A voice rumbled through the chamber.

“Who dares disturb my slumber?”

Hiero coughed after forcing his voice to be deeper than a high roller’s pockets, ruining the moment he had waited for so long.

Those were the exact words the father of Tiskas uttered when Hiero snuck into his lair to hunt him. It stuck with Hiero through the years, and he longed for an opportunity to reenact it with the same majesty and menace as the exiled dragon whose name even his son dared not speak. But Hiero couldn’t always remember to say the line upon waking. The few times he did, the setting wasn’t right for its delivery.

Opening his drowsy eyes to an unknown cavern, stared down by luminescent scribblings he couldn’t discern, presented the perfect time for it. But alas, Hiero, a Draecontyr whose incredible feats were the staple of bards when they couldn’t be bothered to spin new songs, couldn’t hold down a small fit of coughs.  

Hiero sighed. An opportunity like this might not come again. Only after accepting the unhappy fact did he allow himself to wonder, “Where… am I?”

Another spate of coughing followed. His throat was so dry it must’ve lost its memories of water. His muscles from head to toe—are there any muscles on my scalp?—were awfully sore, aching as the raspy coughs shook his body. Tired. Tired and heavy. He had experienced many nights with barely an hour’s sleep in the numerous battles he walked, several with none, but he couldn’t remember waking up this spent.

Another question, “What ha-happened to me?”

Hiero raised his hands—a relief he could still move—and grasped the sides of the…

What was this box he was lying in?

The smooth stone felt cold as he arduously pulled himself into a sitting position. He groaned, stretching his back upright. It felt like pins were lodged inside his shoulder blades and neck muscles.

Beneath him were fine cloths, red under the dim glare of the glyphs, folded and layered thickly. Whoever placed them there must’ve intended to give him comfort, but they failed at that. A mattress and a dozen pillows would’ve been appreciated. His body was so rigid that he wouldn’t be surprised if someone told him he had slept for a hundred years.

“Do dragons get stiff necks for sleeping so long?” Hiero groaningly asked as he stretched his neck left, holding it for a few seconds, then doing the same to the right. “I’ll need some ice for this.”

Peering over the edge of the stone container, he saw something that did surprise him—leaning against the side was a half-foot-thick rectangular slab that ran the whole length of the box. Its dimensions appeared to be the right fit to cover the box’s opening.

Hiero vaguely remembered the grating sounds of something heavy moving aside when he became conscious. The enchanted carvings above, stars in the sky of stone, revealed themselves as if a curtain was pulled back. He was boxed inside the… box. Then someone opened it.

Blinking his eyes to clear the hazy sleepiness from them, he surveyed the room—a cavern spacious enough to rival a minor lord’s dining hall, though the ceiling was half higher than most manors. No visible opening in or out of the dome-shaped chamber. No sign of anyone who could’ve pushed aside the heavy slab or placed him inside the box. It was empty save for him and his box in the middle, its lid beside it, and a round stone a few feet to his left—nary a speck of dust to answer his piling questions.

“With no one here, I didn’t actually fumble the line,” mused Hiero. “Such a waste, either way. Tiskas’ father would be disappointed. Anyway, what do we have here?”

The lit patterns on the floor radiating outward with the box at its center, the symbols on the walls and ceilings… They were familiar to Hiero—he knew that he should know about them.

Gaolyan symbols. Perhaps Gaolyan-made as well. What stood out were strings of inverted Urwe runes of attack, which should mean they were used for defense, running from floor to ceiling in several places. Those were probably for the stability of the structure. As far as he could recall, no one had recreated this use of Urwe.

It was good he recalled something, but nothing jogged his memory of what had happened to him.

Many times, Hiero had passed out like a hibernating squash. And for various reasons, ranging from training exhaustion, getting knocked out in a tavern brawl, too much alcohol, most likely from the same tavern, to fighting a halkor with gallon distemper. He had the bottle ache, not the halkor.

But this was the only instance of an utter blankness of the past day… days? Weeks?

How long was he out? How much did he forget?

“I’m a Draecontyr,” Hiero said, shutting his eyes.

There. Something to start with.

“An orphan adopted by Mitho. No. A slave bought by that deranged magus. Expelled mind gardener! The Biosyn kicked him out for trying to make a living bomb.”

Years working for Mitho flashed past, all the life-threatening antics he endured. But it was better than tilling the fields until he became part of it. Mitho also taught him how to read. Hiero poured through the tomes and scrolls smuggled out of the Biosyn garden even if he lacked aileh etchings to perform spells of the magi. Lessons in anatomy and studying various creatures helped him step on the path of a Molder.

