Two days. Two days of pushing hard, leaving the stink and claustrophobia of Stonehaven behind, trading the watchful eyes of city guards and potential Argent Hand tails for the dubious solitude of the Jagged Fringe. This wasn’t friendly territory, not like the deep forests further south or the rolling hills near the coast. The Fringe was exactly what its name implied: sharp, broken country. Jagged peaks of grey rock clawed at the perpetually overcast sky, their slopes sparsely dotted with stunted, twisted pines that looked like they grew out of sheer spite. Silence pressed in, heavy and unnatural, broken only by the wind whistling through rock crevices or the occasional dislodged stone skittering down a slope.

  I moved like a ghost through this desolate landscape, keeping low, using the terrain for cover, my senses cranked high. Every shadow seemed to hold a threat, every gust of wind felt like a whisper carrying my name. The feeling of being watched hadn’t entirely faded since that glimpse of silver-on-white in the Undercroft alley. I’d spent the first day out of Stonehaven constantly doubling back, checking my trail, watching my surroundings with exhausting hyper-vigilance. I hadn’t spotted anyone. No glint of armour, no snapped twigs out of place, no sense of another presence dogging my steps beyond the usual skittishness of wild game.

  Maybe I’d shaken them. Maybe they were just that good. Or maybe the paranoia was just eating me alive. Hard to tell anymore. It was a constant, unwelcome companion, riding shotgun alongside The Hunger.

  Speaking of my internal parasite, it was quiet. Quiescent. A low, steady thrum beneath my awareness, like a banked furnace. The Gloomfang Lurker had provided a substantial meal, enough to keep the ravenous edge off, enough to maintain control without constant, draining effort. But the memory of the starvation pains, the clawing desperation, was still fresh. It kept me focused. Kept me moving forward. I needed the payout from this Whispering Crypts job. Needed the coin, yes, but also the security it represented – the ability to stay ahead, stay hidden, stay fed.

  I knelt beside a narrow game trail, the damp earth soft enough to hold prints. My gloved fingers traced the faint outlines. Boot prints. Heavy, hobnailed. At least three distinct sets, maybe four. Heading deeper into the Fringe, towards the area Flicker had marked on the rough map he’d given me. These had to be the missing caravan guards. The tracks were already a few days old, the edges blurred by wind and the light drizzle that had started an hour ago. No signs of a struggle here. No scuffed earth, no dropped equipment, no bloodstains darkening the dirt. They had walked this way willingly, unsuspecting. Towards whatever shadow lurked in those crypts.

  Straightening up, I scanned the surrounding rocks, the sparse trees. Nothing moved except the wind sighing through the pines. Taking a deep breath of the cool, damp air – tinged with the scent of wet stone and pine needles – I adjusted the pack on my shoulders and continued onward, following the fading tracks deeper into the heart of the Jagged Fringe. The Whispering Crypts weren’t far now.

  I found them nestled in a shallow, secluded valley, hidden from the main ravines and passes. A cluster of crumbling stone structures, mausoleums mostly, their once-proud facades now scarred and weathered, choked by thick ropes of dark green ivy. Tilting stone angels wept mossy tears, their faces eroded by centuries of wind and rain. The place radiated neglect and sorrowful silence. In the center, carved directly into the base of a steep, rocky hillside, was the main crypt entrance – a dark archway framed by heavily worn carvings depicting faded, forgotten deities or heroes.

  The air here felt… wrong. Still. Heavy. Utterly devoid of the usual sounds of the wild. No birds sang in the twisted pines clinging to the valley slopes. No insects buzzed. Even the wind seemed hesitant to disturb the oppressive quiet. And emanating faintly from the dark mouth of the main crypt entrance was a distinct, unnatural coldness that had nothing to do with the damp weather. It prickled at my exposed skin, raising goosebumps beneath my leather gear.

  The entrance itself was partially blocked by a jumble of fallen stones, casualties of time and neglect. But a clear path had been forced through the debris. Freshly disturbed earth and more boot prints – the guards’ tracks – led directly inside. They hadn’t hesitated. Duty, desperation, or just ignorance?

  Drawing one of my short swords, the familiar weight settling comfortably in my right hand, I unhooked the shielded lantern from my belt. Igniting the small flame within, I adjusted the shield to cast only a narrow beam of light forward. My left hand held the lantern low, minimizing my own visibility while trying to pierce the Stygian darkness within the crypt.

  I stood at the threshold for a long moment, listening. My enhanced hearing strained against the silence. At first, nothing. Then, faintly, from the depths of the crypt: the slow, rhythmic drip… drip… drip of water finding its way through ancient stone. And beneath that, almost too low to consciously register, a faint, sub-audible hum. A vibration felt more than heard, resonating in the bones of my skull, in the fillings of my teeth.

  Something was active in there. Something that didn’t belong in a forgotten tomb.

