Bruk ran.

  Past the shattered door. Past the heat of the room where his son had summoned a miracle.

  He didn’t look back.

  The mountain shook beneath his boots—not like a quake. Like something breathing deep in the stone.

  The council halls were five corridors west, same level. No lifts, no turns—just a straight shot through the housing ring.

  He passed two homes with doors hanging off the hinges. A third with blood under the frame.

  No sound. No survivors.

  When he reached the council quarter, he already knew what he’d find.

  The first door was open.

  Not forced—opened.

  Clean. Quiet.

  Inside: two elders. Throats cut, still seated. A war map open between them like they’d been discussing defense routes. One still held a stylus.

  Bruk stepped back. Went to the next. Same thing. Different positions. One had tried to fight—blade out, but no blood on it.

  The last was the worst. Elder Makhrun—face down across the stone, still holding the edge of a forgebound seal.

  The leadership was gone.

  All of them.

  Bruk stood in the hall, breathing hard. The mountain growled again, louder this time—stone whining, air sharp with distant ash.

  He turned back down the corridor. Started running.

  Halfway back through the ring, Bruk stopped.

  Not by choice.

  The sound hit him like a quake inside his ribs—low at first, then rising, then splitting.

  A roar. Massive. Stone-breaking.

  Not Rhukhaz.

  And not alone.

  The second roar came layered behind it—thinner, sharper, dragging ash in its wake. Like flame made sound.

  He looked up.

  Dust sifted from the ceiling joints. Cracks spidered through one of the high beams.

  “That's a dragonwar roar,” he muttered. “Not just ours.”

  The fight was starting. Above them.

  Then—shouts. Down the hall. A clang of metal, voices rising.

  He turned and saw them—twenty, maybe more, one leading a cluster of limping civilians, two with forge-scars down their faces, one with a shield bent in half across her back.

  “Bruk!” the first called. “You still breathing?”

  He jogged to meet them—scanning their numbers, trying to count. Too many, not enough.

  “We pulled three hundred down to the forge tunnels,” the lead dwarf said, chest heaving. “Lower levels—near the warfoundries. But the home ring’s breaking. They're pushing in from all sides.”

  “Assassins?” Bruk asked.

  “Worse. Full units. Climbing the side vents. They're not raiding anymore—they’re wiping.”

  Bruk looked past him, toward the far end of the corridor—already dimming with smoke.

  “We can’t hold this level,” the shield-sister said. “Where do we fall back to?”

  A pause. Then Bruk said it:

  “The hoard chamber.”

  They froze.

  “You know we can’t go there,” one of them snapped. “Only the blood-sworn. You break that, you break the whole pact—”

  “The pact is broken,” Bruk said. Voice low. Solid. “The leadership’s dead. All of them. I just saw the council. Gone.”

  Silence.

  He looked at them, eyes steady.

  “Rhukhaz is above us. Fighting Vorhend’s dragon. He’s not in the hoard room.”

  Another pause.

  “And if he loses… there’s no other fallback left.”

  One of the younger dwarves swallowed. “What if it’s still sealed?”

  “Then we die on the doorstep instead of in these halls,” Bruk said. “But it’s deep. Strong. Sacred. It’ll hold.”

  The leader nodded slowly. “And you?”

  “I’m going to get my family.”

  He turned before they could argue.

  “Meet me there. If we’re lucky—”

  Another roar split the stone above them. Louder. Closer.

  He didn’t finish the sentence.

  He ran.

  ***

  The vault door held. Bruk slammed the signal bar twice—fast—and it cracked open. His wife pulled it the rest of the way.

  Inside: low firelight, stone warmth, his father holding Bramund in both arms, the boy still limp with sleep.

  Bruk shut the door hard behind him.

  “They’re above us,” he said, breathing heavy. “Both of them.”

  His wife went still.

  His father stood slowly. “Both?”

  “Rhukhaz and Yndralyx.”

  He didn’t need to explain who Yndralyx was. No one did.

  The room went quiet. Then:

  “Vorhend’s dragon,” the old man muttered, voice like rust breaking.

  His wife swallowed. “They're fighting?”

  Bruk nodded. “On the wall level. I heard it start. Sounded like the mountain cracked.”

  His father cursed. Looked down at Bramund, then back at Bruk.

  “We’re not staying here,” Bruk said. “We’re heading down.”

  “The bottom floor?” the old man asked. “The hoard room?”

  Bruk met his eyes.

  “The elders are gone,” he said. “Assassins. Every one of them.”

  The silence this time felt thicker.

  “They’re not coming back,” Bruk finished. “So we go where it holds.”

  His wife stepped forward, setting a satchel on the bench. “We need to get Haldrik.”

  “He’s probably already in the chamber,” Bruk said. “He’s not an idiot.”

  She didn’t move. “Bruk.”

  He looked at her.

  “He keeps our records,” she said softly. “He kept your father’s forge lines. He taught Bramund his first shapes. He’s been good to us.”

  Bruk exhaled. Looked at Bramund—then at the packs.

  “Okay. Okay. I’ll check.”

  He turned to his father.

  “Get him down to the hoard room. I’ll meet you there.”

  The old man nodded once. “You better.”

  They moved fast—no time for final looks.

  Bruk led them through the rear corridor, where the old stone ramp curved down toward the lower levels. The torches along the wall had gone out—nothing but emberlight and quake dust in the air.

  His wife carried Bramund, still wrapped. The old man held a shortblade in one hand, the other on her back.

  They reached the tunnel mouth. A thick descent carved by the first stonebinders—twenty dwarves wide, wide enough for siegecarts back when the lower rings were used in war.

