The gate sealed behind them with a sound like the end of a breath. A long exhale of the world, followed by silence.
Torian stared ahead into the tunnel that coiled downward like a carved throat—spiral-cut stone glowing faintly with ember veins that pulsed without rhythm. Every step forward dimmed the light behind him. There would be no turning back.
He didn't try to.
Skarn walked just behind him, claws scratching stone, wings tucked tight against the low ceiling. Even the beast's breathing had quieted.
This was not a place built for visitors.
It was a place built to be forgotten.
⸻
They walked for an hour before Torian noticed the change.
The spiral in his chest, once a constant companion—always warming, humming, flickering at the edge of thought—had gone quiet.
Not cold.
Not gone.
But like a heartbeat under heavy cloth: muffled. Disconnected.
He paused at a sharp bend where the tunnel dropped again and pressed a hand to his chest. The spiral responded faintly, a flicker of heat… then nothing.
He opened his palm.
Tried to summon flame.
A small arc of gold sparked at his fingertip—then fizzled.
The warmth died.
⸻
Skarn stopped beside him, sniffed the air, then looked at him. His ears flattened slightly.
Torian stared at his hand. "Something's wrong."
Skarn tilted his head.
"No. Not wrong." Torian flexed his fingers. "Different."
He reached inward again. Dug deeper.
The spiral pulsed—but didn't respond.
The well was there. He could feel it. But the drawstring had snapped.
He was cut off.
Still full of fire.
But unable to touch it.
⸻
They kept walking.
The tunnel narrowed in places, forcing Torian to duck and Skarn to crawl. At one point, they passed beneath a low ceiling of crystal branches—glowing faintly, vibrating with no sound. The spiral veins in the walls became less uniform—twisting erratically, pulsing with broken rhythm.
Everything here breathed, but not for them.
⸻
Hours passed.
The tunnel dropped again, this time opening into a wide chamber—bowl-shaped, with walls covered in spiral carvings that looked half-melted, half-grown. Torian ran a hand along one. The stone was warm to the touch.
He opened his hand again.
Still nothing.
No fire.
Just skin.
⸻
He didn't say anything to Skarn.
But he didn't need to.
The beast watched him closely now. Every time Torian flinched or stumbled, Skarn's ears twitched.
They both knew this wasn't going to be easy.
They just didn't know how much harder it was about to get.
⸻
The first beast found them three hours later.
It came from the wall—not behind it, but through it.
A crack split open ahead of them with the sound of stone tearing. From within poured a creature built like a serpent, but twisted into a spiral—its body armored in black scales veined with red light, its head crowned with blunt horns. No eyes. Just scent.
And hunger.
Torian dropped into a stance.
Nothing flared.
Nothing rose.
No flame answered.
He clenched his fists anyway.
Skarn snarled.
⸻
The creature lunged.
Torian stepped left, planted, and struck—fist to jaw. Bone met scale. Pain sparked through his arm. The beast reeled back, then came again.
Skarn hit it mid-charge, slamming its body sideways into the tunnel wall. The stone cracked.
Torian followed, leapt onto the beast's back, grabbed one horn, and drove his elbow into the base of its skull.
Nothing broke.
It bucked, threw him off.
He landed hard, rolled, coughed.
Blood.
His.
⸻
The beast reared.
Skarn tackled it again, this time driving his claws through its underbelly. Black fluid sprayed the wall.
The serpent screeched.
Torian scrambled to his feet.
No fire.
No tricks.
Just old instincts.
He charged.
⸻
The fight lasted another minute—raw, savage, dirty. No grace. No glow. Just muscle, claw, and stone.
When it ended, the serpent lay split and steaming on the floor.
Skarn stood over it, chest heaving.
Torian leaned against the wall, blood on his chin, knuckles torn open.
He laughed.
Just once.
Then spit blood and said, "Feels like home again."
⸻
They moved slower after that.
Not from fear.
From caution.
The Hollow Deep wasn't going to let them through clean.
Not without blood.
⸻
Hours later, they reached a narrowing that forced them to crawl—stone teeth jutted from the walls like the broken ribs of some great corpse. Beyond it, the tunnel dropped again—this time into a vast cavern lit by pools of glowing liquid. Spiral markings floated across the surface like oil.
Torian stepped to the edge of one and looked down.
