Terminal C drifted through the valley's northern edge, a translucent wisp no larger than a sparrow, invisible to mundane sight. The Iris spirit construct moved with methodical precision, scanning terrain features with the cold efficiency of a machine.
A shallow ditch caught its attention—not for what was visible, but for what should have been there and wasn't.
The spirit descended, vision analyzers cataloging every detail: disturbed soil patterns inconsistent with natural erosion, stone fragments bearing tool marks too regular for weather, vegetation stripped away and replanted poorly.
Conclusion: artificial construction. Concealment attempted. Success rate: minimal.
Iris's analytical processes constructed a three-dimensional model of the disturbance, overlaying it against the natural geography. The alterations formed a clear pattern—a cave entrance, partially collapsed, then deliberately obscured.
She extended her mana-sensing radius. Nothing. No extraordinary signatures. No active wards. Either abandoned, or protected by methods sophisticated enough to evade the basic detection of the constructs.
Back in the northern hills, Valen paused mid-step, attention shifting inward as Terminal C's feed merged with his awareness.
Amber noticed immediately. "What is it?"
"A moment," Valen murmured, eyes distant.
Through Iris's perception, he studied the concealed entrance. The crude attempt at hiding it suggested either urgency or incompetence. Possibly both.
"Master, we should check inside," Iris's voice chimed in his mind, crisp and efficient.
"Proceed," Valen said quietly. "Maintain continuous feed. Withdraw at first sign of danger."
The spirit construct dove through the narrow gap between stones, passing through earth and rock as easily as air. One of the few advantages spirits possessed—solid matter posed little obstacle, unless heavily warded or saturated with opposing mana.
Water, however, was different. Water disrupted spiritual cohesion, which was why rivers and lakes often served as natural barriers against certain supernatural threats.
The cave beyond the entrance was narrow, sloping downward at a steep angle. No light penetrated this deep. Terminal C navigated by mana-sight alone, mapping the passage with each meter traveled.
Natural formation, Iris reported. Limestone erosion patterns consistent with underground water flow. Age: approximately three to four centuries. Human modification: minimal. Likely discovered and repurposed rather than excavated.
Valen's mind processed the information rapidly while his body continued walking beside Amber, maintaining the appearance of casual conversation.
Suddenly, the mental map shared among Iris's network lit up with new markers.
This is Terminal A. A group of young adventurers, five total, heading directly toward your location, Terminal C.
Information flowed between the four spirit constructs and the main Iris at speeds approaching thought itself, transmitted through the soul-link network that connected them.
Valen's eyes sharpened. "Change of plans. We are heading northeast."
Amber's hand drifted toward her saber. "Trouble?"
"Potentially. Or opportunity." He adjusted course, angling toward the concealed cave. "There is something worth investigating in that direction."
Terminal C pressed deeper. The passage widened into a chamber, and here the air changed—colder, stale, carrying the faint mineral tang of undisturbed stone.
And something else.
Detecting residual mana signatures, Iris reported, her analytical tone sharpening with interest. Necromantic imprint. Classification... analyzing... Draugr-type constructs and free-roaming specters. Estimated count: twelve to fifteen entities. Ranks: ranging from 1 to 3.
Valen's pulse quickened slightly—not from fear, but anticipation.
Ghosts. Free-roaming specters meant unbound souls, perfect for capture and later consumption by Iris. Each ghost absorbed expanded her capabilities.
And Draugr were essentially animated corpses. Predictable. Slow. Vulnerable to the right countermeasures.
"Amber," he said, voice carefully neutral. "Do you know of any burial grounds in the Dawn Forest?"
Her expression shifted, curiosity mixing with wariness. "None that I know of, or heard of. Why?"
"Great. That means we have discovered some ancient burial ground. We will not be charged with grave robbing."
They reached the cave entrance ten minutes later. Amber studied the poorly concealed opening with a practiced eye, noting the same telltale signs Iris had cataloged earlier.
"Someone tried to hide this," she observed. "Recently, judging by the vegetation."
"Recently and poorly," Valen agreed. He knelt beside the entrance, fingers brushing disturbed soil. "The question is whether they were hiding the entrance from outsiders, or hiding something inside from escaping."
Amber's hand settled on her saber hilt. "That is a deeply unpleasant question."
"The unpleasant ones are usually the relevant ones."
Movement caught their attention—five figures emerging from the tree line, young adventurers by their gear and bearing. Three men, two women, all in their late teens or early twenties. Leather armor, practical weapons, the kind of equipment that spoke of guild affiliation rather than Academy training.
