Thorin's First Thundersday of Harvestfall, 1442, Gloam-Barrow Den, last third of the dungeon.

As the group pressed deeper into the dungeon, the sharp stench of rot gave way to something else. The smell of death mixed with something that reminded Lyn of dust and old cloth—like linen left too long in a sealed chest. A stale, oppressive smell.

Neither Ryan nor Kaelyn offered advice or chimed in, although she could tell they were both thankful they were not the ones having to deal with the stench.

Lyn walked a few paces behind Elyssia, who crept forward with both tonfa drawn. To her left, Leoric moved with his bow at the ready, a glowing holy arrow already notched. On her right, Vaelith walked small, nervous steps over the cracked tiles, one hand inches from her grimoire while the other nervously twitched in silent rhythm.

The party had been silent since leaving the second boss' room. Lyn felt the tension weighing down on her and her friends, yet they all kept quiet.

She did not expect a jump scare, even though the decor felt quite appropriate for them. No, what unsettled her was the quiet. The stillness left too much space. Too much time to think, too much space to review how Kaelyn and Ryan had reacted earlier.

Why did you tell them that about us?

Yeah, chica? They may look nice and supportive, but who knows what they think of us now?

Lyn winced at the memory. Neither voice had sounded angry with her. Just... disappointed. Or worse—wounded.

She had not meant to come out, really. Not really. It had just sort of… happened. She still was not sure why.

Why did I have to ask for that lemonade?

Earlier in the day, inside the Porter's house with Lucia, everything had felt so new and bright. Her first real coffee—black, the way mature adults drank it. Her first bowl of the sugary cereal Ryan still fancied, and had obsessed over for most of his youth. A lavender-scented bath, the kind Sarah and Sousiane used to soak in for hours. Clothes that were neither his nor Kaelyn's. Loaners, but ones that were meant for her.

And yet somehow, it was a simple glass of lemonade that broke the dam.

A stupid, simple request. Something so small. Something so her.

How she wished she could turn back time.

She wanted to say something. Wanted to apologise. And she could feel they were both waiting for her to do so.

However, her words remained lodged, tense and constricted, within her throat. Even inside her own mind, they felt fragile, like glass trying to form speech.

So instead, she focused on the earth ahead of her. Her new combat boots clomped against the packed earth, far louder than she expected. Each step echoed inside her mind, sounding almost like the deep, resonating boom of a gong being struck.

Of all the boots Kaelyn owned, Lyn had picked these. Not the polished heels, strappy flats or sensible runners like Ryan always wore in the real world. She had chosen a pair that made a statement. Big, black stompy boots.

Ones that matched the rest of her new outfit. She wondered if she was truly allowed to wear it.

She had liked how they made her feel. Now, that feeling felt far away, distant. Like a fleeting memory, or one that belonged to someone else.

Ahead, the tunnel split in two. Elyssia tilted her head to listen, then pointed right. They adjusted formation and moved again, silent as ghosts.

A low groan echoed from the corridor ahead.

Lyn's fingers curled around her staff, knuckles white. The moan grew louder as they advanced, then turned into a terrible cough—ragged, unnatural, not quite pain, not quite hunger. Just... broken.

Then the first enemy lurched into view.

It moved like a ghoul, but slower. Its limbs twitched at odd angles, like a puppet whose strings had frayed. Its entire body was covered in bloody stitches, as if someone fixed it like someone would fix a doll. The creature's mouth hung open, jaw slack, a moan leaking out like air from a punctured bellows.

Elyssia charged first. Her tonfa glowed ochre as she struck, staggering the creature. Leoric followed, loosing his arrow mid-stride.

The holy-tipped shaft hit the creature dead centre. It did not explode in light. The ghoul did not catch fire, shriek, or disintegrate. The arrow simply pierced flesh—and the creature groaned again, shuddered, and kept moving.

"That's... not normal," Leoric muttered, frowning as he drew another arrow. "No reaction at all. It's like… it doesn't register as undead."

Vaelith raised her hand, eyes narrowed. "Let me try something."

