The morning haze clung to the jagged peaks, pale light scattering across the uneven terrain as the party gathered their gear. The mountains loomed ahead, their ridges sharp like the teeth of some colossal beast, and the shadows between them swallowed the faint glow of dawn. To step inside was to be claimed by silence; even the wind seemed to pause at the boundary where stone cliffs rose like walls around an ancient graveyard.
Tavian led the way, his strides confident, his expression the familiar mask of impatience that rarely slipped. Behind him, Kaela walked with calm purpose, her eyes scanning the ridges as though she could read danger in the way the rocks leaned or the mist curled. The mercenaries followed in a loose line, Ion Brand insignias gleaming faintly against their armor. Seryn drifted toward the rear, silent and watchful, her gaze lingering often on Lucian.
Lucian himself walked near the middle of the group, his hood drawn low, his skin bag hung across his body by a thin string. He said little, but his eyes darted over every crack, every faint etching carved into the stone walls they passed. There was a weight in the air, one that pressed against the lungs, heavy with age. He could feel something, threads of power or memory woven into the very stone. It was not something he understood, but it whispered to him nonetheless.
"Notice the carvings," Dr. Ned muttered, adjusting his glasses as he shuffled along, the least combat-ready among them. He pointed to faint grooves cut into the rocks near the narrow path. "These aren't natural. The people who lived here marked their warnings this way. See the spiral? It meant to turn back. The path beyond was considered cursed."
Tavian glanced back, a half-smile tugging at his lips. "Cursed? Or just inconvenient? Don't tell me you're the superstitious type, Doctor."
Dr. Ned coughed lightly, clearly uncomfortable with the attention. "Superstition or not, the marks meant something to them. And the people here… they didn't survive by ignoring their own signs."
Lucian said nothing, but his gaze lingered on the spiral. Something in it tugged at him. A faint resonance, as though the rock itself hummed with meaning.
The party pressed on. The further they went, the narrower the path became. Sheer drops fell into mist-covered chasms at their sides, while the walls of the mountains closed tighter around them. The only sound was the crunch of boots against loose gravel. Even the mercenaries, usually prone to idle chatter, kept silent.
Every few steps, Dr. Ned would murmur small observations: pointing out where rock had been melted rather than split, or where rusted fragments of metal peeked from under the dirt. He didn't speak in the tone of a soldier or a scientist, but of a man who had spent his life studying whispers of the past.
"An old expedition came through here once," he said softly. "Long before our time. Some say they vanished without a trace. Others… that they left pieces of themselves behind."
A ripple of unease moved through the group, but Tavian simply scoffed and pressed onward.
For Lucian, however, the words struck deeper. He kept his face hidden, but he felt the weight of unseen eyes, as though the mountains themselves remembered those who had dared to walk them.
And as they descended further into the Ghost Mountains, the silence grew heavier, until it seemed even their breathing was out of place.
The trail widened into a ledge that overlooked a hollow basin carved into the mountain's side. Mist clung stubbornly to the air, curling in ghostlike streams across scattered fragments of metal and stone. What might once have been a camp or perhaps something older lay in ruin. Broken crates, half-buried by centuries of dust, and twisted remnants of machines rested like the skeletons of creatures long dead.
The mercenaries muttered among themselves, their eyes flicking warily to the relics. Even hardened soldiers knew better than to tread carelessly in a place like this. Tavian raised his hand, and silence fell over the group.
Dr. Ned moved forward, almost reverently. He crouched beside a pile of rusted plates, brushing dirt aside with delicate fingers. His expression shifted from curiosity to quiet awe.
"These… these aren't tools of war," he murmured. "They're excavation instruments. The ones who camped here weren't fighters. They were seekers."
Serene stepped closer, her brow furrowing. "Seekers of what?"
"The heart of the mountains," Ned replied. He gestured toward faint engravings on a nearby slab of stone. Spirals, circles, jagged lines. "They believed something lay buried here something worth more than life itself. But…" He trailed off, his hand trembling slightly as he traced a line of symbols. "They must have never returned."
The Iron Brand mercenaries shifted uncomfortably, fingers twitching toward their weapons. One spat to the side. "Sounds like treasure-hunter nonsense to me. If they didn't make it out, why should we?"