Shapes moved beneath.
Not fish.
Not animals.
Spirals.
Half-formed, glowing, flickering.
Like thoughts that had never finished becoming people.
He stepped back.
Skarn didn't look down.
They moved on.
⸻
They reached a fork where the walls were carved differently—tighter spirals, smaller arches. Torian stopped and studied the shapes.
Lower ceilings.
Shallower steps.
Marks on the wall that suggested… tools.
He knelt and ran his fingers across a small handprint etched into the stone.
Shorter than his own.
Too small to be human.
⸻
He looked at Skarn.
"Someone lives down here."
Skarn blinked slowly.
Torian stood.
"We're not the first."
He didn't know whether that gave him hope or dread.
Maybe both.
⸻
They camped in a narrow alcove just beyond the fork. Skarn lay against the far wall, alert even in sleep. Torian sat with his back to the stone, one hand pressed to his chest.
The spiral pulsed—faint, slow.
Still there.
Still full.
Just out of reach.
He wasn't sure if it was hiding.
Or waiting.
⸻
He whispered into the dark.
"I don't need you right now."
The spiral didn't answer.
He closed his eyes.
Let the weight of the Hollow settle on his shoulders like dust.
And breathed.
Torian woke with a jolt.
Not from noise.
From pressure.
The kind of pressure that settles behind the eyes and under the ribs—the sense of being watched by something that doesn't blink.
Skarn was already up, silent and still. His body low to the ground, one paw raised. Not frozen. Listening.
Torian sat up slowly.
The spiral in his chest hadn't moved.
It felt… submerged. Like a coal under water.
He stretched, tested his shoulder. The bruises from yesterday's fight had begun to bloom.
They didn't hurt.
They grounded him.
⸻
They pressed onward.
The tunnel wound deeper through jagged rock that seemed cut, not formed—walls chiseled into tight spirals that made their path curve unnaturally. Every twenty paces, a faint red crystal jutted from the wall, pulsing with heatless light. Torian brushed one.
It was warm.
Not like fire.
More like a heartbeat.
⸻
The air thickened.
Moisture coated the walls.
Far ahead, the tunnel forked again—one path narrowed, dipped down into darkness. The other opened into a wide chamber shaped like a spiraling dome. Massive stone gears hung half-sunken in the walls. Spiral glyphs shimmered like water, slowly rotating in the air.
Torian stepped into the chamber cautiously.
Skarn didn't follow right away.
⸻
It was a machine. Or had been, once.
Dead now.
Vines—black, fibrous, and humming—wrapped around its central pillar.
Torian walked the outer ring of the room, trailing his fingers across the glyphs.
Some were whole.
Some flickered.
All were wrong.
He recognized spiral patterns, but they were… twisted. Repeating without meaning.
He reached one glyph that reacted—flaring briefly.
Then dissolving.
⸻
A memory flashed—blurry and incomplete.
A man, standing in this very room, screaming at a wall of light.
Varnan?
Maybe.
Torian stumbled back, breath sharp.
The glyphs stopped spinning.
The room dimmed.
⸻
"Not ready," he muttered.
Skarn finally stepped inside.
The moment his paw touched the stone, the central pillar glowed.
Only for a second.
Then everything went dark again.
⸻
They left the chamber behind and took the narrower path—one that dropped in uneven spirals into a gorge of black stone and rust-colored steam.
Here, the walls were chiseled, not natural. The lines were straight, purposeful. Torian slowed his pace.
They were entering inhabited ground.
⸻
A low tunnel forced them to crawl.
On the other side, they found carvings—not spiral glyphs, but etched murals on the wall, shaped with calloused hands. Figures no taller than Torian's waist stood in rows, some holding picks, some holding spears.
Others held what looked like books.
He crouched and ran a hand along the stone.
The mural told a story:
• A flame fell from the sky.
• It struck the deep.
• A people built their homes around it.
• And then… something broke.
• The flame turned on them.
• Half the carvings were cracked—deliberately.
⸻
Skarn sniffed the wall, then tensed.
Torian followed his gaze.
A passage at the far end of the mural had been sealed—stone collapsed inward, not by time, but by force.
From inside.
⸻
Something had tried to get out.
⸻
They didn't stop to test it.