A pulse of arcane energy burst from her palm, slamming into the creature's chest. It staggered backwards against the wall, and collapsed. Just... crumpled. One of its limbs came loose and separated from the body, the cords pulling the torso down to the side.

"I think those are flesh golems," Vaelith added. "Not reanimated undead. Just things that got re-assembled."

Lyn stared at the fallen body.

Its arm was wrong. Too long for its frame. And the hand at the end had fur.

"So, an artificer perhaps?" Leoric asked. "That would explain why the city watch didn't detect any signs of necromancy."

Vaelith's eyes flicked down the corridor. "Maybe," she said. "But artificers work with metal and wood. This…" She gestured at the sprawled corpse. "…this is different."

Elyssia shrugged and continued down the path. The rest of the group exchanged glances, then pressed on.

The hallway ahead narrowed, forcing them into single file. The air grew heavier with each step, the stale-linen smell thickening until it caught in Lyn's throat. She breathed through her mouth, but it barely helped. Worse yet, the smell now lingered on her tongue.

Then she heard a faint scrape echoing ahead.

Elyssia lifted a hand, signalling a halt. They listened. Another scrape, closer. Then a dragging sound—something uneven, limping. A shadow flickered at the edge of the party's light.

The next creature stepped into view.

Its torso was too small for its legs, giving it a hunched, awkward gait. A mismatched patchwork of skin tones stretched over its frame, stitched together in broad, hasty loops. One arm was longer than the other—a Noble burrovian's, perhaps. The other was bare, the skin pale and thin enough to show blue veins beneath.

Lyn's stomach twisted.

Elyssia darted forward, a blur of light. Her tonfa cracked across its jaw, snapping the head sideways but not breaking its balance. Leoric's arrow sank into its leg; the creature stumbled, then lurched forward with a wet gasp. Vaelith's volley of Telekinetic Blows caught it in the chest, and it folded to the ground with a sound like wet laundry hitting stone.

"Okay, they're really weak," Elyssia said. "They don't seem to do anything special. Next time we find one, I'll pull and kite as much as I can."

She did not slow when the corridor widened—if anything, her pace quickened.

"There's a room up ahead," she called over her shoulder. "Packed with those things."

Lyn barely had time to process before Elyssia was through the archway and into a chamber lit by phosphorescent fungi. Dozens of flesh abominations shuffled inside—bodies swaying, arms dangling, coughing in wet, rattling bursts. Some stood still as mannequins, heads lolling until the sound of Elyssia's boots drew them into motion.

They were not fast or even coordinated. But there were a lot of them.

Elyssia darted between them, striking as she passed, each glowing tonfa hit pulling more of the creatures into pursuit. Leoric's arrows whistled past Lyn as the pack grew, the hollow slap of their feet on stone echoing around the room. Vaelith extended a hand, and a volley of arcane bolts flew towards the melee, dropping one target in an instant.

Lyn watched the body fall to the ground. Its torso sagged into a heap—and then a cloud hissed from its mouth, greenish-yellow and reeking of sour metal.

"Poison cloud!" Leoric barked.

Elyssia stepped away swiftly. Another corpse dropped, releasing another puff of noxious vapour. The sylvani bounced backwards, dragging the pack of enemies with her in a wide circle, prudent to keep the clouds away from the party.

Lyn stared at their enemies. The abominations looked so weak and emaciated. The combination of their pale skin, coughing fits and malnourished bodies stirred some uncomfortable and inscrutable memory from her past. Despite this, she tightened her grip on her staff, forcing herself to focus on the present.

She tossed a Holy Shield onto Elyssia. Her first contribution to the battle so far—a bit late and probably unnecessary, but it made her feel a little useful at least. She scanned the battlefield, trying to find somewhere she could be useful. Something only she could do.

Repeatedly, she tried casting Holy Light spells to destroy some creatures, but she kept losing the spell mid-cast when her target fell to someone else's attacks. Giving up on her stronger attack spell, she changed tactics and started using Burning Light instead. With the nearly instantaneous chant and the enemy's low hit points, she realised this was one of the best ways to contribute while staying at range. Unlike Elyssia, jumping outside of the range of sudden poison clouds was not Lyn's idea of a good time, so her Sanctuary tactic would not shine this time.

