The soil beneath Blackridge no longer sounded hollow—it listened.
By the time the third excavation team returned from mapping the root chamber network, every route had shifted slightly. Passageways they'd walked yesterday no longer led in straight lines. Their lanterns dimmed in familiar places. Dust collected in patterns no one remembered stepping over.
And now, the vault had opened on its own.
It had no key. No lock. Just a massive stone crescent Riku had marked a week prior as "nonresponsive"—inert and unmovable. He hadn't given it more thought, deeming it part of the sedimented history buried here, perhaps a collapsed arch or petrified root bloom.
But this morning, it stood open like a parted eyelid.
Kael was the first to see it—again. He hadn't slept. The forgehands said he was down in the tunnels when the walls exhaled.
It wasn't wind. It was displacement. A low shift in pressure. Just enough for the old crescent to move.
Now, Riku stood at the threshold.
Beyond the curve was not a tunnel but a room. Uncut, unlit—but shaped. Roughly domed, lined with more of that dim emberglass. But this time, it wasn't just in veins—it coiled like ribs along the ceiling and descended into a flat basin in the center of the room.
Sira walked the edges first, slow, measured. She brushed the wall with her bare hand. No reaction.
Kael approached the basin, drawing out a small probe. He didn't test the basin directly. Instead, he touched the nearby floor. A soft click sounded—not mechanical. More like a tendon snapping gently back into place.
And then a hum.
From the center of the basin rose a short pillar, no higher than Riku's knee. On it: a single mask.
It was not ornamental.
It was bone.
The kind of artifact that shouldn't exist in this state—uncorroded, unmarked by ash or time. The kind of thing the Hollow should have consumed or buried. Instead, it had been preserved. Displayed.
Left for someone.
Riku stepped forward slowly. The bone was darkened, almost calcified. Tiny rootlets had grown around its edge, but none pierced it. A sigil was etched across the brow—three strokes meeting in an upward spiral.
He reached out.
Kael tensed. "Wait—"
Riku's fingers brushed the mask.
Nothing happened.
Except… sound.
Not a word. Not a scream. Not a whisper.
But breath.
His own—echoing back at him.
And beneath it, faintly: another exhale. From something deeper.
He turned the mask in his hand.
Inside, etched so shallowly it was nearly missed, was a line of ancient script. Kael stepped forward to transcribe, pulling a scrap of forge-paper from his belt.
But Riku had already read it.
Not through language.
Through feeling.
"Worn by those who remembered too much. Left behind by those who remembered first."
Kael looked up. "What does it mean?"
Riku didn't answer.
He took the mask and placed it gently inside his cloak pouch.
And in that moment, the basin glowed.
Only slightly. Enough to reveal what had been hidden beneath it: a concave shell embedded in the floor. Like a seed, or a fossil. Covered in fine white lines like dendrites or nerve tissue.
Kael crouched beside it. "It's hollow. Thin."
"Egg?" Sira asked, kneeling beside him.
Kael shrugged. "Too regular. Too perfect. But organic."
Riku looked at it for a long time.
Then spoke quietly. "Not an egg. A vault."
He motioned for the others to step back, and when they did, he pressed his hand to the center of the shell.
Nothing.
Then—fracture.
A crack spread, quiet and painless. The shell opened like petals peeling back underwater.
Inside: a single gauntlet.
Forged not of metal, nor root, nor bone—but something between them all. Segmented, smooth, flexible, dull-black with faint amber lines moving through it like blood. It pulsed once when exposed to air.
Riku didn't hesitate.
He slid his hand inside.
The fit was exact.
And the gauntlet adjusted—not visibly, but subtly. Finger lengths shortened a hair. Palm width narrowed. Amber lines brightened.
Kael stared. "It's alive."
Sira tilted her head. "It recognized you."
Riku flexed his fingers.
No reaction.
Then he raised his hand, palm forward.
The emberglass ribs above shimmered—just slightly.
And at the far end of the chamber, another crescent stone parted. A new corridor revealed.
No torchlight. No sound.
Just invitation.
Sira swallowed. "This place is guiding us."
"No," Riku murmured.
"It's following."
They descended into the next passage.
Behind them, the first vault sealed itself.
The breath of the Hollow waited.
And the gauntlet pulsed again.