CHAPTER SIXTY-THREE
What the Dead Remember
Weeks bled into each other, and District 97 felt less like a ruin and more like a district clawing its way back. Our chainrunners, though, were restless, their eyes turning toward District 98—home.
Whispers of leaving grew louder, boots scuffing impatiently in the dust. Lirien was the worst of them, her sharp gaze scanning Lucious' workshop daily, her patience thinning as she waited for the equipment she'd demanded.
But the injured among us weren't ready, their wounds still fresh, and she wouldn't leave without her arsenal. So we stayed, cloaked in the excuse of helping District 97 rebuild.
It wasn't a lie. The district needed us, its streets cleared. Workers hauled stone to patch walls, and forges glowed day and night, turning beast parts into tools. The bond between Districts 97 and 98 tightened, forged in shared loss and labor.
Camilla, ever the noble, became their anchor. People flocked to her, seeking her calm, her decisions, though she never reached for leadership. Her presence drew them naturally, a light in the fog, while I watched from the edges, Hazeveil cloaking me in shadow.
I wasn't avoiding work—I hauled crates when no one looked, but something gnawed at me, a strangeness in the district I couldn't name. Gorin's words about Torv echoed, his blade-wound death a splinter in my mind.
The breach wasn't just a disaster; it was a puzzle, pieces scattered in ways that didn't fit. I needed clarity, order. Elina's voice came back to me, her lessons in the advanced class: Put your thoughts to paper. Let the page make sense of the chaos.
My notebook, worn and stained, sat heavy in my Storage Ring. I pulled it out, charcoal in hand, and climbed to my perch atop Lucious' workshop, a high ledge where the district sprawled below, unseen by guards or workers.
The workshop hummed beneath me, its roof warm from forge-fires, the clatter of hammers and Lucious' sharp voice drifting up. I settled cross-legged, Hazeveil dampening the light around me, my mist locked tight after weeks of practice.
My core hummed, dense with mana from the cores I'd consumed, but I focused on the page, Elina's method guiding me. I wrote, slow and deliberate, organizing the breach's anomalies, hoping answers would emerge.
Field Note — Day 72, 2nd Bell of Dusk
Subject: Ward Breach, District 97 — Anomaly 1
Observation: Chainrunner Torv, District 98, presumed lost in failed battery run (97 to 98), found dead in District 97 post-breach. No chainrunner gear; wound from blade, not beast.
Context: Run failed near my return to 98; cargo lost, survivors scattered. Torv unaccounted for, assumed dead in fog.
Hypotheses:
1- Torv retreated to 97 during run's collapse, survived until breach. Unlikely: Lone retreat through fog, no artifacts, low survival odds.
2- Torv never left 97, stayed deliberately. Unlikely: No motive; run was critical, no record of desertion.
Notes: Blade wound suggests human intent. Were others involved? Other Chainrunners in 97, undocumented?
The words stared back, no clearer than before. I tapped the charcoal, frowning. If Torv didn't retreat alone, who was with him? And if he stayed, why? Did he know the run would fail? I shook my head, turning the page, the questions piling like stones.
Field Note — Day 72, 2nd Bell of Dusk
Subject: Ward Breach, District 97 — Anomaly 2
Observation: Entire District 97 council dead, including successors, post-breach.
Context: Council and non-combatants sheltered in reinforced buildings, central district, behind defenses. Breach focused outward; central areas less impacted.
Hypotheses:
1- Structural failure in shelters, undetected. Unlikely: Buildings designed for breaches, inspected regularly.
2- Targeted attack during chaos. Speculative: No evidence of human agents; most fog beasts prioritize movement, not strategy.
Notes: Total loss statistically improbable. Council's absence empowers Camilla, others. Coincidence or design?
I paused, glancing at the district below. Camilla's mansion glowed faintly, her influence growing without effort. The council's death left a void, convenient, maybe too convenient. I wrote faster, the charcoal smudging my fingers.
Field Note — Day 72, 2nd Bell of Dusk
Subject: Ward Breach, District 97 — Anomaly 3
Observation: Breach morning, I reached Chainrunner headquarters (outskirts, District 98) at superhuman speed, yet Lirien, Dain, others already present, armed.
Hypotheses:
1- Lirien, Dain slept at headquarters, handling logistics. Plausible: Paperwork common, some chainrunners reside there.
2- Prior knowledge of breach, enabling preparation. Speculative: No evidence of forewarning; obelisk failure sudden.
Notes: Rapid arming improbable without alert.
My hand stilled, Lirien's face flashing in my mind—her calm in the mist, her Arrow of Pure Light. The Vyrithax, that serpent, had recoiled after her shot, its haste strange. I'd thought it feared another arrow, but what if it sensed something else in her? I scribbled again, the workshop's noise fading.