  Then they heard it.

  The roar.

  Not from above. From right behind.

  Bruk turned.

  The stone behind them broke.

  Not cracked—split. A full chunk of ceiling sheared downward, slamming into the corridor floor they’d just crossed.

  A massive shape burst through in firelight and fury—Rhukhaz, his skin glowing with internal heat, eyes like burning pits.

  And above him—Yndralyx.

  Sleek. Coiled. Smoke trailing off her spine like black silk. Her wings carved open the stone as she landed full-force on Rhukhaz’s back.

  The two dragons hit the floor, shaking the whole ring. The corridor cracked under their weight.

  Bruk shouted—“Go! GO!”—and shoved his wife toward the ramp.

  She didn’t look back. The old man didn’t speak. They just ran.

  Bruk didn’t.

  He watched.

  Rhukhaz roared again—tried to throw her off, fire pouring from his throat, scorching the stone. But Yndralyx was faster. She slid beneath his arm, slammed him into a support pillar, and drove her claws into his throat.

  Stone shattered.

  Rhukhaz faltered. One wing collapsed.

  Bruk’s heart caught.

  She twisted—bit deep into his neck.

  The roar that followed wasn’t pain. It was the kind of sound that only came when gods died.

  Bruk stood frozen.

  He watched as Rhukhaz’s legs buckled. Watched as Yndralyx held him down, pinned him like a warbeast, and bit again—deeper.

  There was no final scream. Just a lurch. A silence. And blood—thicker than molten iron—pouring down the stone.

  Bruk turned.

  Down the tunnel. Toward the scholar’s hall.

  His mind raced—Clan’s breaking. Elders gone. Dragon dead. Hammerhall’s burning.

  We were never meant to survive this.

  He swore under his breath. Swore again. Swore louder.

  And he kept moving faster now.

  He hit the second level just as the mountain shook again.

  This wasn’t the weight of two beasts colliding.

  This was one. Standing victorious.

  The roar tore through the stone like a serrated blade. Pure triumph.

  And above it—distant, echoing—the screams of Vorhend dwarves.

  Not dying. Cheering.

  Bruk cursed under his breath. Turned the last corridor.

  The scholar’s hall was cracked down the center. Dust drifted from the ceiling. One of the old support struts had snapped, but the door still held.

  He shoved it open.

  Inside, Haldrik was moving fast—grabbing books, unrolling scrolls, stuffing satchels.

  He muttered to himself as he worked. “Not that one… no, no, the redbinding goes first, and the clan seals… where did I—”

  “Haldrik!”

  The old dwarf jumped.

  Bruk stepped into the room, eyes blazing.

  “Move. Now. He’s dead.”

  Haldrik froze. “Rhukhaz?”

  Bruk nodded once. “Yndralyx has him pinned. Took his neck. Hammerhall’s wide open.”

  Haldrik slumped against the desk. Scrolls spilled from his arms.

  “Then it’s over,” he said. Voice small. “We can’t fight their dragon and their army. Not without him.”

  Bruk stepped forward, grabbed the edge of the table. “We’re holding the hoard room. Three hundred survivors. My family. We’re sealing it. Buying time.”

  Haldrik blinked. “The… the hoard room?”

  He turned, eyes darting.

  “There has to be something… some way…”

  Then he stopped.

  Stared at the far wall.

  “The gate,” he whispered.

  “What gate?” Bruk asked.

  Haldrik turned. “In the hoard chamber. Beneath the hoard itself. It’s buried, mostly. But it’s there. A dungeon gate.”

  Bruk frowned. “No one mentioned a gate to me on the council—”

  “No one knew if it truly was there,” Haldrik said. “Rhukhaz has guarded it the whole time according to my family. No one’s entered.”

  Bruk’s voice turned sharp. “You’re saying we run into it?”

  Haldrik met his eyes.

  “We die in the hoard room. That’s certain. Yndralyx won’t stop until she’s claimed it.”

  He paused.

  “A dungeon is death too—but it’s unknown death. Might be a path. Might be an answer. Maybe even a way out.”

  Bruk shook his head. “You said dungeons grow when left untouched. That one’s been growing for at least eighty thousand years.”

  He looked away for a breath. Then back.

  “There could be things in there that make a dragon look like a newborn runt.”

  Haldrik nodded. “There could be.”

  “But it’s the only door left.”

  Bruk’s jaw tightened. “You think there's a way through?”

  “I don’t know,” Haldrik said. “But I'd rather die walking than waiting.”

  Bruk looked at the scrolls on the table, then at Haldrik’s pack.

  “Then grab what you can,” he said. “We’re out of time.”

  ***

  They moved through the tunnels quicker and quicker.

  Haldrik didn’t ask questions. He just followed—bag slung over one shoulder, hand on the wall for balance as the deeper floors started to shake.

  Level 3 was half-collapsed already. One of the forge chimneys had ruptured—smoke coiled through the tunnel like a dying snake.

  Behind them, the sound came rising—not just feet.

  War chants.

  Low. Rhythmic. Dozens of voices pounding through the stone.

  And beneath it—deeper—something larger moving.

  Not boots. Not steel.

  Claws.

  Bruk didn’t look back.

  They reached the final descent—spiraled stone steps carved thick and deep.

  Each step shook beneath them.

  “She's digging,” Haldrik said, breath short. “Yndralyx—she’s tunneling. Hunting the hoard.”

  Bruk nodded once, teeth clenched. “Then we beat her to it.”

  They reached the bottom.

  The tunnel widened.

  And then—opened.

  The hoard chamber.

