“I hope to…” Tao muttered, voice thin as he glanced down the dark hallway. There
was a nervous edge to his tone, like the words were pulled unwillingly from his
chest, dragged out by some quiet, gnawing dread.

With
a sudden plop, Frog materialized on my shoulder, heavier than I remembered,
the air puffing faintly from his arrival.

“Ribbit.”

“Bad
ribbit or good ribbit?” I asked, staring sideways at him as my head turned once
more to gaze down the tunnel.

Frog
slapped my shoulder once with a tiny wet hand. No ribbit. No croak. Just… slap.

“Ah…
neutral ribbit,” I translated after a pause. The others shot me a round of
confused expressions, but I shrugged as if it were the most obvious answer in
the world. “It doesn’t mean good. Doesn’t mean bad. Just means something’s
happening or he noticed a change to something. He is better for stakeout’s
though I have to keep him from trash cans with flies.”

I
flicked open my lighter and sparked up a cigarette, the orange glow briefly
lighting the edges of my face. “I’ll go check it out. You all keep pulling
information from the spirit. Ito?”

Ito
nodded without hesitation. His sword shimmered into his hand as if summoned
from thought alone. We moved together, silent and efficient, our boots
whispering against stone as we descended the tunnel. I kept my gun drawn until
the hallway began to widen, then stowed it with practiced ease and unlatched
the chain blade instead.

The
quiet was deeper here. A crushing sort of silence that pressed against the
eardrums and made even breaths feel like sacrilege. Ito frowned, scanning the
surroundings. Nothing seemed off—until I spotted it. One of the massive doors
was ajar by a centimeter or so. Barely anything, but enough to tell me someone
or something had moved it.

I
motioned subtly to Ito, who slid along the wall, putting space between us and
the opening. He read the area like a tactician: ceiling, walls, floor, even air
currents.

“What
do you think?” he asked, eyes still working.

I
didn’t answer. Not yet. There wasn’t enough to go on.

Instead,
I looked at my watch and asked, “How long have we been here?”

He
shrugged. Then the other door moved.

This
one wasn’t subtle. A low groan of wood, a shudder in the stone, and a vibration
that crept up through my soles. Both doors now slightly open, the shape of a
crude V forming between them.

“What
if this whole place is wave-based?” I offered aloud, hoping he caught the
thought. “And the first wave hits at night?”

“That’d
mean about… now?”

Before
either of us could respond, footsteps echoed behind us. Light and quick, full
of nervous energy and the sound of far too many tools rattling in deep pockets.
I didn’t need to turn to know it was Jax.

He
skidded into the light of the braziers, pale and wide-eyed. “Get out.”

Just
those two words before he turned and bolted.

Ito
and I didn’t need convincing. We turned and ran.

Ito
muttered something under his breath and his body flared with golden light. He
scooped Jax up without breaking stride and surged ahead. I considered burning a
rune, but held back. My eyes flicked to the shield.

Unstrapping
it from my arm, I hurled it forward and commanded it to hover. It obeyed,
floating just above the ground. I dove belly-first onto it—and it sagged.
Heavily.

Right.
I still had steel coating me. It boosted my strength marginally, but not with
my increased weight in comparison to that gain.

“Frog,
absorb the steel! Please and thank you!” I barked.

The
pressure eased. I tossed the shield again and belly-flopped onto it with better
results. This time, it moved. Not fast, but steady—faster than running. I
zipped through the tunnel, caught up with Ito, then overtook him.

He
blinked in surprise. Jax raised his arms from his princess-carry position and
pointed. That should’ve been my warning.

WHAM.

I
slammed into the wall beneath the ladder, skull narrowly saved by a quick
expansion of my cloak. I dropped off the shield, dazed and winded, rolling onto
my back. Ito dropped Jax and yanked me to my feet, but a new sound filled the
air.

A
whirring. Something fast.

I
didn’t even get a word out before Ito stepped in front of me. His sword flashed
upward, deflecting an axe that looked like it had been forged in the heart of a
volcano. It was the size of a damn shield, glowing red with heat. It smashed
into the wall behind us and nearly brought the tunnel down.

Ito
went first up the ladder, dragging Jax. I followed, but halfway up, the ladder shuddered.
A brutal slam from below cracked it away from the wall. I clung on, elbows
banging against stone. Blood trailed from gashes along my side. Something had
pierced me. Two bolts, maybe more.

