Vadore

Saltwater dripped from their clothes, pooling on the polished coral floor. The guards kept close, too close—hands hovering near weapons, eyes flicking between them and the cloth-wrapped burden.

"You'll be seen immediately." The lead guard barely slowed his stride.

Lysara's face twitched in irritation. "At least let us dry off first."

The guard didn't so much as glance back. "Orders."

Aldric adjusted his grip on the sacred bark, its pulse steady against his chest. Power throbbed through the cloth, barely contained.

The air tightened as they passed through Vadore's winding corridors—walls of living coral seeming to constrict with every turn. Other figures stopped to watch, eyes lingering on their sodden clothes, on the relic in Aldric's grasp. The tension thickened with each step.

Aldric exhaled slowly, muscles aching from battle, magic, and loss. He needed time. Time to breathe, to change, to think. Instead, the guards only moved faster. The final set of doors loomed ahead.

The Keeper's chamber.

The doors split apart like a gasping mouth, releasing them into the dimly lit hall. Ancient eyes locked onto the bark.

Aldric's teeth set on edge under the weight of that gaze.

"You've returned."

The Keeper's gnarled fingers twitched, his usual mask of serenity cracking, revealing something else beneath—something hungry.

Lysara's scales darkened to storm-grey. "You sound surprised."

"Few survive encounters with Trelucs." The Keeper glided forward, gaze fixed on the bark as if the rest of them barely existed. "Fewer still earn a holy tree's blessing."

Aldric tensed. The guards hadn't left. They lingered by the entrance, blocking their way back.

Lysara shifted, deliberately placing herself between the Keeper and the bark. "Funny thing about impossible tasks," she mused. "They reveal true intentions."

The Keeper's composure slipped further. Fingers curled like grasping roots.

"You sent us to die." Aldric's grip tightened on his sword. Blood still streaked the borrowed blade.

The Keeper's gaze didn't waver. "I sent you to prove yourselves."

Aldric caught the gleam in those ancient eyes—not reverence, not relief, but barely contained greed.

"Or fail trying."

The guards shifted. The tension in the chamber thickened, the air crackling with something unsaid.

"A man gave his life for this." Aldric's hands burned with the weight of the sacrifice.1

The Keeper's fingers flexed—not reaching, but waiting. "Then let us honor his sacrifice."

His voice was calm, measured. But the way he said it, the way his hands stretched toward the relic…

Lysara's scales darkened to obsidian, shadows shifting over her head like a storm.

She inhaled slowly, deliberate. "You smell wrong."

The words cut through the tension like a blade.

The Keeper's fingers stilled.

"Greed." Lysara's pupils narrowed to slits, muscles tensed like a coiled predator. "That hunger in your voice—it's the same as the ones I fought in the Void. The corrupted don't just spread, they consume. You reek of the same sickness."

Aldric's grip tightened on the bark. The weight of it pulsed against his chest, steady but insistent, as if it too could sense something was wrong.

The Keeper's expression barely flickered, but his fingers curled inward. "You fear what you don't understand."

"No." Lysara took a step forward, her presence a wall between the Keeper and Aldric. "I understand all too well."

The guards moved.

Hands on weapons. Shifting stances. A breath from drawn steel.

Lysara didn't flinch. "You won't touch the bark." Her voice rang through the chamber like a war drum. "Not now, not ever."

She lifted her chin. "Hand over the ink and Aldric's scriptures. All of them. And the full Canticle."

The Keeper's brows rose, just slightly. "You would make demands of me?"

Aldric caught the faintest flicker in the old man's eyes—not anger. Amusement.

His stomach twisted.

The guards didn't react like men shocked by blasphemy. They reacted like men who had been expecting this.

Lysara's scales flashed. "Did Keras know?"

The Keeper's lips pressed into something that might have been a smile. "Keras is not the one in charge."

The Keeper stepped forward, unhurried. The guards closed in behind him, forming an unspoken wall.

"I will make this simple." His voice remained calm, smooth as polished stone. "You hand over the bark." His gaze flicked to Aldric, lingering just a second too long. "Or you die."