  It wasn’t just a vault. It was a mountain of treasure—rising to the ceiling, falling like dunes, stacked high with shields, blades, gold rings thick as arms.

  Armor sets lay untouched in rows—some glowing faintly, others still caked in ash from wars ten thousand years dead.

  Weapons older than the clan lay scattered like rusted prayers.

  Bruk’s family stood near the central dais—his wife gripping Bramund tight, his father with his back to the wall, shortblade ready.

  Others—maybe three dozen warborn—were arrayed in a rough circle near the outer tunnel, guarding the single entrance.

  “Bruk!” one of the siege team called. “They’re coming fast—vent shaft breach confirmed!”

  Bruk pointed back up the ramp. “Collapse it. Now.”

  The dwarf hesitated.

  “We collapse it,” Bruk said again, firmer. “Or we all die with our backs to it.”

  The team moved fast. Powder. Seals. Glyphline charges packed into stone.

  Bruk turned to his wife, stepped in close. “They’re coming.”

  She nodded. “So we hold?”

  “No,” Haldrik said, stepping up behind him. “We go.”

  She blinked. “Go where?”

  Haldrik raised a hand. Pointed through the hoard—to the far wall.

  There it stood.

  A gate.

  Not a doorway. A monument.

  Six dwarves tall. Ten wide. Big enough for a them all to get in in time.

  Runes curled along its blacksteel arch—deep-forged, faintly glowing, humming with old magic.

  It wasn’t sealed.

  It was waiting.

  Bruk stared. “That’s real?”

  Haldrik nodded. “Dungeon gate. It’s been here the whole time. Buried under gold. Rhukhaz must’ve been guarding it.”

  The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

  Bruk’s voice dropped. “How does it work?”

  “You step through.”

  He pulled a scroll from his satchel, thumbed a worn line.

  “You’ve got ten minutes it’ll start pulsing. Then it seals. No more entries. No more exits. Not until it’s beaten.”

  Bruk turned back. “And you’re saying we go in there?”

  Haldrik looked at him flatly. “If we stay, we die to a dragon claiming another’s hoard.”

  He looked back at the gate.

  “If we go… we die in the unknown. Or maybe not.”

  Bruk’s jaw tensed. “You told me there was a chance through now you say we have to beat it.”

  “yes,” Haldrik said. “And whatever’s in there wont be easy to overcome.”

  He paused.

  “But there might be a way out. Maybe even a chance. And I’d rather take death looking forward than die in the dust.”

  Bruk looked at the tunnel. The mountain groaned.

  The siege team lit the charges.

  The charges went off.

  A deep thoom, followed by a heavier one—stone slamming into stone. Dust blasted back through the tunnel mouth as the ramp collapsed behind it, sealing the hoard chamber in ash and rubble.

  The war chants above cut off.

  But only for a breath.

  Then—scraping. Tunneling. The sound of claws in the walls.

  Bruk turned.

  “Everyone! To the gate!” he roared, voice echoing across the gold. “Now!”

  Three hundred dwarves—warborn, wounded, kin with soot still on their cheeks—gathered near the central rise. Some leaned on weapons. Some still bled. All of them looked to him.

  He climbed the nearest mound of armor. Faced them.

  “We’ve got twenty minutes until that dragon breaks through,” he shouted. “Ten to decide.”

  He pointed to the gate. The runes were showing brighter now—soft, steady pulse.

  “That’s a dungeon gate. It’s real. It’s open. And it’ll seal ten minutes after the first one of us steps through.”

  He let the silence hang a beat.

  “Hammerhall is gone. The elders are dead. Rhukhaz is dead. That dragon’s coming for this hoard, and we can’t stop her.”

  Murmurs spread. A few hands clenched.

  His father stepped forward, voice rough. “You’re the only leader left now, son.”

  Bruk looked at him. Then at the crowd.

  They were staring at him now. All of them.

  He exhaled. Looked at his wife. She held Bramund close, eyes steady.

  Then—quiet, but firm: “We go.”

  Not everyone moved.

  One dwarf near the back spat. “Coward’s path.”

  Another nodded. “Die in a dungeon like rats? You’d run from your ancestors?”

  Bruk didn’t flinch. “I won’t force you. But you make that call now. Here.”

  He pointed to the gate again.

  “Ten minutes. Then it’s gone.”

  Silence. The chamber seemed to hold its breath.

  Bruk turned away from them. Walked down to Haldrik, who stood near the threshold, hand on the rune-stone.

  “Can we enter?”

  Haldrik nodded once.

  And without another word—walked through.

  The runes flared.

  And the countdown began.

  One by one, they entered.

  Some touched the arch before stepping through. Others just walked.

  No sound, no flash—just a shimmer, like stepping into still water.

  The gate didn’t resist.

  It took them.

  Fifty at first. Then more. In pairs, in families. Old warriors with broken helms. Young scouts still bleeding from the wall.

  Two hundred. Two-fifty.

  The last fifty moved slower. Hesitating. Whispering prayers no one remembered the words to.

  Bruk stood near the front, watching each one pass.

  When only his family remained, his wife stepped forward, Bramund held tight. She stopped beside him.

  “You sure?” she asked.

  “No,” Bruk said.

  She nodded. “See you on the other side.”

  She stepped through. The boy’s small hand disappeared last.

  Bruk was alone.

  He turned.

  The chamber behind him was gold and blood and silence.

  Then—stone cracked.

  The far wall split open in a shower of dust and molten rock.

  Yndralyx.

  Black-scaled. Fire-thin. Her body coiled tight, eyes burning through the smoke.

  She stepped forward—slow, confident. Her head turned toward him.

  Bruk didn’t move.

  She opened her jaws—and roared.

