The tunnel shook.
Dust poured from the ceiling in thick grey curtains, filling Veyra's mouth and eyes. Somewhere behind them, stone cracked with a sound like a continent splitting apart.
Then came the voice again.
"WHO… TOOK… MY… PIECES?"
It wasn't loud.
That was what terrified Veyra most.
The voice seemed to come from the stone itself, vibrating through her bones, her teeth, and the tiny fragments of ore inside her satchel.
"Faster!" Grindle shrieked.
The little creature was surprisingly quick. His short legs carried him over the uneven ground while the bells attached to his staff rang frantically. Veyra followed, one hand gripping her satchel and the other clutching her bone chisel.
Behind them, the tunnel groaned.
A blue light appeared in the darkness.
Veyra glanced back.
At first, she thought it was lightning travelling through cracks in the stone. Then she realized the light was moving against the direction of the tunnel, spreading through the walls like veins filling with blood.
"Grindle!"
"I see it!"
"What is that?"
"The mountain looking for you!"
"That's not an answer!"
"It's the only one I have!"
The tunnel suddenly dipped. Grindle leapt over a crack, but Veyra wasn't quite fast enough. Her boot caught the edge, and she fell hard onto her knees.
Her satchel struck the ground.
One of the black containment capsules rolled free.
"No!"
Veyra lunged for it.
The capsule spun across the stone, its silver markings glowing. A thin blue thread of electricity stretched from the mountain wall toward it.
Grindle stopped.
His yellow eyes widened.
"Don't touch it!"
Veyra froze with her fingers inches away.
The electricity reached the capsule.
A bright flash illuminated the tunnel.
THOOM!
The capsule shot into the air, struck the ceiling, and dropped into a shallow pool of water.
For a moment, nothing happened.
Then the water began to boil.
Veyra scrambled backward.
"Get away from it!" Grindle shouted.
The pool erupted.
A column of blue lightning shot upward, striking the ceiling and branching into dozens of smaller bolts. The tunnel filled with a deafening crackle. Veyra threw herself behind a rock formation as electricity crawled over the floor.
Grindle wasn't so lucky.
The blast caught his staff.
His little bells screamed.
He was thrown against the wall.
"Grindle!"
Veyra waited until the lightning subsided before crawling toward him. His brown robe was smoking, and one of his large ears had been scorched black.
"Are you alive?"
Grindle opened one yellow eye.
"Unfortunately."
Veyra let out a breath.
"Can you stand?"
"I can complain. That's a good sign."
She helped him up.
The capsule lay in the pool, its black shell cracked. The ore inside glowed brighter than before.
Veyra stared at it.
The mountain was not merely sensing the fragments.
It was calling to them.
And the fragments were answering.
"Leave it," Grindle said.
"I can't."
"You can. You simply don't want to."
"Those pieces are why I'm here."
"And they're why it's hunting you."
Veyra looked at him.
"Do you have somewhere safer we can go?"
Grindle gave her a bitter little smile.
"Safer? Certainly. Somewhere safe? Not anymore."
He pointed his staff down the tunnel.
"Come. The old settlement has another exit. If the mountain hasn't swallowed it."
They hurried onward.
The western tunnel opened into a cavern filled with movement.
The underground settlement was evacuating.
Small wooden doors stood open. Strange inhabitants hurried through the streets carrying bundles, children, tools, and possessions. The blue four-eyed rabbit from earlier was dragging a wooden cart with its teeth. A mushroom-headed woman held three tiny mushroom children beneath her arms. The floating moss-ball had become entangled in a rope and was being pulled along by two elderly figures.
The crystal-bodied inhabitant stood in the middle of the central bridge.
It wasn't moving.
Its three eyes stared toward the ceiling.
"Old Senn!" Grindle called.
The crystal creature slowly turned.
"Grindle."
"Where is the western passage?"
"Blocked."
Grindle's ears drooped.
"Of course it is."
"Eastern passage?"
"Falling."
"Southern?"
Senn's three eyes blinked in sequence.
"Something is coming through it."
Silence fell between them.
Veyra looked toward the southern passage.
A deep, slow vibration rolled through the settlement.
THUMP.
The dark stream beneath the bridge began flowing again.
Except it wasn't flowing downstream.
The water was moving uphill.
Veyra stared.
Small stones rose from the ground and drifted toward the southern passage. Wooden planks creaked as the entire settlement seemed to lean in that direction.
Then something enormous scraped against the cavern wall.
A sound like a mountain dragging its body across the earth.
The inhabitants began screaming.
"Move!" Grindle shouted. "Everyone to the old bell chamber!"
Senn remained where it was.
"Grindle."
"What?"
"The mountain remembers the first wound."
"I know!"
"No. You don't."
Senn's crystal body shimmered.
"It remembers the one who made it."
His three eyes turned toward Veyra.
She felt her stomach tighten.
