Zealth moved deeper into the ruin with the Cinderbrand Officer's Sword held low at his side.
The flame along its edge had settled into a quiet orange glow, enough to stain the wet stones beneath his boots but not enough to fully light the ruin. Behind him, the campsite refused to stay quiet.
Groans.
Scraping bones.
Dragging feet.
Something wet sliding over old stone.
The fight against the expedition captain had made too much noise.
Zealth glanced back once and saw the campsite filling with undead. Rotbound Husks shuffled between the torn tents. Skeletons crawled from beneath moss and broken roots. Some gathered around the captain's remains as if waiting for another command that would never come.
He stepped behind a fallen pillar before a husk's cloudy eyes could settle on him.
"Welp," he whispered. "To survive against town of corpses, I need to become a ghost."
He opened the dungeon map.
A pale panel unfolded in front of him. His red dot blinked near the edge of the explored route. Behind him, small gray markers gathered near the campsite—too many to fight cleanly. Most of the dungeon remained black, swallowed by unexplored fog.
Except at the center.
There was a black blot.
Not a marker.
Maybe unexplored.
Something much larger.
Too wide for a normal creature. Too still for a patrol. The map did not label it. It only sat there, heavy and dark, like the dungeon itself refused to explain.
Zealth stared at it.
"Maybe a building," he muttered. "A tower. A sealed structure. A peaceful shrine with snacks."
He paused.
"Yeah, no. Definitely cursed."
He closed the map and moved.
Careful. Silent. Almost a ghost.
The seal charm still suppressed Intimidation, but it did not make him invisible. It only stopped his presence from spilling out like a warning horn.
If he saw one undead, he killed it.
Two, acceptable.
Three, still manageable.
More than that, he avoided them.
At a collapsed fountain, two skeletons rose when he passed.
Zealth stepped in before they finished standing. Cinderbrand cut through the first one's neck, flame burning away the dark mist before it could reassemble. The second thrust a spear toward his ribs. He caught the shaft with his buckler, twisted it aside, and drove the burning blade through its skull.
The bones collapsed. Burned. Vanished.
A loot notification appeared in his panel, trying to comfort him with his bad decisions.
"Captain," he murmured, glancing at the sword, "your weapon is doing great. You? Less great."
Farther ahead, three Rotbound Husks blocked a narrow archway.
Three.
Still acceptable.
Zealth counted their positions, then rushed.
The first turned too late. Cinderbrand split through its head. The second lunged with both arms; he ducked under it, cut through its knees, then finished it before the body hit the floor. The third grabbed his shoulder plate, rotten fingers digging near the gap by his neck.
Its breath washed over his face.
Zealth grimaced.
"Your mouth is a crime scene."
He slammed his forehead into its face—not to hurt it, only to stagger it—then drove the burning sword through its skull. The husk collapsed into ash.
He wiped his shoulder with disgust.
"I need holy water. For the armor and for my emotions."
The ruin widened after that.
The corridors opened into a buried inner district swallowed by darkness and old growth. Buildings stood half-collapsed on both sides, their roofs gone, their walls cracked open by roots thicker than a man's body. Stone walkways crossed dry channels where water might once have flowed. Old lamps hung from posts, unlit and strangled by vines.
This had not been only a dungeon.
It had been a settlement.
Maybe a sanctuary.
Maybe a city buried beneath the mountain.
Now it was a grave wearing architecture.
Zealth kept to shadows and broken walls. Twice, he hid as undead swarms shuffled past. Once, he climbed over a collapsed balcony to avoid skeletons gathered around a headless statue. Another time, he nearly stepped on a rib cage that tried to bite his boot.
He stabbed it with Cinderbrand.
"Even the floor has teeth. Beautiful."
The black mark on the map drew closer.
He felt it before he saw it.
The air changed.
It became colder, but not naturally. Dampness thickened until it tasted bitter at the back of his tongue. The moss beneath his boots darkened. Roots along the walls turned black and swollen, pulsing faintly like veins beneath dead skin.
The undead became fewer.
That was worse.
Where there should have been more, there was silence.
Zealth slowed.
His grip tightened around Cinderbrand.
A narrow passage opened ahead, framed by two broken stone guardians whose faces had eroded into hollow shapes. Between them, a pale breeze drifted outward.
A breeze.
Inside a sealed underground ruin.
Zealth stared.
"No," he whispered. "This is bad."
He opened the map again.
His red dot hovered near the center now.
The black blot was directly ahead.
Still unmoving.
Still unlabeled.
"Fine," he muttered. "Let's meet the giant unknown thing that definitely won't become my problem."
He passed between the broken guardians.
The passage widened.
The ground sloped downward.
Then the ruin ended.
Zealth stepped into a massive circular hollow beneath the mountain.
For a moment, he forgot to breathe.
At the center stood a tree.
Massive.
Impossible.
Its trunk rose wider than a tower, black and withered, bark split open in long vertical wounds leaking dark sap. Its roots spread across the chamber floor like the limbs of buried giants, breaking stone, crushing pillars, and wrapping around ancient buildings as if the ruin itself had been strangled over centuries.
Bare branches stretched outward in every direction.
At first, Zealth thought it had fruit.
Round shapes hung in clusters, swaying gently in a breeze that should not exist.
Then one turned.
A skull.
Another bumped softly against it.
Not fruit.
Skulls.
Hundreds.
No.
Thousands.
Human skulls. Beast skulls. Horned skulls. Small skulls that made his stomach tighten before he looked away. They hung from black roots and cords of dried sinew, swinging with soft hollow clicks.
Clack.
Clack.
Clack.
The sound was gentle.
That made it worse.
A system panel finally appeared above the tree.
Rotbound Tree of Death
Supreme Undead