  The hoard rippled from the sound. Gold scattered. Bones cracked underfoot.

  Bruk stared at her.

  Didn’t reach for his axe. Didn’t flinch.

  10.

  Her claws struck the floor.

  9. 8.

  She started moving.

  7.

  Faster.

  6. 5.

  Bruk exhaled.

  4. 3.

  She was almost on him—eyes wide, maw open, heat rolling ahead like a forge storm.

  2.

  He stepped backward.

  Into the arch.

  Shkkk.

  The gate sealed.

  The dragon stood alone in the chamber now. Her eyes narrowed.

  She stared at the gate—still faintly glowing at the edges, its runes pulsing slower now, almost quiet. Symbols that no dwarf had read in eighty thousand years.

  But she could.

  Her eyes tracked the arch, reading each glyph, each sigil of path and place.

  And in a voice like molten iron poured over bone, she muttered in old Draconic—

  “The lost city of Vhar?l-Tor. A tier 3 dungeon by now”

  ***

  Bruk stumbled once—caught himself. The stone underfoot was colder than anything in Hammerhall. Older, too.

  He looked up.

  And froze.

  The space before him wasn’t a room. It was a hollowed mountain, lit from cracks high above, where pale veins of crystal pulsed like a dying heartbeat.

  It was larger than anything Bruk had ever seen. Not a cave. Not a hold. A world beneath the world.

  Crystal veins lit the ceiling in dull blues and ember-reds, like stars caught in frozen rivers. Thick stone pillars the width of towers held the sky aloft—some cracked, others webbed with glowing fungus.

  A faint wind stirred the cavern air, carrying scents Bruk couldn’t name—wet stone, old ash, and something sweet, like burnt sap.

  Below, the ground fell into a massive valley—forests, ridges, even rivers—an ecosystem sealed underground for tens of thousands of years.

  But all of it felt… wrong.

  Trees bent in unnatural angles. Metal bones of old machines jutted from cratered hills. The land near the edges twisted—not dead, but changed, like time had warped there.

  Strange lights flickered in the distance—hovering orbs of faint green, flitting through branches without touching them. In one crater, Bruk could see a broken wheel the size of a siege cart, half-buried in moss. It twitched once. Then went still.

  And in the center—

  Perfect.

  Untouched.

  A city of blackstone and deep-carved rune. Towering walls without a crack. Forge-spires still intact. Gates sealed in silver bands. It rose from the center of the valley like it had never fallen, as if everything around it had grown outward, but it had stayed the same.

  Vhar?l-Tor.

  And it was waiting.

  It would take days to reach. Maybe more.

  Bruk turned slowly, taking it in.

  Behind him, the dwarves were in awe—blinking, staring, some dropping to one knee in stunned silence.

  Haldrik was the first to speak.

  “I thought it would be ruins,” he said softly. “I never knew a dungeon would look like this, the stories I read of completed ones never mentioned anything of this size.”

  Bruk shook his head. “Most dungeons this old—no one enters. Or no one leaves.”

  A child behind him whispered: “Is this… still underground?”

  “No,” said a voice Bruk didn’t recognize. One of the scouts. His face pale, eyes wide. “This is a dungeon gods domain.”

  No one moved at first.

  The city felt distant—not just in space, but in meaning. It had weight. Like it was watching.

  Bruk’s wife stepped up beside him, Bramund still bundled in her arms. The boy stirred, eyes wide but silent.

  “What do we do now?” she asked.

  Bruk didn’t answer right away.

  He looked forward—toward the forests, the ridgelines, the long path to the city.

  Then down at his hands. Still dirty. Still shaking.

  “We march,” he said.

  Then, louder—so all could hear him:

  “This is our home now,” Bruk said, low. Final. Like he was sealing a forge gate.

  No one spoke.

  Then—

  The world shimmered. Not in light. In weight.

  Like something old had just looked back.

  And in Bruk’s vision, clear as fire struck steel:

  You have entered a Dungeon.

  Designation: Vhar?l-Tor

  One prior entry recorded.

  Time since prior entry: 76,654 years.

  Dungeon status: Sunken Citadel.

  Objective: Conquer the dungeon / Reforge the broken pact with Esmir of the Folded World.

  Or perish, and be forgotten.

  Bruk blinked.

  Then he heard it—

  not in his head, not alone.

  “I saw it!” someone shouted. “By the old flame, did you see that?”

  “What the fuck was that?” the spearman barked, backing away.

  “Words,” Haldrik whispered. “Not mine. Hanging in the mind like misted breath in the air.”

  Even Bramund had turned. His mother held him close, her hand shielding his eyes like she could block it all out.

  Bruk looked up. The city hadn’t moved. But it felt closer. Watching. Listening.

  “We truly are in a dungeon,” he said.

  No one replied.

  There wasn’t much left to say.

  Bruk turned, slowly, and took the first step down the slope.

  The others followed.

  Boots on stone. No songs. No war cries. Just the sound of iron meeting the dust of something forgotten.

  The road stretched before them—long, slanted, and cracked with age. Wide enough for ten carts side by side. Worn smooth in the center, as if once used daily. Now it was choked with moss in places, split by creeping vine-grass that pulsed faintly in time with the light above.

  The first hour passed in near-silence.

  Bruk led the line, axe at his back now, eyes on the city far ahead. It didn’t seem to get closer. Just… larger.

  Behind him, dwarves whispered. Quiet, unsure. Children walked in clumps. Warriors took the outer edges, watching the trees beyond the path—if you could call them trees. Towering things. Thick as gatehouses. Their bark like scorched bone, branches twisting in unnatural spirals.

