Thane stared at the glowing key, then at the water, then back at the key. His lips pressed into a line as he calculated the jump distance and mentally filed it under "probably suicidal, but not immediately fatal."
He exhaled through his nose. "Alright. Best-case scenario, I nail the landing. Worst case… I become an appetizer for something that doesn't need eyes to find me in the dark."
Touching the water wasn't an option. Not if he could help it. Every inch of his instincts—especially the ones recently gifted by trauma—screamed that there were things beneath the surface that would love to drag him under and debate the flavor profile of a human adventurer.
Jumping was the only viable path. But not without a little help.
Thane eyed the lake like it had personally offended him. He was already swimming in danger—no need to go full worm-on-a-hook. A straight leap might get him there, but he'd be about as maneuverable as a stunned pigeon mid-flight. And considering what might be lurking below, turning himself into a midair buffet wasn't exactly on his to-do list.
No, he needed another option. Preferably a stylish one.
He selected the skill aerial acrobatics.
The effect was immediate. Not flashy—no swirling light or triumphant fanfare—but noticeable, like someone had quietly handed his inner ear a user manual. Balance recalibrated. Reflexes tightened. Suddenly, the idea of redirecting his trajectory mid-leap didn't feel like a suicide attempt.
Still, best not to trust gut instinct alone. He wasn't entirely sure what the skill changed under the hood. Unlike flail mastery or unique combat, this one had a different kind of feedback. Noticeable. Ready. Like it was waiting to see what he'd do with it.
He backed away from the water's edge and picked a long, mostly flat stretch of stone, dappled with patches of faintly glowing moss. The kind of training ground only a half-collapsed cavern could provide.
The first jump was cautious—just a hop, ending in a soft landing and a surprised laugh as he skidded on a patch of moss. The second had more height. The third, more distance. The fourth he tucked into a ball and had to windmill his arms mid-air—but by some miracle, he stuck the landing.
By the fifth, he cleared twenty feet in a smooth arc with a catlike landing.
By the tenth, things had escalated.
He twisted through the air like an Olympic hopeful hopped up on caffeine. Backflip. Double backflip. Backflip layout—maybe? He wasn't sure. Then something that might've been a front aerial, or just a sideways front flip with style. A front flip corkscrew-twist-thing. Then a running start into what he proudly dubbed a "double front flip with a full twist layout pike." None of it had any tactical value whatsoever—except that it looked cool and made him feel like he had some control over this insane situation.
"Justified," he muttered between breaths, launching into a barrel roll. "This is research. Science. Definitely not me stalling because I don't want to get eaten by a tentacle-faced lake horror."
Momentum flowed differently now. It didn't crash through him like a wave—it danced. Sharp, crisp, responsive. Like someone had oiled the gears between thought and motion. It wasn't just movement. It was flight. Controlled. Intentional. Exhilarating.
The skill's benefits went beyond fancy flips. His body, which had felt overclocked and undertrained since his last stat jump, was finally syncing with itself. Each movement was cleaner, smoother, more deliberate. The jerky misfires and launchpad-level energy bursts? Gone. In their place was something that almost—almost—felt natural.
Momentum didn't just carry him now. It listened.
He landed on both feet after a long twisting leap and straightened with a grin, heart racing, breath steady.
"Okay," he muttered, eyes locked on the island's shore. "Let's hope Nessie's off on his lunch break."
"This might actually work." He grinned, chest thumping with anticipation.
He allowed himself one final practice leap—just to make sure—and stuck the landing with enough finesse to earn imaginary applause from a nonexistent audience.
Time was slipping through his fingers like water—relentless, uncaring, and nearly gone. The key hung there like a horror movie prop that absolutely knew it was cursed.
And the lake? Still. Too still. A sheet of black glass hiding whatever nightmares stirred beneath. He could almost hear the seconds ticking in his skull, each one a nail driven deeper into the coffin of hesitation.
T-18:49.
No more stalling. No more flips. No more pretending he had another option.
He took a breath—deep, steadying, calm. Then another. Muscle memory kicked in. His legs coiled. His body thrummed like a bowstring pulled taut. And then—he moved. Smooth. Controlled. Every footfall landed with purpose, a metronome of motion. His breath stayed rhythmic, his vision tunneled—not from fear, but focus. The world collapsed to a single point, the jump.
One shot. One moment. Then he let the world go.
He didn't launch with everything he had—he launched with exactly what he needed. Not too much. Not too little. The leap drew a line over the water, bold and graceful. For a single, breathless moment, Thane hung in the air like a windsurfer carving across the abyss.
And the lake waited below, silent and hungry.
The cavern fell away beneath him. Wind rushed past his ears as the lake yawned open below—an ink-black expanse of secrets and certain doom. But the jump was perfect. Clean. Controlled. The apex hit just where he wanted it, and he angled his descent with surgical precision.
His feet touched down on the island with barely a sound.
The key hovered before him, slowly rotating just inches above its black pedestal. Up close, it was enormous—at least three feet long—its baroque, twisting frame gleaming gold with a faint, ethereal light. Silver runes pulsed down the shaft like a heartbeat, steady and indifferent. The spoked wheel at its head resembled some ancient nautical helm or forgotten arcane sigil.