Thinking
fast, I flung the shield upward, commanded it to hover vertically, and latched
onto it. It carried me upward like a slow-moving elevator.

Above,
Bjor slammed his hammer into the floor. The stone cracked open in a circle, and
a barrier formed to keep the ladder in place. I floated upward, struggling to
stay conscious, and launched my chain blade into the ceiling. It caught. I
reeled in, shield tight to my chest, and shot through the floor just as Jax
tossed a glowing crystal down after me.

Bjor
slammed his hammer again. The floor sealed shut.

BOOM.

The
explosion rocked the building.

“That
won’t hold them for long, it was for the tunnel!” Jax shouted, backing away.

Kito
was already at my side, working quickly to bandage the wounds. Blood trickled
from two bolt-sized gashes near my ribs. They weren’t deep, but they burned
like hell.

Tao
appeared and murmured something quick and sharp. A splash of water—cool,
stinging—and I watched as metal shards and black grime floated from the wounds.

“Purification,”
he said, already turning away. “It won’t heal, but it’ll keep the infection
out.”

A
distant thump echoed outside.

Kito
squeezed my shoulder. I nodded. She followed Tao toward the windows.

Drek
ran his hands through his hair, muttering, “Oh fuck me…”

I
staggered upright and used the walls as a crutch to make my way to the others.

“Oh
fuck me sideways,” I added as the scene came into view.

Thick
bone hands rose from the excavation site. Skeletons—some human, some
animal—burst from the soil. Warriors in rusted armor. Hulking beasts stitched
together from prehistoric bones. A massive ribcage surfaced—twisted and jagged.

“That’s
a T-rex,” Bjor said casually.

We
all turned. He shrugged. “I like dinosaurs.”

Fair
enough.

Jax
backed away from his window. His elbow bumped a table, sending a pile of tools
clattering to the floor. Outside, every undead head turned in unison.

“Sorry—fuck—sorry,”
he stammered, drawing his light blade, fumbling with the trigger.

Night
had fully taken the world outside. The forest—vibrant and alive when we
arrived—now loomed as a wall of shadow. Beyond it? Nothing but void. As if
someone had painted over the world with a brush of pitch.

A
stage.

And
we were standing in the spotlight.

I
holstered the chain blade and drew my pistol. Safety off.

“Curtain’s
up,” I said quietly.

The
lights cut out, plunging the room into chaos.

We
all screamed the same name in unison: “Jax!”

The
soft hiss of a blade igniting followed by a flash of pale blue light lit the
darkness. “On it! Protect my ass!” Jax shouted as he bolted toward the rear of
the room, the light of his blade bouncing off wooden beams and dust-slicked
metal. He disappeared down a small stairwell into an auxiliary storage chamber,
tool satchel bouncing with each step.

“I
want all side windows sealed!” Ito barked, commanding the chaos with clarity.
“Bjor, cover the windows with earth—stack high and dense. Kito, reinforce the
front with a half-shield. We’ll funnel them and trim them down before they can
surround us.”

I
spun my bracelet, pulling lightning runes into form. The sigils crackled to
life across my right hand, soft neon arcs casting flickers of pale violet
across the dim interior. Not a lot of room to move. This wasn’t going to be a
clean fight.

“Ito,”
I asked from the dark, my voice low but measured. “Do we want to meet them
outside? Or hold the line here?”

I
could hear the unmistakable buzz of Jax's tools in the depths below—arcane
screws twisting, wires sizzling. That boy was building something, and fast.

“Bad
idea,” Ito replied. “If they’re necromantic in origin, and not just animated
bones but spiritual dead, we could get drained just by proximity. Spirits kill
differently than spells do. Tao can confirm that as we go—but for now, we
hold.”

I
flicked open the Dragon Lance Lighter and switched the dial to light. A
finger-sized orb floated upward and hovered outside the front window like a
miniature sun. The world beyond the glass lit up like stage lighting, and the
audience waiting for us was nothing but bone and shadow—hundreds of skeletons,
monstrous and human, pressed tight against the walls of the building. A wall of
red stars watching. Breathing wasn’t even necessary anymore—just cold
calculation.

The
floor broke open. Wood splintered as Bjor’s hammer split it clean. In an
instant, walls of stone surged upward from the gap like crashing waves, sealing
off every side window not already protected. “I feel something trying to push
up through the floor beneath us,” Bjor grunted.

A
skeletal hand shattered a window—then in a flash of silver, Ito cleanly sliced
it away with his blade.