Field Note — Day 72, 2nd Bell of Dusk
Subject: Ward Breach, District 97 — Anomaly 4
Observation: Few District 97 Chainrunners completed run to District 98 for aid, no injuries, no artifacts.
Context: Run through fog, high-risk; veterans unlikely for "suicide mission." Observed chainrunners post-arrival: standard skills, no elite traits.
Hypotheses:
1- Exceptional luck or skill. Unlikely: No artifacts, no wounds, inconsistent with fog's lethality.
2- External aid or anomaly in fog. Speculative: Unknown mechanism; fog consistent in hostility.
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Notes: Watched chainrunners days after; no signs of elite training. How did they survive?
I leaned back, the ledger heavy in my lap. Lucious' voice snapped below, cursing a failed rune, but I barely heard it. My eyes drifted to the workshop's glow, schematics pinned to walls, beast claws scattered on tables.
The district hummed—guards patrolling, workers hauling, yet my thoughts spun, questions multiplying. How did 97's Guard Captain die? Why did the council miss the obelisk's failure? And Lirien, with her power and perception, where did it come from?
I wrote one last entry, my hand shaking slightly.
Field Note — Day 72, 2nd Bell of Dusk
Cause of Guard Captain's death? Records vague; witness accounts don't match.
Obelisk oversight failure, council negligence or sabotage?
Lirien's capabilities, drug alone or something more?
I closed the notebook, my core humming, uneasy. Lirien's edge wasn't just skill. Mateo, dosed with the same captain's drug, never caught me spying, but Lirien did, every time. Was she just perceptive, or was there more? The Vyrithax's fear lingered in my mind, a serpent that size trembling before her.
A sound broke my thoughts—a whisper, faint, like wind through ash. "Traitors." My head snapped up, enhanced senses flaring. Nothing. I was alone, high on the workshop's roof, the district spread below. Guards patrolled the perimeter, oblivious, their lanterns bobbing. I scanned the shadows, Hazeveil rippling, tentacles twitching beneath it. No one.
"Maybe I'm overthinking," I muttered, rubbing my eyes. The whispers could be exhaustion, my mind fraying from questions.
Then another voice, sharper, distinct. "You know what was done here." My blood chilled, the words clear but sourceless, like they came from the air itself. I stood, mist leaking from me, cold and thin, curling around my boots. I spun, searching the rooftops, streets, and the workshop's vents. Empty.
"Kara," I said, voice low, urgent. "Are you hearing this?"
Her response hummed in my mind, calm, mechanical.
[Kara]
[To what is the user referring?]
"The voices," I snapped, my mist thickening, frosting the ledge. Below, workers startled, looking up, guards gripping spears. The whispers grew, "It's all your fault," followed by a sob, a scream, jagged and raw, like pain torn open. My core pulsed, senses straining, but I saw nothing, no source, no shape.
"Kara, you don't hear them?" I asked, louder, my voice cracking.
[Kara]
[The only voice I am currently hearing is yours.]
I froze, heart pounding. Kara shared my senses, from sight and sound to mana traces. If she heard nothing, were the voices in my head? My sanity slipping? The screams layered, a chorus of grief and accusation, clawing at me. "Betrayed," one hissed, then another, "You let us die." I stumbled back, mist pouring out, shrouding the roof, my control gone.
I leapt, tentacles catching the workshop's edge, swinging me to the street. The voices followed, relentless, but as I landed, they cut off, leaving silence. My breath rasped, mist dissipating, the district quiet except for distant hammers. I stood, alone, the notebook clutched tight, questions louder than ever, and a new fear rose; something was here, speaking, and I didn't know what it wanted.
***
The days that followed were a haze of whispers, each one sharper, more insistent, clawing at the edges of my mind. They weren't just sounds anymore—whispers turned to screams, cries of anguish that echoed names I didn't know, accusations I couldn't place.
The dead were speaking, their voices spilling from some unseen rift, and I was the only one who heard them. Not Kara, not the guards pacing District 97's streets, not even the workers hauling stone below my perch.
My crimson core hummed, restless, as if it recognized the power I'd touched before—when I'd pulled Wulric back, when I'd brushed the veil between life and death. Had I torn it open again?
I hid atop Lucious' workshop at first, Hazeveil cloaking me, my notebook abandoned as the voices drowned my thoughts. The district bustled below, forges sparking, crates rattling, but the dead didn't care.
"Betrayed," one hissed, followed by a sob, "You left us." I pressed my hands to my ears, mist leaking from me, frosting the roof's edge. It wasn't enough. The voices followed me everywhere, louder in the outer streets where the breach had claimed thousands, quieter toward the center but never gone. I barely slept, my eyes burning, my tentacles twitching under my cloak, ready to lash out at shadows that weren't there.
Three days in, a voice cut through the chaos, clear and deliberate. "The tongue." It vanished, swallowed by the cacophony, but it lodged in my mind like a blade. I froze, perched on a crumbled wall near the crafting quarter, my breath shallow.