It floated there—silent, still, and unreasonably calm. Innocent, almost. Like it wasn't the most important object in the room. Like it wasn't bait.
Thane approached slowly, each step careful enough to make a rogue proud. He scanned the surrounding stone. The patchwork of moss, even the air, just in case there was cursed vapor or poison spores or something equally dumb and deadly.
Nothing.
Still, he crouched beside the key, frowning like it might bite him. "Okay… pressure plate? Magic seal? Sudden spike pit?"
He squinted harder. Tilted his head.
Then sighed.
"Yeah, I have no idea what I'm doing."
And with that, he snatched the key.
No resistance. No traps. No immediate punishment.
He stayed still, frozen in place like a kid who'd just knocked over a priceless vase and was waiting for the screaming to start.
Nothing happened.
Thane blinked. "Huh. That's actually—" he ruthlessly cut that thought off. He wasn't about to jynx himself.
Overthinking was for people with time. He had sixteen minutes and a monster soup pond between him and safety.
So he launched. No restraint, no moderation—just full tilt, max-power, get-me-outta-here energy.
The kind of leap that didn't just clear the lake. It insulted it on the way over.
Midair, the world slowed. His eyes scanning ahead, focusing on his landing zone—and caught a flash of movement off to the side.
A goblin.
The goblin.
One arm. Wild eyes. Clearly still holding a grudge.
The dilapidated little scorpion spawn stood just beyond the lake's edge, panting, glaring... and holding a rock.
"No. Don't—"
The goblin lobbed the stone with all the might its scraggly body could muster. It arced beautifully, almost artistically, and plunked into the lake with a sound that echoed like the warning shot of an antisocial farmer.
Then the goblin turned and bolted, sprinting away like it had just lit a firework in a fireworks factory.
Thane's eyes went wide.
"Cursed. Rodent-brained. Chaos gremlin—!"
The water below him rippled, and a faint glow lit in the depths. Something enormous began to rise.
Still mid-flight, Thane twisted in the air, eyes darting to the key now clutched in his hand, then down at the lake as the surface began to quake.
"Oh, I hate being right."
It had been faint at first—like starlight seen through smoke—but was rising fast. Too fast. It was coming from directly below, pulsing brighter with each heartbeat, like the lake itself had just flipped its internal "you done messed up" switch.
Thane twisted in the air, eyes still locked downwards.
The surface of the black water swelled outward—like the lake itself was holding its breath. Then it exhaled.
Something immense burst free in a geyser of brackish spray, flinging water high into the cavern's gloom. Clawed limbs came first—long and jointed, armored in jagged, oil-black shell plating that twisted like corrupted coral. Claws cutting through the air with a whistling shriek.
Then came the body.
Pale and bloated, the creature's maggot-colored flesh shimmered with sick translucence, stretched taut over leech-like segments that writhed and undulated beneath the surface. From its back jutted fans of blackened, spiny bone—arched outward like a crown crafted from nightmares. Acidic mucus poured off its form in thick strands, each drop sizzling on contact as it hit air and water alike.
Trailing behind it were dozens of bioluminescent blue cords—unnatural umbilicals that writhed like tentacles, each one ending in a malformed goblin fetus-head. Their eyes fluttered open and shut, lips twitching with nonsense syllables in some broken, ancient tongue.
Through its half-transparent skin, something moved—several somethings—shifting beneath the surface as if trapped inside, struggling, or feeding.
[spoiler] [/spoiler]
It didn't rise—it crawled upward, like a corpse rising from the grave, claw over claw, leaking venom and malice in equal measure. The lake behind it churned and hissed as acidic mucus bled out like ink in water, but Thane didn't see any of that.
Thane's eyes had locked on freedom. A breath of safety. A ledge he could land on—and bolt like a convict with dogs hot on his heels.
His danger sense screamed.
Not a whisper. Not a warning. A full-body siren. Like every nerve in his body pulled the trigger on a flare gun.
He coiled mid-air. Not with jerky, panicked motion, but with purpose. A precise, practiced tuck—shoulders hunched, spine tight, knees to chest, arms crossed over them. Mourning whipped around him like the world's most aggressive emotional support chain.
His newly chosen skill fired on command. The acrobatics skill synchronized him, directing every motion until instinct and execution blurred.
The claw almost took off his left foot, missing by an inch. A wall of compressed air surged up from below with the whump of a parachute deploying. It caught his compact frame and spun him like a ping pong ball with violent backspin.
The rotations tore Mourning free from its tight embrace. The chain unraveled fast, the flail's head becoming a wide-arcing blur of dark metal—like a hammer throw in motion. Feather-light, but fast.
The monster crested its jump just in time to have a face-to-face conversation with Mourning.
A sharp clang rang out. Metal on armor.
Apparently the monster wasn't much of a conversationalist. No recoil. No stagger. Nothing.
For a moment, Thane could have sworn he'd hit a statue. A monument. A shrine to indifference.
Then it moved.
Its claw snapped upward—elegant, effortless. Not an attack. A claim. Hooked talons closed around Mourning's chain mid-whirl. The tension struck instantly.