  One glowed. Faint blue pulses, every few seconds. No one approached it.

  They passed a ridge where the stone dipped—revealing a crater filled with still water. A perfect mirror, reflecting not the cavern ceiling… but a night sky. Stars. A moon that wasn’t theirs.

  Haldrik stopped. Stared long.

  Bruk called him forward, and he came. Quiet now.

  Around midday—if there was such a thing—they stopped to rest in the shadow of a broken statue. A dwarven form, ancient. The face long-since melted by heat or time. One arm still raised, clutching a hammer of fused stone.

  Kaela knelt beside its base. Ran her fingers along the nameplate. Nothing there. Not even dust.

  “This road was made by hands like ours,” she said.

  Bruk didn’t answer.

  Farn the spearman dropped his pack. Looked toward the city.

  “Still feels far,” he muttered.

  “It is,” Bruk said.

  And they marched again.

  By nightfall—whatever passed for night here—they reached the first of the ridgelines. The terrain sloped sharper now. Rock gave way to fungus fields—low, spongy growths that pulsed underfoot like breathing leather.

  The glow from above dimmed. The crystal veins overhead flickered, slower now.

  Something howled in the distance. Not an animal. Not a dwarf.

  Something hungry.

  Bruk raised a hand. The line stopped.

  They made camp in a hollow just off the road—no fires, only glow-lamps. Quiet meals. Sharpening weapons. Bramund curled beside his mother, eyes wide in the dark.

  No songs.

  No laughter.

  Only the low, slow chant of Haldrik reading one of the old scrolls by dim rune-light. A prayer to iron. A warding against eyes that watched in silence.

  They didn’t sleep much.

  ***

  The second day brought no sun. Just a slow brightening—faint pulses from the veins above, light bleeding through crystal like breath through frost.

  They broke camp early.

  The road sloped harder now, cutting through thicker stone where strange lichen bloomed in patches—some glowing green, others red like rust turned wet. The trees grew stranger too. Taller. Heavier. One had bark that shimmered like bronze. Another was hollow, filled with some kind of pulsing fluid.

  But it was what they saw past the treeline that made them stop.

  It wasn’t near.

  It didn’t need to be.

  A shape—far off in the cavern distance, rising from a cluster of dark hills. Massive. Moving.

  At first Bruk thought it was a ridge collapsing.

  Then it turned.

  The thing’s shoulders creaked as it shifted—arms like cathedral columns swaying gently as it trudged through the valley beyond. Each footfall stirred clouds of dust and spores. Its back was hunched, half-covered in stone and bark, its head a gnarled mass of branches so thick they tangled into a crown.

  A tree. But not a tree.

  An ent. Towering. Ancient. Its stride slow, eternal. Like the mountain itself had decided to walk.

  The line of dwarves froze.

  Bruk held out a hand—signal to hold position.

  The creature didn’t turn. Didn’t even seem to notice them. It just kept moving, miles off, each step echoing like thunder muffled by snow.

  Haldrik exhaled. “What level do you think something like that is?”

  Durrek the tank scratched his beard, eyes narrowing.

  “If this dungeon’s really over seventy-five thousand years old…” he grunted, “monsters could range anywhere from level ten to two-fifty. Maybe higher.”

  “Two-fifty?” someone whispered.

  Durrek nodded. “Heard an elf talk once. Last trade mission—they wanted our blades. Said the last dungeon their race cleared was ninety-five thousand years old.”

  He leaned forward slightly.

  “Once a dungeon passes fifty thousand years, it can spawn monsters up to level 250. After one-oh-one thousand… they can hit 460.”

  He shook his head.

  “I’ve never heard of anyone stepping into one of those.”

  Kaela raised an eyebrow. “That’s near the cutoff, then. I wonder who cleared it?”

  Durrek grunted. “Just under the mark. Said the thing was close to becoming a god-birthing dungeon. Whatever the fuck that means.”

  Farn spat into the moss. “I don’t like the sound of that.”

  “You’re scaring the children,” Bramund’s mother said sharply, arms folded tight around the boy.

  Farn looked down. Bramund was staring past the trees—eyes fixed on the distant ent.

  “Sorry,” Farn muttered.

  No one spoke for a moment.

  Then Bruk nodded forward. “Keep moving. Quiet. Stay close.”

  They marched again—slower this time. Eyes on the treeline. Hands near weapons.

  The ent moved on, its form fading behind the hills like a forgotten myth.

  But no one forgot it.

  Not that day.

  The path bent low through the valley as the day wore on.

  They passed no more giants. No more movement at all. Just long stretches of stone and fungal grass, punctuated by groves of strange twisted trees and relics—broken gears, collapsed towers, hunks of blackened steel half-swallowed by the earth.

  By midday, the road was less road and more suggestion—just old stones cracked and overgrown. Still, it led forward.

  Bruk kept the pace steady.

  Children were carried in turns. Old warriors leaned heavier on walking-staves. The wounded gritted their teeth and pressed on without complaint.

  They didn’t stop until they found the ridge.

  A shallow outcrop, half-covered in hanging moss, with a trickle of clear water running through a narrow split in the rock.

  They made camp there—under the natural overhang, where the wind didn’t bite as hard and the ceiling glowed blue with embedded crystal threads.

  It wasn’t much.

  But it was shelter.

  Fires were lit low and narrow. Food passed in silence. Bramund sat curled between his mother and grandfather, eyes already half-closed.

  The adults sat near the edge of the firelight. Kaela, Farn, Durrek, Haldrik, and Bruk.

  No one drank. No one joked.

  They were counting.

