The third bell rang.
Except it wasn't coming from above.
It was coming from below.
Lucas froze mid-step. The sound didn't echo like a normal alarm — it vibrated, like the whole mountain had just growled. The light along the ceiling flickered, dimmed, then flared too bright. The hum that always lived in the background of the Holdfast — that faint rhythm of the veins pulsing through stone — suddenly felt wrong. Out of sync.
He looked at Ryn. "Tell me that's normal."
Ryn didn't answer. Her jaw tightened, and she bolted for the nearest stairwell. Lucas followed, nearly tripping over his own boots as red warning lights washed over the corridor.
"What's going on?" Lucas shouted over the deep metallic clangs echoing through the Holdfast.
"That wasn't a shift bell," Ryn called back, her voice hard. "That was a breach alarm!"
They burst into the main hall. The air felt thick, charged with static and panic. Miners and guards sprinted past in every direction — some strapping on armor, others carrying tool crates, others yelling coordinates Lucas didn't understand. The veins embedded in the walls flickered in jagged pulses of blue light. The whole Holdfast looked alive, and terrified.
Captain Vorn stood at the center, half armored, snapping orders like a machine. "Seal Sector Nine's upper tunnel! Get the relay stable! Field Team Three — ready in sixty seconds!"
Ryn ran to her side, saluting instinctively. "Captain, what's the source?"
Vorn's eyes, sharp and green as cut glass, flicked up toward the trembling ceiling. "Something's bleeding the veins from underneath."
Lucas, trying to catch his breath, raised a hand. "Bleeding? As in, metaphorically?"
Her gaze cut to him — flat, steady, humorless. "No."
He blinked. "Cool. Love that for us."
From the side of the hall, Jeff's familiar drawl cut through the chaos. "Relax, kid. It's just the end of the world again."
Lucas turned, finding Jeff standing there with a half-smile and a wrench slung over his shoulder. "Why am I not surprised you're taking this casually?"
"I've seen worse. Once. Didn't end well."
Ryn groaned. "You're not on this roster, Jeff."
"Officially? I'm assisting lift stabilization," Jeff said, tapping his wrench. "Unofficially? Someone's got to keep Duck Boy here from licking the wrong crystal vein."
"I'm right here," Lucas said.
Vorn didn't even look at them. "He's coming."
Ryn blinked. "Captain, he's—"
"Attuned," Vorn interrupted. "And that makes him useful. We may need him to stabilize the flow."
Lucas frowned. "Stabilize the what now?"
Vorn met his eyes. "Just don't die."
The lift creaked under their boots as it descended into the lower tunnels. Each gear groaned like an ancient animal. The flickering light from the veins running through the rock cast them all in uneven, ghostly shades of blue.
Barek — huge, solid, his metal arm gleaming in the dim — stood at the front, weapon ready. Ira checked her bowstring with steady hands, her red hair tied back with a strip of leather. Ryn stared at the floor, quiet and focused.
Jeff leaned against the railing, humming softly.
Lucas tried to distract himself from the shaking floor. "So… what exactly are we expecting down there?"
Barek cracked a smile. "If you're lucky? Nothing. If you're unlucky? Something that kills quickly."
"Comforting," Lucas muttered.
Jeff chuckled. "Don't worry. First breach is always the worst."
"That implies there's going to be a second," Lucas said.
The laughter that followed was short, nervous, and too human.
The lift rattled again as a pulse of blue light surged along the walls, making everyone flinch. The veins hummed louder, like they were breathing — deep, slow, and wrong.
"You feel that?" Lucas asked quietly.
Jeff nodded once, face uncharacteristically serious. "Yeah. The veins are thinking too loud."
"What does that even mean?"
Jeff didn't answer.
When the lift stopped, the air changed.
It was colder, damp — a chill that soaked through skin and bone. Mist drifted across the floor. The veins along the tunnel walls pulsed dimly, several of them completely dark, like veins without blood.
Ryn crouched, brushing her fingers along a dead vein. "These should never go dark this far up."
