"Come in."
The voice was Aric's.
Not similar.
Not close.
His.
It came from behind the records-room door in the exact tone he would have used if Garran had been standing on the other side. Calm. Low. Almost bored.
Aric kept one hand on his spear and the other near the latch.
Behind him, Garran shifted his weight.
"Was that—"
"My voice," Aric said.
The old wooden door breathed against its frame.
A soft pressure from the other side.
Then silence.
Garran looked toward the stairwell. "We should call the others."
"If we shout, it may use the sound."
"That thing already knows we're here."
"It knows we're listening," Aric replied. "That isn't the same thing."
Garran's jaw tightened. He had a broad face, a grey-streaked beard, and the sort of tired eyes that suggested he had survived more bad roads than good ones. He had also learned, over the last few hours, that Aric did not speak without a reason.
"Then what do you need?" he asked.
"Light."
Garran lifted the lantern higher.
The narrow records room glowed in uneven gold. Shelves leaned against the walls, packed with ledgers swollen by damp. Dust lay thick across the floor except for a dark path beginning near the back wall and ending at the door.
Aric crouched.
The footprints were wrong.
They looked almost human at first: narrow heel, long toe, a slight inward turn. But each print ended in three hooked marks, as if something had pressed its claws down after placing its weight.
The dark trail continued beneath the shelves.
Aric looked at the ledgers. "Edren said the tunnel was under this room."
Garran nodded. "He said it had been sealed for years."
"Sealed from which side?"
Garran's expression changed.
Neither of them answered.
A whisper came from behind the door.
"Aric."
This time it was Mara.
The sound carried the same fear she had shown when they found her. The same breathlessness. The same tiny break at the end of his name.
Garran's hand went toward the door.
Aric caught his wrist.
"Wait."
"Her voice—"
"Mara is downstairs."
As if summoned by the words, something struck the ceiling above them.
Once.
Twice.
Then a dragging scrape crossed the floorboards in the corridor.
Garran stared upward. "The other one."
"Maybe."
The scrape stopped directly outside the room.
A child's voice spoke through the door.
"Father?"
Garran went still.
Aric had heard that voice before, in the stairwell. It had come from the darkness and made Edren stumble forward without thinking.
The creature was trying again.
"Father, please."
The words were soft now. Trembling.
Garran lowered his arm.
Aric leaned closer to the wood but did not touch it.
"What does your daughter call you?" he asked.
Garran looked at him sharply.
"Answer."
"She calls me… Da."
The voice outside whispered, "Father."
Garran's face hardened.
Aric pointed toward the floor.
The creature had weight. The boards outside gave a faint groan beneath it.
But the voice had come from too close to the door.
No breath against the gap.
No movement of the jaw.
No warmth.
Only sound.
"Open it," the false daughter said. "I'm cold."
Garran stepped back.
Aric moved sideways, placing the edge of the desk between himself and the door.
"On my mark," he murmured.
"For what?"
"Not the door."
The room's rear wall was lined with cupboards. One of them had been pushed six inches away from the stone.
Aric studied the gap.
There.
A thin line of black.
He pointed.
Garran understood. Together they moved toward it, leaving the door untouched.
The voice outside changed.
"Aric."
Now it was Lysa.
Then Mara.
Then Garran.
Each one sounded correct.
Each one came from the same place.
The thing was listening.
Aric pressed his palm against the cupboard. Dust shifted. The wood did not move.
"Help me."
Garran braced his shoulder against it.
They shoved.
The cupboard groaned, scraped across the floor, and revealed a section of old stone wall beneath it. An iron ring had been set into the masonry.
The door outside slammed once.
Aric grabbed the ring.
The stone panel resisted.
A second impact cracked the frame.
"Now," Aric said.
Garran threw his weight forward.
The panel shifted inward with a deep grinding sound.
Cold air poured through the gap.
Not the damp chill of the waystation.
This air smelled of wet earth, old ash, and something sour beneath both.
The creature outside hissed.
Aric pulled the stone fully open.
A narrow stairwell descended into darkness.
Behind them, the records-room door shuddered.
Garran stared down the steps. "That wasn't mentioned."
"Edren may not have known it opened."
"Or he didn't tell us."
Aric looked back at the door.
The latch bent inward.
"We can argue later."
Garran took the lantern from its hook and held it low.
Aric went first.
The stairwell was narrower than it appeared from above. His shoulders brushed the stone on both sides, and every step had been worn smooth in the center. Water tapped somewhere below.
Halfway down, the System pulsed across his vision.
[Life-Sign Detection: Active.]
[Three biological signatures detected.]
Aric stopped.
Garran nearly stepped into him.
"What?"
"Three below."
"Three?"
A soft scratching echoed beneath them.
Then a voice rose from the dark.
"Aric."
His own again.
This time it came from farther down.
The records-room door slammed open above.
Garran looked over his shoulder.
The lantern light caught a shape in the doorway.
It was low to the floor and too long through the back, with limbs folded beneath it at angles that made the joints seem misplaced. Its head tilted toward them. Its mouth opened.
"Garran," it said.
Garran lifted his sword.
