The way up was not a smooth tunnel.
It was a wound.
Broken rock rose in a steep curve where the mine shaft had split open. Old beams jutted out like broken ribs. Smoke rolled along the ceiling, thick and low, trying to sink back down and choke what was left alive. [reddit](
Kairn climbed.
Lysa hung on his back, arms around his neck, weak but holding. Every few steps, her breath hitched when his movement jarred her ribs. She did not complain. The fear in her smell drowned the pain.
Below them, fire crackled louder.
Part of the lower tunnel roof gave way with a deep, grinding crash. A wave of sparks rushed upward, carried by hot air. The sound made Kairn move faster.
His hands found holds in the broken stone where no normal boy would have seen any. Dark lines ran under his skin now, ember veins humming faint. His fingers dug into cracks and held like hooks.
He did not slip.
He did not look down.
"Almost there," he said.
Lysa made a small sound that might have been a nod.
"Is it… night?" she asked after a moment. "Up there?"
Kairn glanced toward the narrow opening higher up. Red light from the comet washed the stone, harsh and strange. The sky he could see through the crack was not bright, but it was not pure dark either. The ash clouds glowed with dull fire.
"I don't know," he said.
He had never seen true sky from this close. Only a slit high above the slave pens when he was marched out once a month to count bodies.
He climbed anyway.
The thought came to him, sharp and quiet: vampires and sun. Old whispers in the pens. Stories thrown around by boys to scare each other when the lamps went out. Monsters in the hills that burned in daylight.
He did not know if those tales were true.
The System had not said.
It had warned about fire. It had warned about dragon blood. It had not said anything about the sun.
He did not trust that silence.
A different kind of fear slid cold into him.
What if he reached the surface and burned?
What if he came all this way to die in one flash of light?
He climbed anyway.
The alternative was to stay and die under rock, or in chains when more guards came. He had seen enough of that.
The stone near the top was hot.
The crack in the roof was wider here, big enough for a man to squeeze through on his belly. Ash drifted down like gray snow. The red light from the comet hurt his eyes, but less than it would have hurt them when he was human.
He paused and pressed his cheek to the rock.
His heart – whatever sat in his chest now – beat cold and fast.
"Lysa," he said.
"Mm?"
"If it's day," he said slowly, "and I burn… you crawl out without me."
She stiffened.
"That's not funny."
"I'm not joking," he said.
"What do you mean, 'burn'?" Her voice shook. "You're scaring me."
He almost said the word.
Vampire.
He stopped himself.
"I'm not like before," he said instead. "The light might hurt me."
"How do you know?" she whispered.
"I don't," he said. "That's why you go even if I don't. You understand?"
She was silent for a long breath.
Then, very softly: "I don't want to leave you."
He swallowed.
The words hit some old place in him that the rest of this night had not reached.
"No one gets what they want down here," he said. "We take what we can. You take the chance."
Another distant crash shook dust down around them.
He did not wait for her answer.
He shifted his grip, braced his feet, and pushed himself up toward the crack.
The opening was just above him now. He could see black branches of a dead tree clawing over the edge, coated in ash. The sky beyond was a swirl of dark clouds lit from within by the blood comet's glow.
He took a breath he did not need.
Then he shoved his head and shoulders through.
Cold air slapped his face.
It was like nothing he had ever felt.
Mine air was always thick – stale, dusty, sometimes damp. This air was wide. It moved. Wind slapped at his hair, brought new smells: burnt wood, wet earth, old smoke, something sharp and high that might have been pine trees far away.
The light hit his skin.
He tensed, waiting for fire.
It did not come.
The sky was dark, lit only by the comet and a low red glow on the horizon where some city burned. No sun. No pure day. Only ash and night. [thedarkpictures.fandom](
He let out a breath he had not known he was holding.
"It's night," he said.
He pulled himself the rest of the way up and rolled onto dead grass.
Lysa clung tight until he gently pried her arms from around his neck. He set her down beside him.
For a moment, they both lay there, staring up.
The world was huge.
Even under a ruined sky, it felt like it went on forever. The clouds churned. The comet's red line burned across them, painting everything in blood light. Ash fell in slow, drifting flakes.
Kairn's eyes picked out details in the dark without strain now.
A line of dead trees stood like black bones along the ridge. Far below, the mine's main entrance lay as a dark scar in the earth, ringed with fallen walls and toppled watchtowers. Beyond that, the land rolled out in hills and broken ground, dotted with ruined stone walls, burned carts, the faint glimmer of distant water.
No warm village lights.
No safe towers.
Just a dead, quiet land.
"What happened up here?" Lysa whispered.
Kairn pushed himself up onto his elbows.
"The dragon," he said.