The one in front, a tall young man with a sword strapped across his back, froze when he spotted Valen and Amber.
His eyes immediately locked onto Amber's Academy gray cloak, then Valen's, and his expression shifted through recognition, uncertainty, and finally desperate hope.
"You are Academy students?" he called out, voice tight with stress.
Amber straightened, adopting the posture of someone accustomed to being addressed respectfully. "We are. State your business."
The young man hurried forward, his companions following. Up close, Valen noted the signs of exhaustion—dark circles under eyes, dirt-streaked faces, gear that hadn't been properly maintained in days.
Desperate, then. Not merely determined.
"My name is Torren," the young man said quickly. "We are from the Ironvale Guild, out of the north-eastern Vale. We have been tracking... we need help. Please."
"Slow down," Amber said, voice firm but not unkind. "Tracking what?"
Torren swallowed hard. "Our senior guild member. His name is Henrik—Rank 3 warrior, been with Ironvale for eight years. Three days ago, he went missing during a contract near here. We thought maybe a monster got him, but then we found unusual traces... And this."
He pulled a small object from his belt pouch—a bronze compass, but instead of pointing north, the needle swung wildly before settling in the direction of the cave entrance behind Valen.
"Spirit tracker," Valen murmured, recognition clicking. "You bound part of his spiritual signature before the mission."
Torren nodded quickly. "Standard guild protocol for dangerous regions. The tracker has been leading us here, to this cave. But we have been sitting outside for an hour trying to decide if we should go in. None of us are above Rank 1 except our mage, and she is only early Rank 2."
One of the women—shorter, with burn scars along her forearms that marked her as someone who worked with fire magic—stepped forward. "The mana coming from that cave feels wrong. Decrepit. If Henrik is down there, he is either dead or being held by something we cannot fight."
Actually, Valen thought, he is likely both.
Amber glanced at Valen, a silent question in her eyes.
He kept his expression carefully neutral, but internally, his mind raced through calculations.
But their desperation was real. The spirit tracker did not lie. And if there was a Rank 3 warrior down there, alive or dead, that changed the threat assessment.
"We will help you," Amber said, before Valen could speak.
He did not argue. The decision was tactically sound, even if her motivation was more compassionate than his.
Torren's relief was visible. "Thank you. We have some supplies—healing potions, antidotes, basic wards—"
"Save them," Valen interrupted. "You will need those resources for yourselves. We have sufficient preparation."
That was not strictly true, but what they did have was far more valuable: Iris's complete mental map of the cave system.
They descended single-file, Torren's group lighting the way with enchanted lanterns that cast flickering yellow light across damp stone walls. Valen walked at the rear, ostensibly watching their backs but actually allowing Iris's constructs to scout ahead undisturbed.
The temperature dropped as they moved deeper. Breath misted in the air. The passage narrowed, then opened into the first chamber.
Terminal C had been accurate. A burial chamber, ancient and forgotten. Stone sarcophagi lined the walls, their lids cracked or shoved aside. Old bones lay scattered across the floor, many still wearing the corroded remnants of armor and grave goods.
And standing among them, seven shambling figures with eyes that burned with cold blue light.
Draugr.
The lead adventurer cursed, sword rasping free of its sheath.
The undead turned as one, sensing living warmth, and began their slow, inexorable advance.
"Formation!" Torren barked. "Mara, prepare suppression spells! Jens, Kalla, flank positions!"
They moved with trained efficiency, but Valen could see the fear in their movements. The Draugr were Rank 1 threats individually, but seven of them in a confined space against five exhausted Rank 1 fighters and one Rank 2 mage?
Poor odds.
Amber stepped forward, mana already gathering around her hands in a golden shimmer, pulling mana from Valen through the Spirit Channel like a torrent.
Amber's eyes widened slightly as she felt the sheer volume of energy now at her disposal.
Do not hold back, she could read his thoughts. Her smile was sharp and bright.
"Stand back," she said simply.
Golden light erupted from her hands.
Golden radiance poured out from Amber and flooded the chamber.
Blinding light hammered into the advancing Draugr. The nearest three staggered as if struck by invisible hammers, charred bone and rotted flesh sloughing away under the spell's purifying force. The cold blue flames in their eye sockets sputtered and dimmed.
The adventurers froze mid-formation, staring.
For them, Rank 1 Draugr were grinding, attrition-based enemies—slow, relentless, difficult to put down without careful teamwork and strictly managed mana. Watching one young mage erase half the group with a single spell broke something in their expectations.
Amber did not stop.
"Bind," she whispered, extending her hand.
