Lucen lay on the ground, eyes wide open, lifeless. Blood pooled beneath his still body. The Draugr turned their hollow gazes toward the others, who stood paralyzed in disbelief and horror. The silence that followed Lucen's collapse was broken only by the low growls of the undead.
Kaela lunged forward, reaching for him, but the Draugr surged forward with unrelenting fury. The fight resumed, fiercer than ever. Ragar was riddled with wounds, his breathing ragged. Thorgar, near his limit, barely kept the unending onslaught at bay. Lissette, her magicka depleted, relied on desperate footwork to deflect the enemies' strikes, her dagger little more than a desperate gesture.
Kaela's legs buckled, and she fell to one knee. Blood soaked her leathers, each breath more labored than the last. A Deathlord loomed before her, its skeletal face twisted in a grotesque leer. It raised its sword overhead, savoring the moment.
The blade fell.
A splash of blood erupted, but it wasn't Kaela's.
Lissette stood between them, the sword buried in her back.
Her body collapsed in front of Kaela like a broken shield. Kaela stared, pupils dilated in shock, hands trembling. A scream tore from her throat, raw, anguished, furious.
She surged to her feet, her greatsword in hand. With a guttural roar, she swung with every ounce of rage and grief in her soul, decapitating a Deathlord in one feral blow. Ragar and Thorgar joined her, rallying behind that act of defiance. Together, they fought, blocking, parrying, striking.
Then the chamber shook with a word of power.
"Fus—Ro—Dah!"
The shout blasted them apart like rag dolls. Ragar struck the wall and slumped to the ground, unconscious. Thorgar hit stone, headfirst, and didn't rise again. Kaela, bleeding and dazed, forced herself upright. Her sword served as a crutch more than a weapon now.
Before her stood the last ten: nine Draugr Deathlords and a towering Death Overlord seated atop the central coffin as if it were a throne. Its eyes glowed with a mocking hunger. It watched her suffer, and laughed; a cold, hollow sound that echoed across the crypt like a death knell.
Kaela took a step, and faltered.
She began to fall.
But a hand caught her.
Too weak to look, too tired to move, Kaela heard a voice; soft, low, and familiar.
"You've done enough," it whispered. "Rest."
She couldn't even form a word before sleep claimed her.
Lucen gently lowered her to the ground.
Then he stood, facing the circle of death.
The Overlord rose from its throne, intrigued. The Deathlords formed ranks below the altar, their weapons drawn. Lucen exhaled calmly, his expression composed. He reached to brush his hair aside and paused; his right arm was still missing.
"Oh," he murmured, "that's inconvenient."
Before the undead could act, the raw, bubbling flesh of his shoulder twitched, and then grew. Veins laced themselves over regenerating sinew and bone. Muscle coiled into place, and skin sealed over. Within seconds, his arm was whole again.
The Overlord growled in interest.
Lucen flexed his fingers experimentally.
"My first time regenerating a limb," he said, more to himself than anyone else. "It tickles."
He looked up at the undead host.
"Now then," he said, lifting his hand, "let's get on with it."
The Deathlords charged.
Lucen raised his right hand to his chest, fingers curled, index and thumb extended.
A single breath.
At the tip of his index finger, fire sparked to life. It was no ordinary flame. It burned orange, then yellow, then white, until it became a small, bluish-white orb. Barely the size of a thumbnail. And yet, it glowed with the heat and gravity of a newborn star.
Silent.
Steady.
Apocalyptic.
The Draugr felt it. Their charge didn't slow, but their grip tightened. They recognized the doom in that light.
Lucen aimed his finger.
There was no chant. No roar. No flourish.
Only white.
***
I sat on the central coffin on top of the altar.
The stone was cold beneath me, but I didn't mind. The Dragonstone rested against the sarcophagus to my right, its etched surface catching rays of sunlight that hadn't existed in this ruin just an hour ago.
Above, the ceiling was gone.
Not damaged. Not crumbling.
Gone.
A massive hole, easily sixty meters wide, opened the sky to us, jagged at the edges like a wound torn into the mountain's flesh. Through it, sunlight poured in, warm and golden. It bathed the stone altar, the shattered urns, the soot-streaked floor. The silence was uncanny. Not peaceful. Just… hollow. Like the world was holding its breath.
I stared at the mountain through the hole. Its white-capped summit gleamed beyond the ruin, distant and timeless. Wind drifted in, cool and slow, rustling my hair. Somewhere below, water dripped rhythmically, echoing like a ticking clock.
Everything ached. Not my body—no, that had been restored with obscene efficiency—but something deeper. Something intangible. Like I'd burned through more than magicka.
There was movement.