Barek's mechanical fingers clicked softly as he adjusted his grip on the hammer. "Feels like walking through a graveyard."
Lucas's breath came out as vapor. "You people do this for fun?"
Ryn shot him a look. "No one does this for fun."
They moved carefully through the tunnel, boots crunching over gravel. The silence pressed down heavier the farther they went. The air smelled faintly of ozone and rot.
After a few minutes, the tunnel widened into a cavern. Blue crystals jutted out of the floor in strange, jagged patterns — like claws reaching upward. Some of them flickered with dying light; others were cracked open, leaking faint trails of glowing mist.
Ira's voice came low. "Something tore through here."
Jeff crouched near a crystal fragment and tapped it with his wrench. It gave off a faint hum, then went silent. "Vein core residue. Whatever hit this wasn't human."
Vorn's eyes scanned the room, unblinking. "Form up."
From the far end of the cavern, something scraped against stone — slow, heavy, deliberate.
Ryn's hand went to her sword. Barek lifted his hammer.
The creature emerged from the dark like a bad dream.
Its body shimmered with fractured crystal, flesh and stone fused together. Its skull was half-wolf, half something unrecognizable, crowned with a jagged ring of glowing shards. The light inside it pulsed in uneven bursts — sickly, unstable, alive.
Vorn's voice cut through the stillness. "Crowned shard."
"Engage," she ordered.
Barek charged first, slamming his hammer down with enough force to shake dust from the ceiling. The blow shattered part of the creature's leg, spraying shards across the cavern. It shrieked — a distorted sound, part metal, part animal. Ira's arrow followed, striking deep into its shoulder and bursting in a flash of blue fire.
Lucas hesitated. His pulse thundered in his ears. The Reaper's Hook felt too light in his hands, too small.
Then the creature turned toward him.
Instinct overrode fear. Lucas swung.
The blade of the Reaper's Hook carved across its flank, slicing through a line of crystal. Blue light flared along the wound — and the veins in the wall responded.
They pulsed in sync with his heartbeat.
A rush of energy shot up his arm, hot and electric. His HUD flickered.
[Vein Resonance Detected]
He gasped, stumbling backward. "Okay, that's new!"
The veins around them suddenly brightened — too bright. The entire chamber thrummed like a struck bell. Cracks split along the ceiling.
"Back!" Vorn shouted. "Everyone out!"
The roar that followed was like thunder trapped underground.
The veins burst, spilling arcs of blue lightning. Energy danced through the air, striking rock, water, and flesh indiscriminately. The crowned shard went berserk, clawing at the walls before exploding in a shower of shards and light.
Lucas shielded his face as stone fragments rained down. He could barely hear anything over the ringing in his ears.
Barek grabbed a support beam, holding it upright as the others scrambled toward the exit. "Move!"
Ryn pulled Ira toward the lift. Jeff turned back for Lucas. "Come on!"
"I can't—" Lucas's HUD spasmed with light.
[Critical System Event]
[Environmental Amplification Detected]
[Link Stability: Failing…]
Static filled his vision. The world bent sideways. The air itself seemed to shiver.
"Jeff!" Lucas shouted, voice breaking. "Something's—"
Then the floor cracked wide open.
Light flooded upward like a geyser. The ground fell away beneath them. Lucas fell with it, tumbling through blue fire and debris. He glimpsed Jeff's outstretched hand — and a look that was equal parts fury and fear — before everything vanished into white.
He hit something hard. His breath left him in a soundless gasp.
For a few seconds, there was only the echo of his pulse and the faint hiss of settling dust. Then came the whispers — soft, layered, threading through the ringing in his ears.
"Breathe, little spark."
His eyes fluttered open. The veins above him pulsed faintly, like a heartbeat echoing from the deep.
He tried to sit up, pain crackling through every muscle. The Reaper's Hook lay beside him, glowing faintly — veins of blue light crawling along its curved blade.
His HUD flickered one last time before going dark.
[Connection Lost…]
He stared at the message, dazed. "Well," he whispered hoarsely, "that can't be good."
Then everything went black again.