  Taking a shallow breath, tasting the cold, stale air of the crypt, I stepped through the archway, leaving the grey daylight behind and entering the waiting dark.

  Inside, the temperature dropped sharply. The air was frigid, biting at my cheeks, carrying a thick, cloying smell – centuries of undisturbed dust, pervasive mildew, and something else… something sharp, metallic, almost like the air after a lightning strike. Ozone. The lantern beam sliced through the oppressive darkness, revealing a wide passage disappearing into blackness ahead. The stone floor was surprisingly clear of debris here, worn smooth by time or passage. Long, dancing shadows writhed and leaped away from my light, making the darkness seem alive.

  I moved cautiously, sword held ready, lantern held low, my boots making soft sounds on the stone. Alcoves lined the walls at regular intervals, dark mouths yawning into deeper shadow. Most held stone sarcophagi, their heavy lids either sealed tight or pushed askew, revealing only emptiness within. Looted long ago, most likely.

  In one alcove, tucked behind a particularly large sarcophagus, I found the first sign of the guards since the entrance. A discarded waterskin, lying on its side, still slightly damp. Standard Mercenary Guild issue. Someone had stopped here, maybe taken a nervous drink before pressing deeper.

  Further down the main passage, maybe fifty yards in, my lantern beam caught something else on the floor. A snapped crossbow bolt. Fletching looked like Guild standard issue too. It hadn’t struck anything; the shaft was broken cleanly, as if stepped on or snapped under sudden pressure. Had there been a fight? Or just an accident in the dark? No bloodstains nearby.

  As I moved deeper, the low hum intensified slightly, becoming a more noticeable vibration in the soles of my boots. And I started noticing something else. Strange marks on the stone walls, mostly near the floor or ceiling. Faint, dark lines, like scorch marks, but arranged in intricate, repeating patterns. They weren’t carvings. They weren’t any magical script I recognized – not arcane runes, not divine symbols, nothing related to Rift phenomena I’d ever encountered. They looked almost like… diagrams. Complex, geometric, disturbingly precise. Faintly unsettling.

  You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

  What the hell had happened in this place?

  I was examining one of the strange wall markings, tracing its angular pattern with the edge of my lantern beam, when a sudden, sharp chittering sound erupted from my left. It came from a section of the passage wall that had partially collapsed inwards, creating a dark cavity filled with rubble.

  Before I could fully react, three shapes scuttled out from the darkness of the cavity, moving with unnerving speed across the stone floor towards me. Large. Black. Big as my fist, with hard, iridescent carapaces that reflected the lantern light in oily sheens. Long, twitching antennae and sharp, clicking mandibles. Crypt Scarabs. Nasty vermin known to infest old ruins, usually feeding on fungus and carrion, but sometimes drawn to warmth and movement.

  Or maybe… maybe they were drawn to the faint energy signature of The Hunger. Sometimes, even sated, it acted like a beacon for things best left undisturbed.

  Fuck.

  One of the scarabs lunged, aiming for my leg, its mandibles snapping audibly. Instinct took over. My sword flashed down, a clean, precise arc that sliced the creature neatly in two. Dark, viscous fluid sprayed onto the stone.

  The other two didn’t hesitate. They swarmed me, one skittering towards my boot while the other tried to climb my leg, its sharp little claws scrabbling for purchase on my leather leggings.

  The fight was brief, brutal, and disgusting. I stomped hard on the one near my foot, feeling a sickening crunch through the sole of my boot. The other one reached my thigh, mandibles trying to bite through the reinforced fabric. With a grunt of revulsion, I swatted it away with my forearm, then impaled it with the tip of my sword as it landed, pinning it wriggling to the floor.

  Silence fell again, broken only by my slightly quickened breath and the final, faint twitching of the impaled scarab.

  Consume, The Hunger whispered, a sudden, sharp spike of instinct. Life. Energy. Small, but… waste nothing.

  I recoiled internally, pushing the urge down hard. No. These things felt… wrong. Tainted. The energy signature coming off their dying forms was faint, yes, but it had a strange, dissonant quality, similar to the unsettling hum vibrating through the crypt. Not natural sustenance. Not something I wanted inside me.

  Kneeling cautiously, I examined the scarab pinned by my sword. Its iridescent carapace shimmered in the lantern light. And there, etched faintly onto its hard shell, were thin, dark lines. Lines that formed the same intricate, angular patterns as the scorch marks on the crypt walls.

  These weren’t just natural pests. They were connected, somehow, to whatever else was going on in this gods-forsaken tomb. This job was getting weirder by the minute.