As the enemies fell to the party's attacks, Lyn kept noticing how utterly fragile they were. Some crumpled from a single arrow or burst of magic. But almost every enemy they felled left behind more of that sickly haze, the smell sticking to Lyn's tongue like bad medicine.

She stepped forward, prudently remaining within range of her allies without stepping into the poisonous fumes. A few steps later, she spotted the corpse of an enemy at her feet, its body twisted at an unnatural angle. Morbidly curious, she stopped and examined the body. One of its legs was thick and furred—Full-blood felinae. The other was thin and scaled, Sovereign dracan. Across its chest, under the mess of stitches, a scrap of fabric clung stubbornly to the seam.

Her chest tightened.

So many of them kept falling to her party's assaults. To adventurers, they posed no threat at all. But those things attacked them and, given the chance, would attack innocents. This made her feel slightly better, as it meant these things had to be put down.

Small mercy.

Regardless, something bothered her. She could barely imagine those constructs defending this room, let alone serving in any larger plan. They were not soldiers—they were refuse. A grim by-product, dumped here to rot.

This entire room gave her the vibe of a waste disposal site.

Is this the work of an alchemist, then?

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Lyn glanced at her party. They kept dashing, blinking, and teleporting around to avoid the fumes, easily outrunning their pursuers. They had the situation well in hand. She could afford to focus on something else.

She bent down next to the remains of a body that leaked fluids more than vapours. She gingerly brought one hand to the pool of dark green liquid and dipped her index and thumb just barely. Then, she brought her fingers to her nose for a smell-test.

Behind the overpowering smell of blood and rot, there was a second one, something that felt familiar. The thickness, colour, and even the minty pungent undertone…

It smelled like menthol.

Ryan was the first to react to her realisation.

Do you think so? This creature's blood is saturated with cough syrup?

Lyn could not be sure. She took out a small test tube from her bag and scooped up a little of the suspicious liquid.

We'll run some tests later. Might be a clue about what's going on.

She stood back up, rubbing her thumb and index together to scrape the sticky residue. She quickly scanned the room, looking for her party members. The silence and lack of combat noises clearly told her the battle was over. Elyssia walked in her direction, wiping her tonfa clean with a cloth rag before sheathing them. "Alright. That's the last of this pack. No more clouds in the air—let's move."

Leoric carefully stepped over one corpse, crouching to inspect the stitching. "These seams… they're not even trying to hide the work. Whoever made them wanted this to be obvious."

"Or didn't care," Vaelith said. She kept her distance from the bodies, nose wrinkling. "These weren't built to last. They're already falling apart."

"Then why bother making them at all?" Lyn asked. "This is… wasteful."

Elyssia shrugged, while Leoric and Vaelith frowned. No one had an answer for her.

She let the subject drop. The others could wonder or debate all they wanted. This was probably nothing. They were just in another dungeon, and she was just a player like any other. The smell in the air was just the game's overenthusiastic effects engine.

But she felt something linger in her chest, sour and familiar, like the taste of the poison clouds. Something she could not quite place yet.

Elyssia signalled them onward, her pace brisk now that the room was clear. The fungi light from the sconces faded as they re-entered the narrow hall, replaced by the colder glow of their own gear. The air grew drier, less clogged with poison, but the stale-linen scent clung stubbornly to the back of Lyn's throat.

Once again, the party went mostly silent, save for the occasional "ready?" from Elyssia before turning a corner, or the scrape of Leoric's boots as he shifted to cover the rear. Lyn caught herself glancing at Vaelith more than once; the mage's usual calm seemed stretched thin, her gaze fixed ahead like she was already bracing for whatever came next.

The corridor twisted downward in a gentle slope, walls narrowing until it felt more like the inside of a chimney. Lyn's boots echoed too loudly in the cramped space. Then, from ahead, came a faint metallic clink. Not the scrape of weapons—something smaller, sharper and more controlled.

They rounded the bend.

