The group had their rest, and though the cave's chill still clung to their clothes, they were now good enough to explore further. They rose one by one, stretching stiff limbs, and pressed deeper into the darkness.
Almost immediately, they could feel the air growing heavier. Not that they couldn't breathe. Their lungs still filled easily enough—but something was pressing against them from all sides. A thick, unseen energy, like the weight of a coming storm or the presence of something ancient and angry. It made their skin prickle.
For twenty minutes they walked in silence, their torches painting trembling shadows on the uneven walls. Then, without warning, a scream split the air.
High. Piercing. A lady's scream.
All of them whipped toward Rhea. Her eyes went wide. She threw both hands up, palms out.
"It wasn't me," she said quickly, her voice tight.
Then came the voice again, thin and shaking—"Helpppp! Help meee!"
This time they recognized it. Not Rhea. But Fifi.
They spun. In the gloom, a pale, rope-like limb had coiled around the fairy's leg. The creature attached to it was a roper—a monstrosity of stony flesh and long, muscular tentacles that ended in barbed grips. Its mouth gaped at the center of its bulbous body, a circular maw lined with rows of jagged, needle-thin teeth that glistened wetly in the low light. The cave's poor illumination had hidden it perfectly against the rock. Fifi hadn't seen it coming.
Now he was being pulled fast across the stone floor, his small fingers scraping for holds.
"Lord Kaiser!" he shrieked.
Kaiser acted immediately. He thrust out a hand and stream of fire roared hurled straight at the roper's shadowy bulk. The creature caught aflame with a wet, crackling whoosh. It shrieked and convulsed. The tentacles clinging to Fifi's leg was released and he tumbled free.
Fifi lay on his back, chest heaving, panted breaths whistling through his teeth. Drobar came near him, boots crunching on loose stone. He looked down, arms crossed, and smirked.
"Having trouble getting up, Mr. Fairy?" He held out his hand anyway.
Fifi's face flushed red. "Don't call me that!" He swatted Drobar's hand aside, scrambled to his feet on his own, and stomped forward, wings twitching with indignation. "I was just surprised, that's all!"
Kaiser didn't smile. He turned to face the group, his voice low and sharp as a blade's edge.
"Since we can't see that well, I want you all to depend on your senses. Listen. Smell. Feel the air shift. More monsters are to come—and don't forget the spriggans." His eyes moved from face to face. "And don't use up all your energy. We need it to fight off that djinn as well."
Then he turned and continued to walk, his footsteps steady and deliberate.
Levain hurried to catch up. "But didn't Lady Ayumu say that we do not have to worry about the djinn?"
Kaiser stopped.
The sound of her name hung in the damp air like a bell that had not yet stopped ringing. It ached through Kaiser's chest. His jaw tightened. He took a slow breath, measured and painful.
"We can never trust that being," he said quietly. "Because of it, Lady Ayumu gave up her life. To save us."
No one spoke. The torches crackled. Somewhere in the dark, water dripped.
He looked back over his shoulder, and his eyes were cold now—not with anger at them, but with resolve carved from loss.
"It's not that I don't trust Lady Ayumu," he said. "I don't trust that wicked being." He turned fully. "So save your energy. To defeat that djinn."
One by one, they nodded and they began walking again.
The tunnel did not let them rest. Monsters came in waves.
First, oversized lizards that skittered down the walls with too many legs and eyes that glowed like dying coals. Then deformed creatures—things that looked like melting blobs of flesh and bone, oozing across the floor with no clear head or tail. Ropers lurked in crevices, tentacles twitching. Huge centipedes with armored plating clicked their mandibles from the shadows.
None of the creatures were particularly strong alone. But they were in great numbers. But with the teams joint strength, each fell in moments.
After pushing through another wave of centipedes, they slumped against the wall in a rough half-circle. No one spoke for a while. They just breathed. Rhea passed around a waterskin.
They rested only long enough for their hearts to slow. Then Kaiser pushed off the wall as he can feel the energy is close by.
"Move," he said quietly. "We're close."
Soon, the tunnel opened.
They stepped into a large, circular chamber, its ceiling lost in shadow. Stalactites hung like stone teeth above them. The walls were rough and uneven, covered in patches of moss and thin, pale roots. At the far end of the room stood a massive metal door—black iron, streaked with rust, bound by thick bars and a locking mechanism that looked older than memory.
Kaiser stared at it. The djinn must be inside there. Definitely.
He raised a hand, signaling the others to be ready. His eyes scanned the walls, the ceiling, the shadows between the stalagmites.
He took one step into the chamber.
Thwip.
An arrow cut through the air straight for his chest. Kaiser's reflexes were honed by years of survival. He snatched it from the air—fingers closing around the shaft a hair's breadth from his ribs.
He shrugged at the pathetic attempt to kill him, but then his palm began to burn.
He looked down at the arrow. It was crudely made—unrefined wood, dark and splintered, with uneven fletching of grey moss. No metal tip. Just sharpened wood, and a faint oily sheen along the shaft.
His skin reddened almost instantly. A rash spread across his palm, hot and itching like a thousand tiny needles. He dropped the arrow with a sharp hiss.
Rhea was at his side before he could speak. She took his hand gently but quickly, tilting it toward the light.
"This is made of poison oak," she said, her voice calm but focused. "It's not deadly, but it will give you skin rashes—and if it breaks the skin, swelling and fever." She pulled a small vial from her belt—thick green cream inside—and began rubbing it into Kaiser's palm with practiced efficiency. The irritation subsided almost immediately, the heat fading to a dull tingle.
Kaiser flexed his fingers. But he knew-
The spriggans' attacks can be deadly. Poison oak is only the beginning.
He looked up.