They moved on, following a ridge that ran alongside a black chasm. At its edge sat a single stone arch, too small for Torian to walk through upright, its curve laced with tiny glowing lines.
He bent to examine it.
Inlaid into the arch were metal plates—smooth, seamless, pulsing with dim power.
And symbols.
Not spiral glyphs.
Letters.
He couldn't read them.
But he recognized one shape from the city above:
Warning.
⸻
He and Skarn didn't cross through.
Instead, they followed the path down and around it, deeper still, until the stone walls gave way to more tunnels—these made of stacked rock and braced with carved timber.
Torian stopped.
Put a hand on the wood.
Smooth.
Worked.
Carved by hand.
⸻
"Someone still lives down here," he whispered.
⸻
As if summoned by the thought, a sound echoed from the next chamber:
Chiseling.
A sharp, rhythmic tapping.
Then silence.
Then…
Footsteps.
Quick, light, retreating.
Skarn growled once.
Torian raised his hand.
No flame.
Only bone.
⸻
They moved forward slowly, rounding the corner into a large, low cavern with a ceiling laced with spiral-shaped lanterns. Some were lit. Others were shattered.
At the far end: a door.
Metal.
Circular.
Covered in markings.
No spiral.
But one carving—centered at the top of the arch—showed a figure holding a flame in its palm.
Torian stepped closer.
The flame was carved with a gash across it.
Split.
Cursed.
Feared.
⸻
He pressed his hand against the carving.
The metal was cold.
No light flared.
No reaction.
Just the echo of something hating what he was.
⸻
They moved on.
⸻
The tunnel beyond grew more narrow, tighter—barely enough for Skarn to squeeze through. A new scent filled the air now: smoke, but old. Cold smoke. The kind that had once meant fire. The kind that now meant ashes.
They were getting close.
Not to the bottom.
But to something left behind.
⸻
They set camp just outside a narrow shaft lined with rope handholds and old hooks, once used by miners or builders.
Torian sat in the dark, spiral dormant, breath even.
Skarn curled at his side.
Neither spoke.
Neither had to.
Because now they knew:
They weren't alone in the Hollow Deep.
And something else still moved in the dark.
The shaft was barely wide enough for Torian's shoulders.
He climbed in silence, hands gripping old rope ladders hardened with dust and time. The shaft curved slightly to the left every twenty feet, coiling downward like a corkscrew. Skarn followed by climbing sideways along the rock wall, claws scraping gently against the stone.
Neither of them spoke.
The deeper they went, the quieter the world became.
Even their breathing sounded stolen.
⸻
After two hundred feet, the shaft opened into a circular chamber no larger than a tavern.
The floor was cobbled.
The walls were carved.
And the ceiling arched into a smooth dome, inlaid with stone tiles shaped like teeth—spirals set in rows like fangs aimed down at intruders.
A path led out.
And Torian followed it.
⸻
The tunnel beyond was different.
It wasn't broken.
It was maintained.
Rough-hewn steps had been worn smooth by generations of travel. The walls were marked with runes—not spiral glyphs, but square-edged carvings arranged in patterns. Symbols of place. Of family. Of clan.
He knelt to examine one.
A pair of triangles interlocked like clasped hands.
Skarn sniffed at it, then tensed.
There was blood on the stone.
Old.
But real.
⸻
They moved slower now.
Each turn in the tunnel felt tighter, more expectant.
This was territory.
Not ruins.
Not wilderness.
Home.
To something.
⸻
Then they heard the first click.
Torian stopped instantly.
He didn't breathe.
From somewhere ahead in the tunnel—just beyond a bend—a mechanical snap echoed like bone breaking under pressure.
Skarn's body dropped low.
Another click.
Then scraping.
Then silence.
⸻
Torian crept forward, back pressed to the wall.
He peeked around the corner.
Saw movement.
Something hunched. Short. Barely five feet tall. Covered in layered cloth and rusted armor, face hidden behind a mask made of copper plates etched with vertical slits. The figure was setting something into the wall—small, metal, and buzzing faintly.
A trap.
⸻
Torian watched for a moment longer, then stepped out into the open.
"Hey."
The figure froze.
Turned fast.
And threw something.
A metal shard struck the wall beside him and exploded in a flash of white light.
Torian ducked back, blind for a second.
Skarn roared.
By the time his vision cleared, the figure was gone.