Tao’s
voice was firm: “Save your energy. Their bones aren’t enhanced.” He walked
calmly to a nearby desk as I heard a thunk behind me—he had cleared the space.
A brilliant orb of light floated above the surface where he placed the severed
arm.

He
moved with ritualistic calm, drawing a circle in chalk around the arm. Glyphs
bloomed outward from his fingertips in regular intervals, each marking etched
with speed and precision. As he chanted, the arm lifted. Runes shimmered in
succession—blue, purple, red, green. Each flared and faded. Tao’s frown
deepened.

After
the final glyph winked out, the arm dropped.

“Spirits,”
he said, picking the limb up with a cloth. “Not magic. Be on guard.”

I
tucked my pistol away. No point in wasting bullets—not yet. My hand hovered
over the Pumpkin King Ring. It was time to see what this thing could do.

I
concentrated. An orange thread manifested midair, flickering with the color of
molten pumpkins and glowing cinders. I turned toward Drek. “Do you see this
thread in front of me?”

He
barely looked away from the window. “Nope.”

Perfect.
That confirmed it—ethereal threads. Only visible to me. Already my mind was
racing with possibilities.

I
pulled on the energy within. Rather than feeding it into myself, I directed the
stream toward the ring. A subtle tingle coursed through my fingers, followed by
a faint blue hue joining the orange thread—lightning charge. With a nod, I
summoned Frog and instructed him to deposit steel beside me. The metal pooled
like mercury, cool and fluid.

“Uh...
pumpkin?” I tried aloud, unsure if words mattered. Nothing happened.

Maybe
it needed intent. I imagined a Jack-o’-lantern with jagged teeth and diamond
eyes, and the metal answered. It flowed from my arm like liquid silk, curling
outward from the stem and blooming like a flower into a wicked, grinning face.
A pumpkin of polished steel and glowing veins of power. The ring snapped the
thread to it, and inside, static crackled like a storm in a box.

I
had created my first lantern.

The
eyes of the pumpkin glowed as the internal charge flared, a candle of arcane
blue flame now flickering inside. I marveled at it for a moment, then looked to
the Arcane cane I had received.

Time
to test synergy.

I
reached back into the Echo Pack and pulled the cane free. Waving it near the
floating threads did nothing. But the moment I willed it, a new thread snapped
from the ring and latched onto the Arcane. The connection was made.

I
raised the cane and fired.

A
spike of azure light shot forward with a crack, striking the top of the window
frame and sending shards of wood flying. It wasn’t flashy, but it was deadly
precise. I could feel it. My aim had been slightly off—but that wasn’t the
Arcane’s fault.

I
bit my finger, drew blood, and smeared it on the cane’s shaft. The Arcane
absorbed the blood with a warm pulse. I fired again—this time the bolt struck a
skeleton in the chest, shattering ribs and spine alike.

“They’re
just standing there,” Bjor muttered, his hammer held at the ready.
“Menacingly.”

I
glanced at Tao. “What else did the spirit say?”

He
didn’t look up as he scrawled glowing glyphs along the windowsills. “It said it
didn’t have a master. Only that it had been placed where it was. It
doesn’t know what’s beyond the door, but it senses something pass by once per
day. Cold. It said it felt... less afterward. If its fire is made of soul
energy, then something is sapping it with each pass.”

Ito
tapped his sword against the sealed floor hatch. “Maybe the earth blocking the
tunnel weakens the connection?”

Tao
cast a set of orbs from his hand out the window, each one softly pulsing.
“Doubtful. That’s not how control like this works. Necromancy—real
necromancy—would be command through magic. This feels like something else. This
feels like a Revenant.”

The
word dropped heavy.

“In
our world,” Tao continued, “a Revenant is a spirit vessel user who survives
through possession, who draws power from the lingering dead. It’s an
Application type, one of the Spirit Vessel’s nine. There are 27 Application
paths across all vessels. If something here is controlling with force and
presence rather than spell or formation... then we are dealing with a
Revenant."

I
lit another cigarette, the smoke curling around my head. “How do we kill it?”

“You
don’t kill it,” Tao replied. “You sever it. Cut its anchor. Whatever it draws
from, you slice it clean. Then you survive until it burns out. If it’s a
creature, or if it’s just a host… then we approach it like anything else.”

We
all turned to look at the sealed floor hatch again, the dark wooden maw
silently waiting.

“Bjor,”
Tao called.

The
lights flickered back on—and from below came a scream that cut straight through
the stillness.