  “Twenty-two of us above level thirty,” Durrek said, glancing at a rough-scratched ledger he’d made in the dust with a burnt stick.

  “Another fifteen between twenty and thirty,” Kaela added. “A few stragglers at the low end.”

  Bruk nodded slowly. “I’m thirty-nine.”

  “Thirty-five,” said Kaela.

  “Thirty-three,” muttered Farn.

  “Twenty-nine,” Durrek said. “Tank class doesn’t gain fast. Makes up for it by not dying.”

  Bruk looked around the fire. “That’s maybe fifty of us who can hold a line.”

  Haldrik raised an eyebrow. “And against something like that ent we saw?”

  No one answered.

  Kaela finally said it. “We’d die.”

  “Even as a unit?” Farn asked, not quite believing it.

  Bruk didn’t flinch. “Anything over a hundred and fifty—we don’t slow it. We feed it.”

  Silence.

  The fire crackled. Somewhere out in the dark, a stone shifted.

  Bruk looked out into the valley.

  “That’s why we don’t fight unless we have to,” he said. “We’re not a warband anymore. We’re survivors. Act like it.”

  Haldrik nodded. “Still. We’ll need to scout the city once we reach it. Find out what’s inside the gates before we try to move deeper.”

  “If we can move deeper,” Kaela muttered. “Still don’t trust that place. It doesn’t breathe right.”

  Bruk didn’t argue.

  He just sat.

  The stars above were crystal, not sky. But they flickered anyway.

  ***

  They broke camp before the crystal-light rose.

  No words. Just movement. Packs lifted. Ash scattered. The youngest were carried, and the rest walked.

  The path that morning dipped lower into the valley floor—less ridge now, more basin. The stone underfoot turned dark and soft with moss. Strange flowers bloomed between the cracks. Red-stalked, pale-headed, and unmoving.

  Farn noticed it first.

  “The trees aren’t bent out here,” he muttered, glancing up.

  Bruk followed his gaze. The trees were tall—straight, even. Towering trunks of blackwood, limbs that forked once then shot outward like spears.

  The canopy blocked most of the skycrystal above. The road was still visible, barely, but the shadows ran long now. Too long.

  “Watch the edges,” Bruk warned.

  They walked tighter. Shields out. Children toward the center.

  It was Kaela who saw the ridge.

  A hump in the distance. Slight. No bigger than a cart. But too smooth. Too round.

  Bruk stopped them with a hand.

  “Form up. I want the wounded at the rear, and the line pulled in tight.”

  Durrek moved beside him. “You think that’s…?”

  “I don’t know. But I don’t like it.”

  The dwarves shifted into a staggered wedge. Shields forward. Spears ready.

  Throlin saw it too. Young. Wide-eyed. Curious in the way only someone who hadn’t bled could be.

  He stepped toward it.

  “Throlin. Hold.” Bruk’s voice was quiet but hard.

  The boy didn’t.

  He walked ten feet out. Twenty. Bent to look.

  Then the dirt erupted.

  It didn’t rise—it split. Grass and shale flung upward as two massive legs drove the thing upright, dragging the rest of it from the earth like it had been buried there for years.

  The wheel stood tall now—eight feet at least—black and bone-pale, its surface ridged and veined like something grown, not forged.

  Two arms snapped out from either side. Flesh and muscle. Each held a sword.

  The thing didn’t howl. Didn’t warn.

  It just struck.

  One blade came down. Fast. Brutal. Crude.

  Throlin didn’t even raise his shield.

  The impact cleaved him clean through.

  Blood hit the stones in a wide arc.

  Throlin’s body folded without a sound.

  Bruk didn’t shout. Didn’t roar. He moved.

  Boots slammed into the dirt as he charged—not reckless, not wild. Shield came forward, axe tight to his hip. He angled left, forcing the thing to split its focus if it wanted a second kill.

  The creature pivoted with those long, stilted legs—slow but precise. It brought one sword horizontal, aiming for Bruk’s midsection. The second blade lagged behind, caught in the awkward spacing of its own limbs.

  Bruk ducked the first swing, caught the flat of the blade on his shield, and slammed his axe low—aiming not for the wheel, but for the knee. Steel bit into flesh. Not deep, but enough to stagger it.

  Behind him, he heard the others shout.

  "On him!" he barked. “Don’t wait!”

  Kaela Stonebrow broke first.

  Sword drawn, shield already cracked from old fights, she surged in from the right, yelling something half a curse, half a war-prayer. Her blade rang as it caught the creature’s other sword mid-swing, deflecting it high. She twisted, drove her shoulder into the thing’s side—

  But the wheel didn’t give.

  Not an inch.

  The wheel-creature reeled, just slightly, from the woman’s hit—but it wasn’t off balance.

  Not yet.

  That’s when Farn the spearman moved.

  No war cry. No weight. Just speed.

  He flanked hard from the left—his path wide and low, skimming the edge of the valley floor. His spear was long, ashwood shaft wrapped in leather, and he gripped it near the butt, guiding it like a lance.

  He didn’t aim for the wheel. Not yet.

  He went for the ankle.

  A sharp jab—angled in under the creature’s joint. The spear hit flesh, slid under the bone, and he twisted, using the creature’s own weight against it.

  The leg buckled.

  The wheel tilted sideways—arms flailing for counterbalance.

  Farn yanked the shaft back just in time and shouted: “Now!”

  Durrek moved—broad-chested, low to the ground, built like the front of a battering ram. The kind of dwarf whose skill was taking hits no one else could.

  No speed. Just mass.

  He came in like a landslide—both hands on the hammer, mouth shut, eyes locked. The wheel-creature had just started to re-center itself when the hammer came down, full force, square on the right side of the wheel.