"I'm sorry," she said quietly.
The crystal creature regarded her for a long moment.
"Sorry is a small thing."
Then the cavern ceiling split.
A massive blue vein appeared in the crack.
It pulsed once.
Twice.
And a gigantic stone finger pushed through.
Veyra had seen large creatures before.
She had studied the anatomy of magical beasts, fought summoned monstrosities, and watched wizards tear apart creatures that would have swallowed ordinary villages.
But this was different.
The finger was larger than a house.
It was covered in dark stone plates, with glowing blue lines running between them. Small crystal formations protruded from its surface. As it pressed through the cavern ceiling, the rock around it melted and cracked.
The creature was not squeezing through a hole.
The mountain was making room for it.
"RUN!" Grindle screamed.
The settlement erupted into chaos.
Veyra grabbed Grindle's arm and pulled him toward the bell chamber. They passed a wooden house as it collapsed, sending splintered boards across the bridge.
A tiny mushroom child stumbled in their path.
Its mother screamed.
Veyra stopped.
"Keep moving!" Grindle shouted.
She turned, swept her hand outward, and summoned a cushion of air beneath the child. It lifted just before a falling beam struck the ground.
The child drifted toward its mother.
The mother caught it and fled.
Veyra's spell cost her little mana, but the delay was enough.
The stone finger struck the cavern floor.
KRAAAAAAAM!
The entire settlement jumped.
Veyra was thrown sideways. Her shoulder slammed into a wooden post, and pain shot down her arm.
Her satchel swung forward.
The remaining capsules glowed.
All of them.
The mountain's voice returned.
"THIEF."
Veyra's breath caught.
The word wasn't spoken in anger.
It was spoken with recognition.
A blue light swept across the cavern.
The stone finger began to turn.
Not toward the settlement.
Toward her.
"Grindle!"
"I know!"
"Where is the bell chamber?"
"Through that door!"
He pointed toward a narrow wooden building built into the cavern wall.
Veyra ran.
The finger descended.
A wave of displaced air smashed through the settlement, tearing roofs from buildings and throwing inhabitants from their feet.
Grindle stumbled.
Veyra caught him by the back of his robe.
Then she saw the blue four-eyed rabbit.
It had become trapped beneath its overturned cart. Its legs kicked helplessly as the wooden frame pinned its body.
Veyra cursed.
"Go!" she shouted at Grindle.
He looked at her.
"Don't be stupid!"
"I'm already here!"
She dropped to one knee and thrust both hands toward the cart.
A controlled burst of telekinetic force lifted the wooden frame.
The rabbit scrambled free.
It immediately bit her boot.
"Not now!"
She shook it loose and pushed it toward the others.
Then the mountain moved.
A second finger emerged.
This one struck the bridge.
Wood exploded.
The entire structure collapsed into the dark stream.
Veyra leapt backward, narrowly avoiding the falling debris. The force knocked her off her feet, and her satchel struck the ground again.
One capsule split open.
A small fragment of the lightning-catching ore rolled across the stone.
It stopped.
The blue light in the cavern dimmed.
Every creature fell silent.
Even the mountain seemed to pause.
Then the fragment rose.
It floated in the air, glowing brighter and brighter.
Veyra stared at it in horror.
The voice came again.
"GIVE."
The fragment began moving toward the stone finger.
Veyra reached for it.
Grindle grabbed her wrist.
"Don't!"
"It's the ore!"
"It's calling to its body!"
"If it reaches that thing"
"It will go home!"
Veyra stared at him.
"Isn't that what you want?"
Grindle's expression changed.
For the first time since she had met him, the little creature looked genuinely frightened.
"No," he whispered.
The fragment suddenly shot forward.
A streak of blue light crossed the cavern and struck the stone finger.
The resulting flash was blinding.
A sound like a thousand bells rang through the underground settlement.
The mountain shuddered.
Then the finger withdrew slightly.
A deep, terrible groan rolled through the rock.
Veyra felt it in her chest.
The creature was in pain.
Not from the fragment returning.
From something else.
Something the ore had carried back with it.
Grindle looked at her satchel.
"What did you do?"
"I extracted it!"
"No." His voice trembled. "What did you bring with you?"
Veyra looked down.
The remaining capsules were glowing.
And beneath their black shells, the ore was no longer simply humming.
It was vibrating in a rhythm.
A heartbeat.
The same rhythm as the mountain.
Except there was something else mixed into it.
A second pulse.
Fainter.
Colder.
Veyra remembered the pale blue woman who had visited her camp.
I am part of it.
The next time it feels pain, it won't merely shake the mountain. It will reach for you.
Veyra swallowed.
"Grindle…"
The little creature looked at her.
"What?"
"I think something came back with the ore."
The bell chamber was an old structure built into the northern wall of the cavern.
Its entrance was framed by two enormous stone bells, each covered in symbols that Veyra didn't recognize. Grindle rushed inside and pulled a small wooden lever.
