I stood before a towering wall of stone, its surface slick with the weight of endless years. A thick vertical rune split its center, and at its heart lay a great circular sigil, carved with the patience only millennia could grant.
My breath came steady, though my chest ached with the strangeness of life after so long. It was time to face the world again.
I pressed a hand to my heart and felt the slow, stubborn beat, a sound I had almost forgotten. With my other hand, I touched the rune's spine of carved stone and drew from the small reservoir of mana still coiled within me.
The power stirred reluctantly. Blue light flared beneath my palm, racing along the rune's length and climbing the circular sigil until the entire design glowed like captured moonfire.
A tremor answered. The vast door split down the middle, its halves grinding inward. Stone shrieked on stone in slow, ancient protest.
Grrrnnn…
The sound rolled through the chamber, a groan so deep it seemed the cave itself might awaken.
As the slabs dragged apart, questions crowded my mind.
How much has the world changed? Do other sealed warriors still dream in their tombs? Will my memories ever return?
Despite the unease, a faint smile rose to my lips. Whatever waited beyond, I would face it. I would fulfill my duty.
The door gave a final shudder and halted.
Beyond lay no sunrise or open plain, but a cavern vast and black. The air that spilled forth was colder than the mausoleum's stale stillness, and it smelled of wet stone and faint, charred wood.
"A cave…" I murmured, stepping across the threshold.
The cavern stretched outward, walls veiled in moss and crowned with stalagmites like the teeth of some patient beast. Drops of water echoed in the distance, each one ringing like a faraway bell. Behind me, the mausoleum stood silent and cracked, half sunken into the cave floor as though it had merged with the earth over time.
It had endured all these years and served its purpose, so I could fulfill mine.
"I am grateful for your service," I whispered.
As if in answer, a low rumble shivered through the stone. The mausoleum's walls fractured, then collapsed in a slow, dignified ruin. Dust drifted in the cold air like fading incense. I stooped and lifted a fragment of carved stone. There was a sunburst etched upon it, faintly radiant even in ruin. The piece shimmered and dissolved into a quiet spark that sank into the emptiness within me.
I turned toward the depths. "From now on," I whispered, "there is no turning back."
The first living creature I encountered was hardly a threat: a small, translucent slime, half my size and glowing a gentle blue. It quivered toward me, leaving faint trails of light in its wake. Curious, I crouched and brushed it with my fingertips. Its hidden core flared bright before it skittered away into the dark, its glow fading until only silence and my breath remained.
I flexed my gauntleted hand, a trace of its jelly clinging before I shook it free.
"Was it scared of me? Do I look frightening?"
The path narrowed and twisted. Crystals jutted from the walls in jagged clusters, glowing faintly, casting fractured light across the stone. They were the cavern's only illumination.
"The mana concentration here is high," I murmured, sensing the dense flow of power in the air. Yet when I tried to draw upon it, only a thin current stirred.
"Rusty, perhaps…"
Then I heard a sound unlike the creak of stone or the drip of water.
Clink… scrape… clink…
A rhythm of metal against rock. Measured. Patient.
I froze, every sense sharpening. From the shadows ahead, a faint dull gleam appeared.
I stepped forward into a chamber where the crystals barely glimmered. Beneath the sagging arch of the cavern ceiling stood a figure. Rust-eaten armor clung to a frame of bone and tattered cloth. A sword, black with age, rested point-down on the stone floor.
Empty sockets lifted toward me, glowing with a cold, pale light.
An undead knight.
Its form was grotesque yet strangely dignified. Rotting flesh wrapped in corroded steel, a battered shield etched with the fading image of a dragon's head.
My spear appeared in my hand as though answering a silent call, materializing from the well of mana within me. I spun it slowly, deliberately.
"Thank you for being my first opponent," I said as my helmet formed from shadow around my head.
The knight shifted. It raised its sword, dragging the dragon-marked shield before its chest. Though long dead, it clung to the memory of battle, the echo of honor.
It lunged, sword flashing in a clumsy arc. I stepped aside, sweeping my spear to parry. Metal rang against metal, the impact shuddering up my arms.
With a grunt, the knight slammed its shield forward, trying to break my balance. I twisted the spear crosswise and shoved back. The creature staggered, joints cracking like splintering wood. Its torso pitched forward and then froze, locked upright as old bone and sinew resisted collapse.
It raised its sword again, trembling, defiant.
I surged to meet it. As it charged, I spun the spear and leapt high, weightless in the mana-laden air.
The thrust came down straight through its helm. The spearpoint pierced rusted crown and shattered skull, driving down through spine and breastplate until the tip bit deep into the stone floor, pinning the knight's leg to the earth.
The creature froze. Its head tilted up to me, the pale fire in its sockets flickering. It was almost as if some memory stirred. Then the glow dimmed and died.
From the hole in its helm seeped a thick, tar-like ichor. Black fluid bled down its corroded armor, pooling in cracks like oil.
I narrowed my eyes. "Strange… the dead should not bleed."
The liquid steamed faintly before vanishing, as though even decay itself was unwelcome here.
I exhaled. "I do not know if the undead have an afterlife," I whispered, "but if there is, may you find it."
I left the spear standing, its haft supporting the limp body like a grim standard. Slowly, the knight's remains dissolved into a fine mist of blue-white mana, drifting away on a breeze that did not exist.
Only when the last mote faded did I pull the spear free.
For a while, I lingered. From its stance, its refusal to fall, even that impossible black blood. I knew it had clung to some long-forgotten ideal of valor and honor.
But I did not linger any longer. I turned, and walked on.