  CRACK.

  The sound echoed through the valley—metal and marrow splitting, a fracture spiderwebbing across the creature’s body.

  It didn’t fall.

  It collapsed.

  One arm snapped out blindly. Kaela raised her shield—and was flung sideways into the dirt her sword broken and thrown.

  The wheel-thing hit the ground hard, twisting, trying to push itself back up.

  Bruk advanced, slow, shield raised.

  “Break the core.”

  The creature twitched on the ground—half-risen, one leg folded beneath it, wheel cracked, one arm hanging limp. The remaining sword scraped blindly at the air as it pushed up, up—

  Kaela dragged herself sideways, one hand clawing at the dirt, teeth gritted against the pain.

  Her shield was gone—flung into the brush. Blood soaked her sleeve. She tried to stand, but her left leg gave out beneath her.

  The wheel-creature felt her.

  It didn’t look. It didn’t think. It just turned—pivoting that broken wheel-body, dragging the good leg forward, blade lifting again.

  Bruk saw it.

  He was too far. Ten paces out, Durrek even farther, still recovering from the hammer-swing. Farn moved to intercept, but the creature lashed out wide with its good arm—forcing him to dive back.

  The sword rose. Kaela stared up at it, breath caught in her throat.

  Then—

  light.

  A sudden ring of blue—sharp as a forge spark—arched up around her like a wall. A barrier. Glowing. The creature’s blade struck it—

  Clang.

  The strike deflected, but the force still landed—spiderwebbed cracks laced across the barrier.

  The barrier shimmered, hummed and broke.

  And on the hill above at the road, Bramund stood.

  Small. Still.

  Not understanding. Not fear. Just will—and something deeper, older. Magic.

  His mother stood frozen behind him, one hand half-raised, lips parted.

  The wheel-creature recoiled from the shield of light, blade twitching.

  And Bruk’s voice rang out, low and hard:

  “Break. The. Core.”

  The creature staggered back—one arm twitching, one leg barely holding.

  Bruk didn’t wait.

  He dropped his shield—straps undone in a single practiced motion—and took his axe in both hands. The edge glinted dull in the fading light, notched and blood-wet, but sharp where it mattered.

  The wheel-creature turned toward him, wobbling, broken—but still dangerous. Its blade dragged behind it now, too heavy to lift properly.

  Bruk stepped in.

  One clean feint left—baiting the last wild swing. The sword came high and off-center.

  Bruk slipped inside the arc.

  He roared—and brought the axe straight into the fracture line, burying it with both hands, not hacking—driving. Not wild—surgical.

  CRACK.

  The wheel didn’t break—it split.

  Right down the center. Bone and metal groaned, then gave. The creature sagged forward, folding in on itself like a snapped ribcage. Arms dangled limp. Legs bent. The wheel-body crumpled inward with a slow, grinding sigh.

  And then—

  Silence.

  Bruk stood over it, breath heavy, axe buried halfway to the haft in its ruined core.

  He looked up.

  His son was down on the road, collapsed in his mother’s arms. Whatever that skill was, it had drained him dry like in the house during the assassin attack.

  Bruk yanked the axe free.

  The creature didn’t bleed.

  It shook once—twitching like a wire drawn too tight—then fell still. And as the wind passed, it began to unravel.

  Not rot. Not decay.

  Ash.

  The whole thing sloughed inward—bone to dust, steel to soot—until nothing was left but ash.

  Bruk stepped back, breathing hard.

  No one spoke.

  Durrek was kneeling beside Kaela, binding her arm with one of his sleeves. Farn stood over them both, spear held low, face unreadable.

  The others began to gather—silent, eyes wide. A few dropped to one knee near the edge of the path. Others stared at the blades left behind, unsure whether to touch them.

  Haldrik pushed through at last—hood pulled low, face pale with exhaustion.

  “Was that…?” he started, then stopped.

  He looked at the ash pile. Then at Bramund, still limp in his mother’s arms.

  Then at Bruk.

  “What in the old names was that?”

  Bruk didn’t answer.

  He just looked at the boy.

  The ash settled.

  And from it—three glints.

  No flash, no fanfare. Just clinks against the stone as the last of the dust crumbled away.

  Bruk stepped forward.

  Twenty pieces of gold. Dwarven-minted—but ancient, older than Hammerhall. Square-pressed. Still warm.

  And beside them—something else.

  A sword.

  Not rusted. Not broken.

  Forged from something dark and dense, like obsidian mixed with iron. A single edge. No crossguard. The runes along the spine were etched in redglass and hummed faintly in the air.

  Kaela stirred behind him. She was half-sitting now, blood still thick on her arm. Her old blade lay shattered two feet away.

  Bruk turned.

  Held the sword out, flat across both palms.

  “You’re the only one who fought with a sword,” he said. “And the only one who needs one.”

  Kaela blinked. “Bruk—”

  “You’re also the highest-level swordhand we’ve got. So don’t argue.”

  She didn’t.

  She took it.

  The blade didn’t spark or sing. Just settled into her hand like it belonged there.

  Bruk turned back to the rest.

  A hush moved through them like smoke.

  Then they began to gather their gear.

  No one celebrated.

  But the silence after wasn’t empty.

  It was earned.

  They made camp near a ruined arch—half-fallen, choked with vine. It had no roof, no doors. But it gave shelter from the open road.

  Kaela lay near the coals, arm wrapped, leg splinted. She winced with every breath but never complained. Durrek sat beside her, sharpening a backup axe.

  Haldrik spoke softly across the fire. “That wasn’t a natural creature obviously. That was a dungeon construct didnt even look like someone designed it just like it grew from the wheel.”