"The tongue," I whispered, the words heavy on my lips. My Storage Ring pulsed faintly, a memory stirring, something I'd carried for a very long time, forgotten in the rush of survival.
The Prophet's Tongue. I saw it in my mind's eye: blackened, shriveled, sealed in a glass jar, twitching as if alive. I'd found it in District 1, atop an altar in a cathedral, its water-filled jar glinting under broken stained glass. The moment I'd taken it, the cathedral had collapsed, stone and dust burying the altar like the artifact had held the place together. My core thrummed, uneasy. Was it tied to this?
I slipped into an empty alley, Hazeveil shrouding me as I summoned the jar from my ring. It appeared in my hands, heavier than I remembered, the glass cool but wrong. The tongue lay inside, damp and pulsing, its surface slick, shifting slightly as if sensing me.
My skin crawled, a faint pulse running through my fingers, like the tongue wanted to speak. Then I saw it, a crack, thin but jagged, spiderwebbing the jar's side. It hadn't been there before. My ring protected everything, even paper. Yet this jar was damaged, as if something inside had clawed its way out.
I tried to fix it, fumbling for tape from a worker's crate nearby, but the crack wouldn't seal, the glass unyielding. My hands shook, the voices swelling, "Traitors," "You know," each word a hammer to my skull.
I needed a new jar. I found one in a workshop discard pile, plain glass, sturdy enough. Kneeling in the alley, I steeled myself, my tentacles ready to move fast. I opened the cracked jar's lid, and the world broke.
Voices roared, a thousand screams at once, so loud my ears rang, my vision blurring. Visions flashed, faces both human and beast, twisted in pain, hands reaching from fog, eyes accusing.
My mind buckled, sanity fraying like old cloth, the edges of reality smudging into gray. The tongue twitched violently, slick and alive, sliding toward me as if drawn to my core. I gagged, the air thick with decay, my tentacles snatching the tongue and shoving it into the new jar.
I slammed the lid shut, my hands trembling, but the visions didn't stop. Figures flickered at the alley's mouth, intangible, their mouths moving in silent screams. The voices pressed, a wall of sound filled with grief, rage, and nonsense until I couldn't think.
"No," I gasped, ripping the tongue back out, my tentacles fumbling as it pulsed against them, slick and warm. I forced it into the cracked jar, sealing the lid. The visions snapped off, the voices collapsing to whispers, faint but still there.
I slumped against the wall, chest heaving, mist pouring from me, frosting the ground. "Damn it," I muttered. "This jar… it's not normal." The glass held no mana, no runes, yet it caged the tongue's power where the new jar failed. It was more than it seemed, like the tongue itself.
The days blurred, the crack widening, a hairline fracture growing to a web that threatened to shatter. The voices multiplied, a chorus of the dead, some pleading, some cursing, most incomprehensible, a jumble of pain and loss.
I couldn't parse them, couldn't silence them. They followed me through District 97's streets, louder each day, rubbing my mind raw. I considered hurling the jar into the fog, letting it sink into the abyss, but my instincts screamed against it. The tongue wasn't just an artifact; it was a key, a danger, something that could unleash worse if freed. My core pulsed, warning me to hold on, even as my sanity frayed.
I sought silence, retreating from the outer streets where the breach's toll was heaviest. The voices were quieter toward the center, where fewer had died, but never gone. I moved like a ghost, Hazeveil cloaking me, avoiding Camilla's mansion, Lucious' workshop, anywhere people might see my trembling hands, my hollow eyes. The district's heart was cleaner, stone swept, walls patched, but the whispers lingered, faint echoes of those who'd fallen elsewhere. I needed more. I needed quiet.
The Obelisk loomed at the district's core, a towering spire of black stone, its runes pulsing, sustaining the ward that kept the fog at bay. If anywhere was untouched, it would be there. I slipped inside at dusk, the heavy doors unguarded, the air cool and sterile.
The interior was a single vast chamber, its ceiling lost in shadow, its walls smooth, lined with levers and panels I didn't understand. Lamps glowed bright, their light harsh, reflecting off polished stone. It was clean, too clean, like no dust had ever touched its floor.
But the voices surged, louder than outside, a chorus of screams and sobs that filled the chamber. My mist leaked, frosting the floor, my core thrumming with recognition. I staggered, hands pressed to my temples, searching for bodies, for signs, but the room was pristine—no ash, no stains. Yet the dead were here, their presence heavy, recent, woven into the stone itself. People had died inside the Obelisk, not long ago, and no one had said a word.
I stood, frozen, the voices entwining with those outside, a tangle I couldn't unravel. My sanity wavered, but one truth cut through: something had happened here, hidden, and the dead knew it. The Obelisk wasn't just a ward's heart; it was a grave.
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