⸻
He ran forward, ignoring the pain in his leg, and turned down the side tunnel where the figure had fled. The floor dipped into a tighter path lined with spiked teeth carved from stone.
Ahead, footsteps pattered away—light, fast, trained.
Torian pushed harder.
Turned another corner—
And skidded to a stop.
Six of them.
All short.
All armored.
All masked.
Weapons out—not elegant. Blunt. Hooks, hammers, spears fused from jagged ore and wire.
They didn't speak.
But they moved like a unit.
They knew the tunnels.
They were born in them.
⸻
Torian raised his hands, palms open. "I'm not here to hurt anyone."
The figures said nothing.
Their weapons didn't lower.
From behind, Skarn stepped forward slowly—growling low, protective.
That set them off.
Three surged forward.
Skarn blocked them with his body, catching a spear on his shoulder and slamming one dwarf into the wall. Another ducked and tried to sweep Torian's legs.
Torian stepped inside the motion, grabbed the wrist, twisted, and dropped the attacker.
No flame.
Just instinct.
Just training.
Just muscle.
⸻
Another came from behind—Torian spun and elbowed them in the face, cracking the mask.
The attacker fell, groaning.
The others hesitated.
Skarn bared his teeth.
Torian held his stance.
Then slowly lowered it.
"I'm not your enemy," he said again. "We're just passing through."
⸻
One of them stepped forward.
Taller than the others. Still short by human standards. Their armor was newer, better-forged. The mask was polished obsidian with a silver spiral etched into it—not glowing. Carved.
They raised a hand.
The others stopped.
The leader stepped close—chest nearly level with Torian's waist—and tilted their head.
Then, in a voice grating with accent but strong in presence, they said:
"You bring the dead fire."
⸻
Torian blinked.
"I bring myself."
The leader pointed to his chest.
"You carry what our ancestors bled to bury. You walk into the Hollow with a grave on your back."
Torian nodded slowly. "And I'm here to find out why."
The dwarf looked at Skarn.
Then back at him.
The mask stayed still.
But something changed in their stance.
"Follow. Or die here."
Then they turned and walked down the tunnel.
⸻
Torian glanced at Skarn.
The beast snorted.
They followed.
⸻
The path twisted sharply downward, opening into a narrow bridge suspended over a molten crevasse. Far below, glowing forges illuminated small dwellings carved into the walls. Dozens of masked dwarves moved in the shadows, watching.
No one spoke.
No one smiled.
Torian felt the spiral twitch inside him.
Still dormant.
Still waiting.
But now…
Listening.
Because down here—
Even the buried things have ears.
The bridge groaned underfoot—stone slats held by chains thicker than Torian's arms, anchored deep into the cliff walls. Below, rivers of molten orange slithered between veins of black stone, lighting the underside of the cavern with a ghostly glow. Hammers echoed faintly through the deep: steady, patient, not rhythmic.
Purposeful.
Skarn walked just behind him, claws scraping slightly, wings folded tight against his back. His shoulders were hunched—not out of fear, but awareness. Torian could feel it too.
They were being watched from every angle.
⸻
The dwarf leader said nothing as they led the way, footsteps silent despite the armor. The others followed in a half-circle around Torian and Skarn—guarding, not guiding.
The far side of the bridge ended at a tall gate carved directly into the cliffside. Not spiral-forged, but dwarf-cut: precise angles, hard corners, and carvings of flame shaped like a broken crown.
Torian paused before the gate.
One hand touched the symbol.
It was cracked.
Deliberately.
The flame here hadn't just been forgotten.
It had been rejected.
⸻
Inside the stronghold, the air grew colder.
The walls glowed faintly with embedded ore—blue veins that pulsed like heartbeat light. The dwarves moved through narrow halls, passing between chambers carved with care. Everything smelled of iron, dust, and stone-magic long past its prime.
They passed a wide hall where rows of stone tablets stood like gravestones. Each was marked with a rune—and a single spiral-shaped indentation, half-filled with black resin.
Torian paused.
One tablet had a second spiral beneath the first.
This one carved as if burned into the stone.
Charred at the edges.
A name beneath it:
"Torhal, Bringer of Fire. Slayer of Kin."
⸻
Skarn growled low.
Torian moved on.
