Part 3: Echo of a Crown
The hallway narrowed.
The deeper they moved, the more the architecture changed—no longer smooth cut stone, but something older. Pre-cataclysmic. Uneven steps. Curved glyphs carved not by hand, but by intent.
Magic so ancient it hummed through bone.
Siora paused as they reached the next door—a massive arc of stone laced with gold-silver veinwork that spiraled like roots around a central mural.
She pressed her hand to it.
It opened without sound.
And what lay beyond was not a lab.
It was a shrine.
No altar. No benches.
Just a chamber carved into the shape of a spiral, its walls engraved with scenes—etched so finely that the figures moved when the torchlight flickered.
Yuji stepped forward, eyes narrowing.
The first mural: A battlefield. Corpses rising. Warlords screaming.
The second: A robed figure, faceless, arms raised. Not commanding—but listening.
The third: A crown, forged from bone and ash, placed not on a head—but over a hole in the world.
Amelia stepped beside him.
"The Lich King," she said quietly. "But not as he's painted."
Sylvia's ears twitched. "This isn't a man."
Siora nodded. "It's an embodiment. It forms when enough death gathers in one place—when grief curdles, when power festers unburied."
Yuji scanned the next wall.
The scenes changed.
Now: people kneeling before the crowned void. Offering bodies. Sacrifices. Scrolls. One wore a robe with a familiar emblem—
A Church sigil.
Burned into the stone.
Sacha growled. "That's no accident."
Siora touched the glyph beside the figure.
"This is recent," she said. "This section was added maybe ten years ago. Someone came down here. They added this."
Amelia traced a nail along the carving. "Then the Church didn't just bury this place. They reactivated it."
Yuji stared at the mural of the crown again.
He felt his core stir—just a flicker.
As if something in that carving saw him.
And smiled.
Part 4: One Who Still Breathes
The silence changed after the mural chamber.
No more pulse of walls. No hum of sigils.
Just stillness.
Dead still.
They found her in what had once been a holding chamber—now half-collapsed, rubble crushing two of the five beds, fluids pooled under broken tubes. The containment circle was flickering, trying to sustain a ritual that had long since failed.
She was small.
Thin to the bone.
Her skin was a pale shade of mauve, stretched tight across ribs. Her eyes were milky, the irises ringed with silver corruption. Her hair, once white, had turned brittle gray.
Her ears—slightly pointed.
Demi-human. Maybe part-fae.
Siora reached her first.
"She's alive," she said softly. "But barely."
Yuji stepped closer, but not too close. He didn't want to frighten her.
Her eyes fluttered at his voice. But she didn't speak.
Her mouth had been partially sewn shut. Old thread. Crude.
Sylvia knelt beside her and sniffed once. "They drugged her magic. Kept her weak."
Sacha found a sigil near the bed. Her face darkened.
"This mark… I've seen it. On transport crates."
Yuji picked up a scrap of cloth near the girl's feet.
An emblem.
A noble crest: House Renshaire.
Siora's face paled. "That house is under Church patronage. I thought they were merchants."
Amelia leaned over and whispered, "No one's just a merchant in Veilguard."
Yuji looked back at the girl.
She raised one hand.
Shaking.
And began to draw shapes in the air.
Not letters.
Sigils.
One after another.
A spiral.
A glyph for "watchers."
A twisted variation of Yuji's Fertility mark.
A jagged slash symbolizing harvest.
Then—three dots.
Then two more.
Siora gasped. "That's a locator string. She's naming sites."
"Other facilities?" Sylvia asked.
"Worse," Siora said. "A network. This wasn't isolated. It's part of a route."
Yuji's hand tightened into a fist.
The girl collapsed into Siora's arms—breathing, barely.
They had proof now.
But not safety.
Because the Spire began to shake.
Low. Rhythmic.
A sound like footsteps—but larger. Wet. Heavy.
Something was coming.
Yuji stood.
"Get her ready."