  Bruk didn’t look up. “That was a wheel of death.”

  “Same thing,” Haldrik muttered. “it ambushed the boy like it new he was near it.”

  “Then why didn’t it come sooner?”

  Haldrik stared into the flames. “Maybe it was sleeping.”

  Farn snorted. “They sleep?”

  “Everything here is making no sense to me.”

  No one laughed.

  ***

  Night passed. Day Four came.

  They rose slow this time. Quieter.

  No songs. No banter.

  Bruk walked ahead as always, but not alone. This time Durrek flanked him, hammer slung low.

  Farn stayed farther back—watching the trees.

  The boy didn’t walk that day. Bramund rode wrapped in his mother’s arms, eyes half-closed. His skin was pale, but his breathing had steadied.

  When they stopped for rest at midday, Bruk stood with Haldrik on a rise of stone and looked toward the city.

  Still far but getting closer they would be there in a couple hours walk.

  Haldrik turned to bruk and said quietly "We might lose more before we reach the city I don't like the feel of this place."

  Bruk responded "I know."

  They didn’t speak after that.

  The valley narrowed.

  The trees thinned, not because they were sparse—but because something else had bent them. Whole groves leaned in the same direction, bark scorched or stripped bare, like something massive had passed through years ago and the forest never recovered.

  By dusk, the path sloped into the final basin. Ahead, the city.

  Vhar?l-Tor.

  Closer now. The walls rose like the edge of a blade buried in the earth—blackstone and runes, silver seals still untouched. The outer gate was shut, but the ring of buildings outside it looked intact.

  That’s when they heard it.

  Noise. Not from ahead.

  From both sides.

  The woods.

  Bruk turned. “Shields—now.”

  Too late.

  The first shape stepped through the trees to their left—towering, plated, its joints lined with stone and brass. No face. Just a head like a forge helmet welded shut.

  A second followed on the right. This one broader. Carrying a hammer the size of a cart.

  They didn’t pause.

  They didn’t roar.

  They charged.

  The hammer swung first—cleaving the backline.

  Twenty dwarves gone in seconds.

  Not cut. Smashed. Bones like glass, shields crumpling like tin.

  The sword followed—cutting low, sweeping like a threshing blade. It took two more lines before Bruk found his voice.

  “Run!” he bellowed. “To the city! GO!”

  No one hesitated.

  They sprinted.

  Farn grabbed a child and hauled her over his shoulder. Kaela shielded Bramund and his mother, shouting for the others to move.

  Bruk stood his ground just long enough to parry a backswing, then fell in beside Durrek—covering the rear with shield raised and axe ready.

  Ahead, the city gates groaned.

  Not from inside.

  From the stone itself.

  They opened.

  No dwarf touched them. No mechanism turned. Just a deep, grinding sound like stone remembering how to move.

  The archway yawned open—wide enough for three carts side by side—and the dwarves surged through.

  One after another. Limping. Bleeding. Hauling the wounded.

  Bruk and Durrek crossed last.

  And the instant they did—

  Shhhkkk.

  The gates closed.

  Behind them, the constructs halted. Mid-stride. As if they’d walked into an invisible wall.

  Bruk turned.

  They just stood there.

  Motionless. weapons down. Steam leaking from their joints.

  Watching.

  Behind him, silence fell over the square inside the walls.

  The dwarves—what was left of them—stood still.

  No one cheered.

  No one wept.

  They were alive.

  But the city had let them in.

  Not welcomed.

  Let.

  ***

  No sound but breathing. No movement but settling weapons and the quiet thud of dropped packs.

  Then—

  “Look,” someone whispered.

  To the east, beyond the square, stretched rows of farmland—low terraces ringed in blackstone, soil dark and healthy, stalks thick with fresh-grown grain.

  Crops. Dozens of them. As if they’d just finished ripening.

  To the west: houses.

  Old dwarf-work. Deep-carved. Runes at the corners, chimneys cold, doors closed. But the stone was clean. No cracks. No dust. No moss.

  Not ancient.

  Lived in.

  Kaela limped to the edge of the group and pointed. “They look new.”

  “Not just new,” someone muttered. “Used.”

  Bruk stepped forward, eyeing the city’s inner gate—a towering arch of blacksteel at the far end of the square. It dwarfed the outer wall, etched with layered glyphs that pulsed faintly when looked at too long.

  He raised a hand.

  “No one approaches that gate,” he said. “We stay here. For now.”

  A few dwarves nodded. One sat down hard on the stone, still breathing like he’d outrun his own death.

  Then—

  A shout from one of the houses.

  A dwarf emerged, pale-faced, holding something in his hand.

  “There’s food,” he said. “Set out. Plates on the tables. Still warm.”

  That hit harder than any monster.

  “What the fuck?” Farn muttered. “You saying they just… left?”

  Haldrik stepped forward, lips thin. “This city’s been sealed for eighty thousand years.”

  “Doesn’t look it,” Kaela said, voice tight. “Looks like they left this morning.”

  Murmurs rose. Uneasy. Low.

  “I don’t like it,” someone said. “Feels… wrong.”

  “Like we’re trespassing,” another added.

  Bruk didn’t speak.

  Then his wife did.

  She stepped up beside him, Bramund in her arms, voice quiet but sure.

  “We’re safe,” she said. “No monsters past these gates. We have food. Shelter.”

  She looked around at the stone homes, the strange fields, the blacksteel gate still glowing faintly across the square.

  “Let’s just stay,” she said. “Think. Rest. Learn to live again.”

  And for the first time in days—

  No one argued.