Golden chains of condensed light burst from the air itself, wrapping around the remaining Draugr's limbs and torsos. The undead struggled, jaws working soundlessly, but the bindings only tightened. Cracks spread through desiccated flesh and brittle bone.
She flicked her fingers sharply.
The Draugr came apart at the joints, collapsing into inert heaps of bone and armor.
The entire exchange took less than five heartbeats.
Silence fell.
Only the soft hiss of fading mana and the faint drip of water from somewhere deeper in the cave remained.
Torren's sword hovered uselessly halfway out of its sheath. Mara, the scarred mage, kept her spell half-formed for a breath longer before the gathered fire dispersed around her in a harmless shimmer. Jens and Kalla looked as though they had forgotten how to breathe.
Amber exhaled slowly, shaking residual sparks from her hands.
"Well," she said, voice steady. "That was almost disappointing." The Spirit Channel hummed faintly between them, the echo of that momentary excess slowly fading.
The adventurers' eyes slowly shifted between themselves.
They were not entirely foolish. This had to be a bloodline power.
Amber met their gazes calmly, face betraying nothing. "That was a standard Academy purification and binding sequence."
Valen's lips twitched.
Adequate.
Torren finally dragged air into his lungs. "Standard—"
Mara elbowed him sharply. "Regardless," she said quickly, bowing her head slightly. "We are... grateful."
"Save your thanks for when we find your missing senior," Amber replied, eyes already drifting deeper into the chamber. "This is only the entrance."
Valen stepped past the piles of shattered bone, scanning the chamber with clinical detachment. The Draugr's armor carried no guild symbols. Their weapons were rusted beyond use. Likely remnants of an older civilization.
But the air still carried a faint spiritual chill that had nothing to do with Draugr.
Spirits present, Iris reported in his mind. Residual souls. Four distinct signatures in this chamber. More below.
Valen raised his hand.
"Spirit Ward," he murmured.
A faint, translucent circle of runes blossomed in the air before him, etched in pale blue light. Lines interlocked, forming a pattern that Iris had refined to the edge of efficiency through countless simulations.
He plucked something from within his cloak—smooth glass spheres no bigger than marbles, each one etched with a smaller version of the same runic pattern.
Under normal circumstances, these would have been considered expensive specialty tools. For Valen, they were simply another use of his idle time and endless mana.
He flicked the first marble forward. It floated, then snapped to a point in midair where nothing visible stood.
A thin wail, more emotion than sound, echoed through the chamber.
The marble flared once, runes spinning, then dimmed as a faint, bluish mist was drawn into it. The sphere's interior clouded, as if someone had breathed fog into glass.
One spirit contained.
The second marble flew to a point above a broken sarcophagus. The third drifted toward a shadowed corner. Each time, the same pattern—momentary resistance, a half-formed cry, then containment.
To the adventurers, it looked like some esoteric Academy technique that plucked ghosts out of empty air. They could not see the spectral shapes that Iris highlighted in Valen's perception.
To Valen, it was resource collection.
I will devour them later, Iris said, cheerful as ever. Their memories might hold something useful about this place.
Filter out anything traumatizing, Valen replied. There is no need to feed on nightmares before bed.
Understood, Master.
When the last sphere dimmed, Valen tucked the marbles back into an inner pocket. On the surface, it looked like nothing more than a quick precaution. In reality, they had just claimed four additional spirit units for Iris's evolving system.
Torren watched the process with a mixture of awe and unease.
"What... was that spell?" he asked finally.
"Standard Academy containment protocol," Valen said again, voice bland. "Leaving spirits to wander only invites future complications. They tend to accumulate grudges."
"And start haunting people," Amber added dryly. "You do not want haunted latrines. It ruins morale."
That at least broke the tension. One of the younger adventurers snorted, then stifled it quickly.
Valen's gaze drifted to the far side of the chamber.
A stairway carved directly into the stone descended into deeper darkness. The steps were worn by centuries of use, edges smoothed and rounded. This was no minor burial pit. It was a proper tomb complex.
"Your tracker?" he asked Torren.
The young man checked the bronze device. The needle, which had been pointing generally downwards since they entered, now angled more sharply—toward the stairs.
"Deeper," Torren confirmed, jaw tightening. "He is still below."
"Alive?" Amber asked.
Mara answered instead. "The tracker responds to spirit, not body. If he is dead, it will still point to his remains until the spirit decays."
Valen nodded. "Then we proceed with the assumption that he is neither fully alive nor fully dead."
The adventurers flinched at the implication.
They descended.