The silence that followed the sentinel's deactivation was a fragile, fleeting thing. Valerius stood panting in the junction room, his sword arm trembling, not from weakness, but from the raw, surging adrenaline of a victory won by instinct and wit. For a brief, intoxicating moment, he felt a flicker of his old self—the predator, the problem-solver, the survivor. The satisfaction was a potent balm on his frayed nerves, a reminder that even stripped of his phenomenal power, he was still a formidable weapon.
But the moment passed as quickly as it came, washed away by a returning tide of profound exhaustion. The adrenaline receded, leaving behind the stark reality of his condition. Pain, which had been a distant roar, now became a sharp, intimate scream from his ankle. The gash on his arm throbbed in time with his hammering heart. He leaned heavily against a stone pillar, the cold seeping through his armor, and took a moment to reclaim control of his own breathing. The air tasted of dust and the faint, lingering ozone of a discharged magical construct. The path ahead was clear, but his body was nearing its absolute limit.
It was in this moment of vulnerability that the new sound reached him, insidious and utterly alien.
It began faintly, filtering down the central corridor from the deeper darkness. A rhythmic, dragging sound. Scrape. Hiss. Thump. It was a heavy, uneven cadence, the sound of immense weight being pulled across a stone floor. It was accompanied by a low, wet, guttural noise, a sound that was disturbingly organic. It was the sound of breathing, but it was ragged and thick, like a starving animal choking on its own phlegm.
Every instinct honed by a lifetime of hunting monsters screamed at Valerius. He pushed himself away from the pillar, his brief moment of triumph evaporating into a cloud of cold dread. He retrieved his torch, its flickering flame seeming pitifully small and fragile in the vast, oppressive gloom. The sentinel had been a machine, predictable and logical. This new sound… this was the sound of something that had once been alive, and had long since forgotten the rules of life.
He knew he should wait, rest, and gather what little strength he had left. But he also knew that in a place like this, stasis was death. The unknown was a greater threat than his own weakness. Gripping his sword in one hand and his torch in the other, he began to move, limping down the corridor towards the source of the sound.
The architecture changed subtly. This was no longer a service tunnel. He was entering the prison proper. The walls were lined with heavy, iron-banded doors, each set deep into the stone. A small, barred slot at eye level was the only feature on their otherwise seamless surfaces. Peering through one as he passed, he saw nothing but absolute darkness, but he could feel the lingering psychic residue—a miasma of despair, madness, and rage left behind by prisoners who had rotted away centuries ago. Faint runes were carved into the stone above each door—runes of suppression, of silence, of dreamless sleep. This was a place designed to break not just the body, but the mind and soul as well.
The dragging sound grew louder, closer. The guttural breathing became a wet, rasping wheeze that seemed to suck the very air from the corridor. And with it came a new sensation: a smell. It was a vile, complex stench of stale, unmoving air, of damp fur, of decay, and of something metallic and cloying, like very old, cold blood.
Valerius extinguished his torch. The sudden plunge into darkness was jarring, but the flame was a beacon, advertising his presence. He pressed himself into the shallow alcove of a cell door, his back against the cold iron. He relied on his other senses, his hearing now sharp, his sense of smell overwhelmed. He waited, his heart a slow, heavy drum in his chest.
Around the bend in the corridor, a faint, flickering light appeared. It was not the warm light of a torch, but the cold, dead light of bioluminescence, like that of a deep-sea fish. The light grew, and the source of the sounds finally came into view, its silhouette thrown into sharp relief.
Valerius felt a knot of ice—a phantom of his old power, born of pure horror—form in his stomach. The creature defied easy description. It was humanoid, standing over seven feet tall, but its form was a grotesque parody of a man. Its skin was a pale, almost translucent white, stretched taut over a frame of elongated bones and corded, stringy muscle. It was hairless, its body covered in a network of faint, bluish veins that pulsed with a slow, cold light. Its face was devolved, the features sunken and primitive, with a flattened nose and a wide, lipless mouth from which the wet, gasping sounds emanated. Its eyes were the worst part. They were large, milky-white orbs that had long since lost their pupils, staring blankly into the darkness. It was blind.
But it was what the creature was doing that held Valerius transfixed. Fused to its right wrist by a massive, corroded iron shackle was a colossal sphere of rime-ice and black stone, easily five feet in diameter. It was a piece of the Citadel's own substance, a prisoner's ball and chain magnified to a monstrous, impossible scale. The creature's right arm was stretched taut, its muscles bulging with the constant strain of pulling the immense weight. With every step, it had to lean its entire body forward, digging the claws of its left hand into the stone floor for leverage. Scrape—as the great sphere dragged across the floor. Hiss—as its own icy surface melted slightly from the friction. Thump—as it settled. This was the source of the sound. This was its entire existence.
