Chapter 3: Shadows Beneath the Stone

  The safehouse door groaned open against Yaragi's hand, revealing a cavernous, dimly lit space carved beneath the ruined districts of Ugrax.

  The air was thick with the scent of old stone, wax, and something else — faintly metallic.

  A place built for survivors, not comfort.

  Blood-threaded glyphs shimmered faintly across the stone walls, pulsing gently like a heartbeat. Mana gems — ancient ones — were embedded deep within the walls, empowering the blood wards and masking their presence from even the strongest detection magic.

  This wasn’t just a hideout.

  It was a fortress carved out of desperation and brilliance.

  Jimbles' work.

  Inside, a familiar figure leaned casually on a silver-tipped cane —

  bones wrapped neatly in old-world clothes: a tailored vest, long dark trousers, a monocle gleaming over a single hollow eye socket.

  The skull grinned in perpetual amusement, a relic of a man long past death but refusing to bow to it.

  "Well, well," Jimbles drawled, voice rattling with an edge of dry sarcasm.

  "Look who limped home. Thought you'd be a little more intact, Reaper."

  Yaragi gave a low grunt as he pulled off his cracked mask, tossing it onto a nearby table with a clatter.

  The wounds beneath it were shallow — for now.

  "Ugrax isn't exactly rolling out the red carpet anymore," Yaragi said dryly.

  Behind him, Shujinzo followed, taking in the surroundings with an appraising glance.

  His mist flickered faintly around his shoulders, never fully at ease.

  "A cozy tomb," Shujinzo muttered. "Feels like home."

  Jimbles chuckled, the sound hollow.

  "I don't let just anyone in, Mist Boy. This place shifts locations if detected. My own trick, courtesy of a few gems... and a few unsavory favors."

  He tapped the monocle knowingly.

  "The Reaper here’s got a lifetime pass. You? We'll see."

  Yaragi said nothing, simply moving to the battered chair near the far wall and sitting heavily.

  The safehouse wasn’t grand — a few scattered supplies, a workbench littered with half-finished wards, racks of weapons collected from fallen foes.

  Everything here had a purpose.

  Everything was survival.

  "What happened?" Jimbles finally asked, leaning heavily on the cane.

  Yaragi’s crimson eyes narrowed.

  "Theocracy's finally moving serious pieces," he said, voice low.

  "Elite forces. Warped. Corrupted. They’re not fully human anymore."

  Jimbles' empty sockets gleamed with a rare sharpness.

  "So the rumors are true."

  He glanced at Shujinzo. "And you dragged company back here, too."

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  "Not dragged," Shujinzo said, crossing his arms.

  "I accepted a recon mission from a noble. They mentioned sightings of the Black Reaper. When I realized it was him..."

  He shrugged lightly. "Decided I'd rather fight beside him than against him."

  Yaragi gave a slow nod — acknowledging the truth, but not fully relaxing.

  Jimbles clicked his tongue, the sound like a pebble striking stone.

  "Tch. Nobles and their games. Half the reason Ugrax rots from the inside out."

  He leaned closer to Yaragi, voice dropping.

  "You know what this means, right?"

  Yaragi tilted his head slightly.

  "They're desperate," Jimbles said. "Desperate enough to start playing with the darkness they can't control."

  The room grew colder, as if the mana wards themselves recoiled at the words.

  Yaragi's hands clenched around the arms of the chair.

  "I felt it in their blood," he said slowly. "Tainted. Twisted."

  Shujinzo spoke up, voice low.

  "If they’re embracing corruption openly, it’s only a matter of time before it spreads beyond Ugrax."

  "It already is," Jimbles said grimly.

  He tapped his cane once against the floor.

  From a hidden drawer, a rolled map slid outward — rough parchment inked with shaky lines.

  Scrawled notes marked movements: rumors of strange beasts along the borders, villages where entire populations vanished overnight, whispers of new cults rising in Drethor and even nearer to Casmington.

  The disease was spreading — slowly, quietly — like rot beneath a smiling face.

  "So what's the next move?" Shujinzo asked, gaze flickering between Yaragi and Jimbles.

  Yaragi leaned forward, inspecting the map.

  His eyes traced the lines, the rumors, the subtle signs of the gathering storm.

  "First," he said, voice as cold as the blood magic curling around his fingers,

  "we lay low. Ugrax will tighten its noose. Let them waste their breath."

  "And then?" Jimbles pressed.

  Yaragi's eyes hardened.

  "Then we cut the rot from the root."

  Before more could be said, a faint shimmer rippled through the air —

  the mana detection wards flaring briefly.

  A coded signal.

  Someone was outside the perimeter.

  Jimbles grunted.

  "Already? Hells below. Was hoping we'd have at least a day."

  Yaragi stood immediately, daggers sliding free with a whisper of steel.

  "Who's stupid enough to track us here?" Shujinzo asked, already drawing mist into his palms.

  Jimbles didn’t answer right away.

  Instead, he moved to the far wall, pressing a hidden rune into the stone.

  A sliver of the outside world flickered into view — a scrying mirror, faint and grainy.

  Through it, they saw him:

  A lone figure standing at the threshold of the ruins.

  Armored.

  Massive.

  A battered white cloak trailing behind him like a funeral shroud.

  The insignia still barely visible beneath the grime:

  The Vanguard Cross.

  Yaragi's breath caught, tension flooding through him like poison.

  "Kalen..."

  A ghost from a life he barely remembered —

  a savior once, a mentor in another lifetime.

  Now standing against him.

  Jimbles' empty sockets narrowed slightly as he leaned toward the mirror.

  "Kalen..." he muttered, the name bitter on his skeletal tongue.

  Yaragi glanced at him — surprised for once to hear real emotion in Jimbles’ dry voice.

  "You know him?" Shujinzo asked sharply.

  Jimbles nodded slowly.

  "Knew him," he corrected grimly.

  "Back when he was still a man worth calling brother. I was part of the old rescue efforts... back when we still thought the world could be saved one village at a time."

  He tapped his cane once against the ground, the sound sharp.

  "Looks like time and corruption finally got him too."

  Yaragi's fists tightened at his sides, memories clawing up from places he had long buried.

  The scrying mirror shimmered — showing more figures moving behind Kalen, half-hidden in the mist.

  Not soldiers.

  Hunters.

  Professional killers.

  Jimbles sighed.

  "Looks like the vultures finally found us."

  He tapped his cane twice against the ground.

  The mana gems embedded in the walls began to glow brighter —

  charging the safehouse’s teleportation enchantments, ready to relocate at a moment’s notice.

  "You boys better make yourselves useful," he said dryly.

  "This place doesn’t defend itself."

  Yaragi and Shujinzo shared a brief, grim look —

  old soldiers readying for yet another battle in a war without end.

  Outside, the ruined streets of Ugrax shuddered under the weight of approaching footsteps.

  And somewhere deeper still, darker forces stirred — watching, waiting, smiling.

  The bloodshed was only beginning.