  Cleaning the gunk off my sword and boot, I pressed deeper into the crypt. The main passage began to slope gently downwards. The air grew colder still, and the sharp, metallic tang of ozone became much stronger, prickling the inside of my nose. The low hum was clearly audible now, a steady, resonant thrumming that seemed to emanate from the very stones around me. It felt mechanical. Or like contained, powerful energy. The static electricity in the air intensified too, making the fine hairs on my arms stand on end, my cloak clinging uncomfortably.

  Around a corner littered with more fallen masonry, I found another sign of the missing guards. A heavy wooden shield, reinforced with iron bands, lay discarded against the wall. Guild insignia still faintly visible beneath a layer of dust. My lantern beam swept over it, revealing a large crack running vertically down its center. But the edges of the crack weren’t splintered, like wood broken by a physical blow. They were blackened, slightly melted, as if exposed to intense heat or energy. Whatever hit this shield hadn’t been a sword or an axe.

  Again, no blood. No signs of a prolonged struggle. Just discarded equipment and the growing sense of wrongness. Where the hell were the bodies?

  The passage finally opened out into a much larger space: a wide, domed chamber, easily sixty feet across. The ceiling soared into darkness beyond the reach of my lantern beam. The air here was thick with the ozone smell, heavy with the vibrating hum. The strange scorch-like patterns were everywhere, covering the walls, the floor, even parts of the curved ceiling I could glimpse. They seemed denser here, more complex.

  And in the center of the chamber… stood the source.

  My lantern beam fell upon it, and I stopped dead, my breath catching in my throat. It was… a construct. Partially embedded in the cracked flagstone floor, as if it had impacted here long ago or risen from beneath. Made of some dull, black, unknown metal that seemed to absorb the light. Roughly humanoid in shape, maybe ten feet tall, but disturbingly angular, all sharp edges and unnatural joints. Parts of it were clearly damaged – rents in its surface revealed complex inner workings, wires or conduits sparking feebly, shedding tiny blue flickers in the dark.

  It was this… thing… that emitted the strong ozone smell and the constant, low hum. It felt ancient. Unfathomably old. And utterly, completely alien. Not crafted by any hands I knew, human or otherwise. Not magical in the way I understood magic. Something else entirely.

  My gaze swept the chamber, searching for threats, for answers. And then I saw him. Lying near the base of the bizarre metal construct. One of the missing guards.

  Or what was left of him.

  He wasn’t torn apart. He wasn’t eaten. There wasn’t a drop of blood anywhere near him. He was… desiccated. Skin stretched taut and parchment-thin over his skull and bones, lips peeled back from teeth in a silent scream. His eyes were wide open, fixed on the ceiling or perhaps on some horror only he had seen, milky and vacant. His uniform hung loosely on his shriveled frame. All the moisture, all the vitality, seemingly sucked right out of him, leaving behind a dried, fragile husk. A horrific testament to the draining power Flicker had mentioned.

  My stomach churned. I’d seen death in countless forms. Bloody, brutal, messy. But this… this was different. Clinical. Efficient. Utterly terrifying.

  Sword held defensively before me, lantern casting flickering light on the grotesque scene, I cautiously approached the construct and the husk of the guard. The hum intensified with every step I took, vibrating not just in my bones but deep within my chest, where The Hunger resided. The air crackled with static.

  I got within maybe ten feet of the metal thing. Close enough to see intricate, non-functional lights flickering erratically within its damaged, angular “head” structure. Close enough to feel the energy radiating from it like heat from a forge, cold though it was.

  Suddenly, the humming spiked sharply, becoming an almost painful whine. The flickering lights within the construct flared, casting brief, strobing blue flashes across the chamber walls.

  Simultaneously, something violent happened inside me. The Hunger, usually a source of predatory calm or ravenous urging, recoiled. It wasn’t a push for control, not a demand for food. It was a wave of pure, unadulterated, primal fear – an emotion so alien coming from it that it hit me like a physical blow, staggering me back a step. My own fear mixed with its terror, creating a nauseating cocktail of panic that threatened to overwhelm me.

  What in the Nine Hells could possibly terrify the predator living inside me?

  Before I could process this unprecedented reaction, another sound echoed through the chamber, grating and loud. A low, grinding noise, like stone scraping against stone. It came from the far wall, directly opposite the main passage I’d entered through.

  My head snapped towards the sound. A large section of the wall, maybe ten feet wide and reaching towards the domed ceiling, was sliding slowly inwards. The stone panel was covered in the same intricate, angular patterns as the scorch marks and the scarab shells. As it receded, it revealed a dark passage beyond, pulsing with a faint, rhythmic blue light. And from that opening… an overwhelming wave of the same ozone-charged energy washed over the chamber, carrying with it an amplified sense of the horrifying presence that had sent The Hunger into a panic.

  Something far worse than crypt scarabs or typical monsters was awake down here. Something ancient, alien, and terrifyingly powerful. And even the predator sharing my soul, the entity defined by hunger and survival, wanted only one thing: to turn and fucking flee.