The passage ended at a grate of black iron set into the ceiling above Thane's head. Through the bars, he could hear the sound of chanting in a language that made his teeth ache. Void-speech, the tongue of the creatures that existed in the spaces between realities.
He pressed his ear to the grate, trying to determine how many voices were above. At least a dozen, maybe more. The chanting had a ritualistic quality, rising and falling in patterns that suggested some kind of ceremony was taking place.
Thane checked his equipment one final time. Korvan's charm hung around his neck, its protective magic creating a subtle barrier against the void corruption he could already feel seeping through the stones. His sword's runes had recovered slightly during the journey through the caves—enough for maybe two or three enhanced strikes. The explosive charges clipped to his belt would have to make up for the rest.
He placed his hands against the grate and pushed slowly upward. The iron bars moved silently, lifted by hinges that had been recently oiled. Someone had been using this passage regularly, which meant it might be watched.
Thane eased his head through the opening and found himself looking into a dungeon that defied architectural logic. The cells stretched away in impossible directions, their bars wreathed in shadow that moved independently of any light source. In the center of the room, hooded figures stood around a stone altar where something writhed in bonds that glowed with eldritch energy.
The prisoner was human—or had been once. Now his skin was mottled with patches of what looked like living void, dark spots that pulsed with their own malevolent rhythm. He was still conscious, his eyes wide with terror and pain as the cultists prepared for whatever ritual they had planned.
Thane counted thirteen cultists total, all wearing the twisted spiral symbol of the Void Cult. Their chanting grew louder as one of them raised a curved dagger that seemed to bend light around its edge.
The corruption spreads through willing vessels first, Thane remembered from his Order's training manuals. Then to the unwilling. Each soul claimed makes the next transformation easier.
He couldn't let them complete the ritual.
Thane pulled himself up through the grate in one smooth motion, landing in a crouch behind a pillar of black stone. The cultists were so focused on their ceremony that none of them noticed the soft sound of his boots on the dungeon floor.
He drew his sword silently, pressing his thumb to the impact rune. One chance to make this count.
The cultist with the dagger raised it high above the prisoner's chest, beginning the final verse of whatever incantation they were weaving. Void energy crackled around the blade, reaching down toward the bound man like hungry fingers.
Thane exploded from cover, his sword blazing with blue fire as the impact rune discharged. The empowered blade took the lead cultist's head off at the shoulders, sending void-tainted blood spraying across the altar. The man's body crumpled, the ritual dagger clattering away into the shadows.
"Intruder!" one of the remaining cultists screamed. "The fortress is breached!"
They turned on Thane with inhuman coordination, their movements too fluid and precise for mortal men. Whatever they'd done to themselves in service to the void had cost them their humanity, leaving behind something that looked human but moved like predatory insects.
Thane triggered his armor's speed enhancement, feeling the enchanted plates shift to allow for greater mobility. He rolled left as three cultists struck at once, their void-touched weapons leaving trails of darkness in the air. One blade passed close enough to his face that he felt the unnatural cold radiating from its edge.
He came up swinging, his sword's cutting rune flaring to life as it carved through a cultist's torso. The man didn't scream—instead, he laughed as his body split apart, void energy pouring from the wound like smoke.
"You cannot kill what has already died," the bisected cultist hissed as his severed halves continued trying to attack. "We are beyond death, beyond pain, beyond your mortal understanding."
"Maybe," Thane grunted, dodging another strike. "But you're not beyond getting blown up."
He pulled an explosive charge from his belt and triggered the activation rune. The cultists' enhanced reflexes couldn't match the speed of an alchemical detonation. The blast filled the dungeon with fire and thunder, reducing half the remaining enemies to charred fragments.
But the explosion also alerted the fortress to his presence. Somewhere above, bells began to ring with discordant tones that seemed designed to induce madness. The very walls around him started to shift and flow, sprouting spikes and grasping tentacles as the fortress awakened to defend itself.
Thane cut the prisoner's bonds with a quick slash of his sword, then grabbed the man's arm. "Can you walk?"
The prisoner nodded weakly, though Thane could see the void corruption spreading across his skin like a disease. They had minutes at most before the transformation became irreversible.
