The archaic script, a twisted vine of meaning in her fevered mind, offered a terrible clarity: *The curse may only be broken by a willing Anchor, binding their heart to the Alpha at the epicenter.* Nivara’s fingers, cold and slick with dampness, brushed over the carved stone. Binding their heart? It sounded like a death sentence, a sacrificial ritual from a forgotten era. The concept tasted foul, like a sacrificial slaughter from a forgotten century. “Epicenter,” she rasped, the word a dry whisper in the oppressive silence. Her head throbbed, the blood in her ears a distant roar that almost masked the wet rasp of her own lungs. Inside her coat pocket, Myco stirred weakly, pulsing a dying blue against her ribs. Tavrok shifted in the gloom, his breath hot and damp against her cheek. He nudged her arm with his massive snout, a soft, questioning sound escaping his scarred throat, a rumble resonating through the stone itself. “It means we descend,” Nivara muttered, pushing herself upright. Her tallow lamp barely cut the heavy darkness ahead. The air turned foul, thick with the stench of decomposing timber and fungal rot. Each step slapped damp flagstones, the sound swallowed by the surrounding void. The corridor narrowed, the ceiling lowering until stone walls wept with viscous grime. Nivara’s cough, a sharp, tearing sound, grew more frequent. Each spasm brought a metallic tang to her mouth, a taste she knew too well. Black ash, fine as flour, coated her tongue. The sickness was claiming her tissue, drawing her further toward its source. Then, the passage opened into a vaulted hollow. The space felt vast under the suffocating dark. The air thrummed with a low, rhythmic pulse that vibrated straight through Nivara’s boot soles. The wick's yellow beam finally caught on a colossal, undulating mass in the center of the chamber. It rose from the bedrock, a grotesque hill of fungal ash veined with sickly green filaments. It *breathed*. With every slow, wet exhalation, a fine powder of black ash drifted into the air, swirling like a malevolent blizzard. This was it. The source. The very heart of the Mourn-Blight. The pulsation intensified, an invisible hand squeezing Nivara’s chest. Her lungs seized. A violent cough ripped through her, harsh and wet. She stumbled forward, one hand flying to her mouth. When she pulled it away, her fingers were smeared with dark, glistening blood, laced with ash. The air here was pure poison, a concentrated dose of the sickness that was devouring her. Tavrok let out a low, unsettling growl. It was a sound of primal recognition, of ancient fury, the kind that promised annihilation. He took a protective stance, his gaze sweeping the chamber walls, as if scenting an immediate threat beyond the spores. A faint *scrape* of stone against stone rasped from the gloom behind an archway. Nivara’s chin jerked up. She spun, scanning the perimeter, her grip tightening on the brass handle. Her soot-dusted fingers locked white. The sound was deliberate, steady, rhythmic. It was a stalker’s gait. Before she could retreat, a blur of mass detached itself from a pillar. A corrupted rogue Vorga, larger and more distended than any beast she had encountered, charged into view. The rogue's limbs were swollen beneath a crust of black lichen, milky blind eyes weeping fluid. It sprang across the flags with brutal silence, lunging straight for Tavrok. The collision hit like an avalanche. The rogue slammed into Tavrok’s flank, driving the Alpha against the rock face. Stone shattered beneath Tavrok’s skull with a sickening crack, drawing a choked rasp from the great beast. The attacker’s forelimb, tipped with jagged talons, pinned Tavrok’s shoulder hard into a fissure. Tavrok thrashed, a furious snarl ripping through his fangs, but the sudden impact trapped his massive bulk in the crevice. Nivara stood alone, the brass lamp swinging in her grip, casting the rogue’s hulking frame in distorted silhouette. Tavrok remained wedged in the stone, his hindquarters snapping uselessly against the rock. The rogue turned its snout toward her, nostrils flaring as it scented human blood. A low, wet click rattled in its throat. Her options were few: run, and leave Tavrok to this monster, or face it. Her temper, a familiar, volatile beast, flared, overriding all sense of self-preservation. She wasn't just a medic; she was a woman who screamed at 800-pound terrors. She would not abandon him. Her gaze swept the broken flags, searching for iron or flint. Her eyes landed on something, a glint of tarnished metal half-buried in the damp soil. A forgotten tool, perhaps left by a long-dead miner or an early Manse occupant. It was a rusted surgical bone-saw, its serrated edge still sharp enough to tear flesh. Without a moment’s hesitation, Nivara snatched it up. The cold iron bit into her palm. Her lungs burned with soot, her balance wavering, but fury seized her muscles and locked her stance. The rogue, noting the challenge, barked a wet threat that rattled the ceiling. It coiled on knotty haunches and sprang, a mass of claws and rancid fur. Its jaws clamped onto Nivara’s forearm as she drove the serrated blade straight into its windpipe.

The Epicenter