Where Hope Goes to Die
You don't run from death.
You delay it.
You sidestep it.
You buy time with pain, with memory, with names.
But you never outrun it.
Especially when it has no shape.
No hunger.
No reason.
Just purpose.
We slipped into the tunnels like marrow slipping from broken bone.
Below the City of Stillborn Souls—deeper than the vaults of the Bound or the echo pits of the Reapers—was a place even the Crows dared not mark:
The Ossuary Veins.
A network of ancient passages—carved by something older than burial.
Not by tools.
Not by magic.
But by the crawl of death before it learned to wear robes and crowns.
Maren floated beside me now in half-form. Her glow dimmed.
Not from fear.
From guilt.
"I should've stayed buried," she said.
"I should've let you forget me."
"But I couldn't. Not after what you gave up."
I didn't answer.
Because if I said the truth, it might break both of us:
I didn't give it up for her.
I gave it up because I was afraid… of who I'd be if I remembered.
📍 [New Region: The Ossuary Veins – Subterra of the Gravewright]
Air: Thin
Echoes: Loud
Memory: Corruptible
Warning: The deeper you go, the more your past will lie to you.
Bones lined the walls like roots.
Some still twitched.
Some whispered.
And some screamed in languages I almost understood.
We followed a map that didn't exist.
Not in ink.
But in the beat of Maren's flickering presence.
She was the compass now.
Not pointing north.
Pointing deeper.
We reached a tunnel where the walls breathed.
Exhaled a fog of ash and blood vapor.
And there, carved into the wall—
✦ "Only he who has buried hope may craft a tomb for death."
Below it: a symbol.
A stylized ribcage broken open… with a seed inside.
Maren stopped.
"This is it," she whispered. "The Gravewright's mark."
"He made the first true grave. The one that held the first god corpse."
"If anyone can help us bind Necros Aevum… it's him."
But there was a problem.
There always was.
The door had no handle.
No hinge.
Just a basin… and a knife.
⚠️ [Blood Toll Required: "Sacrifice What You Hope For Most"]
Only those who willingly give up the dream that keeps them alive…
May pass.
My hand shook.
Because I knew what it was asking.
Not a finger. Not an eye.
Not even a name.
But the vision I had held onto through every fight, every buried truth, every sleepless night:
A future with her.
A real one. Not just soul and ghost. But life. Together.
Peace.
To lose that hope—
Was to die a little now…
So something else might die later.
Maren touched my wrist.
"No," she said. "We'll find another way."
But we both knew—
There wasn't one.
I pressed my palm to the knife.
And carved out the hope.
Literally.
Magically.
Metaphysically.
It burned.
Not like fire.
Like absence.
As if something warm inside me just went cold forever.
And the door opened.
Behind it was a chamber made of inverted tombstones.
A room where nothing stood upright.
And in the center, kneeling over a sarcophagus wrapped in chains of sorrow—
Was a man made entirely of nails.
Rusty.
Bent.
Driven into bone.
He didn't look up.
He just whispered:
"Another one who wants to bury death."
"Tell me, boy… what are you willing to kill inside yourself to do it?"
✅ [New Character Encountered: The Gravewright]
Class: Architect of Finality
Soul Depth: Undefined
Alignment: Grave-Neutral
➤ The Gravewright can forge the Tomb of Silence, capable of binding Necros Aevum.
Cost: One memory that defines you.
➤ Your next choice will reshape who you are… forever.