Echoes in the Mine
---
The mine entrance wasn't far. Maybe two hours west, if you knew the paths.
Ren didn't.
He asked a cart-puller on the way out of town—an older man who smelled like barley and tobacco.
"Just follow the fence till it splits," the man said, jabbing a thumb toward the hills. "You'll see the hole in the rocks soon enough. Smells like iron and bad luck."
He wasn't wrong.
Ren arrived before noon. The air around the mine was colder than it should've been. Still. Dead.
He didn't rush in.
The entrance was wide enough for three men side by side, framed by black wood, reinforced with rusted iron bands. Tools lay scattered near the entrance—broken picks, a wheelbarrow missing a wheel, claw marks in the dirt where hooves had dragged something inward.
No one had come to clean it up.
Ren pulled his scarf over his mouth and stepped into the dark.
---
He counted his steps.
Twenty-five before the sun vanished behind him. Thirty before the floor sloped downward. Forty before he heard the wind—wrong, low, scraping.
He paused.
Cast [Throwbind] on his spear. It hummed—not with magic, but tension. It was ready.
He moved slower after that.
The walls were narrow now, tight and curved. Some beams held the ceiling up. Others had rotted, cracked, left splinters in the dust.
Then he saw the bones.
Not human.
Small. Hooved. Cracked open at the joints like a butcher's table.
Further in, a faint glow.
Green. Sickly.
He crouched low and pressed onward.
---
The glow came from moss.
Not magic. Just moss. He scraped some into a cloth pouch and kept it. Might sell for a silver or two.
Then he heard it.
Movement.
Slow. Wet. Dragging.
He pressed himself to the side of the tunnel and waited.
A shadow moved ahead.
Larger than a dog. Too bulky to be a wolf. Shuffling on all fours.
It passed under the moss light. Ren got a clear look.
It had once been a boar.
Still had the tusks. Still had the hide—bare in some places, blistered in others.
But its eyes were white. No pupils.
And something was growing out of its back. A vine? A root?
No. A hand. Small. Human. Twisting from the spine like a tumor.
It wasn't alive. Not fully.
Not anymore.
---
It sniffed the air.
Didn't see him.
Kept going.
Ren followed, careful.
The tunnel opened into a chamber.
Collapsed carts, rotted crates, shattered lanterns.
And at the far end—meat. Piled high. Animal limbs, scraps of wool, the broken spine of a goat.
The thing began to feed.
Ren crept closer, picked his spot.
Then he threw.
The spear cut through the air like a line of fire and struck it dead in the neck.
It shrieked—not a pig's cry, but something hollow. Empty.
It charged.
He jumped aside, reclaimed the spear, and jabbed again as it passed.
Blood sprayed. Black. Thicker than oil.
It spun around, slower now.
Ren circled it. Waited.
It lunged.
He ducked low, rolled under its belly, and drove the spear up into its heart.
It jerked. Twitched. Collapsed.
Dead.
For good, this time.
---
He took a breath. Sat there.
The chamber stank of rot and old stone.
He used the moss to mark his path back out.
Didn't take trophies.
Didn't take meat.
Just left the corpse where it lay.
Back at the entrance, the wind felt cleaner. The sunlight real.
He took out the moss again. Let it dry in his palm.
Then turned east.
Back to Harrow's Rest.
Another coin.
Another corpse.
And still no clue who sent him here, or why this world didn't seem quite right beneath the surface.
The Price of Coin
---
The guild didn't clap for him.
Didn't thank him either.
Ren dropped the blood-crusted spear onto the counter. The receptionist—a tired-looking man with patchy facial hair—pushed his glasses up and leaned back.
"You lived," the man said.
Ren didn't answer.
He was still covered in dried blood. His scarf was torn, and he hadn't bothered to clean his boots. His right knuckle was swollen from where he'd punched the mine wall, trying to wake his own body up after the fight.
"You're lucky," the receptionist added, scribbling something onto a parchment. "That mine's claimed six others this month. Four didn't come back. Two came back... broken."
"I killed it," Ren said.
The man paused. Looked up.
"It?"
"The boar. Mutated. Something's wrong in that mine."
The receptionist frowned. "Define wrong."
"It had a human hand growing out of its back."
Silence.
He waited for laughter. A scoff. Disbelief.
Instead, the man just scribbled something more on the paper.
"You get five silver for completion," he muttered. "And two extra for cleanup. That includes the report."
He reached into the drawer. Pulled out a pouch. Slid it across the table.
Ren caught it. Didn't open it.
"Why didn't you say anything before?" Ren asked.
"Would it have changed your mind?"
Ren looked him in the eye.
"No."
The man nodded. "Exactly."
---
Outside, Harrow's Rest was the same as before.
Stone roads. Muddy corners. One tavern, two bakeries, and too many eyes that didn't care what you'd done unless it brought coin.
Ren walked until he found the public wash.
Three copper got him a tub, lukewarm water, and a small bar of soap that smelled like mint and metal.
