Chapter 423 - Very, Very Dead

Challenging chapter but a fun one. I hope you like it!

A deep unease settled over Hump as he stared out at the ancient village. It gave him a bad feeling—something beyond the drifting shades. There was an emptiness beyond even the rest of the Remnant Realm, a quiet stillness, the whisper of something long forgotten.

The shades drifted aimlessly overhead or through the wide paths of the village, their ragged forms swaying like tattered cloth on an invisible current. Once, they may have been the inhabitants of this place. It was an eerie thought, but all these shades had to come from someone. Now, they were shadows of their former selves, their spirits trapped in endless limbo, unable to move on.

Marshal Anara’s voice rang out, clear and commanding. “Doran, take your squad east. Marcela, you will take the west. Both of you circle around the village and enter from the flanks. My own squad will head directly into the village from here. Protect the discovery teams, keep the shades at bay, and stay alert for anything else lurking in the dark.” She swept her gaze over the assembled force, her eyes focused. “Havard, secure the fissure entrance and keep our escape route clear. If we’re attacked, establish a defensive line.”

“It will be done, Marshal,” the squad leader said.

“Remember, our locator beacons likely will not work if the shades swarm. Instead, use them to indicate that you have discovered something and want us to converge. If a fight starts, do not hold back. When blessings are in the air, we fight toward the centre of the village and then retreat back to here as one. Understood?”

Affirmations ran through the crowd.

“Best of luck, all of you,” Prince Gregory said. “The gods are with us this day, I am sure. We do their work.”

With their orders set, the squads split off, each heading toward their assigned quadrant. Hump headed to the west with his own, circling around the inside of the crater. The wall and ground here was much like the fissure—craggy, lifeless, simple stone.

Hump crouched, running his fingers along the surface. Unlike the loose sand and brittle rock of the fissures, the ground here was solid, unnaturally preserved, just like the buildings. Frowning, he pressed his palm flat and sent a ripple of essence downward, searching for inconsistencies—hollows, tunnels, any sign of a hidden space.

Nothing.

Marcela had them moved together. Celaine, Skander, Teff, and Faelor took the lead, their steps near silent on the stone. Nisha prowled at Celaine side, her posture low, movements sleek. Excitement rippled through their bond, a hunter’s thrill. She hadn’t quite connected the shades to the threat they posed, but her instincts were razor-sharp—ears pricked, eyes scanning.

At their centre, the support party remained protected—Vaelin, Elaris, Therran, and Selene. Elaris and Therran worked together to mask their presence, while Selene extended her blessings underground, searching for anything that might be a gorger’s lair. All things considered; they moved fairly quickly. It took them about ten minutes to find a suitable entry point.

Hump peered through the veil that surrounded him, watching the shades. Occasionally, one would draw too close for comfort, and he would raise his staff, ready. Not that it would do much good. Kill one with magic, and every damned shade in the crater would be drawn to them. If a fight broke out, their mission here would be doomed.

One of the creatures stared straight at Hump as it passed, its eyes dull and partially hidden by its hood. Hump stared back, his heart pounding, waiting for the icy blue glow to appear in its eyes and for it to unleash that horrible screech. But it didn’t come. The creature drifted onward, and Hump and the others drew closer to the village. With every step, the silence pressed in on them. They walked in a land where only the dead remained, and Hump didn’t like that.

Yet even in that unnatural stillness, excitements stirred in Hump as he ran his hand over a fence post, petrified, and solid as stone, but still a piece of another world. There was a quiet beauty to this place.

Before them, the remnants of an ancient cottage loomed—a towering trunk, twenty paces wide, its gnarled roots sprawling out like frozen waves of stone. There was no obvious entrance, but a round door connected to the second story, and two hollow windows stared out like empty eyes. He tried to picture it in its prime, bathed in dappled sunlight, leaves swaying in the wind. Now, the branches stretched skyward like skeletal fingers, stripped bare, reaching toward a sky that would never again nourish them.

Hump marvelled at the magic before him. No, not magic—this was art. These people had shaped their world, weaving their homes from living trees. Every structure stood as one with the earth, molded from the great trunks that must have once flourished here. The walls curved seamlessly, arching with the natural grain of the wood. Doorways and windows blended into the trunks as if coaxed into existence rather than carved. The remnants of woven bridges still clung to the petrified boughs above, pathways suspended in the moment they were petrified. Many now led to nowhere.

Nisha approached something up against the side of the house and started sniffing in what might have once been a garden. A creature lay frozen in place, curled up against the base of a dead tree. It was the size of a sheep, but its form was strange—a thick body covered in fur-like stone, four sturdy legs with padded feet, and the tusked snout of something between a bear and a boar. He knelt beside it, pressing his palm against its back. Solid rock. Every strand of its fur coat was preserved.