A Molder needed extensive knowledge of the human body and the beasts whose Cores they’d use. It’d ease the Molding and lay the foundation for using multiple Core simultaneously—Melding.

“There are muscles on the scalp…” Hiero muttered, the pages of human anatomy books leaping in his mind.

He climbed out of the stone container, wincing at every little movement, and noticed a different feel about him.

Gone was the enchanted blood moss woven into snug garments he usually wore that behaved the same as skin when Molding. Instead, he had clothes of what appeared to be lordly Escriman fashion, fitting around his upper body and out to his forearms, secured by a line of crystal buttons on either flank, but flowing freely down to the floor wide as a robe over his trousers. They were black, with golden lines tracing geometric borders, and had the feel of Jendarii silk, though thick enough to keep him warm in the surrounding cold.

“Escriman. I remembered another thing.” But he could be mistaken. For Escrimans, black was the color they reserved for the dead. Why would anyone make him wear it?

Hiero stared at the box he just left. A coffin?

Its sides had unknown runes he suspected were Gaolyan arranged in overlapping circles, aligning with those on the floor. The relief carvings of beasts unfamiliar on the corners and the lid, probably from myths he hadn’t heard of, didn’t particularly evoke a sense of life and death.

But what else could this vessel be for?

If storing treasures or other items, the cover should have a hinge, something for it to be opened and closed with ease. In contrast, the hefty lid of the stone box made one assume it wasn’t intended to be opened once sealed—that was what a coffin was supposed to be. Its size and shape bolstered his theory.  

“Am I dead?” Hiero asked the emptiness around him, not expecting an answer.

He wobbled on his feet, grimacing at the pain wracking his body—a sign he was alive, he hoped—and held the lip of the box to steady himself. He struggled to recall more about himself.

What came after he parted ways with Mitho, a fledgling Molder on a journey, was a convoluted soup.

Hunting for Cores, using them to fight for this or that lord until they were almost depleted, and hunting again—how many times had he repeated that cycle? Hundreds of Cores he had drained. Sometimes, he’d scour bazaars in search of exotic Cores he couldn’t hunt—those were fond memories, a break from the endless battles rolling into one. Meeting people from all over Tabithala and learning from them was also an enjoyable experience.

“Then I set out to become a Draecontry,” Hiero said with a smile unfit for his predicament, “and hunted the father of Tiskas.” He clucked his tongue. “Dust-blasted! I forgot to ask Tiskas his father’s true name. We just…”

Hiero hesitantly chuckled, puzzling when he had last talked to the free-spirited red dragon. It oddly felt recent. He was sure to wriggle the answer out of Tiskas the next they met. The red dragon might be bound not to speak an exiled kin’s name—Tiskas occasionally followed the rules of his clan—but since the world was ending, he might give Hiero a pass and—  

The world is ending?

Hiero exclaimed, “The Blighted Multitude!”

The past two years madly sloshed in his mind—the Blight spreading from the east to all of Tabithala, shadows taking over men, defeat after defeat. Villages, cities, kingdoms, all lost under the march of the light-forsaken Multitude. Hiero rushed through the memories, flipping the last pages of defending Aderenthyn Citadel, searching for one specific thought—the plan!

“What happened to the heart node? Did I do—?”

Tremendous pain! He grabbed the sides of his head and dropped to his knees. It was as if a vise squeezed his skull. He gritted his teeth, recalling… something…

Fire! Fire and explosions. Was this what transpired before he fell unconscious?

A dragon? Hiero was sure there was a dragon. He concentrated even as the pain almost made him vomit.

The dragon, smaller than most he had encountered, flared its wings as it descended, breathing fire down on him. Scales, red from reflecting the flames. No! They were red. A Core with a familiar amber tinge sucked in aileh, smoldering bright on the enemy dragon’s chest. Flames filled the cavern. Jagged rocks above and below.

A clawed hand burst through the flames.

It was his hand, Hiero realized. He reached for the red dragon’s Core, his claws breaking scales and stabbing flesh.

Then it went black. All Hiero could see were the insides of his eyelids.

The pain subsided. He controlled his ragged breathing, inhaling the stale air inside the cavern. Sweat covered his brow. A drop traced his scar, sliding into his left eye. A slight sting. It made him aware once again of his surroundings.

“Why was I fighting Tiskas?” Hiero stared at his hand. He was about to dig out Tiskas’ Core.

Was that real? It couldn’t be.

They were underground. Tiskas wasn’t supposed to be there. Couldn’t be there.