The creature lunged.
Aric thrust upward.
The spearhead struck its chest, but the Mimic Hound twisted around the point instead of impaling itself. One claw raked across Aric's forearm.
Pain flashed.
He kicked the creature off the stairs.
It crashed against the wall, caught itself, and opened its jaws.
"Aric, move!"
The voice was his own.
For one heartbeat, instinct nearly obeyed.
Then Garran shouted, "It's lying!"
The warning broke the pull.
Aric twisted, bringing the spear across his body.
"Spear Sweep."
The technique was still rough. Still incomplete. But the motion had become less foreign than it had been a day earlier.
The spear shaft struck the hound across the ribs and drove it sideways into the stone.
[Technique Efficiency: 44%.]
The creature's claws scraped for purchase.
Garran came down the stairs with a short, brutal slash.
The blade opened the hound from shoulder to hip.
Black fluid splashed across the steps.
The creature made no sound.
Instead, it spoke in Mara's voice.
"Please."
Garran's sword stopped.
The hound's forelimbs snapped around his ankle.
Aric drove the spear down.
This time the point entered beneath the jaw.
The shaft shuddered in his hands.
The creature convulsed once, twice, and went limp.
The System appeared immediately.
[Target incapacitated.]
[Temporary classification: Mimic Hound.]
[Confirmed kill condition satisfied.]
[EXP Awarded: 28.]
Aric let out a slow breath.
The number settled into the System's record with clean finality.
No ambiguity.
No pending warning.
A confirmed kill.
Behind them, another hound struck the stairwell wall from above.
Garran pulled his foot free. "How many?"
"Two below. One behind us."
"Then we're trapped."
"Not yet."
Aric dragged the dead hound aside. Its body was heavier than it looked. Beneath the fur, the bones seemed too dense, too tightly packed.
The stairwell opened into a tunnel chamber below.
The room had once been used for storage. Broken crates lay against the walls, their iron bands rusted through. A dry well occupied the center. Three tunnels branched away from it.
The first was narrow and straight.
The second sloped downward.
The third ended in a collapsed arch.
Three life signs.
Aric pointed toward the narrow tunnel.
The two below were moving.
Fast.
Garran wiped black fluid from his sword. "What's the plan?"
"Keep them from separating us."
"That is not a plan."
"It's the part that keeps us alive."
A voice drifted from the sloping tunnel.
"Da?"
Garran flinched.
The voice was a child's, but unlike before, it did not plead.
It sounded curious.
Testing.
Aric studied Garran's face. "Your daughter had any habit of repeating herself?"
Garran swallowed. "When she was frightened."
The voice came again.
"Da?"
A pause.
"Da?"
Garran closed his eyes.
Aric understood then. The creatures did not merely copy what they heard. They collected the emotional shape of a voice. Fear. Pleading. Familiarity. They used the shape to make a person supply the missing meaning.
"Don't answer," Aric said.
"I know."
The first tunnel filled with a rapid clicking sound.
The creature inside was coming toward them.
Aric planted the butt of his spear against the floor.
"On my signal, step left."
Garran frowned. "Why?"
"Because it expects us to face the tunnel."
The clicking stopped.
A long shadow passed across the entrance.
The Mimic Hound emerged low and sideways, keeping most of its body behind the wall. Its eyes reflected the lantern light in dull silver.
It spoke in Aric's voice.
"Garran, behind you."
Garran did not move.
The hound surged forward.
Aric stepped left.
Garran stepped left.
The creature overshot the space where they had stood and slammed into the wall.
Aric thrust for the neck.
The hound twisted.
The spearhead tore through its shoulder instead.
It shrieked in Lysa's voice and snapped at Aric's hands.
Garran struck it across the spine.
The blow broke its momentum, but not its balance.
The hound kicked backward.
One claw caught Aric beneath the ribs.
Pain folded him over.
The System flashed.
[HP: 216/280.]
He staggered back.
The hound turned toward Garran.
"Your wife is waiting."
Garran's face went white.
The creature lunged.
Aric moved before he could think.
He seized the shaft with both hands and drove the spear through the hound's side. Momentum carried all three of them into the chamber wall.
The hound writhed against the stone.
Garran recovered and brought his sword down.
Once.
Twice.
The third blow split the skull.
The body collapsed between them.
Silence returned.
Then the System pulsed.
[Target incapacitated.]
[Temporary classification: Mimic Hound.]
[Confirmed kill condition satisfied.]
[EXP Awarded: 28.]
Aric remained pressed against the wall, breathing through the pain.
"Two," Garran said.
"Two confirmed."
"You said there were three below."
"There are."
A wet dragging noise came from the collapsed arch.
Something moved behind the fallen stones.
Garran raised his sword.
Aric lifted the lantern.
The collapsed tunnel was not fully blocked. A narrow gap remained between the stones, just wide enough for an arm.
Or a head.
A small hand emerged.
It was pale and jointed wrong.
The fingers gripped the edge of a stone.
Then a familiar voice spoke from the darkness beyond.
"Aric."
His mother's voice.
He had not heard it in years.
Not since before the road.