A groan.
Then a voice: "Am I dead?"
I didn't look. Just tilted my head slightly. "Would you like to be?"
Another groan, and the soft rustling of fabric against stone. I heard her sit up, could feel her gaze on me.
"You're alive?" Lissette asked, her voice tentative, like the question might break if she said it too loud.
I smiled to myself. "Apparently."
"What... happened?" Her tone wavered. "And the hole—what is that?"
"I learned a new technique," I said.
"You blew up the ceiling," she hissed, like she was trying to will sense back into the world.
I finally turned to face her. She was pale, covered in dried blood and ash. Her armor was scuffed, dented. Her eyes wide with the kind of disbelief only survivors feel.
"Yes," I said calmly. "Well. The ceiling got in the way of the energy. It lost."
She blinked rapidly, then pointed, hand shaking slightly. "Your arm."
I raised my right hand and flexed the fingers. "Healing," I said. "It's surprisingly versatile. If you... saturate it. Oversaturate it."
"But—" she started, then stopped. Her eyes darted down to her own body.
To the place where a gaping wound had been.
She reached back with trembling fingers, pressing against unmarred skin.
"I healed everyone," I said quietly. "You, Ragar, Thorgar. Kaela."
Lissette's face twisted, confusion, horror, gratitude all trying to wear the same mask. She opened her mouth, probably to argue, but the words caught in her throat.
In the end, all she said was, "...Thank you."
I nodded once. "Don't thank me yet. I'm still debating whether it was a mistake."
That earned me a soft huff. Almost a laugh. Almost.
She noticed the Dragonstone then. "What's that?"
"The reason we came," I said, tapping it with a knuckle.
"A slab of stone?"
"More than just stone, it's a map."
"To what?"
"Dragon burial sites."
She stared at me like I'd spoken in riddles.
"Dragons," she repeated slowly.
I nodded. "You've heard the stories. Helgen was real. Kaela and I were there. The creature that attacked, it wasn't a storm, or a trick. It had wings. Fire. Scales. It spoke. Sort of. And it will not be the last."
"But... they're myths."
I shrugged. "So were Daedra once. So was magic, to some. The world doesn't care what we believe, it just is."
She didn't reply. Just stared out the hole in the ceiling. I didn't blame her. A hole like that makes you reconsider a lot of things. Like mortality. Or whether the gods are watching. Or if you're just a bug on the floor of something's cathedral.
There was more rustling. A grunt. Then another.
Ragar and Thorgar were stirring. I didn't look. I could feel them. Magicka still clung to their bones like dust after a storm.
"...Lucen?" Ragar rasped.
"Yes."
"Your arm...?"
"Back. Mostly functional."
He groaned and sat up, looked at the ceiling. "...What happened?"
"Magic."
"What kind of magic?"
"The kind that leaves holes."
Thorgar coughed somewhere behind me. "Gods... I thought we were dead."
"You were. Briefly."
Their silence stretched out. It was the silence of men who didn't want to ask the real question: what did you do to us?
I stood and stretched, the joints in my shoulders cracking with a satisfying pop. "We should go. It'll be dark in a few hours."
Lissette looked around. "What about Kaela?"
I turned. She lay motionless beside Lissette, still asleep. Her breathing is fine, and I made sure to heal every injury she could possibly have. Just mentally exhausted, perhaps? Unfortunately, my Healing doesn't cover that bit.
"She'll be fine," I said.
Then I walked over, knelt down, and slung her over my shoulder like a sack of grain. She didn't stir.
I glanced at the Dragonstone. "Ragar. Take it."
He hesitated. "Shouldn't we... I don't know. Rest? What if there are more of those things out there on our way back inside?"
Thorgar let out a hacking cough and pointed one thick finger at the gaping wall.
Ragar followed his gesture. "Oh."
He moved to the Dragonstone and lifted it with a grunt. "Right. Scenic route."
We made our way to the hole in the wall, stepping over splintered beams and shattered urns. The wind had picked up now, carrying with it the scent of pine and ash, and something faintly metallic.
I stepped through first. The world outside was brighter than I expected. Blinding, almost. I blinked against it. There was a strange calmness in the air, like the mountain itself was exhaling.
Behind me, Lissette paused at the breach. She turned, looking back at the chamber, the ruin, the crater where a ceiling had once stood.
She didn't say anything. Just stared.
I wondered what she saw.
A battlefield?
A tomb?
A warning?
Then she turned and stepped out into the light.
***
The trail down the mountain was barely a trail at all, just a faded suggestion of one, carved into the dirt by old boots and time. Roots curled through the path like veins, and loose rocks betrayed every other step. Still, it was better than climbing blind. The sun was beginning its slow descent, bleeding into burnt orange above the trees, dyeing the world in a soft, forgiving light. The kind of light that made the ruins behind us seem like they belonged to another life.
