The mist grew teeth.
As Royce and Eryndra stumbled through the skeletal forest, the fog thickened around them, heavy and wet, tasting of old iron and rotted dreams.
Each step sank into sodden earth.
Each breath tasted like a memory better forgotten.
Above them, the blackened trees moaned in the cruel wind, their bark carved with ancient runes that bled sap the color of dried blood.
---
They came upon a village — if it could still be called that.
Wither Hollow.
Huts of splintered wood leaned like dying men.
Windows gaped open like mouths mid-scream.
And in the center of the broken square stood a well — ancient, cracked, and covered in strange chains.
From its depths rose the faint, ragged sound of weeping.
Eryndra clutched Royce's arm.
"This place... it remembers pain," she whispered, her blindfold fluttering against her bruised cheek.
He felt it too — the heavy throb of hunger, of something forgotten but not dead.
They were not alone.
---
Shadows moved between the ruins.
Gaunt figures draped in tattered robes emerged from the mist — faces hidden by iron masks twisted into hollow smiles.
The Starved Ones.
Once men and women, now little more than skin, bone, and bound despair.
They shuffled closer, their hands twitching, nails black and claw-like.
From their dry throats came a single, croaking chant:
"Feed the well... feed the well..."
---
Royce drew the dagger.
Its blade seemed to scream in protest against the sheer wrongness of this place.
The Starved Ones stopped a few paces away.
One among them stepped forward — taller, crowned with thorns hammered into a rusted halo.
The Hollow Bishop.
It spoke with a voice like shattered bells:
> "Blood for memory.
Bone for forgiveness.
Flesh for freedom.
Choose, wanderers.
One of you must feed the well,
or both shall drown in the thirst of the Hollow."
---
The ground quaked.
The well's chains rattled, slithering like living things.
Beneath the stones, something ancient and hungry stirred.
Royce tightened his grip on Eryndra's hand.
"No," he said, voice low.
"We feed no gods of rot."
The Bishop's masked face tilted.
> "Then be unmade."
The Starved Ones surged forward.
---
The battle was a nightmare.
They fought in the mist, blade flashing, chains writhing.
Royce cut through hollow bodies that barely bled, that laughed even as they fell.
Eryndra, weak but furious, flung handfuls of salt and whispered curses that scorched the ground.
Still, they were losing.
The Bishop loomed over them, thorns gleaming, hands raised to call down judgment from the cursed well.
Royce knew—they couldn't win like this.
He needed another way.
And then he remembered: the feather.
The black feather he'd caught after defeating the Doppelgänger.
He drew it from his coat.
It pulsed in his hand.
The boy's voice echoed again:
> "A key... when the path rots beneath you."
Royce hurled the feather into the air.
It exploded into a shriek of black wings, a cyclone of feathers that tore into the Starved Ones, ripping masks from faces, unmaking hollow bodies.
The Bishop shrieked — a sound of pure sorrow — and lunged for Royce.
But he was ready.
He drove the dagger deep into the Bishop's heart.
The mask shattered.
And from the broken form poured not blood — but sand.
Lifeless.
Forgotten.
---
The mist recoiled.
The village shuddered, and the well collapsed inward, chains snapping like broken bones.
The last of the Starved Ones crumbled to dust, their souls freed at last from the endless hunger.
---
Silence.
Only Royce and Eryndra remained, standing amidst the ruin.
Their bodies bruised, their spirits threadbare.
But alive.
Barely.
Eryndra leaned against him, whispering:
"We must keep moving... The boy is still waiting."
Royce looked into the endless mist.
The Deadroot was not done with them yet.
And somewhere ahead, worse horrors than the Starved Ones awaited.
---