The hallway opened into a tall, vaulted chamber. A single iron chandelier swayed gently overhead, its candles barely holding their flames. Against the far wall stood a series of wooden tables. Not workbenches, but proper operating tables covered in white linen. Most were empty, but a few held half-assembled creations, stitching unfinished, surgical instruments laid out in neat rows beside them.

Glass vials were stacked in a cabinet nearby, their contents a spectrum of cloudy greens and yellows. The light caught on their surfaces, throwing warped shadows across the floor—shadows that did not quite match the shape of the things casting them.

Elyssia slowed, tonfa angled down but ready. "Not a combat zone yet," she murmured. "But… stay sharp."

"What do you think we're dealing with?" Vaelith asked.

"Doctor Frankenstein, perhaps?" Leoric suggested with a chuckle.

Mentally, Lyn agreed with Leoric's assessment. This area felt more like a hospital than a crypt.

They crossed the chamber in wary silence. Elyssia paused at the far door, listening, then pressed her hand to the wood.

She cracked the door open. Lyn immediately noticed the faint glowing line on the ground indicating the limit of the boss arena.

Elyssia noticed it, too. She glanced back at the group. "Boss room," she mouthed.

The heavy door groaned open. The room beyond was vast—benches littered with vials, stitched bodies left in various states of completion, guttering lamps throwing long shadows across the stone floor.

And there, on the dais, stood a figure. Tall, hunched, draped in a dark leather coat. The long, beaked mask he wore gleamed in the lamplight as he leant over a patient strapped to a table, gloved hand and scalpel moving with precision. He gently wiped the bloodied instrument with a clean cloth.

Then came the steady tap… tap… tap of a cane as the figure stepped to the other side of the table. The figure looked away from its work, turning to face the newcomers. The lens covering his eyes reflecting the room's faint light.

Lyn gasped, almost paralysed. Her eyes locked on the greying burrovian ears and hair. A memory stirred awake.

He hasn't aged a day…

Lyn frowned in confusion. She simultaneously knew and did not know this man.

It's him…

The thought was not hers. It came jagged, like glass under the skin.

… That bastard!

That had been in Kaelyn's voice, sharp as a blade.

Lyn flinched.

Kaelyn?

Even Ryan seemed surprised at her reaction.

Her chest tightened. Her grip on the staff wavered. She did not know why the masked man should mean anything. But Kaelyn—Kaelyn knew.

That butcher. That fraud. He swore he could cure her. He swore! And then he left her rotting in that bed!

The voice was no longer just in her head. It was in her bones.

"Kaelyn, wait—" Lyn whispered, but the words were already slipping away from her. Her hands clenched without her permission, nails biting into her palms. Heat surged under her skin to an almost unbearable level.

He let her die! Kaelyn's fury roared through her veins, red-hot and unstoppable. He murdered her! He's no doctor, he's a killer!

Lyn gasped, staggered. It felt like drowning—her own voice pushed under the tide.

The doctor's head turned slowly until the hollow eye lenses fixed on her.

Her breath came sharp, uneven. The others shifted around her—Elyssia sliding into a combat stance, Leoric's bowstring taut, Vaelith's hand already hovering by her grimoire—but Lyn barely registered them.

All she saw was the mask. The long, curved beak. The black leather gloves, slick with fluids.

Kaelyn knew him. And through Kaelyn, so did she.

The memories pressed against her skull, bleeding into her own thoughts until she could no longer tell where hers ended and Kaelyn's began.

They had studied alchemy. They had bent herbs and minerals into tinctures, coaxed reagents into resonance. Alchemy was messy, imprecise, but it was an art. A communion with nature. A craft that asked you to listen.

This man—this doctor—was no alchemist. He had wielded the knife of science, cold and unyielding. A chirurgeon. A dissector of flesh. He did not believe in balance or resonance. He believed in cutting. Stitching. Testing.

And once, that had given her hope.

He was supposed to save lives. Not extinguish them. He was supposed to heal her mother. Not watch her rot in bed while he scribbled notes.