All around the circular wall, cracks began to appear. Not in the stone itself—but in the shapes on the stone. The uneven rocks that jutted from the walls, the small plants sticking out of the crevices, the moss-dark shadows. They began to move. Slowly. Deliberately.
Features became apparent. A gnarled face here. A twisted arm there. Fingers of bark and thorn. Eyes like knots in old wood, blinking open.
The spriggans were awakening.
They stepped out of the walls as though emerging from a long sleep—each one carrying weapons made of wood or stone. Their hollow gazes fixed on the group.
There was a big number of them. Around twenty, if they counted roughly. They moved as one, a slow, creaking tide of bark and malice, their backs facing the large iron door at the far end of the chamber.
Kaiser's jaw tightened. Confirmed. The treasure and the djinn must be in that room.
"Get ready," he said quietly.
The group formed a loose line. Weapons raised. Spells shimmering at fingertips.
Fifi rummaged through his small bag with frantic hands and pulled out a glowing stone—pulsing with a soft, purple light like a captured star. He passed it up to Kaiser, who extended his palm without a word.
Kaiser grabbed it. "I can take out only half of them," he said, his voice calm but strained with the weight of calculation. "I need to reserve my energy to fight the djinn. I leave the rest to you."
The others nodded in agreement.
Kaiser closed his eyes for a single breath. Then he absorbed the purple light from the stone into his palm. The glow crawled up his arm, veins faintly illuminated beneath his skin. When he opened his eyes again, his red irises burned brighter.
"Azhdar," he called, his voice deeper now, resonant with something older than words. "Time for destruction."
Behind him, the spirit answered.
Black smoke seeped from Kaiser's back—not from his body, but through it, as though reality itself had cracked. The smoke curled and thickened, dense as velvet, heavy as tar. It pooled in front of him, rising, coiling, taking shape. Bones of shadow. Wings of night. A long, serpentine neck and a skull-like face.
The smoke roared into form: Azhdar, the wyvern.
It was in an enormous size this time. About 5 times the height of humans. Scales of solidified darkness gleamed wetly. Its eyes were twin furnaces. It opened its maw and a sound came out, half-hiss, half-thunder, that vibrated in the party's chests.
Azhdar lunged immediately. Its jaws clamped around one of the spriggans—wood cracked like bone—and it hurled the creature aside. The spriggan shattered against the wall, splintering into moss and dead bark.
But the others did not flee.
They fought back. Arrows of poison oak flew through the air. Stones conjured from the cave floor hurled toward the wyvern's hide. Crude spears thrust at its legs. Then, with terrifying coordination, the spriggans began to climb Azhdar—clinging to its wings, its tail, its neck like parasites.
Azhdar growled—a low, guttural sound of pure annoyance. Insects. Its body shook. Its tail lashed. Then it opened its mouth wide and ignited.
Fire erupted from its throat that turned the chamber. The flame washed over the spriggans clinging to it. They screamed in voices like snapping twigs and fell away, burning.
While Azhdar dealt with the bulk of the horde guided by Kaiser, the other members engaged the remaining spriggans one on one.
Drobar and Osmond waded into the fray like living walls. The spriggans' attacks—stone, spear, thorn—glanced off their orichalcum armour as harmless as rain on rock. The metal gleamed under the firelight, strange and otherworldly, impervious to both magic and blade. Their swords moved swiftly, cutting through bark-flesh with clean strikes.
Fifi threw open his sleeves, revealing the glowing tattoos coiled around his arms—ancient markings that pulsed with stored power. He charged them with a sharp breath, and soon a small ball of spark flew from his hands. It struck a spriggan square in the chest and unfurled—electric shocks branching out like lightning in miniature, leaping from one creature to the next. They convulsed and fell.
Levain stood behind the front line, hands weaving through the air. His water spells were drawing moisture from the cave air, from the moss, from the very stones. The water shifted and hardened into sharp spheres that flew about in a protective halo, blocking arrows mid-flight, deflecting thrown spears, and slashing through any spriggan that came too close.
Rhea stayed back. Her role was not to fight. It was to watch as she was the healer to the group now that Ayumu is gone.
The battle did not last long.
Azhdar, having shaken off the last of its climbers, turned its burning gaze to the remaining spriggans and tore through them with brutal efficiency. Within minutes, the chamber floor was littered with broken wood, scattered moss, and the faintly steaming remains of the creatures.
Kaiser then pointed at the massive iron door.
"Azhdar," he commanded. "Break it."
The wyvern turned. Its tail swept the ground. It drew back one enormous clawed hand—and struck.
The blow landed like a thunderclap. The iron door buckled inward with a deafening CRACK, hinges screaming, metal shearing. It toppled forward and crashed onto the floor beyond, sending up a cloud of dust and rust.
The other party members came rushing to the doorway. They clustered at the threshold, breathing hard, weapons still raised.
And then they saw it.
Azhdar the wyvern had its eyes fixated on the vast amounts of gold. All dragons loved gold—it sang to them, a deep and ancient hunger. The treasure gleamed in mountainous piles: coins, jeweled goblets, crowns bent with age, rubies and sapphire. The wyvern's mouth hung open, drool of black smoke dripping from its fangs. It stepped forward—
"No."
Kaiser's voice was sharp as a blade. He raised a hand, and Azhdar stopped. The wyvern growled low in its throat, frustrated, but obeyed. Its master demanded it to be on guard.
And then they all saw it.
At the very middle of the room. Far from them, across a sea of gold, but still visible.
The djinn.
A human-shaped being made entirely of shadow. Large build—broad-shouldered and towering, easily eight feet tall. Its face has human features but its blurred. Like darkness given form. But its eyes were white. Brilliant, unblinking white. They stared at the group from across the chamber with an expression that could not be read—neither anger nor welcome, neither threat nor invitation.
Just watching. It simply waited.