The road to the Vault wasn't a road at all.
It was a scar.
A jagged wound carved into the earth, still bleeding rot. Charred stone and petrified bone lined the hillsides, twisted in ways that mocked natural form. What little flora grew here screamed when touched—roots shriveling, spores releasing low, static moans. The corruption hadn't left this place.
It had made a home here.
Joe tightened his grip on the haft of his scavenged weapon, lightning crackling softly up his wrist. Every step felt like walking deeper into the mouth of something sleeping. Or waiting.
Riven led them in silence, eyes sharp, sword ready.
Kaelen followed behind, cloaked in a whisper of frost and memory.
No one spoke.
Because something was wrong with the air.
It hummed.
—
Joe's pulse thundered in his ears. The deeper they traveled, the louder the hum became—like an engine just below the surface of the world.
Or like a voice, just below hearing.
Each night, his dreams worsened.
The shadow of himself—his double from the Well—returned, whispering things he almost believed. Accusing him. Testing him. Mocking him.
He'd wake up with blood in his nose. Sparks across his ribs. And Kaelen's cold hand grounding him back in place.
"I'm fine," he'd lie.
Kaelen never called him on it.
But the look in their mismatched eyes said they knew.
—
They reached the edge of the Shale Scar by dusk on the fifth day.
A massive canyon split the world, carved by some ancient detonation. Rivers of corrupted ash trickled through it like veins. Bridges of bone spanned its width—unstable, woven from the remains of things that once flew.
Beyond the canyon, the Vault stood silhouetted against the sky.
Half-buried. Crumbling. Enormous.
And humming.
Joe squinted. "That's it?"
Kaelen nodded. "It was a reliquary. Before the Fracture. A place of memory and containment. Now… who knows."
Riven scanned the canyon. "Too quiet. No birds. No wind."
Kaelen murmured, "Because the Vault eats sound."
Joe frowned. "The hell does that mean?"
"Exactly what it sounds like."
—
They crossed the first bone bridge under cover of shadow.
Halfway across, the structure groaned beneath them, a pulse vibrating up through their boots.
Joe gritted his teeth. The air buzzed louder here—so loud he could hear it in his teeth.
Then it spoke.
Only to him.
"You never changed. You only hid."
He staggered. The bridge twisted. Lightning sparked wildly up his legs.
Kaelen caught his arm.
"Breathe, Stormborn. This place will amplify the voices you buried."
Joe's hands trembled. "They're not just voices. They're memories. I see people I left behind. Mistakes I made. I feel… hollow."
Kaelen didn't let go.
"You're not hollow. You're still choosing. That's the difference."
Behind them, Riven cursed.
Something moved in the sky.
—
They made it across the bridge, but barely.
Behind them, wings made of screaming faces unfolded in the night. A creature of bone and burning breath circled in the crimson sky—an Aberrant Sentinel. A remnant guardian left behind by the Vault's last defenders.
Its scream split the world.
They ran.
—
The Vault wasn't welcoming.
It opened like a throat—tall obsidian gates carved with runes no one remembered. The doors opened as they approached, not with magic, but with recognition.
Kaelen paled. "This place… knows me."
Joe looked at them. "You've been here before?"
Kaelen didn't answer.
Riven took point again, blade drawn. "If there are answers in here, we better find them fast."
As they stepped into the Vault of Echoes, the doors closed behind them.
And the hum turned into a whisper.
A hundred thousand voices.
And one of them sounded like Joe.
—
They made camp just inside the threshold. The air was cold—not from temperature, but absence. Even their fire flickered like it didn't belong.
Riven sharpened his blade in silence.
Kaelen meditated in frost-shadow.
Joe sat, fingers crackling with sparks, eyes on the dark.
The tension broke when Riven said flatly, "You're getting worse."
Joe blinked. "Excuse me?"
"The dreams. The seizures. You think we don't notice?"
"I'm handling it."
Riven scoffed. "You're not. And dragging us into this Vault while your mind's falling apart is reckless."
Kaelen opened one eye. "He's unstable, yes. But so are you, Riven."
The paladin's expression darkened. "What's that supposed to mean?"
"You wear guilt like armor," Kaelen said. "But you can't shield anyone from yourself."
Riven stood, tense. "At least I didn't train a walking apocalypse."
Kaelen rose too. "No. You just led your squad into a massacre."
Silence.
Joe stepped between them, voice low, crackling with barely restrained lightning. "Enough."
Riven's fists tightened. Kaelen's breath misted in the air.
"You think I don't hear them too?" Joe said. "The guilt? The voices? I live with it. But we can't keep tearing each other apart."
Kaelen looked away. "This place feeds on resentment. It will twist whatever's already broken."
Joe said, "Then we keep moving. Together."
—
Deeper in the Vault, the tricks began.
Joe fell into a memory again—watching his younger self freeze in a grocery store, a child bleeding on the floor.
The shadow turned to him. "You think saving strangers makes you good now?"
He hurled lightning—and shattered the lie.
Riven relived the screams of his unit.
Hands turned to ash in his grip.
A voice whispered, "You abandoned them."
But Riven stood his ground. "I won't freeze again."
Kaelen walked a hallway of mirrors—each one showing a version of themselves who failed.
Frost burned beneath their hands. They shattered them all.
—
They regrouped in the Vault's heart.
It was a chamber of reflections. Glass shimmered overhead, twisted with scenes of their worst memories.
Then the ground split.
And it rose.
A mass of echo-flesh stitched from their own traumas—Joe's face melted with screaming soldiers, Kaelen's dead apprentice, and Riven's fallen comrades.
Its mouth dripped static.
Its body oozed memory.
[Aberration Manifest: ECHO-SHAPED]
Class: Unknown – Adaptive Memory Construct
Feeds on trauma. Immune to mirrored attacks.
Joe's lightning sputtered.
Kaelen's frost turned inward.
Riven faltered.
"We can't fight it as we are," Joe breathed.
Kaelen locked eyes with him. "Then we change."
They reached for him—storm and frost converging.
"This will hurt," Kaelen warned. "Storm and frost don't always mix."
Joe grit his teeth. "Then we make it work."
[New Spell: Cryo-Shock Convergence]
Effect: Combines storm and frost to paralyze echo-born horrors and sever false memory links.
Riven drew the creature's attention, carving a runic sigil in the floor.
Joe unleashed the spell.
It struck the creature's heart—locking its echo-flesh in ice, searing it with crackling light.
Kaelen drove a shard of frost through its spine.
Riven's blade cleaved it apart.
And the creature died screaming.
---
The Vault shimmered.
The air changed.
[Vault Core Stabilized]
[Purification Radius Expanded: +3km]
[Mental Echo Containment: ACTIVE]
[Resonant Reward: Fragment of the First Storm]
Joe collapsed to his knees.
Burned. Haunted. Alive.
Riven pulled him to his feet.
Kaelen stood in silence, frost dripping from their gloves.
"This was a wound," they said. "But the disease still spreads."
Joe looked at them.
"Then we keep cutting."