The last few days began to piece themselves together, but Hiero still couldn’t see the end.

When their forces retreated into the earth, hounded by the Blighted, Tiskas wasn’t with them. Hiero assumed the red dragon was dead by then. Even if Tiskas had survived the Blighted Multitude reaching the Citadel’s heart and fully claiming the skies, he couldn’t have gone into the tunnels. Some passageways were large enough for the red dragon to fit through, but the entrance themselves were too small for him.

“It can’t be real…” Hiero repeated out loud, still examining his hand.

Taking the Core of Tiskas had crossed his mind, but only if the red dragon was felled in battle. Hiero never intended to kill Tiskas himself. Why would he? He had one last Core, more powerful than Tiskas’ juvenile one, to ignite the heart node and burn the continent in aileh flames.

After that, it’d be the end. No point in getting another.

But what was the end?

Hiero glanced at the cavern’s curving walls, picturing the owl king, the giant nocturnal avian that could snatch a fully-grown cow from herds wandering too close to the forests. His eyes started Molding. But there was a feeling of emptiness in his internal aileh system.

He stopped. A lone owl king’s Core remained inside him. It was half-spent.

“I burned through my stocks,” Hiero answered the unasked question.

The garrison’s Core stores ran low when the Blighted Multitude encircled the Citadel. Supply lines were cut, and they had to use more Cores to defend against attacks from all sides. The pitiful remaining were lost when the Blighted Multitude invaded the camps, and Hiero couldn’t refill his internal system.

After he escaped, he needed to hunt for more Cores. If there was still anything left to hunt…

And assuming there was an escape.    

Hiero hobbled to the walls. It was a slow and long walk. He breathed evenly as he moved, adjusting to the pain. He couldn’t remember ever waking half this sore. It felt like he hadn’t used his muscles for days, but they burned as if he had spent all of yesterday dragging a cragodon up a mountain. The aching contradicted the lethargy of his muscles—they were too weak, like he had been bedridden for a fortnight.

Upon reaching the edge of the chamber, he ran his hands over the smoldering inscriptions on the walls.

There was Mende for rotation, the swirly Banklaan to direct flow, and the concentric rings of Yalis for containment. Many others he couldn’t even begin to comprehend in their construction. Each symbol intertwined through the rock as if melted into it, with no trace of chipping or chiseling.

Aileh stirred inside the walls. Powerful and dense.

This was one of the many refining chambers the Gaolyans carved around the Aderenthyn heart node ages past to harness its power for their capital long gone, akin to the wedges used by mind gardens. And these were supposed to be destroyed if his plan succeeded—every single one of them. The ignited aileh bursting out of the heart node would activate the chambers and kickstart the refinement process. But instead of doing their job and taming the tainted aileh, they’d stir the flow into a frenzy, like compressed air feeding combustion.

An explosion would be the result. Not mere streams of burning aileh creeping all over Tabithala—a blast so powerful that Hiero hoped… was certain would’ve ended the Blighted Multitude.

He placed his hand on his chest. The draconic Core was warm like freshly-baked bread—Tiskas’ Core.

Somehow, he knew without checking that Tiskas was a part of him now. His red dragon friend, for he considered Tiskas as one, must’ve caught wind of his plans and found a way to head him off. But the red dragon failed to stop him. The piece of Tiskas that survived was the remaining draconic Core in his system. The others were gone.

Hiero had reached the heart node and ignited it.

Yet, this room stood, with aileh pumping into it.

It meant one thing. “Like Tiskas… I also failed.”

Surprisingly, he wasn’t too disappointed.

Maybe a smidgen. The monumental time and effort he spent in what should’ve saved humanity from inevitable extinction, the battles hard fought, all for it to fail. His chosen path didn’t pan out. Mildly irritating, that.

This is true fumbling.

But in failure, there came a sense of freedom.

No use moping about matters he couldn’t do anything about. His immediate concern was saving himself—a far more straightforward, though not necessarily easy, task. So long as he breathed air, even if it was musty, cold, and thin, he’d continue onward, wherever onward might be. “I choose this not to be my end,” Hiero said, nodding to affirm his decision.

He knocked on the stone as he paced, feeling its surface, scanning for hints of a hidden hatch. If he got in, there should be a way out. He hadn’t suffocated in the long time he was here. Air flowed into the chamber—a possible escape.

If he scratched out the protection runes, a beramole could burrow into the walls. The beramole’s instincts could find the path to the surface once its fleshy whiskers probed the earth. It was then a simple matter of following it out. Hiero always had Cores in reserve for escaping; one never knew when they’d get entombed against their will.

