The forge had stilled.
Not gone cold — never again cold — but tempered, as if the flame now pulsed in rhythm with something ancient. Something watching.
Rei sat by the edge of the fire they'd kindled from stray emberroots, his cloak drawn close against the stone's breath. He said nothing. Just stared into the flickering flame, where the sparks rose like memories trying to escape.
Kaia sat across from him, sharpening her blade more from ritual than need. The edge had long been clean. But steel, like fear, begged for attention when silence pressed too close.
Durik stood with one hand braced on a blackened pillar, his back to them, his brow furrowed. He'd been that way since Rei woke. Since the name Baphomette crossed his lips.
None of them had spoken much since.
The echoes of that name still clung to the walls.
"Rei." Kaia's voice was soft.
He looked up, eyes dim with a weariness that wasn't just physical. "Yeah?"
"You're here now." She said it like a tether, anchoring him. "Not in whatever place you went."
Rei gave a faint smile. It didn't reach his eyes. "Am I?"
Kaia's sharpening stopped.
Durik turned, his voice gruff. "You shook like stone near collapse, lad. And your eyes… they weren't yours for a moment."
Rei nodded slowly. "It was the Void."
Neither asked how he knew. Not anymore.
Kaia sheathed her blade. "You saw him?"
Rei's voice was low. "He showed me the Rift. The monsters that crawl through it. The ones sealed behind flame and bone."
Durik muttered something in dwarvish. Likely a curse. Or a prayer.
"And Mongrim?" Kaia asked.
Rei hesitated. "He died sealing it. Became Skarnveil itself. Not to tame the dragon… but to chain the thing beneath it."
Silence again.
The fire crackled, catching a twisted vein of old forge-oil in the stones. It hissed like breath between teeth.
Rei leaned back against the stone, shoulders aching. "He asked me a question."
Kaia raised an eyebrow.
"Baphomette," Rei said. "He asked if I would be the key… or the lock."
Durik made the sign of the hammer over his heart.
Kaia frowned. "What does that even mean?"
Rei looked down at his hand. It had stopped trembling.
But it didn't feel like his anymore.
"I don't know."
They let the silence return after that.
But it wasn't heavy this time.
It was tired.
Time passed like drifting ash.
They shared water from Kaia's flask. Durik muttered dwarven chants over a few dried rations before tearing them open — just in case the mountain remembered who had made the food.
Kaia laughed once when Rei tried to bite into the saltbread too fast.
Durik chuckled. "Careful, boy. That'll break more than your teeth."
Rei gave a weak grin.
For a moment, it was like they were only travelers. Not hunted. Not haunted. Just three souls trying to stay warm beneath a world of stone.
Rei leaned his head back against the wall. "You ever think," he said, "about what you'd be doing right now if none of this had happened?"
Kaia glanced at him.
Durik scratched his beard. "Aye. I'd be arguing with my brother over hammer rights. And probably losing."
Kaia smirked. "I'd be watching the sun rise from the Watchcliff."
Rei blinked. "Where's that?"
Kaia's eyes softened. "Home. Or what used to be."
She looked away.
Rei exhaled slowly. "I think I'd be… nowhere."
Kaia turned back to him.
He shrugged. "I don't remember where I was going before this. Just… walking. Existing."
Durik grunted. "Well, you're somewhere now."
"Yeah," Rei said. "That's what terrifies me."
Then it came.
Not a roar.
Not a tremor.
But the sound of steel on stone.
Boots.
Many of them.
Kaia was on her feet in a blink, blade drawn. Durik reached for his axe, eyes narrowing.
Rei stood slowly, feeling the gem at his side throb again — not in fear.
In recognition.
The sound grew louder — organized. Precise. Not wild.
Military.
From the tunnel ahead, torchlight appeared. Blue-flamed, dwarven-make. Carried in gauntleted hands.
Then came the armor — deep bronze etched with molten runes. The helms bore the crest of the Deep Divers - an arm of the Deepguard.
Eight of them. Heavily armed. Faces hidden. Their leader bore a banner across his back—twice-burned and red as the Wyrm's tongue.
They saw Rei first.
Then Kaia.
Then—
"Prince Durik!?" a call of surprise.
The front soldier fell to one knee, helm removed in a flash. The others followed in kind, slamming fists to chests.
Even in this depth, their formation was perfect.
"By the Forge," one muttered. "The Second Prince walks again…"
Durik's face twitched, unreadable. "That depends on how far you plan to walk me."
The leader straightened. "We were sent by the King. He summons the Riftborn and his companions.."
Kaia didn't lower her blade.
Rei frowned. "Summons us? For what?"
The soldier's eyes flicked to the Skarnveil gem at Rei's side.
"To fulfill what the mountain has remembered."