Dylan dropped to his knees beside it, a smile on his face. “Look at this thing.”

“Looks tasty,” Celaine said.

Dylan gave her a dismayed look. “You’re looking at an alien lifeform and that’s the first thing that comes to mind.”

Celaine shrugged. “Might need to kill one of them at some point.”

“Reminds me of fossilised shellfish,” Marcela whispered, studying the carcass. “You find them all along the pebble beaches south of Sheercliff.”

Hump exhaled, rising to his feet. “Only this isn’t a beach. I wish I knew what had caused this. How did this place survive the physical impact of whatever caused this crater, yet its people still fell before this magic?”

“Perhaps one followed the other,” Len said. “It’s not uncommon for a barrier repelling a powerful spell to leave an indentation in the ground. Obviously, far from this scale, but the same in theory. Once the village was pushed underground, perhaps they were struck with a second, incorporeal spell.”

“No use guessing,” Tamsin said. “Let’s get a move on. I’m bored and want to hit something.”

“If today goes right, we don’t hit anything,” Marcela said. She glanced at Hump. “Any suggestions?”

“The gorger I encountered before was greedy,” Hump said. “It was driven by a desire to consume all it could, but it also had a craving for treasure. If it built its home here, I suspect it will be beneath one of these houses.”

“You want us to check every home?” Randall asked. “That could take forever.”

“Stick to the big ones at first,” Hump said. “The creature possesses power over earth, so find the wealthiest looking houses and then see if there’s anything beneath them. Other than that, your guess is as good as mine.”

“Sounds like a plan,” Marcela said. She turned to the support party. “How long can you maintain this veil.”

“A couple of hours,” Vaelin said. “Longer if we stay closer together.”

Marcela nodded. “Then we’ll stick together and take turns breaching the houses. If you start getting tired, tell me sooner rather than later and we’ll find a place to rest. Starting with this one,” she nodded toward the tree-cottage. “I want to get a better sense of what we’re dealing with.”

They circled the house, searching for another way inside, but the only entrance was the round doorway above. Celaine moved first, crouching low before springing upward toward the second-story window. She gripped the tree trunk by the bark, scrambling up as if she were weightless, before disappearing through the window. A moment later, a blur of motion burst past her.

Shades.

They poured from the house in a writhing mass, their shrieks splitting the stillness as they scattered into the open.

Hump’s heart lurched. Celaine.

He raised his staff, essence already surging to its focus, but before he could release it, a firm grip caught his arm. He turned angrily toward the grip, only to meet Emilia’s steady eyes, unwavering with certainty.

“Wait,” she said. “Take a breath. Those shades were fleeing, not attacking.”

Hump clenched his jaw but calmed himself. At his side, Nisha seethed, teeth bared in a silent snarl. The squad around them was already prepared, hands tight on weapons, bodies poised for the battle to come, watching the sky for the shades to return. But no attack came. The shades fled, vanishing into the dark, and their brethren continued to drift undisturbed.

Finally, Celaine’s head poked out from the window. She waved, then tossed down a rope.

Hump exhaled, tension bleeding from his shoulders. He turned to Emilia. “Thanks.”

She smiled. “You really need a default that isn’t blowing things up.”

Hump chuckled at that. “I would have been gentle. Celaine was inside after all.”

Inside, the house was dark. There was no dust or decay, only a hollow silence. An orb of light under Elaris’ control drifted ahead of them, illuminating the perfectly preserved home. There was a table set for a meal, plates in place, a pot left waiting on the counter, and a chair pulled back as if someone had been about to sit. On the floor beside it lay a body.

“I think it’s male,” Celaine said, crouched beside it. “It’s got wings, so I presume that’s why the door is on the second floor.”

Hump stepped closer, breath catching in his throat. The figure was smaller even than a child, with pointed ears. Hair twisted down over its head like the twigs of a bush, coming together in two antler-like growths by the temples. Four delicate wings protruded from its back.

Bud whispered a quiet prayer. “Gods have mercy… What could have done this?”

Hump knelt, examining the figure. “No weapons,” he noted. “No signs of a struggle. Whatever happened here, it didn’t seem to know it was coming.” He touched the figures hand and reached out with his senses, searching for traces of power—any lingering essence—but found nothing. Whatever lifeforce it once had was long lost to the shades.

Dylan crouched beside him and placed his palm on the stone figure, his essence sinking in with Nature’s Heart. His brows furrowed.

“This isn’t organic anymore,” Dylan said, voice quiet with awe. “The entire body—bone, blood, flesh—it’s all been completely petrified.” He shook his head. “To do this to a whole village? I can’t even comprehend the power needed.”

Marcela exhaled slowly. “We walk where the gods once walked. That’s the only explanation.”

