Elia scrambled back, hands and knees scraping the stone, leaving smears of dust and fear.
Her voice broke, a frantic stammer.
"Wait—stop—you can't be serious!"
Torv was on her in a heartbeat, his boots a blur.
Steel flashed—a dagger glinting in the torchlight.
His boot slammed down, pinning her wrist to the floor.
"AAA!" She screamed, a small, choked sound, swallowed by the cavern's damp air.
Myra stood frozen, fiddling with her staff, eyes darting but feet rooted.
Watching.
Silent.
Lila, the cleric, turned away, her staff's glow dimming, as if she could unsee what was coming.
Gorr crouched beside Elia, his bulk casting a shadow that ate the light.
No rage, no roar, just the cold efficiency of a man who'd done this before.
He gripped her jaw, forcing her tear-streaked face to meet his eyes, hard as flint.
"You're dead weight," he said, voice low, final. "We've said it. You've known it."
"I—I can get better," Elia pleaded, her words trembling, desperate. "Please, I'll try—"
"No," Gorr cut her off, his tone a blade. "You can't."
His shortblade moved, smooth and dangerously close, sliding under her jaw, up through her tongue.
A stab for silence, not speed.
Blood bubbled from her lips, a gurgling half-scream trapped in her throat.
Her eyes, wide and wild, locked on his, searching for mercy that wasn't there.
Torv leaned in, his grin a sick crescent.
"You still count for the drop table if you die in the core room."
"Easy exploit," Myra muttered, her voice thin, almost bored. "She's partied, so we get the XP."
Gorr yanked the blade free, blood spraying in a hot arc.
Elia collapsed, a wet gasp escaping as she hit the stone, her body twitching, fingers clawing at nothing.
They turned away before her chest stopped heaving, their boots already scuffing toward loot.
Torv kicked a slime corpse aside, muttering about coin.
Myra adjusted her cloak.
Lila's staff flickered, her face a mask.
The dungeon felt it—not the dull echo of another cheap death, not the usual sting of a slime's burst or a trap's snap.
He felt her blood, warm and heavy, splashing the stone at his core's base, seeping into the crack her fingers had traced minutes before.
It sank deep, like a seed in rotting earth, rooting in the marrow of his prison.
Elia didn't cry out, didn't beg.
Her hand reached, trembling, nails scraping the stone, leaving a red smear across his crystal.
Her lips parted, a whisper so faint it was nearly lost in the gurgle of her throat.
"Run…"
The walls shuddered, a pulse rippling through stone.
Traps creaked, as if drawing breath.
A mimic in the shadows twitched, its form unsteady.
Deep in the dungeon's dying heart, where silence had choked him for centuries, something stirred—a spark, raw and alive, cracking open like an eye in the dark.