Lyn knew that on Earth, physicians swore the Hippocratic Oath—First, do no harm. Did such an oath exist here? Or had he thrown it away like the scraps of bodies piled on his benches?

How could he toy with the dead so? Reassemble them like broken dolls? Was it arrogance? Was it despair? Or some endgame she could not even fathom?

And the worst question, the one that burned in her marrow, louder than Kaelyn's fury or Ryan's silence.

Why did mother have to die?

And why did any of these poor souls have to die, only to be dragged back into this half-life?

She stared at the nearest bench, at the husk of a miner stitched from three torsos, chest heaving with chemical fumes. The grotesque parody of life.

Alchemy gave meaning to decay. Science had stripped it bare, and this doctor had gone one step further. He had robbed the dead of their rest.

Kaelyn's voice surged again, hot and venomous.

He killed them, too!

Lyn's throat burned, perhaps from bile or grief. She felt herself torn away from the driver's seat. Kaelyn ripped control from her and surged forward.

Her voice ripped from Lyn's throat, ragged and venomous. "You!"

The word cracked like a whip through the chamber. Elyssia tensed, and Leoric's bowstring creaked taut.

But Kaelyn ignored them. She focused entirely on the doctor wearing a plague mask.

She was looking at him—the man who had failed her mother.

"You let her die," Kaelyn spat, every syllable laced with acid. "You promised to help, but you did nothing! You only brought death! Why? You just pretended to help! Were you secretly collecting corpses all along, just to perform sick experiments like these? To create those—" She flung her hand toward the half-finished bodies on the benches. "—abominations?"

Lyn tried to speak. To pull herself back. To calm Kaelyn down, but Kaelyn's grief was stronger.

The doctor did not flinch. He only straightened, hands folding at his waist.

"Murderer."

The word cracked the air sharper than any spell.

The doctor stilled. Slowly—deliberately—he turned to the side and set the scalpel on the tray beside him, the soft clink echoing far too loud in the silence.

For a long moment, he only looked at her. At Kaelyn. Head tilted, mask unreadable. As though sifting through memory, piecing together not just flesh but faces from the past.

At last, his voice came, muffled and dry: "Ah. I recognise you now. Sousiane's eldest. You look just like she did."

Eldest? But Lyn had no recollection of Kaelyn having any siblings, younger or otherwise.

The weight of his words pressed on Kaelyn's ribs, enough to hollow the breath from her lungs.

He turned, surveying the chamber—the benches, the half-living husks, the stitched horrors slumped in heaps. His empty gloved hands flexed once at his sides before folding neatly together.

"You're right. I am guilty." His tone carried neither defiance nor apology, only a barren certainty. His gaze swept across the room. "I killed your mother. I killed them all and did all of this."

The silence stretched. Kaelyn's breath came ragged, her fury caught somewhere between a scream and a sob.

The doctor lowered his eyes to his two hands, then folded them neatly behind his back, leaning on his case.

"… You are here to exact revenge, then?" A faint exhale fogged the inside of his beaked mask. "Very well."

He straightened, the gesture precise, almost ritualistic. "Come on. Make me pay." His voice did not rise, did not tremble. It carried the quiet weight of someone already condemned. "Make me suffer, for each and every corpse you encountered on the way here—and for the countless others not present. The dead demand justice."

The words settled over the chamber like a shroud, heavier than the poison clouds had been in the previous room.

Elyssia shot Leoric and Vaelith a quick, questioning glance. The burrovian shook his head. Vaelith lowered her right hand, fins lowering and confusion plainly visible on the dracan's face.

Lyn tried to seize control again, but Kaelyn effortlessly overpowered her attempt. She lifted her staff high. Words of power tumbled out, the familiar litany of light, of purification—except the glow that should have answered her call never came. Instead, wisps of violet shadow slithered up the shaft of her staff, curling between her fingers like smoke.

"Lyn…?" Vaelith asked, voice full of concern, her eyes locked on the motes of shadow magic gathering around the holy staff.

The room visibly brightened as Kaelyn's spell sucked in and devoured the darkness surrounding them.