It was the only answer he had.
The comet, the dragon, fire dropping from the sky. Maybe this had all happened in moments. Maybe it had been coming for years. He did not know.
[ ENVIRONMENT SCAN COMPLETE ]
[ AREA: ASH WILDS – OUTER RING ]
[ THREAT LEVEL: MODERATE TO HIGH FOR CURRENT HOST LEVEL ]
[ NOTE: STRONGER CREATURES AND HUNTERS PROWL AT NIGHT ]
The words slid through his mind.
Of course.
The world would not let him rest for long.
"We need to move," he said.
Lysa groaned but nodded. "Where?"
He looked around.
To the left, the ridge dropped in a steep cliff. To the right, the ground sloped down more gently but was open and bare. Far ahead, on the horizon, he could make out the faint outline of taller shapes – towers, maybe, or rocks.
Behind them, the mine shaft belched smoke like a dying beast.
He did not know the land.
But he knew one thing: open ground meant nowhere to hide if riders or other monsters came. The dead trees along the ridge might give cover.
"Along the ridge," he said. "Stay in the shadows."
He stood, then helped Lysa to her feet.
She swayed.
He caught her.
"Can you walk a little?" he asked.
"I'll try," she said through clenched teeth.
They moved.
The ash crunched softly under their bare feet. The air was colder up here than underground, but the ember lines under Kairn's skin kept him from shaking. Lysa was not so lucky. Her teeth clicked together.
Without thinking, he pulled her closer, letting her share some of his strange warmth.
She glanced up at him, eyes flicking to his fangs, to the dark veins at his neck.
She did not pull away.
Silence settled between them for a while.
Only the wind and distant, hollow sounds broke it – a far-off crack, maybe a falling tree; a low rumble that could have been thunder or something worse.
Finally Lysa spoke.
"You're not going to tell me, are you?" she said.
"Tell you what?" he asked.
"What you are now," she said.
He thought about lying.
He was not good at lying. The overseers always knew. But the System's cold voice was not watching his tongue, only his choices.
If she knew, she might run the first chance she got. She might scream when they reached other humans – if there were any left – and then it would be him against many.
He did not like those odds.
"I'm me," he said.
"That's not true," she said softly. "Your eyes… your teeth… how you moved down there. You tore their throats out like… like some beast."
"You wanted to live," he said. "So did I."
She flinched.
He stopped walking.
"So," he said quietly, "this is how it is. You can stay with me. I'll keep you alive as long as I can. Or you can walk away when you can walk, and try to live on your own. But if you stay, you don't tell anyone what you saw. Not all of it."
She met his eyes.
The wind tugged at her short hair.
"What if they already know?" she asked. "The masters. The priests. They had stories about monsters in the hills. Things that drink blood. They won't just see you as a boy, Kairn."
"They won't see me at all if we're smart," he said.
"And if they do?" she whispered.
He did not answer right away.
He looked out at the dead land. The ash. The red light. The broken stone.
"If they try to put chains on me again," he said at last, "they die."
Her eyes widened.
He did not look away.
He wanted her to understand. Not to like it. To see it.
He was done being property.
After a long moment, she nodded once.
"I won't tell," she said.
He believed her.
Not because he was good at reading souls. Because he knew what the masters did to slaves who made trouble. She had seen it too.
She did not want that again any more than he did.
They walked on.
[ NEW PASSIVE QUEST: HUNT OR HIDE ]
[ OBJECTIVE: SURVIVE 24 HOURS ON SURFACE ]
[ OPTIONAL BONUS: HUNT 3 WILD ENEMIES – REWARD UNKNOWN ]
Kairn almost snorted.
The System never gave simple tasks.
Survive a whole day on a broken surface he did not know, with things hunting and priests maybe looking for dragon-fall survivors.
Fine.
He would.
He kept moving.
Five minutes later, his ears caught a sound ahead.
Hooves.
He stopped, raising a hand.
Lysa froze beside him.
"What is it?" she whispered.
"Quiet," he said.
He listened.
Hoofbeats. More than one. Not a whole army, but a small group at least. Metal clinked. Harness leather creaked. A low voice cursed.
He dropped low and pulled Lysa down with him, moving them behind the black trunk of a dead tree.
"Stay here," he murmured.
She clutched his sleeve. "Don't—"
"Stay," he said, firmer.
He eased forward, keeping to the shadows, until he could see over the edge of the ridge.
Below, on the open slope leading to the mine entrance, a group of riders approached.
They were not pit guards.
Their armor was darker, layered leather and plate, cloaks like strips of night trailing from their shoulders. Their helmets were smooth, with thin visors that hid their faces. Each man's chest bore a sigil painted in dried red: a circle with three jagged lines inside it, like claw marks.
