Dawn crept over Serpent's Tail with a pale, sickly light that never quite reached the forest floor.
Darion Vane stood at the edge of the ruined shrine, staring down into a narrow fissure hidden behind the altar. Moss-covered stones had shifted sometime in the past night, revealing a descent—a slanted stairwell vanishing into darkness. The air rising from the gap was ice-cold and smelled of old bones and damp stone.
Behind him, Mara groaned as she cinched the bandage on her thigh. Her leg was healing—slowly—but she was pale and sweating. Even her usual sarcasm had dulled to a smolder.
"Still think your father was just chasing ghosts?" Darion asked, glancing back at her.
"No," she muttered, then forced herself to her feet. "But I didn't think the ghosts would start chasing me."
Darion gave her a half-smile, then drew his cutlass. "Ready?"
Mara pulled a fresh powder charge from her pouch and loaded her pistol with deliberate slowness. "I'm limping, exhausted, and possibly cursed."
She cocked the flintlock and nodded. "Let's go."
Beneath the Ruin
The stairwell was steep and slick with condensation. The walls were carved with faded serpentine symbols, and from somewhere far below came the echo of dripping water and… something else.
Whispers.
Darion paused. The voices were faint, but they slipped along the edges of his hearing like tendrils—too soft to understand, too persistent to ignore. He glanced at Mara.
"Do you—"
"Yes," she said quickly, voice tight. "I hear them."
They descended in silence. After twenty or so paces, the stairwell opened into a vast chamber carved from black stone. Dozens of stone pillars held up a domed ceiling covered in murals—crumbling images of serpent-headed figures offering something to the sea: bones, hearts, living men. The sea, in turn, gave something back. Something enormous. Something crowned.
In the center of the chamber stood a pedestal.
And on it: a compass.
It didn't look like any compass Darion had ever seen. The casing was bronze, but warped by age, and the needle within was made of red stone—blood-red—and didn't point north. In fact, it spun slowly, in smooth, hypnotic circles.
Mara stepped toward it, breath catching.
"This must be it," she whispered. "The Blood Compass. My father wrote about it. Said it led him toward something… deeper than any vault or treasure."
Darion stared at it. "Deeper how?"
She didn't answer. Instead, she reached out.
The moment her fingers touched the compass, the needle stopped spinning.
And pointed—downward.
A tremor shook the chamber. Dust rained from the ceiling. A distant groaning echoed through the walls, like some ancient gate being pried open after centuries sealed shut.
Mara yanked her hand back.
"Probably should've asked before touching it," Darion muttered.
"I had to know," she shot back. "He wasn't crazy. It's real."
Darion studied the compass again. "It's not magical?"
"No… not exactly. He said it was tied to blood. The user's blood. Something to do with lineage." She frowned, rubbing her wrist. "When I touched it… it felt like something grabbed hold of me."
Darion narrowed his eyes. "You think it's locked to your family?"
"Maybe. Or maybe it just likes me."
The pedestal beneath the compass shifted. A second tremor ran through the chamber—and this time, a grinding noise came from the far wall.
One of the murals split in half. A hidden door.
Darion raised his cutlass again. "I really hate secret doors."
The Catacomb Beyond
They stepped through the opening and found themselves in a narrow hallway that descended deeper than either of them liked.
The walls were slick and alive with carvings—some fresh, some ancient. The same serpent motif coiled across every surface, but here it was different. More grotesque. The serpents had too many mouths. Human eyes. Their tails pierced screaming figures, hollowing them out.
The deeper they went, the colder it became.
"I don't like this," Mara muttered.
"No one sane would," Darion replied.
"Then why do we keep going?"
He glanced at her. "Because something worse is behind us."
The hallway eventually opened into a round chamber with an elevated stone slab at the center. Around it were dozens of clay urns, most shattered. Bones littered the floor—some human, some not. And the walls were covered in script neither of them could read.
The Blood Compass pulsed in Mara's hand, faintly warm. Its needle pointed at the slab.
Darion approached it carefully. On the slab, someone had etched three symbols recently—unlike the ancient carvings, these were fresh. Wet, even. Carved in red.
"Mara," he said. "Is that… blood?"
She came closer, limp more pronounced. She stared down at the slab, and her eyes went wide. "I've seen this symbol before," she whispered. "In my father's journal."
"What does it mean?"
"'Sheol.' The same word he wrote on the map. He said it meant the Deep Prison."
