Elias's watch was a study in stillness. He sat near the narrow entrance of the cave, the faint, blue-tinged twilight of the Gloomwood a distant canvas of alien shapes. Anya slept soundly, a testament to the profound exhaustion she must have been carrying, but her rest was economical, her crossbow lying across her lap, her body tensed even in slumber.
He thought of her words. The less 'me' there is in it, the better it works. For her, power came from erasure. For him, it came from absolute presence. What did that say about the Verse? Was it a place that rewarded the void, the detached killer, the unfeeling force of nature? Or was there room for a man's stubborn soul to impose its own meaning? He didn't have an answer. He only had his resolve.
It was in that deep silence, halfway through his watch, that he first heard it.
It wasn't a sound from the Gloomwood outside. It came from deeper within the cave system, a faint resonance that travelled through the stone itself. It was low and rhythmic, almost melodic, but steeped in a profound sorrow. It sounded like a mournful chant, the echo of a funeral dirge.
It was undeniably the sound of suffering.
His first instinct was to go towards it. His second, more disciplined thought, was to wake Anya. He moved to her side and gently touched her shoulder.
She was awake in an instant, her hand flying to her crossbow, her slate-grey eyes wide and alert, scanning the darkness. There was no grogginess, no disorientation. One moment asleep, the next, ready for battle.
"What is it?" she whispered, her voice tight.
"A sound," Elias breathed, gesturing towards the back of the cave. "From deeper in."
She listened, her head tilted, her expression hardening with every passing second. The rhythmic, sorrowful chant continued, seeming to grow slightly in volume, a wave of misery washing over their small sanctuary. A look of pure loathing crossed Anya's face.
"No," she said, her voice a low growl. "Absolutely not."
"It sounds like someone is hurt," Elias countered. "In mourning, perhaps."
"That's what it wants you to think," she hissed, her knuckles white on the stock of her crossbow. "That's a Lure. A Sorrow-Eater's song. We barricade the passage and we don't make a sound until it goes away."
Elias frowned. "A Sorrow-Eater?"
"It's not a beast of flesh and bone, not really," she explained, her eyes darting nervously towards the back of the cave. "It's a Resonance creature. It feeds on emotion. Despair is its favourite meal. It mimics sounds of suffering to draw in the curious and the compassionate, then it latches on and drinks you dry. Leaves you a hollow, mindless husk."
The description sent a chill down Elias's spine, but the sound was changing. The vague, mournful chant was coalescing, taking on the shape of a word, repeated over and over. A plea.
"...Help... me..."
It was faint, but it was now unmistakably a human voice, threaded with pain.
"That is not a mimic," Elias said, his conviction hardening. "That is a person."
"It's a trap, Elias!" Anya insisted, her voice tight with frustration and fear. "The best Lures are the ones that learn. They use real memories, real voices of the people they've consumed. This is Rule Zero in the Verse: You never follow a voice in the dark."
"And what if you're wrong?" he challenged, his gaze steady. "What if we sit here, safe behind our barricade, and let someone die because we were afraid? For me, that is not an option."
This was it. Not a theoretical debate over a fire, but a choice with immediate, life-or-death stakes. He saw the war in her eyes. Every instinct, every scar, every one of her fifteen years of survival screamed at her to stay put. But his own certainty was a force of nature. And he was the man who had healed her with a touch.
"Damn you," she swore, the words more tired than angry. "Damn your principles." She slung her crossbow onto her back. "Fine. We go. But we do this my way. Quietly. And the moment it looks like I was right, we are leaving, whether you agree or not. I will drag you out if I have to."
Elias gave a single, grateful nod.
Anya took the lead, her movements now even more cautious than before. They left the relative safety of the chamber and ventured into the narrow passage at the back, which quickly opened into a network of natural tunnels. The mournful call grew louder, clearer, echoing through the labyrinthine stone.
As they rounded a sharp bend, Anya held up a hand, stopping him. She pointed down the tunnel. In the faint glow of some phosphorescent moss clinging to the walls, they could see figures. Not a Sorrow-Eater, but something else.
Two creatures, vaguely humanoid but with limbs too long and skin the colour of rock, were hunched over something on the ground. They were Grave-Lice, a type of scavenger that followed in the wake of more powerful predators, picking at the scraps. They were drawn by the same song.
Anya didn't hesitate. She unslung her crossbow, moving with terrifying speed. Before the creatures even knew they were there, a bolt sprouted from the neck of the first one. It collapsed without a sound.
The second Grave-Lice looked up, its pale, featureless face turning towards them. It opened a mouth filled with needle-like teeth and hissed. As it lunged, Elias reacted. He grabbed a loose, heavy rock from the ground—not to throw, but to slam against the tunnel wall. The loud CLANG echoed, a sharp, alien sound.
The creature flinched, disoriented by the unexpected noise—the light-discipline and sound-discipline working in tandem. That single moment of hesitation was all Anya needed. Her second bolt took it directly in its chest, sending it tumbling to the ground.
Silence rushed back in, broken only by the incessant, pleading call from deeper in the tunnel.
"...Help... me..."
They moved past the twitching bodies, their pace quickening. The tunnel opened up into a large, spherical cavern. The air was cold, heavy with a palpable sense of despair.
In the center of the cavern, they saw it.
A creature made of shadow and shifting grey mist clung to the back of a kneeling man. The man was a drifter like Elias, his clothes torn, his body shaking with violent sobs. The Sorrow-Eater was featureless, but it pulsed in time with the man's cries, and with every pulse, the man seemed to diminish, his sobs growing weaker, emptier. The voice calling for help wasn't coming from the man's lips. It was coming from the misty creature itself, a perfect, soul-wrenching mimicry designed to lure in the next meal.
Anya had been right. It was a trap. And they had just walked right into it.