharr an open door could an either welco or trap, and she preferred to confirm.
A voice from inside. "Co in."
---
Heren was at least seventy years old. Probably more.
His eyes didn’t focus well — not complete blindness, but the specific way the eyes of soone who saw sothing their brain never fully processed remain with a focus slightly displaced from what they’re looking at.
Alex noticed it as soon as he entered.
The room was small. A table. Four chairs. A window covered with thick cloth because Heren clearly preferred controlled darkness to varying light.
Kira had made the contact. Alex went because his information mattered. Grim went because Grim always went.
Heren looked at them.
He stopped at Grim.
The unfocused eyes focused for the first ti.
"Ah," he said.
Just that.
"Do you recognize him?" Alex asked.
"Not him." Heren pointed at Grim. "What he carries." A long pause. "I saw sothing similar on level five. Larger. Without such a defined form." He pointed to the chair across from him. "Sit down."
---
Heren spoke for twenty minutes without Alex interrupting.
Eight years ago. A group of six. They entered on a private contract — a collector who wanted sothing specific from level four and paid enough that the risk seed calculable.
The first three levels, no major surprises. The fourth, with the Heralds — less established back then but already present.
The fifth.
Heren stopped.
"Level five doesn’t have undead." He said it the sa way soone would describe the weather. "Groups that enter expect undead. That’s what the records say, it’s what makes sense given that the previous levels are full of them."
"What does level five have?" Alex asked.
"What the undead were before they beca undead."
Kira took notes.
Alex waited for Heren to continue.
"The souls that the undead from the previous levels should have processed. The undead contain them. They hold them back. But level five is where that process began — where the Reaper’s first seal touched the ground." Heren looked at Grim again. "Those souls aren’t contained in bodies. They’re in the environnt. In the air. In the walls."
"Trapped souls," Grim said quietly.
"Exactly." Heren nodded at the skeleton as if he were the most qualified person in the room to understand this. "They can’t be harvested normally. They can’t be released by standard light magic. And they’re not exactly hostile — but they react to living presence in a way that..." He stopped. "Four of the six who entered with didn’t co out."
"What happened to them?"
"I don’t know for certain." A long pause. "What I saw was that the souls in the environnt responded to sothing in them. As if they recognized sothing." He looked directly at Alex. "You carry Fragnt 1. The Core." It wasn’t a question. "On level five, that’s going to be either a problem or an advantage. I don’t know which."
"Which was it for you?"
Heren smiled for the first ti.
"I wasn’t carrying a Fragnt. I survived by being invisible to what seeks sothing." A pause. "You won’t be able to be invisible."
---
They left twenty minutes later.
Kira with her notebook full.
Grim quieter than usual.
Alex walking in silence.
"What do you think?" Kira asked when they were far enough from Heren’s house.
"That level five is the real problem, and no one in Viktor’s files ntioned it because no one who reached level five with enough information to report ever ca back to report."
Kira nodded.
"And Grim?"
"Trapped souls." A pause. "Soul Prison can handle them. But many simultaneously... I don’t know."
"How many is many?"
"Depends on how long level five has been accumulating."
"And how long has that been?"
"Since the original sealing."
They calculated that in silence.
---
[Afternoon — Central Market]
The poster was on the central market post where high-priority announcents were nailed up.
Wood and ink. A reasonably accurate drawing — soone who had worked from a detailed description.
Crimson eyes. A white streak in the hair. The faint mark on the left hand. And beside him, a small skeleton with a scythe.
REWARD: 500,000 CROWNS. ALEX CARTER. ALIVE. THE CELESTIAL TEMPLE PAYS DOUBLE.
Grim looked at it.
"Your face is everywhere."
"That’s flattering," said Alex.
Raven, who had appeared from the adjacent stall: "That’s a problem."
Emily from the other side, looking at the poster with her head tilted: "At least they drew you well."
Kira was already pulling the poster off.
"There are twelve more in the city. I located them this morning." She folded it and put it away. "I’ll remove them tonight."
Alex looked at her.
"Tonight?"
"When fewer people are watching." A pause. "Stop looking at where the poster used to be."
Alex stopped looking at the space where the poster had been.
---
[Inn — The Split Rock — 5:00 PM]
The double room Alex shared with Grim — Grim didn’t need a bed but had his own corner, which he had established in the first hour with the sa efficiency with which he established a guard position.
Alex was checking the equipnt for the next day when soone knocked on the door.
Maya.
She entered with her notebook and sat in the chair by the window without waiting for an invitation. Which was also Maya’s version of comfort — she didn’t ask permission to enter spaces where she knew she was welco.
She placed the open notebook on the table.
"Catacombs entry plan."
Alex sat across from her.
For the next forty minutes, Maya went through each level with what they now knew — Viktor’s files, Kira’s herbalist information, Heren’s account.