He sank in. Let the grime peel off.
His arm hurt more than he'd thought. Bruises bloomed across his ribs. One cut across his shoulder still wept blood.
No one asked how he got them.
No one cared.
He washed, redressed, and stepped back out into the dry heat of afternoon.
---
He returned to the tavern.
Same chair in the corner.
Same stew. Bread still hard.
This time, though, someone slid into the seat across from him.
A girl—no older than twenty—wore a leather chestplate and traveling cloak.
"Ren Hoshikage?"
He nodded.
"I heard you cleared the mine."
He didn't answer.
She leaned in. "I need someone for a deeper job. Not far. Pays better."
"I just got back," he said.
"You're the only one who came back at all," she said.
Ren tilted his head.
"What's in it?"
"Ruins. Not old. Maybe fifty years. Something's still moving in there."
"I kill it, and you pay me?"
She grinned. "That's the idea."
He thought for a moment.
Then picked up the last of his bread.
"Tomorrow."
"Tomorrow," she echoed.
She stood and left, boots tapping sharp on the wood floor.
Ren watched her go.
---
He didn't trust her.
Not yet.
But the pay might be worth it.
And maybe—just maybe—this world was more broken than it looked.
If he kept walking, kept killing, maybe he'd find the edges of it.
Maybe he'd find a way out.
Or maybe, just maybe…
He'd build something better inside it.
One corpse at a time.
The Depths of Ruin
---
They left before dawn.
Ren didn't ask for her name. She didn't offer it. She just pointed northeast past the dying farms, where the soil turned to shale and the trees grew bent and dry.
They walked in silence. His pack was light—bread, jerky, a whetstone. Her gear looked expensive: buckled straps, reinforced boots, a dagger that glinted like steel soaked in fire.
They reached the edge of a ravine before noon.
There was no marker. No sign.
Just a jagged slope where the land had cracked and sunk. A wide open wound in the hills, half-swallowed by thorned brush and ash-colored rock.
"There," she said.
Ren stepped closer.
Below, tucked into the rock face, was a doorway. Stone, half-sunken. Built into the earth like something ancient trying not to be found.
"A ruin?" he asked.
She nodded. "A fort, maybe. Pre-collapse."
"Collapse?"
She shrugged. "Empire stuff. Before the kingdoms split. Doesn't matter."
It did, but Ren said nothing.
Instead, he checked the slope. Slippery. Loose. Not impossible.
He slid down first. Landed on his feet. Waited.
She followed. No misstep. She was used to this.
The doorway loomed over them.
No inscriptions. Just black stone, weathered and cracked.
Ren drew his spear.
She pulled her dagger.
They entered.
---
Inside, the air shifted.
Cold. Dry. It didn't feel like a ruin. It felt like something had been waiting.
They moved slow.
Torchlight painted long shadows against old walls. Crumbled murals. Empty sconces. Dust that looked untouched for years—except for the single trail of broken stone leading deeper inside.
A dragging mark.
"See that?" she whispered.
He nodded.
They followed it.
The tunnel sloped downward. Sound fell away. No wind. No rats. Just the quiet scrape of boots and the weight of being too far from the surface.
After ten minutes, the tunnel opened.
A wide chamber. Tall ceiling. Pillars carved from a single block of stone. And in the center—
Something moved.
It was small. Crawling. Human-shaped, but not human.
It twisted, then hissed.
Ren stepped forward.
She grabbed his arm. "Wait. Look."
There were more.
Four. No—five. All curled in corners. Bones thin like glass. Eyes like pits. Skin stretched, gray and damp.
"What are they?" he asked.
She didn't answer.
One lunged.
Ren moved on instinct. Spear forward. It screeched—a sharp, wet sound—and impaled itself.
Dead weight.
Another leapt. He spun, drove the blade through its eye. Then the others came, too fast to count.
He didn't retreat.
Didn't give ground.
One fell. Then two. His arm bled where claws had caught skin. But he kept going.
They weren't strong. Just fast. Mindless.
When the last collapsed, twitching and still, he turned.
She was leaning on the far wall. Not injured. Watching.
"Why'd you wait?" he asked.
"To see if you could," she said.
He stared.
"I'm not here to babysit," she added. "I'm here to map. That's all. You're the blade. I'm the coin."
He wiped the blood off his spear.
"Next time, say that first."
She smirked.
He turned back to the room. The walls weren't empty.
Symbols.
Not of kingdoms. Not of churches.
Older.
Ren didn't know how he knew that. He just did.
"This place..." he started.
She was already ahead.
They pressed on.
---
They reached a sealed door by the third chamber.
Circular. No handle. No hinges.
Just a handprint.
She looked at him.
He stepped forward.
Without thinking, he placed his hand to the stone.
It lit.
A thin red glow traced the circle, followed his fingers, pulsed once—and clicked.
The door shuddered, then slowly rolled away.
She stared.
He didn't.
He just stepped through.
Because something was down here.
And it knew him.