Tavian's gaze cut toward him, sharp and unforgiving. "Because we're not them. And we don't have the luxury of turning back."
Lucian stood a little apart from the others, his eyes fixed not on the symbols but on the broken machines. He felt a pull subtle, quiet, like a whisper threaded through his blood. There was something here, some fragment of energy that stirred faintly against his presence. It wasn't cultivation energy, not exactly, but it hummed with familiarity, as if it belonged to the same world of secrets as him.
A fragment of metal caught his attention. It was small, no larger than his palm, and etched with lines so fine they seemed more like veins than carvings. He bent to pick it up, feeling its weight. It was unnaturally heavy for its size. For an instant, the patterns flared faintly with violet light before fading to dullness again.
Dr. Ned gasped when he noticed. "Don't! Careful with that!" He rushed toward Lucian, clutching his notes to his chest. His voice trembled with both fear and excitement. "That's not just a fragment, it's a marker. The kind left to signal where traps were laid, or where the path forward was meant to begin."
Lucian's eyes flickered, unreadable beneath his hood. He turned the fragment once in his hand, then slid it into his pouch without a word.
Seryn crossed her arms. "So the right path can be marked? Or mis-marked?"
Ned nodded, swallowing hard. "Both. These mountains were notorious for… misleading explorers. A marker could mean safety or it could mean certain death. The trick lies in knowing which signs are genuine and which were deliberately placed to mislead."
Silence pressed over them again. The mist seemed to thicken, curling tighter around the broken camp, as though the mountains disapproved of their presence.
Tavian finally broke it, his tone clipped. "Then you'll earn your keep, Doctor. You'll read these signs and tell us which path doesn't lead to our graves."
Dr. Ned hesitated, his shoulders tense, but he nodded. "I'll do my best. But understand this…" He looked up at the jagged ridges towering above them, his voice dropping. "No path in the Ghost Mountains is ever truly safe."
The words lingered in the air like a curse, sinking into every ear. And as the group moved past the ruined site, deeper into the basin, the weight of unseen watchers pressed harder against their backs.
The further they went, the narrower the basin paths became, until the walls of the cavernous cliffs seemed to lean inward, swallowing the group whole. The air was heavy now humid, dense, and clinging with an iron tang that made breathing uncomfortable. The sound of boots crunching stone echoed unnaturally loud in the silence.
Lucian's senses prickled. He slowed his pace ever so slightly, his gaze sweeping across the mist-laden ridges above. He could almost feel eyes watching from the gloom.
Dr. Ned noticed too, though in a different way. He bent down to touch the earth, lifting a handful of soil that crumbled dry in his fingers. "Strange," he muttered. "This place is alive, but the ground is hollow. As if the mountains themselves are hiding something beneath."
"Or waiting," Serene said softly, her hand resting near her sidearm. The sharpness of her voice carried a weight that made some of the mercenaries twitch.
One of the Iron Brands scoffed. "Waiting for what? Rocks to fall on our heads?"
The sound that followed was faint, almost a whisper at first. A scrape. A chitter. Then another, and another until the silence of the basin wasn't silence anymore. The echoes of alien movement layered over each other like an approaching storm.
Weapons began to click open as the group instinctively reached for them. Tavian raised his hand to halt the panic, though his knuckles tightened around his collapsible rifle.
"Steady," he ordered. "Nothing moves until we see it."
Lucian's fingers flexed unconsciously at his side, his posture sharpening. The faint pull he'd felt earlier when he'd touched the relic fragment returned stronger now, like a hidden rhythm pulsing through the ground. It wasn't human. It wasn't friendly.
Shadows slithered in the mist above. Shapes too quick to define. For every glimpse of movement, there was only stillness when the eye tried to focus.
Ned's breath came fast. "It's them. The Mist Dwellers. Every expedition that dared too deep into the Ghost Mountains recorded sudden disappearances… not all of them were caused by traps."
"Mist dwellers?" Tavian's tone was low, dangerous.
Ned nodded quickly, his voice trembling. "Creatures that live in the mist itself. Their presence was never confirmed, only… feared."
As if answering him, a low rumble rolled through the basin. The mercenaries spun toward the sound, their rifles snapping into full formation. The air quivered with an unspoken promise.
Lucian's eyes narrowed.
They were no longer being watched.
They were being surrounded.