Darion felt a chill crawl up his spine.
He was about to speak again when a low growl came from the far side of the chamber.
They spun, weapons raised.
A figure staggered into the room.
It was… human. Or had been once.
Gaunt, soaked in seawater, eyes clouded with black veins. Its jaw hung crooked. Barnacles grew from its arms. Its skin was cracked like dried riverbed.
It opened its mouth—and screamed.
Not a cry of pain. A shriek of rage.
Two more figures followed it from the tunnel. Then another.
"Back!" Darion shouted.
He rushed forward, slashing at the first, cutting deep into its neck—but it didn't fall. It lunged again, jaws wide. Darion grabbed its hair and slammed it against the wall. Bone cracked. This time, it dropped.
Mara fired. The shot blasted through the second creature's eye. It fell twitching.
The third rushed Darion, grabbing his shoulders. Its breath was seawater and rot. He drove his cutlass through its gut and twisted. Still it held on—until Mara stabbed it in the spine from behind.
It collapsed.
They stood panting.
"Undrowned," Mara whispered. "They're real…"
Darion wiped blood from his face. "What?"
"Legends. Sailors who die at sea… but get back up. Not ghosts. Not alive. Just… claimed."
"Claimed by what?"
She hesitated. "The Abyss."
Blood for Blood
The compass trembled in her hand. Then, with a sharp click, its top sprang open—revealing a second layer inside: a hollow chamber shaped like a sunken spiral, rimmed with tiny teeth.
Darion looked over her shoulder. "That's not a compass. It's a key."
Mara nodded. "And it wants blood."
Without hesitation, she took her dagger, cut her palm, and let a few drops fall into the spiral.
The chamber vibrated.
The central slab began to sink into the floor, grinding downward like a hidden lift. The air grew colder still—so cold Darion could see his breath.
Below the slab, stairs led down into blackness.
"You sure you want to keep going?" Darion asked.
"I have to," Mara said. "Whatever he found—whatever took him—it's down there."
Darion looked at her, at the pale fire in her eyes.
"You're not doing this for treasure, are you?"
"No," she said. "I'm doing it for answers."
He nodded once.
And together, they descended.
Deeper Still
The stairs wound downward in a perfect spiral, like the grooves of the compass. The walls were smoother here, newer. And the markings had changed. Gone were the serpents.
Instead, there were faces.
Thousands of them—carved into every surface. Screaming. Smiling. Silenced.
Each had their mouths sewn shut with stone threads.
Mara stopped halfway down. "This place wasn't just a prison."
Darion stared at the carvings. "It was a sanctuary."
"For what?"
"A god," she whispered. "Or something worse."
At the bottom of the stairs, they entered a vault unlike anything either had seen.
The chamber was enormous—a black dome lined with what looked like pews, as if meant for a congregation. And at the far end, raised on a stone plinth, was a coffin made of coral and gold. Seaweed trailed from its seams. The water lapped at its base, though no source fed it.
The Blood Compass pointed directly to it.
Darion felt every hair on his body rise.
"Do you feel that?" he asked.
Mara nodded slowly. "She's here."
Darion approached the coffin, heart thundering. He could hear a sound now—not whispers, not breath.
A heartbeat.
Slow. Immense.
It came from inside the coffin.
He drew his blade but did not step closer.
"We're not ready for this," he said. "Not now. Not without allies. Not without knowing what we're waking up."
Mara stared at the coffin, face pale, compass shaking in her hand.
"No," she said. "But we've seen enough to know it's real. We take what we can. And we run."
Darion nodded. "Agreed."
He turned to leave—
And something opened its eyes within the coffin.
A flash of blue.
A smile behind the coral seams.
Above Ground
As they stumbled from the ruin hours later, both reeking of sea-brine and ancient stone, the sun had reached its peak.
Darion shielded his eyes and scanned the beach. No slavers. No ships.
But smoke.
On the far edge of the jungle, smoke rose—black and oily.
Mara followed his gaze. "They're burning something."
"Or someone," Darion muttered.
He unslung his belt, checked his pistol, and tightened his coat.
Mara looked down at the compass. "The needle's still pointing deeper. Still spinning."
"We go the other way."
"For now."
But deep beneath Serpent's Tail, the coffin no longer lay still.
The Undrowned were stirring across the sea.
And the Abyssal Queen… had seen them.