Thane felt the catch before he heard it—a metallic whip-crack as the chain hit full extension and stopped cold.
He didn't.
His body kept moving—forward and to the right. The instant the chain went taut, it yanked his right arm left and back with brutal efficiency.
The clean arc of his jump sheared into chaos.
His spin reversed, spiraling as his shoulder wrenched sideways. His tuck unraveled. Momentum collapsed. He wasn't flying anymore—he was spinning off the leash. The torque peeled his chest open mid-air, knees flailing, free hand clawing at nothing. The world tilted, and gravity surged back in like it had been waiting for him to screw up.
Mourning didn't budge.
The monster held fast.
The familiar weight—always there, always his—was now an anchor, dragging him backward and down.
The claw hadn't even aimed. It had simply plucked. Casual and cruel. Like picking a flower on the way to ruin something beautiful.
The moment it's claw closed, something tore inside him.
Not skin. Not muscle. Soul.
The pain was almost inexplicable. Old, like the echo of buried trauma. Fresh, like standing over the casket of someone you love and realizing they're never coming back. Imminent, like watching the flames crawl across the floorboards toward you—and realizing the fire found every exit before you did.
His lungs seized. His vision darkened. Mourning screamed—but not with sound. It was a pressure, a resonance, a psychic feedback loop shaking his thoughts like a tuning fork in a hurricane.
Then that scream turned. Twisted. Fought.
Mourning pulsed, sending a surge through his arm—like a dying gasp latching on to vengeance. The pain reversed, rushing up the chain like lightning hunting the hand that summoned it.
The monster's claw twitched, but it didn't let go.
Neither did Thane.
"No—!" The word tore free—too raw to be a command, too late to be a denial.
The creature shrieked.
Wet, ancient, greedy. A sound that wasn't just heard—it was felt. It hit like curdled milk poured down your throat. Thane's arm trembled—not from effort, but from something deeper, something older. A phantom ache rippled through his marrow.
Not just from his body, but from Mourning. From the weapon itself. A soul-scream echoed through him—pure pressure, jagged and irate. The flail wasn't just being taken. It was being attacked.
The monster was trying to feed.
Sickening sharp pain rippled through his chest in waves, like an infection spread by electricity. Mourning pushed back, rallied in a flash of righteous fury, the last soldier holding a mountain pass.
Thane wouldn't let Mourning fight alone.
He felt their bond bend, twist, warp—like a rope stretched to its fraying limit. He realized the soul-bond held, but only because Mourning refused to let it go. There was no way for him to help.
And in that awful instant, Thane understood. The monster devoured souls. All the tethered goblin heads were devoured souls. Thane was soul bound to Morning. But their souls were their own. The pain he was experiencing was only an echo through their link.
His grip was failing. The weight, the pull, the tearing ache—it was too much. But still, he held.
Mourning pulsed in his hand, not with pain now, but with clarity—a single impression pressed into his mind. Not words, but meaning.
Let go. Fight later.
Thane's gut twisted. Every instinct screamed to hold on, but Mourning wasn't calling for rescue—it was telling him to survive.
He clenched his jaw and blinked stinging tears from his eyes. Then he shifted.
Mid-air, Thane rotated his body with a final twist of momentum, angling feet-first toward the monster's armored shell. His legs locked, spine curled, the last of his energy threading through instinct and desperation.
He let go.
At the same moment, his feet struck the creature's carapace with a jarring impact. He kicked off hard, launching himself away from the beast just as it began to drop. The soul-bond snapped taut one final time—not with pain, but with resistance. Then it loosened. Not broken. Not gone. But fading.
A sound followed him through the dark.
A low, bubbling chuckle—wet and evil, like laughter gargled through rotting lungs.
Thane cleared the ledge.
He hit the stone like a thrown blade, knees bending, body rolling in a blur of rage across the moss-slick floor. He rose like something reborn in fire—panting, shaking, vision narrowed to one thing: vengeance.
In one hand, the ancient key pulsed with soft golden light. The other was empty.
Mourningless
Something inside Thane cracked—quietly, cleanly—like the final hinge of a sealed door snapping free. No sorrow. No panic. Just fury, raw and roaring.
There was no time to think, no space to grieve. Only momentum. Only purpose.
He ran—faster, harder—toward the sheer cliff wall, where the tunnel waited like a wound in the stone two hundred feet above. It led back to the boss room. His breath came ragged. His muscles burned. He didn't care.
The system's twisted spawn had Mourning, and the goblin boss was about to bleed for it.
He didn't slow down. He didn't calculate. He just launched. Rage was his springboard. Magic answered the call.
Thane exploded off the ground in a vertical blur, the cavern whipping past in a rush of raw hatred. The ledge surged toward him like a toothy jaw. He cleared it perfectly landing in a crouch, stone cracking beneath his feet as he sprinted flat-out.
The cavern behind him rumbled with a deep groan. Then something massive crashed down onto the ledge with a thunderous impact that shook dust from the ceiling.
What followed was worse.
A wet and wheezing chuckle, like mucus-clogged lungs dragging breath through rotted pipes.
And far, far too close.
Thane didn't look back.