Silence.

Then Lysara grinned, all teeth and no warmth.

"You should have led with that."

The first sword cleared its sheath.

And the chamber erupted into chaos.

Aldric lurched sideways, muscles protesting every movement. His breath came sharp, ragged—fatigue gnawed at his bones like a starving rat.

No prayers left. No divine spark to call upon.

The next strike came fast. Too fast. He barely raised his shield in time—more luck than skill. Metal shrieked against metal, his arm buckling under the force. His grip nearly failed.

The Keeper sighed, disappointment dripping from every syllable. "Pitiful."

Boots scuffed against coral. Another guard closed in from the left. Aldric's shield arm sagged—just a fraction—but enough.

"You understand nothing of true power."

The Keeper's voice rolled through the chamber, smooth as the tide, implacable as the sea.

Aldric ducked. A sword whispered past his ear, close enough to steal a strand of hair.

He couldn't keep this up.

Not like this.

The guards weren't fools. They pressed their advantage, swords flashing in the low light. Precision over brute force. They didn't need to overwhelm him. They just had to wear him down.

The Keeper's laughter echoed like breaking waves. "Your world. So limited. So fractured."

Aldric staggered back, shield barely absorbing the next blow. His knees shook.

He was slowing.

The Keeper glided forward, robes shifting like liquid shadow. "Beyond the Void, true blessing awaits."

Aldric swung. Desperation, not strategy.

The guard caught his blade on a parry and drove a knee into Aldric's ribs.

Pain exploded through his side. His breath left him in a choked gasp. Vision blurred. His arms felt like stone.

"These scriptures. That bark." The Keeper gestured to the relics, his eyes burning with something vast, something inhuman. "They will forge an artifact that will remake everything."

Aldric forced himself up, barely blocking another strike. He could already see the end. The guards weren't tiring.

He was.

The Keeper's gaze never left him, studying his struggle with something like amusement. "Corruption will flow like water. Gods themselves will kneel before the true power."

Aldric's blade wobbled in his grip. He wasn't ready to give in, but his body was betraying him.

In a corner of his mind, Aldric had noticed. Somewhere between the fighting and the Keeper's gloating, he realised he hadn't seen Lysara. None of the guards had reacted to her absence either. How?

Steel scraped against his shield as another strike forced him back. He barely held his footing, lungs burning. The Keeper watched, smug in his certainty.

Then a hand caught his wrist and pulled.

He stumbled, momentum dragging him away from the fight. The world blurred, steps quickening, shadows parting. It wasn't until they burst through the chamber's doors that he realised who had him.

Lydara.

She didn't slow. Her grip on his arm was firm, her pace relentless.

"How—?"

"Perception blessing." Her voice was barely a whisper, but her scales shimmered light blue with quiet triumph. "They can't see me unless I interact with them."

He glanced over his shoulder. The chamber remained in chaos. The guards fought shadows, blades clashing against nothing. The Keeper's voice rose in frustration, demanding order. They hadn't even noticed them escaping.

The halls twisted before them, corridors of living coral shifting in unnatural patterns. Vadore was never meant to be fled. It was a place of sanctuary—or a prison, if the wrong hands held the keys.

Lysara led them higher, navigating the winding passages until she halted. Aldric barely had time to blink before she thrust a bundle into his arms. "Move." The bundle was tablecloth hastily tied into a bag. Inside, lay their prize—the stolen scriptures, ink, and canticles she had taken moments before their escape.

The ink. The scriptures. The canticles.

She had them all.

They ran.

Footsteps thundered behind them. The Keeper's spell unravelled, his voice thick with fury. "Find them! Now!"

Aldric's breath came in gasps, his arms clutching their stolen salvation. Lysara led them through winding tunnels, the living walls pressing closer as if the city itself wished to trap them. Then, light.

The surface.

They emerged into the city's entrance cavern, the watery barrier shimmering overhead like a false sky. Beyond it, the ocean stretched vast and unbroken.

Except they weren't free.

Aldric's chest heaved as he turned, reality sinking in. "We're still trapped."