I adjusted Kaela's weight over my shoulder. She was still out cold—heart beating steadily, breath warm—but the fight had wrung her dry. We all looked better than we should have, considering the state we'd been in an hour ago. No blood. No broken bones. No lingering wounds. But scars didn't always need to show to exist.
I found myself glancing at my right hand more than once. Flexing the fingers. Watching the way the light caught the faint shimmer where flesh had been rebuilt from memory. The restoration had been… excessive. It had to be. It was an entire arm missing after all. And yet, here it was. Solid. Warm. Alive.
Behind me, the others walked in relative silence. Lissette limped slightly—residual stiffness, perhaps—but otherwise looked well. Thorgar kept glancing at the treeline, probably watching for bears or wolves or whatever else liked to prowl in dying light. Ragar had the Dragonstone slung over his back like it was a sack of potatoes. It probably weighed close to one, too.
Kaela stirred.
I felt her shift on my shoulder, just a little twitch at first, then more.
"Mmmh—"
She groaned, blinked, then pushed against me.
"You're awake," I muttered, slowing to let her down.
She wobbled a bit on her feet, catching herself with both arms outstretched like she was trying to balance on a ship's deck. Her eyes flicked from me to Lissette. She just stared.
Her lips parted, but no sound came out. She looked like she was trying to piece together a dream that didn't make sense anymore.
"What?" I said, lifting a brow. "You break your brain on the way down?"
That seemed to snap her out of it. She took two steps forward and then—without warning—threw her arms around both me and Lissette, yanking us into a full-bodied hug that stole the breath from my chest.
"I thought you were dead," she said. Her voice cracked in the middle, ragged. "I saw it happen. You both—Lucen, through your chest—"
I froze.
Lissette responded first, returning the hug gently, her hands finding Kaela's back. She murmured something soft—reassuring, I think—but I barely registered it.
Because she was right. I had almost died.
Not in the poetic sense. Not in the reckless, dramatic sort of way a sellsword might say after a bar fight. I mean—truly. Utterly. The kind of death that would've unmade me. Soul and all. The kind of death no Restoration magic could ever walk back.
And yet here I was. Breathing.
I felt something twist in my stomach. A subtle drop, like I'd stepped off a ledge and hadn't landed yet.
"Relax," I said, hiding it all behind my voice. "We're fine. Everyone's fine. You don't get rid of me that easily."
Kaela pulled back just enough to look at us. Her cheeks were wet, her eyes rimmed red, but she laughed. It was a raw sound, but it was real.
"You're such an ass," she sniffled.
"Takes one to know one."
Thorgar coughed behind us. "Touching."
Ragar chuckled. "Want me to join in? We could make it a group hug."
Kaela flipped them both off with a grin, still sniffling. Then she took a long breath, wiped her eyes, and straightened up.
Lissette gave her a once-over. "Good to have you back."
"Yeah," she said. "Good to be back."
We stood there a moment longer—five mismatched souls on the side of a forgotten trail, halfway between ruin and civilization—before Lissette clapped her hands lightly.
"Alright," she said. "Group hug's over. Let's not sleep out here, yeah?"
The descent resumed. The sky kept bleeding color.
Kaela fell into step beside me after a while, her gait more casual now that the worst of the stiffness had faded.
"Hey," she said, nudging me. "Your arm."
"Yeah?"
"It's fine now."
I lifted it, flexed the fingers again, and nodded. "Good as new."
"You healed it?"
"With enough magicka, you can do a lot more than close a wound."
Her eyes lit up like a child discovering a new toy. "Could you do that to me?"
"Yes."
Her expression brightened. "Really?!"
"But I won't."
"Ugh," she groaned. "Why not?"
"Because pain builds character."
"I have plenty of character, thank you very much."
"Then clearly it's working."
She stuck her tongue out at me and sped up the trail in a mock huff. I let her have the lead. Lissette caught up on my other side and smirked.
"She missed you."
"She's seen me unconscious for five hours at most."
"You nearly died."
"…Yeah."
I didn't elaborate.
The conversation drifted from there. At some point, Thorgar started telling a joke about a sabre cat and a priest of Dibella, and Ragar—shockingly—laughed so hard he nearly dropped the Dragonstone. Lissette groaned, Kaela howled with laughter, and I let it all soak in quietly.
This—whatever this was—wasn't so bad.
No dragons. No ancient runes or soul-shattering truths. No undead monstrosities. Just five idiots and a mountain trail.
That was enough.