"There's an exit tunnel behind that pillar," Thane said, pointing toward the grate he'd emerged from. "Follow it back to the caves and keep going until you reach daylight. Don't stop, don't look back, and don't listen to anything the walls try to tell you."
"What about you?" the man asked, his voice already taking on the hollow quality of the void-touched.
"I've got a fortress to destroy."
Thane helped the prisoner toward the tunnel, then turned to face the dungeon's main exit. The surviving cultists were regrouping, and he could hear heavy footsteps approaching from the corridors beyond. Whatever guardians Malachar had stationed in the fortress, they were coming to investigate the commotion.
A section of wall exploded inward as something massive forced its way through the stone. Thane got his first look at what the void corruption could do to living flesh when it had unlimited time and energy to work with.
The creature had once been human, but now it stood nearly eight feet tall, its body a twisted amalgamation of flesh, bone, and void-touched metal. Its arms ended in claws that dripped with darkness, and its face was a nightmare of too many eyes and teeth arranged in patterns that hurt to look at directly.
"Runeguard," it spoke in a voice like grinding stone. "I remember your kind. I was one of you once."
Thane felt his blood go cold. The thing's armor, beneath all the corruption and twisted growth, bore the faded insignia of his Order.
"Brother Marcus?" he whispered, recognizing something familiar in the creature's stance.
"Marcus is gone," the abomination replied. "I am what he became when Malachar showed him the truth of existence. The void does not destroy—it perfects."
The corrupted Runeguard attacked with inhuman speed, its claws raking gouges in the stone floor where Thane had been standing a heartbeat before. Thane rolled aside, bringing his sword up in a desperate parry that barely deflected the creature's follow-up strike.
"You cannot win," the thing that had been Marcus hissed. "Even if you reach the ritual chamber, even if you speak the words of unbinding, it will not matter. The corruption has spread too far. The world will burn, and from its ashes will rise something beautiful and terrible."
Thane triggered his sword's last cutting rune, pouring all his remaining magical energy into the blade. "Maybe. But I'm going to make you work for it."
The empowered sword carved through the creature's corrupted flesh, drawing a scream that shattered several of the dungeon's mirrors. Black ichor sprayed across the walls, and for a moment, Thane thought he saw something like relief in the monster's too-many eyes.
"Thank you," Marcus's voice whispered from the dying abomination. "Thank you for... ending it."
Then the creature collapsed, its corrupted flesh already beginning to dissolve into void-tainted smoke.
Thane didn't have time to mourn. More footsteps echoed from the corridors, and the fortress walls continued their disturbing transformation. Spikes erupted from the floor, trying to impale him, while tentacles of living shadow reached down from the ceiling.
He ran for the dungeon's main exit, using his depleted sword to hack through the grasping appendages that tried to bar his way. Korvan's protective charm was already growing warm against his chest—the void corruption in the fortress was stronger than the artificer had anticipated.
The corridor beyond the dungeon was a nightmare of impossible geometry. Passages branched in directions that shouldn't exist, stairs led both up and down simultaneously, and doorways opened onto rooms that were clearly larger than the spaces they occupied. The fortress had become something more than a building—it was a living maze designed to trap and confuse intruders.
But Thane had an advantage the fortress couldn't account for. The spirits of his fallen brothers, guided by Marcus's final act of defiance, whispered directions in his mind. Left at the branching corridor, up the stairs that led to the tower, ignore the doorways that called out in voices like sirens.
He climbed steadily through the fortress's twisted interior, fighting past void-spawned guardians and architectural impossibilities. Each level brought him closer to his goal, but also deeper into the heart of the corruption. His protective charm was burning hot now, its silver surface beginning to blacken under the strain.
Finally, after what felt like hours of climbing, Thane reached a door marked with symbols that made his eyes water to look at directly. Beyond it lay the ritual chamber where Malachar had opened the gateway to the void realm.
And somewhere far below, in the fortress's deepest foundations, lay the anchor stones that kept the portal stable.
Thane looked at his remaining equipment—one explosive charge, a sword with no magical power left, and a protective charm that would probably fail within minutes. Not much to work with for either option.
But then he remembered the words carved on the cave walls: The last flame burns brightest before it dies.
Maybe that was enough.
Thane gripped the door's handle and prepared to face whatever waited beyond.