Not since the house had still smelled of cedar smoke and winter wool.
His body reacted before his mind did. His breath caught. His grip tightened. The memory arrived whole enough to hurt.
The voice softened.
"Come here."
Garran looked at him.
Aric did not move.
The hand withdrew.
The voice changed.
Now it was Selisse.
Warm. Steady. Close enough to touch.
"Aric, you promised."
His chest tightened.
He took one step toward the gap.
Garran caught his shoulder.
"No."
Aric's eyes remained fixed on the darkness.
"She said my name."
"It knows your name."
"She knew the promise."
"It hears what you say."
The voice beyond the stones laughed quietly.
A child's laugh.
Then Edren's voice cried out from the tunnel.
"Help me!"
Garran turned toward the sound.
Aric caught him this time.
"Wait."
The voice became Mara.
"Garran, please. It has him."
Garran's arm shook under Aric's hand.
"You heard Edren," he said.
"I heard the thing."
Another sound followed.
A cough.
Weak. Wet. Human.
Aric closed his eyes.
The System's warning appeared.
[Behavioral Pattern Detected.]
[Target is combining remembered voices with distress cues.]
[Probability of deliberate emotional manipulation: 98%.]
The message steadied him.
Not because it made the danger smaller.
Because it named the danger correctly.
Aric opened his eyes.
"Lantern," he said.
Garran passed it to him.
Aric lowered himself beside the collapsed arch and examined the gap. The stones had not fallen naturally. They had been packed from the tunnel side, leaving a crawlspace behind them.
The hound was not trying to get out.
It was trying to make them open the way.
Aric reached toward the nearest stone.
"Don't," Garran warned.
"I'm not removing it."
He took the shaft of his spear and slid the butt through the gap.
The tip struck something soft.
The thing beyond the stones hissed.
Then it copied his voice.
"Good."
Aric drove the spear forward.
The hound snapped at it.
Its teeth closed around the blade.
Aric twisted.
The spear tore sideways through the creature's mouth.
The stones shifted.
A claw punched through the gap and raked across his shoulder.
[HP: 208/280.]
Garran seized the exposed limb.
The hound pulled.
For a moment neither side moved.
"Now!" Aric shouted.
Garran yanked with both hands.
The creature's foreleg slid farther through the opening.
Aric wedged the spear beneath it and forced downward.
Bone cracked.
The hound shrieked in a dozen voices at once.
Mara.
Lysa.
Edren.
The missing daughter.
Aric.
Garran nearly lost his grip.
"Don't listen!" Aric barked.
He drove his knee into the stone and leaned his entire weight onto the spear.
The hound thrashed.
The tunnel filled with the smell of wet fur and old blood.
At last the limb went slack.
Garran let go.
Aric withdrew the spear.
The claw vanished into the darkness.
For several seconds, nothing moved.
Then the System appeared.
[Target condition: Unknown.]
[Confirmed kill condition: Not satisfied.]
Aric listened.
The life-sign remained.
Weak.
Moving away.
The hound was retreating deeper into the sealed route.
Garran stared at the gap. "We need to go after it."
"Not yet."
"It will circle back."
"Maybe. But Mara and Edren are above. The third creature is still alive, and we don't know where the tunnel opens."
Garran looked toward the stairs.
The hound from the records room had not followed them down.
That absence was worse than a pursuit.
Aric rose carefully.
The chamber spun once before settling.
He checked his grip.
The spearhead was dark with black blood.
The System displayed his condition.
[HP: 208/280.]
[MP: 95/95.]
No level change.
No new skill.
No completed classification beyond the temporary designation.
The growth was real, but incomplete.
Garran watched him closely. "You're hurt."
"I can walk."
"That wasn't what I asked."
Aric looked down at the blood soaking through his shirt.
"I can still fight."
"That answer is worse."
A scraping sound came from above.
Both men turned.
Something had begun descending the stairwell.
Slowly.
Deliberately.
A voice floated down through the darkness.
"Garran?"
The caravan leader tightened his grip on the sword.
The voice continued.
"Aric?"
Aric raised the lantern.
The creature appeared at the top of the steps, its body half-hidden in shadow. It had not come down to attack.
It stood there to block the way out.
Behind it, from far below, the wounded hound answered in Aric's voice.
"Come in."
The three life signs shifted.
One above.
One beyond the collapsed arch.
And one somewhere in the deeper tunnel system, no longer moving like an animal.
Aric lowered the lantern.
"Garran."
"Yes?"
"When I tell you to run, don't stop for me."
Garran glanced at him. "I'm not leaving you in a hole."
"That wasn't a request."
The creature at the top of the stairs smiled with someone else's mouth.
Then it spoke in Edren's voice.
"Father?"
Garran looked up.
Aric tightened both hands around the spear.
"Now."
The creature dropped from the stairs.
Garran charged to meet it.
Aric stepped toward the deeper tunnel.
Not away from the danger.
Toward the voice that had learned too much.
Toward the part of the waystation that had never been meant to open.
And beneath the old stones, something answered him in a voice that did not belong to any person he had ever known.
"Finally."