The cavern seemed to breathe with them, the damp air thickening, growing colder as Brock's vision cleared. Harrow's void-black eyes flicked to Quinn, who was sitting on the edge of a bench near the altar, arms crossed, his usual smirk faltering under the weight of Harrow's gaze.
"Is he the one who grinned when you passed out?" Harrow's voice was a low rumble, more felt in Brock's chest than heard.
Brock nodded stiffly, the memory sharp in his mind—the way Quinn's face twisted in a grin, almost wolfish, as Brock crumpled to the ground during their earlier encounter with the tendrils. But now, Quinn's expression was unreadable, caught somewhere between defensiveness and something darker.
"It was my hallucinatio–" being cut off by Harrows deep voice
"He may yet be of use," Harrow said, turning back to the altar. "Or he may be claimed." His fingers, thin and calloused, traced a fresh line across the etched surface, and at his touch, the symbols deepened their glow, illuminating the walls around them.
For the first time, Brock and Quinn noticed the murals.
Ancient and sprawling, they stretched high into the natural domes of the cavern, half-swallowed by shadow and moss. Painted figures, elongated and distorted, danced in scenes of chaos—rifts tearing across the sky, tendrils weaving into cities, forests, people. In one panel, a figure cloaked in flames battled a serpent of darkness. In another, crowds knelt before a towering, faceless being whose very presence warped the landscape around it.
Brock took an involuntary step closer. His hand brushed the cold stone wall, and as his fingers touched the worn paint, something stirred in the back of his mind—a whisper, faint but insistent.
"The light within must confront the darkness beyond..."
The same voice from the nightmare. The same feeling of inexorable pull.
"These murals," Harrow spoke, stepping alongside him, "are the first memory of the Veil's breach. Before language, before cities, the world knew the touch of the other realm. Few survived. Fewer still understood."
Quinn let out a short, nervous laugh. "So what, we're standing in some prehistoric horror story?"
Harrow's head tilted sharply. "Not horror. Truth." He moved with surprising speed, stepping into a patch of deeper shadow between two murals. With a flick of his wrist, he brushed aside a thick veil of vines to reveal a smaller, hidden panel.
It showed two figures—one shrouded in darkness, tendrils erupting from its back, and another bathed in white fire, holding a spiral-shaped flame. Between them, the Veil hung like a torn curtain, splitting the world in two.
Jumping up Quinn dashes at Brock. Grabbing him and gazing over at Harrow. "don't tell me this is another nightmare"
"Just listen" Harrow replied to confront the question.
Letting out a sigh he continued "This is why you were marked," fixing Brock with that suffocating stare. "The tendrils do not merely corrupt. They choose. They link."
Brock's hand instinctively clutched his wrist where, unseen, he could still feel the residual coil of the tendril's touch from before. The skin burned faintly under his jacket sleeve, as if acknowledging Harrow's words.
Not even able to hear Harrow, he instinctively asks "How do we stop it?" in a voice level low, almost a whisper.
Harrow's thin lips curled into a slight, grim smile. "You do not stop the Veil. You become its shepherd—or its breaker."
The ground beneath them trembled slightly, and the lights flickered. From the deeper dark of the cavern, something shifted—a scraping, almost wet sound, like flesh dragging over stone.
Quinn startled went to the kitchen knife in his bag. "What was that?"
Harrow didn't move. His attention remained locked on Brock. "The sanctuary is not unguarded. The tendrils' memory echoes here. If you wish to walk the path of the breaker, you must pass through the Gaunt."
Brock swallowed hard. "The Gaunt?" Eyes still white from his visions of the altar
"The dead that dream," Harrow said. "Those touched by the Veil and consumed before their purpose was fulfilled. They do not forget. They hunger for what they lost."
As if summoned by his words, a figure staggered from the darkness—a human shape, but grotesquely elongated, its skin translucent and glistening like wet parchment. Its eyes, if they were eyes, were pits of black, leaking tendrils of mist.
Another shape emerged. Then another. A dozen, more, weaving from the black edges of the cavern, surrounding them.
"We should run," Quinn insisted.
"No," Harrow snapped. "Face them. Only through confrontation will the spiral burn bright."
Now holding the knife backing up against the wall "what are you talking about" Quinn flinches
Brock's legs locked into place, panic surging. But as the first of the Gaunt reached the edge of the luminescent light, it recoiled with a hiss, writhing as if struck.
The altar's symbols were pulsing stronger now—no longer a faint glow, but a heartbeat, synchronized with Brock's own. The spiral entwined with the flame on the altar burned brightest of all.
"Touch the altar," Harrow commanded. "Claim what is yours."
Without thinking, driven by instinct and something deeper—something ancient—Brock stumbled forward and pressed his palm to the spiral.
The world erupted.
Visions, not just of fire and shadow, but of endless realms unfurled behind his eyes. Cities floating in the void, forests of glass and bone, oceans that bled into the sky. He saw himself standing at the center of a collapsing world, tendrils wrapped around his arms like armor, fire spiraling from his chest.
The Gaunt screeched, their voices melding into a single shrill keen, and lunged.
Brock turned, instinct guiding him. From his hand, a whip of light lashed out, striking the nearest Gaunt and sending it crashing into the cavern wall, where it shattered like brittle clay.
Quinn cursed under his breath and dodged another, drawing his knife—but it was Brock they came for, ignoring Quinn entirely.
The second Gaunt reached him, making a hissing noise and going for a slash at his throat. Clawed fingers inches from his throat, when another bolt of light started resonating and then exploded from Brock's core, blasting the creature apart.
Black goo blasting all over the walls and tendrils leaking into the ground. As the last of the Gaunt crumbled, silence returned to the sanctuary, broken only by Brock's ragged breathing.
Breaking from the trance. He turned to Harrow, who watched with a grim sort of satisfaction.
"You are not yet whole," Harrow said. "But the Veil recognizes you. The flame stirs."
Brock looked down at his hand. Where the tendrils had once gripped him, a faint mark now remained: the spiral and flame, burned into his skin like a brand.
Behind him, Quinn let out a shaky breath. "Okay... that was insane. What the hell did we just unleash?"
Harrow's smile was thin and joyless.
"Not unleash. Awaken."