⸻
They were brought to a central chamber carved in a perfect square, lined with columns etched with dwarven script and spiral warnings. Braziers glowed with flame—but it was cold, spiraling blue.
At the far end of the chamber sat an elder dwarf—no mask, no armor. Her face was wrinkled but strong, her eyes like cracked glass. A spiral tattoo coiled from her left cheek down her neck and disappeared into the folds of a red and black robe.
She rose when Torian entered.
"You should not be alive."
⸻
Torian stood tall. "I didn't ask to be."
The elder stared at his chest. "And yet it still clings to you."
She motioned, and the guards stepped back. The masked leader remained by her side.
"I am Murna," she said. "Stone-sayer of the Forge Deep. Keeper of the Ash Record."
Torian inclined his head. "Torian. Flamebearer."
A pause.
"A name we hoped never to hear again," Murna said.
⸻
She waved a hand, and a section of wall unlatched, sliding open with a hiss.
Within, a smaller chamber glowed dimly—filled with broken relics. Spears melted at the tip. Shields cracked in spirals. And at the center, mounted on a pedestal of obsidian, a shattered weapon:
A sword, its blade warped and blackened, its spiral core cracked.
Torian stepped closer.
The spiral inside the blade tried to pulse—
—and failed.
Dead.
But not silent.
⸻
Murna followed him. "This belonged to Varnan."
Torian froze.
"It was found at the mouth of the Hollow Forge, half-melted, buried in the bodies of twelve of my kin."
She said it without hatred.
Just truth.
"He descended to find peace," she said. "Instead, he opened something the world could not contain."
Torian stared at the blade.
He could feel it.
The echo.
Not of Varnan's power.
But of his fall.
⸻
"Why keep this?" he asked.
"To remember."
She gestured to the room.
"To fear."
Then to the spiral in his chest.
"And to know if it ever returned."
⸻
Skarn walked to the edge of the chamber and stared at the relics, unmoving.
Torian turned to Murna. "I'm not him."
She nodded. "Not yet."
⸻
She approached, slower now.
"His flame cracked the world beneath this world. What lies at the bottom of this Hollow is not just history. It is failure. And power too heavy for any one soul."
Torian clenched his jaw.
"And that's why I have to go."
Murna looked at him for a long time.
Then turned back to the shattered sword.
"Then you'll need to know what he left behind."
⸻
She led him to a side corridor, this one sloping downward, tighter than before. The walls changed—no longer carved, but grown, spiral rock forming natural arcs.
At the end, a door: circular, silver, unmarked.
She placed her hand on it.
It opened.
Inside was a chamber filled with crystal orbs, each floating in slow motion.
Murna walked to one and tapped it.
It flared.
A memory projection filled the air—blurry at first, then clear.
A man, taller than any dwarf, stood in the chamber of the Hollow Forge. His spiral burned gold.
It was Varnan.
He knelt at the spiral gate.
Spoke softly:
"This world is not ready. But the flame does not wait. It grows, or it consumes."
Then—
Fire.
Collapse.
Screams.
⸻
The vision ended.
Murna's voice was quiet.
"He tried to ascend. The forge rejected him. But not all of him burned."
Torian stepped away from the orb.
"So he's still down there?"
She shook her head. "Not as he was. But something waits. Something tied to him. And now… to you."
⸻
He didn't speak.
He just stood there.
And the spiral inside him pulsed.
Once.
Not in fear.
Not in warning.
In recognition.
⸻
They returned to the main chamber.
Murna placed a small stone in his hand.
A guide-stone, engraved with a simplified spiral.
"Take the west tunnel," she said. "Follow the heat. When the stone glows, you'll be near."
Torian looked at it.
Then at her.
"Thank you."
She said nothing.
But her silence was not cold.
It was respect.
⸻
That night, they slept in a stone hollow beside the dwarven shrine.
No fire.
No light.
Just silence.
The kind that waits for answers.
The west tunnel yawned open beneath the dwarven city like the throat of a buried giant—silent, wide, and breathing heat that wasn't from fire. Torian stood at its edge, the stone guide clenched in his hand. It had begun to glow.
Only faintly.
But steadily.
The deeper they went, the stronger it would burn.
And when it turned white?
They would be there.
⸻
Skarn gave one last glance to the stone-carved homes behind them, then moved forward without sound. Torian followed, the spiral in his chest quiet—but no longer sleeping.