It was a prisoner. Or perhaps, it had been. Now, after countless, lonely centuries in the dark, it had become the warden of its own corridor, the keeper of its own misery, its patrol route defined by the length of its chain. It was the last living thing in this section of the prison, a monument to the Citadel's cruelty. Valerius watched, hidden in the shadows, as the Rime-Bound creature dragged its burden past his hiding place. It did not seem to sense him. Its world was one of sound, smell, and the familiar, unending weight at its wrist.
Valerius waited until the creature had turned a far corner at the end of the hall before daring to breathe again. He knew, with absolute certainty, that he could not fight it. In his current state, it would kill him without even realizing it was in a fight. He had to get past it.
He waited, listening. After about ten minutes, he heard the scraping sound again, this time growing louder. The creature was returning. It was pacing a set route, a mindless, eternal patrol. He observed it for two more cycles, confirming his theory. Its path was predictable. It walked the length of the main corridor, turned at the far end, and walked back. A journey of futility that had likely been its only companion for longer than the Kingdom of Oakhaven had existed.
His path lay forward, through the corridor the creature patrolled. He could try to time his run, to sprint past it while it was at the far end of its route. But with his injured ankle, he was too slow. A single stumble would be fatal. He needed a distraction. Something to draw the blind creature off its predictable path, even for a moment.
He quietly rummaged in his satchel. What could he use? His mind raced through the options. He needed to make a sound, something sharp and unusual enough to pique the creature's devolved curiosity. He found the small, smooth whetstone the Oakhaven blacksmith had given him. Perfect. The sound of stone striking stone would be alien in this place of scraping ice and soft footfalls.
He waited for the Rime-Bound to pass him once more, heading away from him down the long hall. His window of opportunity was now. He needed to lure it off its path, into one of the side tunnels at the far end, giving him time to slip past and continue down the main corridor.
He limped out of his alcove and crept silently down the hall, keeping to the shadows. He reached one of the junction points he had seen earlier, a smaller service tunnel branching off to the left. This would be his hiding place. He looked down the main corridor. The creature was a distant, flickering point of pale light, almost at the end of its route.
Now.
He took the whetstone, aimed for the far wall inside the side tunnel opposite his position, and threw it with a flick of his wrist.
The small stone sailed through the air and struck the wall with a sharp CLACK!
The sound was shockingly loud in the oppressive silence. It echoed down the corridors, sharp and distinct.
Down the hall, the creature stopped. Its blind head tilted, its entire body going rigid. The wet, gasping breaths ceased for a moment. It had heard it. The sound was new. It was different. It was an interruption in the endless, grinding monotony of its existence.
Slowly, ponderously, it began to turn. It deviated from its path, dragging its immense burden towards the source of the sound, towards the side tunnel where Valerius had thrown the stone. Its movements were filled with a terrifying, primal curiosity.
This was his chance. Valerius moved. He didn't run. He couldn't. He moved with a silent, limping urgency, forcing himself to place each foot carefully, not making a sound. He crossed the main corridor, his heart pounding a frantic rhythm against his ribs. He was now on the same side as the approaching creature, separated only by the opening of the side tunnel.
He could hear it getting closer, the scrape-hiss-thump of its burden now accompanied by low, guttural clicks of interest. He could smell its foul, cold breath. He flattened himself into another cell alcove, just past the junction, holding his breath, praying to gods he didn't believe in.
The Rime-Bound reached the junction. It paused, its head swaying from side to side, sniffing the air with senses Valerius couldn't comprehend. It was only feet away from him. He could see the faint, pulsing light of its veins through the thin fabric of his tunic. He could feel a wave of pure, senseless misery washing off it. It was not evil, not in the way the Lich had been. It was simply a thing of pure, concentrated suffering.
Then, with a final, inquisitive grunt, it turned and lumbered into the side tunnel, dragging its prison with it, searching for the source of the anomalous sound.
Valerius did not wait. The moment the massive sphere of ice cleared the main corridor, he moved. He pushed past the pain, past the exhaustion, his entire being focused on a single goal: putting distance between himself and that tragic, horrifying creature. He limped down the main corridor as fast as he could, not looking back, the sounds of the creature investigating the empty tunnel fading behind him.
He didn't stop until he reached a heavy iron door at the far end of the corridor, a portal that seemed to lead to a new section of the Citadel. He slumped against it, his body trembling uncontrollably, the reaction to his terror setting in. He had survived. He had passed the warden.
He took a moment to compose himself, his hand resting on the memory stone. He did not add a memory. This was not a moment to be cherished. It was a horror to be endured and forgotten. He felt a pang of something he hadn't expected: pity. Pity for the wretched creature he had just tricked, a fellow prisoner of the mountain's darkness. It was a dangerous emotion, a humanizing weakness he could ill afford.
With a grim resolve, he pushed the pity away. He had survived, and that was all that mattered. He faced the new door, listening. From beyond, he could hear nothing. An even deeper silence. He knew, with a sinking certainty, that he had just passed through the outer containment cells. He was about to enter the high-security ward. The place where they kept the prisoners who were too dangerous even for the Citadel's main population. And his quest for the heart of this ancient prison was far from over.