Their horses were lean and gray, eyes covered with dark cloth. Ash puffed under their hooves.
At their head rode a taller figure in a long coat of black scales. No helmet. His hair was white, cut short. His skin was pale, even in this light. His eyes, when he lifted them, glowed faintly red.
Kairn's new senses pushed a warning up his spine.
Not human.
Not like him, either.
Something old.
The riders drew up at the broken entrance.
The white-haired man swung down easily and walked to the edge of the cracked shaft. He looked down, hands clasped behind his back.
From this distance, Kairn could not hear words, but he could hear tone.
Calm.
Cold.
The man turned to one of his riders and made a sharp gesture.
The rider nodded and dismounted.
He pulled a chain from his saddle bag, at the end of which a long iron hook hung. He spun it once, then flung it down into the dark.
It caught on something below.
He braced and pulled.
Slowly, something came up from the broken shaft. Not a body. Not a cart.
A cage.
It was small, made of black iron bars, heavy even for its size. Strange runes glowed dull red along its edges. Inside, something moved – a shape, hunched and twisted.
As it rose into better light, Kairn saw pale hands gripping the bars. Teeth. Hollow eyes.
A vampire.
Thin, starved, its skin stretched over its bones, lips peeled back in a permanent snarl. It hissed as the cage swung, eyes too bright.
Kairn's own new hunger twisted at the sight.
Not in want.
In warning.
He recognized the feel of another predator.
The white-haired man stepped closer.
He spoke one clear word.
"Report."
The caged vampire hissed again, then forced itself to speak. Its voice was harsh and cracked, but the words were clear enough in the still air.
"Dragon… fell," it rasped. "Fire. Mine… broken. Many dead. New core… awakened."
Kairn's blood went cold.
It was talking about him.
The white-haired man's eyes narrowed.
"Where?" he asked.
The caged thing lifted a shaking hand and pointed.
Not at Kairn.
At the mine.
"At… heart," it said. "Near… beast's throat. New blood… drank. Smell… strange. Like us… like them… and… other."
The man's gaze slid over the ruins.
He did not smile.
He did not frown.
He simply nodded.
"Seal the lower shafts," he said to his riders. "Kill any humans you find. If you see anything that does not bleed like a man, bring it to me."
Kairn's fingers dug into the bark of the dead tree.
Lysa's hand found his from behind and squeezed, hard.
He had thought he was a hidden thing, crawling out of darkness unseen.
He was wrong.
The world was already hunting him.
The white-haired man lifted his head, nostrils flaring slightly.
For a heartbeat, Kairn thought the man had scented him.
Their eyes did not meet.
Not yet.
The man turned back to the caged vampire.
"And the dragon?" he asked.
"Dying," the creature croaked. "Blood… spilled. Some… taken."
The man's jaw tightened at that.
"By whom?" he asked.
The caged thing shook, chains rattling. "Could not… see. Smoke. Stone. System… moved. New line… opened."
System.
The word echoed in Kairn's head like a struck bell.
He had thought the voice inside him was his alone.
It was not.
The man's eyes grew colder.
He reached through the bars, grabbed the starving vampire by the throat, and squeezed.
"You failed to stop it," he said.
The thing choked, claws scrabbling at his wrist.
"P–please," it hissed. "Master… I—"
The man squeezed harder.
There was a crack.
The caged vampire went limp.
He let it drop and stepped back, wiping his hand on his coat as if he had touched something unclean.
"Burn it," he said.
One of the riders lifted a hand.
Flame blossomed there, bright and clean.
Fire mage.
He flicked it toward the cage.
It caught at once.
The thing inside screamed as it burned. The runes on the iron bars flared, then went dark. In seconds, there was nothing but ash and a warped frame.
Kairn watched, eyes narrow.
Vampires.
Masters.
Dragon blood.
System.
The pieces of this broken world sat in front of him like a puzzle made of knives.
He pulled back from the ridge.
Lysa's face was pale.
"Who are they?" she whispered.
"Hunters," he said. The word tasted bitter.
"Of what?" she asked.
"Of things like me," he said.
Her fingers tightened on his sleeve.
"What do we do?" she breathed.
He looked at her.
He looked at the ash sky.
He looked down at his hands, at the faint ember lines under his skin.
"We get far from here," he said. "We get stronger. And we make sure that when he finds us…" He paused. His eyes went back to the white-haired man, now calmly giving orders beside the smoking shaft.
"…we're not the ones running."
Far below, the riders began to move, splitting into groups, some riding toward the outbuildings, others circling the mine mouth.
The hunt had begun.
Kairn turned away from the edge and led Lysa along the ridge, deeper into the Ash Wilds.