It wasn't rising.
But it was listening.
Like a hunter who smells blood.
⸻
The tunnel narrowed quickly, walls pressing inward as if the Hollow itself didn't want them inside. The glow from the guide-stone lit their path, shimmering with veins of spiral-metal that twisted like fossilized roots across the floor and ceiling.
The temperature rose steadily.
Not to pain.
But to pressure.
Breathing became harder. Each inhale tasted of stone and smoke and ash scraped into dust.
⸻
Hours passed.
Time lost meaning.
They followed the spiral curve downward, ever downward, through passageways that trembled when they stepped, as if the world below were shifting—restless, uncomfortable.
Then—
A tremor.
Small at first.
But enough to knock dust from the ceiling.
Skarn stopped.
Torian froze.
From far ahead, deeper than sound, came a groan.
Low.
Ancient.
Alive.
⸻
They pressed on.
Around the next bend, the tunnel cracked open into a chasm—hundreds of feet wide, lit from below by molten rivers veined through a broken spiral structure that had once been a platform, now half-sunken into the abyss.
Stretched across it was a bridge.
But not one built by hands.
A spiral of glass and metal, fused from heat, arched across the chasm like a ribbon, floating in place.
The guide-stone in Torian's hand glowed brighter.
He stepped onto the bridge.
⸻
It didn't sway.
It didn't hum.
It simply accepted him.
Each footfall shimmered through the structure like heat ripples.
Below, fire moved in patterns—not chaotic—but circular, rotating in great, slow spirals that drew down into the earth like a whirlpool of light.
At the center, far below—
A sealed gate.
Massive.
Cracked.
Still pulsing.
Even from this height, Torian could see that it was made of the same metal as the guide-stone. It was waiting.
⸻
They reached the other side.
The tunnel resumed.
But it wasn't a tunnel anymore.
It was a shaft—a great descending spiral staircase carved into the wall of a cylinder miles wide, all spiraling toward the buried heart of the Hollow Deep.
Torian stood at its edge.
Looked down.
Mist swirled far below, lit from within by a pale, angry glow.
The guide-stone now pulsed with every breath.
Not fast.
But alive.
⸻
They began the final descent.
Spiral after spiral.
Hundreds of steps.
Then thousands.
No monsters.
No guardians.
Just weight.
The pressure increased.
Not heat.
Not gravity.
But memory.
Torian felt it on his shoulders, in his bones, in his blood.
The deeper they went, the more the spiral in his chest tried to stir.
Not to flare.
To recoil.
It was afraid.
⸻
At the 77th spiral, they reached a resting platform where half of the wall had crumbled away, revealing the Hollow itself.
Below, embedded in the molten rock, were shattered statues—once guardians, now broken.
And bones.
Human-sized.
And smaller.
And bigger.
Skarn sniffed the air, then snarled.
Torian stepped closer to the edge and peered down.
There—on a distant ledge, barely lit—he saw it.
A shape.
Still.
Watching.
It vanished.
⸻
They moved on.
No words.
No sounds.
Only descent.
⸻
Hours passed.
The light from the guide-stone turned white.
So did the spiral veins in the wall.
And then—
They reached the bottom.
⸻
A vast chamber opened before them, perfectly round, carved into the stone by force and fire and intention. In its center stood a black platform ringed by ancient pylons, each one cracked and leaning. Chains stretched from the ceiling to the platform—thick as towers—holding it down.
And at its center…
A forge.
Unlit.
Unburning.
But alive.
⸻
Torian stepped forward.
The spiral inside him pulsed—once.
And the forge answered with a low, thunderous tone.
The entire chamber shuddered.
The chains trembled.
And for the first time in days…
Torian's chest burned.
⸻
Not bright.
But strong.
The spiral was waking.
Down here.
In the dark.
Where it had been born.
⸻
He turned to Skarn.
"We're here."
Skarn growled low, body tense, eyes fixed on the forge.
Then a sound.
A whisper.
Not from above.
Not from the forge.
From the wall.
"You came back."
Torian turned slowly.
The wall behind them cracked.
A spiral of red light bloomed.
And from it…
something stepped forward.
Tall.
Wrapped in broken armor.
Spiral flickering from within.
And the unmistakable glow of a face Torian had seen only in memories.
Varnan.