*Day 13 - The Crossroads*
Thom'duhr found them by following the corruption trail.
Not physically following—he could barely walk straight from exhaustion. But the soul-coins in his satchel hummed. Resonated. Pulled south like magnets toward something worse.
The group was impossible to miss. Ora walked in the center, leaking wrongness. Ky'arahh orbited her like a restless moon. Thirty-odd refugees followed like debris caught in a wake. And the dwarven brothers—
Spun Duh crashed into Thom'duhr at full speed.
"Where the fuck did you come from?" Spun Duh was already up, already moving, didn't even check if Thom'duhr was alive.
"Walking. South. Following the—" Thom'duhr struggled to stand. His legs shook. Three days without real food. "Following the resonance."
"The what?"
Thom'duhr pulled out a soul-coin. Everyone recoiled.
"Where did you—"
"Found them. In the archives. Before." Thom'duhr's words came in spurts. Terror and exhaustion and too much knowledge. "They sing to each other. All of them. Every soul-coin knows where its siblings are."
Ora approached. Thom'duhr's instincts screamed run, but his legs wouldn't work.
"Show me."
Thom'duhr spread his materials on the ground. Maps he'd drawn from memory. Diagrams of the God-Eater. Notes about Distillatori methodology.
"Here." His finger shook as he pointed. "The resonance pulls strongest here. The Desolation. Specifically..." He calculated, checked, rechecked. "The Forgotten Fortress. It's being rebuilt. Has been for months."
"How do you know?"
"The coins. Older ones pull northwest—that's established operations. Newer ones pull direct south. That's construction. They're paying for something massive."
Duh knelt beside the maps, gray arm hanging wrong. "What's the God-Eater?"
Thom'duhr pulled out the diagram. Hands shaking so bad he nearly dropped it.
"Machine. Built from dragon bones and corrupted metal. Powered by suffering. Opens a portal to the Prima."
"The Prima?"
"Where everything is everything. No separation. No individuality. Just..." Thom'duhr gestured helplessly. "Just existence without form. The Distillatori want to bring it here. Or take us there. Either way, everything ends."
Ky'arahh hadn't stopped moving the entire explanation. Pacing, jumping, anything but stillness. "How long?"
"Based on the coin-resonance patterns? Two weeks. Maybe less."
"Then we move now." Spun Duh was already packed. Already ready. Already gone.
"Wait—" Thom'duhr tried to stand, failed. "There's more. Defensive positions. Guard rotations. The coins tell everything if you know how to read them."
"Then read them while we walk." Ora turned south.
"I can't—I need time—"
"Time is what we don't have." But Duh helped Thom'duhr stand, good arm supporting him. "I'll carry you if needed."
"That's not—I'm not brave. I'll freeze when fighting starts. I always freeze."
"Don't need brave." Ora's voice carried harmonics of ending. "Need smart. You're smart."
"Smart doesn't stop swords."
"No. But smart tells us where swords need to go."
They walked. Thom'duhr stumbled, supported by Duh who moved steady despite corruption eating him from inside. Spun Duh ranged ahead, coming back with reports delivered too fast to follow. Ky'arahh kept the refugees moving through pure kinetic will.
Thom'duhr talked as they walked. Couldn't stop talking. Fear made him verbose.
"The Distillatori were supposed to be extinct. Drowned by Leviathans. But some survived. Evolved. Learned to work through proxies. Through corruption. Through—" He looked at Ora. "Through you."
"I know."
"You're their prototype. Corruption incarnate. They made you to—"
"I know."
"Then why—"
"Because prototypes can choose different functions than intended."
Thom'duhr considered this. His scholarly mind working despite terror. "You're going to turn their weapon against them."
"I'm going to feed them to themselves."
The image made Thom'duhr's stomach turn. But also... satisfied something. The same part that had memorized every detail about soul-coins while trapped in darkness. The part that wanted knowledge to matter.
"I can help. The coins—they're not just currency. They're connections. Every transaction leaves a trace. I can map their entire network."
"Do it."
Thom'duhr spread his maps on Duh's back as they walked. Drew connections. Traced patterns. The scholarship of ending.
"There. Vorgoth. He's the center. Every major transaction routes through him."
"Who's Vorgoth?"
"Malakor's father, according to the texts. The one who perfected fusion torture."
Everyone looked at Ora. She kept walking.
"Good. I want to meet him."
"He's protected. Death Angels. Corrupted beings. The God-Eater itself."
"I know."
"You'll die."
"Maybe."
"Definitely."
Ora turned, looked at Thom'duhr with triple-colored eyes. "Everything dies, scholar. The question is whether death means something."
Philosophy. Simple. Direct. A punch to Thom'duhr's academic sensibilities.
He looked at his maps. His careful calculations. His preserved knowledge.
"Then let's make it mean something."
They walked faster. Thom'duhr's legs found strength in purpose. The soul-coins sang in his satchel, pulling them toward the fortress where reality would be negotiated.
A scholar who froze in combat.A girl who couldn't stop moving.Dwarven brothers, one absorbing corruption, one too fast to think.A weapon that used to be a girl.Thirty-one refugees with nothing left to lose.
Against the Distillatori. Against the God-Eater. Against the rendering of existence itself.
Thom'duhr calculated their odds.
Zero.
He kept walking anyway.
Because sometimes zero was better than not trying.
Sometimes knowledge mattered more than survival.
Sometimes the scholar's job was to ensure someone remembered how the world ended.
Even if no one survived to read it.
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*End Chapter 13.5*
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