Level one: undead density high but manageable.
Level two: new chanics, narrow terrain, interference with light magic.
Level three: rune traps.
Level four: the Heralds and the ritual.
Level five: what Heren had described.
"Level five is the biggest variable," Maya said. "No real tactical information. Just the testimony of one survivor who wasn’t carrying a Fragnt."
"I know."
"Does Grim have anything from the Reaper’s mories about that level?"
"Images. Without full context." Grim from his corner. "The Reaper passed through that level once. Before the sealing. The mory is blurry."
"Blurry how?"
"Like rembering sothing while you’re asleep."
Maya noted that.
"Then we improvise level five."
"That was always part of the plan," said Alex.
Maya closed her notebook.
She didn’t get up imdiately.
Akari on her shoulders shifted slightly.
"Are you okay?" Alex asked.
"Yes." A pause. "Nervous. Which is useful — nervousness improves reaction ti." She looked at the closed notebook. "I just wanted to tell you that the plan is solid up to level four. Level five we’ll solve when we get there."
"I know."
"And that the team is good." Another pause. "Actually good. Not just functional."
Alex looked at her.
Maya looked back.
There was sothing in that that wasn’t exactly what it seed — or it was exactly what it seed, and Maya just didn’t have the vocabulary for what she wanted to say without getting nervous.
Akari turned her head toward Alex.
Her golden eyes assessing.
Maya stood up.
"Tomorrow at five."
"Tomorrow at five."
Maya went to the door. Opened it.
She paused for a second with her hand on the fra.
"Alex."
"Yeah?"
"Co back from level five."
She said it the sa way Emily had said co back at the hot springs. No elaboration. No extra context.
Just that.
Alex: "I will."
Maya left.
Grim from the corner, not moving his eyes from where he was looking: "Progress."
"Yeah," said Alex.
"A lot of progress."
"Grim."
"Yes?"
"Shut up."
"Understood."
---
[POV CAEL — Northern border of Veltharr — Night]
The squad’s camp set up in the forest north of the city, outside Veltharr’s jurisdiction by exactly two hundred ters.
Cael looking at the Catacombs map.
Davan to his left.
"Carter’s team entered the city yesterday," Davan said. "Contacts confird they’re at The Split Rock. Outer market inn."
"Movents?"
"Market. Artisan district. South district." Davan consulted his own report. "The south district contact is a Catacombs survivor. Level five."
Cael’s expression didn’t change.
"How long in the city?"
"Based on the pattern, two days."
"And Seraph Nox?"
"On the northern border. Didn’t enter the city." Davan looked at him. "Do we watch her?"
"No." Cael folded the map. "Seraph Nox has her reasons for being here. As long as she stays outside the city, she’s not our concern."
"And if she enters?"
"Then she’s our concern."
Davan nodded.
He looked at the Catacombs in the northern distance — the dark rock formation visible from the camp on clear nights like this.
"When do they enter?"
"Tomorrow or the day after. Depends on what they found in the south district." Cael put the map inside his coat. "When Carter’s team enters, we seal the exit. Position here." He pointed at the map he no longer had in front of him — he had it morized. "Five kiloters from the periter. Don’t get any closer until they co out."
"And if the ritual—"
"We’ve already discussed that."
"I know." Davan looked at him. "Cael?"
"What."
"Do you think they’ll co out?"
Cael looked north for a mont.
"They interrupted Matthias at the Crystalline Depths. Level 78. With terrain advantage, an army of creatures, and Carter’s team exhausted and damaged." Pause. "And they ca out alive."
"Is that a yes?"
"It’s an I don’t know." Cael stood up. "But it’s the most honest one I can give."
---
[Inn — The Split Rock — Night]
The room in silence.
Kira had returned at midnight with the twelve posters in her backpack. She counted them in front of Alex to confirm the number and then put them away without comnt.
Emily was asleep.
Raven too, or she was pretending well enough.
Alex stared at the ceiling.
The Anchor Stone in his hand. The crimson veins dimr than yesterday.
[Corruption: 57%] — still stable. Still ti.
Grim from his corner: "Are you sleeping?"
"Trying."
"Is it working?"
"No."
"You’ll need energy tomorrow."
"I know."
A pause.
"Heren said level five reacts to sothing in the people who enter." Grim looked at him. "I think I know what it reacts to."
Alex sat up slightly.
"To what?"
"To souls that have reasons." A pause. "The trapped souls on that level never had reasons for anything. They just existed and then stopped existing and remained there." His eye sockets on Alex. "You have reasons. Many. And that’s going to be visible to them."
"Is that a problem or an advantage?"
Grim didn’t answer imdiately.
"Both. Depending on what we do with it."
Alex lay back down.
The ceiling of The Split Rock.
Tomorrow, the Catacombs.
He closed his eyes.
This ti, sleep ca.
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