Hump swallowed. “If that’s true, let’s hope they stay the hell away from us.”

His fingers traced the petrified skin of the figure, wondering. Was this an adult? A child?

“I don’t like it here.” Emilia’s voice was quiet. “Feels like grave robbing.”

Marcela folded her arms. “We’ll look, but we won’t disturb anything. We’re here to find the gorger’s lair. That’s all.”

“My master had a saying,” Hump said. “Dead is dead, and the dead don’t care.”

“Well that’s more than a little grim,” Randall said.

“This guy won’t need any of this anymore, will he?” Hump said. “Better if we can make use of it, and we need all the information we can get.”

He reached for a book on a nearby shelf, its pages preserved in perfect stillness. He lifted the cover gently, finding the text still legible—but not in any language he recognised. Strange pictographs lined the brittle pages, more art than writing. He focused, hoping the Book of Infinite Pages might pick up something, but nothing happened.

They moved carefully from house to house, focusing on the larger ones as Hump suggested, each one an untouched relic of a world long lost. Wooden furniture, stone plates, rusted cutlery—simple things left behind, their owners frozen where they stood, or fallen to the floor. Hundreds of them, all turned to statues. It was a fairly small village by the standards of his own world, but there had to be three hundred houses packed into the crater. How many hundreds had died here? Hump supposed it was a small mercy that they hadn’t known it was coming.

Hours had passed before the call came—Anara’s squad had found something. Hump and the others dropped everything and made their way deeper into the village, following the locator beacon. As they drew closer, a thick trunk protruded from the darkness, shorter than most of the village so it hadn’t stood out from a distance. Up close, Hump realised it had been cut in two so that only the base remained, while the rest of the trunk had collapsed toward the rear of the crater, crushing a number of houses just in view before the top fell into shadow.

It was there that Anara’s squad found what they were looking for. Deep beneath the heart of the village, hidden away beneath layers of petrified stone, they had discovered a fortified underground chamber. A great stone door had sealed it once, a last refuge for the people who had lived here. A shelter meant to protect them, for all the good it had done.

Hump’s pulse quickened as they neared the entrance. The doors stood open when they arrived, massive slabs of stone hewn with strange symbols, their meaning lost to time. Hump expected dust or the smell of old musk in a place like this, but the air was just as dry and stale as everywhere else. He tightened his grip on his staff, suddenly a little nervous. The feeling snuck up on him. This felt much like the lair he’d been held captive in. It had to be it. The location was too perfect. And if it was… what treasures had the gorger managed to salvage from the old world? What had the people of this world left behind?

Hump stepped inside, Wizard’s Light flaring at the tip of his staff. Around him, others did the same, spells and blessings igniting one by one, their combined glow washing over the chamber in waves of silver and gold.

The room was enormous.

The ceiling stretched high above them, more cavern than constructed space, where roots hung in tangled masses, draping down like the twisted remains of an ancient tapestry. They coiled around stone pillars, forming natural archways that supported the vast expanse. The walls bore the faintest remnants of carvings, inscriptions too faded to read.

And the treasure, scattered across the chamber like offerings at a shrine, artifacts and valuables lay in heaps. Ornate chests with rusted locks. Gold and silver trinkets tangled in strands of decayed cloth. Weapons of unknown craftsmanship, their blades dulled with time yet still gleaming with an unnatural lustre. The remains of tomes, their bindings cracked, their pages stiff and brittle.

Hump barely saw any of it. None of them did. For at the centre of the chamber, resting upon a throne of solid stone, was something that reduced all else to insignificance.

Divinity.

She was enormous—a giant woman as tall as a troll draped in flowing green robes that shimmered like spider’s silk in the light. Her fiery red hair cascaded over her shoulders in perfect, untangled locks, framing a face that was impossibly beautiful—too perfect, too flawless, like something sculpted by the hands of gods.

Hump’s breath came shallow as he stepped closer, drawn by something beyond his understanding. With her eyes shut, and the serene expression on her face, she looked so peaceful. Hump could almost believe she was merely asleep, but for the chill that ran through his body.

“By the Deep Blue,” Marcela said.

“Kelisia help us,” Bud whispered.

“What is this?” Prince Gregory’s voice shattered the silence. He turned sharply to Marshal Anara, confusion twisting his face into something almost fearful. “Anara, tell me my eyes deceive me.”

Anara’s face was pale. “I would not lie to you, my prince,” she said, voice unsteady. “I… I don’t understand either.”

Hump understood. He understood it to his bones, to the very marrow of his being. There was no doubt in his mind. The essence radiating from her body… the power contained within, even after all this time. The figure before them could only be one thing.

They had found the gorger’s lair, and there, amongst its many treasures, was the prize of its collection. Something beyond treasure.

A god.

Beautiful. Untouched by time.

And very, very dead.