But what he’d do once he reached the surface infested by the Blighted, he didn’t know. Probably better to continue tunneling. The gamble was if the beramole Core would last until he reached safety.

“What if I’m dead?” Hiero wondered again, continuing to trace the cavern walls.  

If he had failed to reach the heart node, he’d be marching with the Blighted Multitude, stripped of his being. If he succeeded in his mission, then he’d be gone. Either way, he headed for his end the last he could remember. And having only Tiskas’ Core meant he did trigger the explosion—he should’ve met his end.

So, why was he here? Who dressed him? Who placed him in the coffin?

No one could’ve done these unless…

Was the Blighted Multitude playing a trick on him? He glanced over his shoulder, half expecting a shadowy figure to pop out and reveal it was a prank all along.  

Or was this the afterlife?

Hiero had an inkling of some beliefs of the hereafter. It was hard to avoid the subject when he was surrounded by death.   

Followers of the Mother Core, like General Bellighost, believed all living creatures would become equal souls and unite as one. Soldiers praying to Tabither for strength hoped he’d bring them to his hall of warriors when they stepped into the great beyond. Athala supposedly handpicks the cunning from the once-living to help her spin the threads of fate. The Romo had their gods of the Forges, turning the deceased’s good deeds into everlasting flames for the Divine Kiln. On the other end of the continent, the Delves swear by their ancestor kin spirits of the deep, welcoming those buried in the earth.

So, which afterlife was this supposed to be? Which god turned out real and ended up claiming his soul? The new or the old ones?

Older?

It could be that the Gaolyan gods did exist. One could be a tormentor of souls, intent on making Hiero pay for the destruction of Aderenthyn Citadel, forcing him to dwell on his failures in this solitary chamber in retribution.

“Uhm… I’m sorry?” Hiero said. His voice reverberated. Nothing happened. He called out louder, “I apologize for whatever it was! I didn’t mean to—of course, I meant to destroy most of the continent, but I didn’t intend to disrespect you by… I don’t know what wrong I did. I don’t even know who you are!”

Silence other than the humming of the earth.

“How long am I supposed to stay here? Can I have a different punishment?”

No response.

Why was he expecting any? The Gaolyan gods wouldn’t understand low Grammus! 

“How do I pay respects in Gaolyan?” Hiero could read a few Gaolyan runes but didn’t know how to pronounce them. No one did. “I’ll just sound off syllables and hope—Oho? What’s this?”

The chamber groaned. The ground beneath his feet vibrated. The coffin he had laid in began to descend into the floor.

Hiero cautiously returned to the coffin. Was this a test? A response from the mysterious god?

A few seconds later, only a rectangular hole on the floor remained, partially covered by the left-behind lid slumped across it. The exit Hiero was looking for presented itself.

He began Molding his body into a halkor with the tiniest nudge, taking care not to let his body grow big and tear his clothes—he only wanted to borrow a portion of the halkor’s strength. As his muscles changed, the soreness went away. Sensing the seams of this tunic straining, he stopped. That should be enough. He bent down and shoved the lid away from the opening.

The lid bumped into the stone orb he noticed earlier, causing it to roll away. The orb moved only a couple of feet, seemingly heavier than Hiero thought.  

“What is that?” A piece of his heart wanted to reach for it. He ambled over to it with a lopsided gait due to malformed muscles and bones. He didn’t undo his Molding. And he did need the extra strength. “Yeah… this is heavy,” he said as he picked up the orb and examined its smooth, grayish surface. “This feels like…”

Despite its looks and weight, the energies emanating from the orb reminded him of a Core. Instinctively, he relaxed his mind, opened his system, and ran his energies through the orb. It shattered into thousands of shimmering sparkles and entered his body.

“I-I absorbed it?” Hiero didn’t have time to process further what had transpired, for the chamber grumbled again. The opening on the floor was closing! He hurried to it, unraveling his Molding.

Should he go in? Where did it lead to?

Somewhere not here, he sarcastically answered himself.

Perfect. Not here was his intended destination. This might lead to a better afterlife.

Hiero stood at the edge of the hole to darkness. “I might see Bellighost’s jarlhound…” He had Molded a jarlhound and other large dogs but never understood why they were so happy all the time. If Bellighost was right that his jarlhound could talk in the afterlife, it might be able to answer Hiero’s question.

What about other souls? Hiero dangled his right foot over the hole, his left ready to push away. Meeting those who had died from the heart node explosion would be awkward.

“Just going to hope they’re not too mad at me.” He stepped into the hole.