(ADAM'S POV)
Victoria's words hung in the dim light, trembling slightly as she spoke, and Ophelia leaned forward, listening closely.
"Scourge?" Ophelia asked, voice sharp. "The Eagle‑serpents… they were Scourge‑ridden?"
"Yes," Victoria said.
Melina's eyes went wide, her gaze flicking between Victoria and me like she'd just seen something impossible.
"How?" she breathed, voice tight, disbelief edging her tone. "I… I don't think monsters, or animals, can be infected like that. And we're not even deep in the Wildlands. So… how?"
I could feel the confusion radiating off all of them, the way they were straining against knowledge they didn't have. None of us truly understood the Scourge. None of us had the pieces to make sense of it.
Ophelia's eyes narrowed. "Then… that Clay golem. The bull-headed one. Could they… be Scourge‑ridden too?"
I shook my head before anyone else could answer, feeling the certainty settle in my chest. "No," I said firmly.
"I've seen people infected with the Scourge. I know what it looks like. That… those things—they're not human. But they're not normal monsters, either. They're something else."
Silence stretched.
Victor broke that silence, his voice rough but steady.
"He's right," he gritted his teeth. "That bull‑head… it didn't have a soul. I could feel it."
The words settled heavily. I believed him.
Ophelia nodded once, slow and deliberate.
"Then we don't wait," she said, rising to her feet.
Her reflection slid across the blade as she lifted it. She studied it for a moment, before looking at Victor. At me. At Victoria. At Melina. Then, at the entire group.
"Those monsters will find us soon," she said. There was no fear in her voice, only certainty. "So we move first."
Her grip tightened.
"We find them," she continued. "And we kill them before they can kill us!"
The dungeon forest swallowed us as soon as we left the clearing. Before doing so, I looked at Tani.
"Sorry, buddy."
I hid him inside a bag, and then put him under a hole beneath a tree. I looked at him once, the small lizard slept peacefully, and then turned around.
"Gek!"
I stopped. Tani was up, looking at me with a confident look in his eyes.
"You..."
He ran to me, crawling up my body with his tiny legs, and finally stood on my shoulder. He rubbed his face against mine, smiling as he did so.
"Fine. But, run away if the big ones attack you, okay?" I said, patting him.
I joined the group.
Giant trunks rose like pillars into darkness, their canopies knitting together far above, thick enough that it almost felt like night despite the glow-fungi clinging to bark and roots. The ground was soft with moss and loam, broken by veins of stone and thick, twisted roots that made every step a calculated risk.
Everyone felt it before seeing anything. A pressure inside the chest. Telling us all to run. To stop and turn tail, or die.
Ophelia raised a hand. Everyone stopped.
The vibration came again. Stronger this time. Loose leaves shivered. Dust trickled down from high branches.
Victor's jaw tightened. "That's it," he murmured.
KRACK!
A massive trunk exploded outward as something forced its way through, wood splintering like kindling.
The bull-headed thing emerged half‑buried in debris, towering, plated in dark stone armor split by glowing crimson veins. Blood dripped from its claws, pattering softly into the soil. Its skull-like head tilted, empty eye sockets locking onto us.
The horns pulsed. Heat rippled the air around them.
I took an involuntary step back.
To it's left—clay rose into a lean, humanoid, shape.
Its mouth split too wide, words tumbling out half-formed, furious, incoherent.
"KILL....YOU... ALL!"
Kobolds, Eagle-serpents, and Nagas rose behind them. All of them had a chaotic, undead, look in their eyes.
Its arm elongated, reshaping mid-motion into a jagged blade that slammed into the ground where Victoria had been standing a second earlier.
We scattered.
The bull-head charged relentlessly.
Each step sent a shock through the forest floor. Roots snapped. Trees shuddered. I felt it in my knees, in my teeth. It lowered its head and drove forward, horns tearing through undergrowth and stone alike.
I was already moving before my mind caught up.
Kobolds poured between the roots like rats, claws flashing, eyes wild. Melina's spell cracked overhead, a burst of frost that locked three of them mid-stride. I didn't slow down. I crashed into the frozen ones shoulder-first, shards exploding outward as my blade finished the job.
Another kobold lunged low. I kicked it away, felt teeth scrape my greave, then ducked as something whistled past my head.
'Damn it...!!'
I saw it then, through the chaos.
Ophelia. She stood alone, directly in the monster's path. The bull-head roared and charged, earth buckling beneath its weight. To its side, the clay golem flowed forward, its torso thinning, arms reshaping into hooked weapons that dragged furrows through the soil.
Ophelia planted her feet.
Ophelia lowered her head, just enough to breathe.
"Veshtarim mehn,
Non eth Glorahn.
Non eth Rahamahn."
She stepped back, deflecting the hooked hand of the clay golem, and dodging the bull-head.
"Bay Nedrahm quoh Portahn,
Bay Damahn quoh Expendahn,
Dah Pondahn eth Plagahn mehn,
et Ahciem eth Voluntahn mehn."
Her grip tightened around the blade.
"Franath Karah Falsahn.
Memir Ossahn sine Anirahn Timorahn."
The air stilled.
"Non pethar vivahn.
Pethar Fynahn.
O Domir, dah mehn Fortidahn!"
Golden light answered.
The golden aura flared, expanded, and the claw slammed into it with a thunderous crack. Ophelia was driven back anyway, boots carving trenches through the moss, but she stayed upright.
The clay golem screamed—words tearing themselves apart as it lunged.
Its arm split into three bladed whips mid-swing.
It was intercepted by a fireball. On the other side of that spell, Melina stood, clutching her wand.
"Thank you," Ophelia said. "Melina."
The battle sharpened.
Far below, in the hollow of the cave, Alaric stood before what remained of the stitched-beast. Its body had been blown apart and burned down to ruin—blackened flesh fused to stone, seams split and meaningless. The core was gone, and with it the bloody ambrosia that should have seeped from the corpse, reduced instead to scorched residue and ash.
Alaric stood over the corpse, spear tip resting against the stone as he caught his breath.
"I'm sorry, for the pain you had to feel," Alaric said in a somber tone. "I hope that you somehow find peace."
For a moment, he just stayed there, listening to his own breathing echo against the cavern walls.
"....I need to go up. That thing was strong," he stared back at the broken core. "If that's its weakness, defeating it will be easier."
He straightened with a grunt and walked out. He traced his steps and now stood beside the lake.
The water lay dark and still, innocent-looking now. He stopped at the edge and looked up, following the sheer stone walls until his eyes found the opening far above.
"Let's go up."