The bells began to ring.
Not loudly.
Their sound was low and deep, almost like distant thunder.
The remaining inhabitants hurried through the entrance. Senn was the last to arrive, moving with surprising speed despite its heavy crystal body.
Grindle slammed the door shut.
A moment later, the mountain struck the cavern again.
The entire chamber shook.
Veyra leaned against the wall, struggling to catch her breath.
Her shoulder throbbed. Her hands were scraped, and her robes were covered in dust.
She looked at her satchel.
The surviving capsules were still there.
Three of them.
One had cracked during the escape, and another was missing entirely. The first capsule had broken in the pool.
She had perhaps one gram of ore left.
Not enough.
Not even close.
And she was trapped beneath an awakened mountain.
Grindle approached her.
"Show me."
Veyra frowned.
"What?"
"The capsules."
"No."
His yellow eyes narrowed.
"You brought a piece of the mountain's body into our home. Now it is tearing our home apart. You will show me what you have."
"I don't answer to you."
"No," Grindle said. "You answer to the people who sent you."
The little creature tapped his staff against the ground.
"And I am beginning to think they sent you here without telling you what this place really is."
Veyra said nothing.
Grindle studied her face.
"Do you know what Thunder Scar is?"
"A mountain."
"No."
He gestured toward the ceiling.
"It's a prison."
Veyra stared at him.
Grindle continued.
"Long before Wizard City had walls, before the Mushroom War, before the first wizards learned to summon lightning, something fell from the sky. It was not a star. It was not a meteor. It was a creature."
He tapped his staff again.
"It came down during a storm that lasted forty days. The lightning struck it, and it drank every bolt. The earth swallowed it, but it did not die."
"Who imprisoned it?"
"We don't know."
"Then how do you know it's imprisoned?"
"Because it has tried to leave."
The chamber fell silent.
Grindle's ears lowered.
"Every few centuries, it wakes. It reaches upward. The mountain moves. The lightning grows wild. Then the old bells ring, and it goes back to sleep."
Veyra looked toward the bells.
"Those things put it to sleep?"
"They remind it."
"Remind it of what?"
Grindle hesitated.
"That it is not alone."
A heavy silence followed.
Then Veyra heard a sound.
A soft voice.
Not from the mountain.
Not from Grindle.
From inside her satchel.
"Veyra."
Her blood turned cold.
She slowly looked down.
The remaining capsules were glowing.
But the voice had not come from the ore.
It had come from the dream anchor charm.
The silver eye-shaped object Orell had given her.
Its surface had turned completely black.
And within it, something moved.
A tiny blue figure appeared in the polished silver.
The floating woman.
Her face was pale, her white hair drifting around her as though she were submerged in water.
"Veyra," she whispered again.
Grindle backed away.
"No…"
The woman looked directly at Veyra.
"You must not let it take you."
Veyra's throat tightened.
"Who are you?"
The woman's expression was sorrowful.
"I was the first thing it made."
The bells stopped ringing.
Outside, the mountain became silent.
Then, from somewhere deep beneath the cavern, a new voice spoke.
Not the mountain's voice.
A smaller voice.
A woman's voice.
"Mother?"
The pale woman in the charm closed her eyes.
And the mountain began to cry.
Far beneath Wizard City, in the chamber of the cult, the ritual matrix pulsed.
The synchronization crystal had reached 96.2%.
Malrec stood before it, his hands clasped behind his back.
Othra adjusted the silver runes around the stasis cube.
Brindle watched the central scroll, his root-like arm twitching as the ink rearranged itself.
Then the matrix gave a sudden, violent shudder.
Every candle in the chamber went out.
A thin blue line appeared across the central crystal.
Malrec's expression hardened.
"What is that?"
Othra leaned forward.
"I don't know."
The line widened.
For a brief moment, an image appeared inside the crystal.
A mountain.
A vast eye.
And a pale woman standing beneath a storm-filled sky.
Then the image vanished.
The synchronization crystal returned to its usual glow.
Brindle slowly turned toward Malrec.
"Is that supposed to happen?"
Malrec didn't answer immediately.
He examined the crystal, then the partially completed binding scroll.
Finally, he smiled.
"Interesting."
Othra's blue eye narrowed.
"Chief Ritualist?"
"Continue preparing the cube."
"But the disturbance"
"Is irrelevant."
Malrec turned away.
"Veyra's mission is taking longer than expected. When she returns, we will have what we need."
He paused at the chamber door.
"And if she doesn't?"
Brindle asked the question quietly.
Malrec looked back.
"Then we find another source."
He left the chamber.
Behind him, the synchronization crystal pulsed once more.
96.3%.
And somewhere within its depths, something whispered a name.
Not Sam's.
Not Veyra's.
A name that had not been spoken aloud in Wizard City for centuries.
"Mother."