Lysara's gaze lifted, scales flickering between uncertainty and calculation. Vadore's magic kept the city sealed beneath the sea. They had no way out—unless someone let them leave.

She met his eyes. "We need to find Keras before the Keeper does."

They raced through the corridors, feet pounding against the coral floors. The city pulsed around them, the distant hum of magic shifting like a heartbeat, but urgency pushed them forward. They had to warn Keras before the Keeper poisoned him with lies.

Too late

They reached the chamber where Keras resided, but the Keeper was already there. His voice, smooth and practised, carried through the space, his hands gesturing in slow, deliberate movements.

"They have betrayed us, Keras. The Lightborn and her companion have stolen many of our relics, artifacts, and even the sacred ingredients meant for the ritual." His expression was solemn, but there was an edge beneath the words, something serpentine in the way he watched for Keras's reaction.

Keras stood rigid, his fingers curled at his sides. His gaze flickered between the Keeper and the door, where Aldric and Lysara stood hidden in the shadows.

"Consider your position carefully, Keeper," Keras said, his voice a deep rumble, measured but firm. "Do you truly believe a Lightborn would do such things?"

Lysara stiffened, her scales flashing a dangerous shade of crimson. Enough.

She strode forward, emerging from their hiding place. "The Keeper has been infected with corruption!"

The room stilled. Keras's eyes locked onto her, searching. The guards at his side tensed.

The Keeper exhaled slowly, shaking his head. "Wild accusations, desperation. I expected better."

Keras raised a hand, silencing them both. "If what you say is true, Lysara, then tell me—what of the Mother's Barrier? It should have prevented corruption." 

Lysara clenched her jaw. "The barrier prevents corruption from crossing the boundary. It keeps the void at bay. But it cannot protect a person's mind. The corruption does not need to breach the city—it only needs to fester in the heart of one who already dwells within."

 Keras's expression darkened, unreadable. He turned slowly to face the Keeper, searching for something beneath the surface. The air thickened with tension.

The Keeper smiled.

Power rolled off him in suffocating waves. Aldric recoiled, the weight of it pressing against his skin like unseen chains. Even the Keeper's allies flinched, their confidence replaced with fear. The air around him darkened as he began to rise, his feet leaving the ground. A black aura wrapped around him, thick and pulsating with something ancient and wrong.

Lysara gasped. True fear flickered in her silver eyes.

"We can't let him complete the transformation!" she cried. Her staff swung in a brilliant arc, blazing with divine fire. The attack struck the black aura—and fizzled out into nothing.

The Keeper's laughter twisted through the air. His form shifted, his skin smoothing, age peeling away like cracked stone. The frail ancient was gone. In his place stood a man in his prime, power radiating from every inch of him.

"This," he declared, voice ringing with dark triumph, "is the power of those beyond the Void."

Keras staggered back. "A Dark Templar… Impossible. Vadore should have been protected. The Mother's Barrier—"

"The barrier keeps the corruption out," Lysara whispered, dread sinking into her voice. "It does not shield the mind."

The Dark Templar's gaze snapped to Aldric. "The artifacts. Give them to me."

Aldric's grip tightened on the bundle, but his limbs felt heavy. The void-born power suffocated the space around him, sapping strength, draining will.

Then the killing began.

The Dark Templar's aura lashed out, black tendrils sweeping through the chamber. Soldiers and citizens alike fell, their forms withering to husks before they hit the ground. Screams echoed through Vadore, cries of warning, of agony.

Keras roared and charged, his trident striking true—but the Dark Templar barely acknowledged it. A single flick of his wrist sent Keras hurtling through a stone column.

Lysara was at Aldric's side in an instant. "Move!"

They retreated through the carnage, Lysara's magic lashing out to shield them from the relentless waves of void energy. Keras, battered but standing, rallied what remained of his warriors, forming a desperate last line.

"We have to get out!" Lysara shouted, deflecting another wave of darkness, the effort draining her strength.

Aldric clenched his fists. Running felt like defeat. But against this—this monster—what choice did they have?

With one last look at the slaughter unfolding behind them, they turned and fled into the depths of Vadore.