"It's Kaelyn!" she shouted as she released the spell. The bolt she flung struck true, slamming into the plague doctor's chest. But instead of searing holy radiance, the impact burst into oily tendrils that clung to his robes, his mask, his very shadow.

He staggered in surprise, taking a few steps backward. He looked down at his gloved hands and the purple-black flames burning him. As the flames burned, wisps of dark smoke flew back towards Kaelyn.

"No…!" he rasped, voice shaking beneath the mask. "You can't do that! Stop this right now!"

Kaelyn's body lurched as if struck from within. A tide of bitterness and guilt surged up her throat, not hers, not Ryan's, not Lyn's—his. His failures, his grief, his endless self-accusation poured into her like liquid fire. Her grip faltered; her knees nearly buckled.

Lyn screamed inside her skull, Stop, Kaelyn! What are you doing?!

Kaelyn, however, did not stop. She bared her teeth, grinning through the pain, violet fire seething in her eyes.

Slowly, Lyn realised what was happening—for decades, the doctor had accumulated the guilt over the deaths of countless patients he had failed to save.

But now, Kaelyn was taking this guilt into herself. And the doctor could feel it torn away from him.

Guilt allowed him to follow this mad pursuit. His activity here could end in two satisfactory outcomes. With luck, he would keep experimenting until he found a panacea—the legendary cure-all. With this, he would never fail anyone again. Every sick patient he treated would recover.

Or, more realistically, he would meet his end at the hands of adventurers sent to eliminate him when his creations were inevitably discovered.

Both ends were equally appealing to him. From how tired he appeared, Lyn could tell the doctor favoured the latter. He wanted this to end.

But Kaelyn's spell had denied him. By taking in all of his guilt, she forced a new perspective on him. How would he react now, having to face the reality of his choices and failures with clarity of thoughts?

Lyn wondered what would happen next. But suddenly, she felt Kaelyn's consciousness buckle under the pressure of decades of anguish.

Ryan, help!

Lyn did not know what he or she could do when they were but presences inside of Kaelyn's mind, but she focused all of her energy on battling the tide of darkness. She did not know if it would amount to anything, but she felt the pressure diminish, even just a little. It was like the river of emotions suddenly widened, and the waters slowed down as a result.

The plague doctor steadied himself with the help of his cane. He lifted one hand slowly, as if testing his steadiness, fingers flexing with new, unfamiliar lightness.

For the first time, his voice carried neither bitterness nor resignation—it carried clarity. "…so this is what it is, without the weight? To see the world without the lens of penance."

His masked gaze drifted over the bodies on the tables. Not as potential cures, not as raw material—simply as corpses. As people.

He shuddered. "By the Sixteen... What have I done?"

Kaelyn dropped to one knee. Violet smoke writhed around her like snakes, burrowing into her skin, and Lyn felt every ounce of it—remorse, despair, the weight of thousands of last breaths—settle like a stone in their shared chest.

Stop it, Lyn begged, clawing against Kaelyn's control. You'll drown us all.

But Kaelyn only laughed once, short and broken, eyes flickering with the doctor's own agony. "Too late," she hissed. "He doesn't get to take the easy way out."

The doctor lowered his head, hands trembling now. His cane clattered, forgotten, to the stone floor. "… This is over..."

He looked back at the adventurers, at Kaelyn burning with his darkness, and for a moment the beaked mask tilted in something like gratitude. Or horror.

"I wanted to die guilty," he whispered. "But you've taken that from me. All that's left… is truth."

The doctor's voice hardened. "If justice demands blood, then let it be bought honestly. Not by guilt—but by resolve."

He spread his arms wide—not in defiance, but in surrender. "Strike, and be done with it."

Elyssia's tonfa twitched in her hands. Leoric drew a breath, as if to argue. Vaelith stared aghast.

But the chamber itself seemed to decide. The chandeliers guttered. The half-finished husks on the benches sagged lifelessly. One by one, the stitches loosened, the crude mockeries collapsing into silence.

The doctor stood still amid the ruin of his work. Waiting.

And as Kaelyn collapsed, choking on the sea of guilt now hers to bear, she realised she had already ended him.

I finally got you…

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