The air hung thick with the scent of burnt ozone and damp earth as Task Force Valkyrie marched toward the Gate, their boots crunching over brittle obsidian shards that littered Aeltheria's war-torn plains. Captain Alastair Reid adjusted the straps of his pack, the weight of Excalibur's reforged blade a constant reminder of their mission's stakes. Ahead, the Gate loomed like a scar in the sky—a swirling vortex of corrupted ley-line energy that pulsed in time with Reid's pounding headache.
Just another stroll through hell's garden, he thought grimly. Crowe better be footing the bill for my pension after this.
"Movement at ten o'clock," Williams muttered, his rifle already raised. "Looks like Seraphine left us a welcome party."
A cluster of skeletal figures lurched from the fog, their hollow eyes glowing with necromantic fire. Reid didn't flinch. "Standard formation. Singh—flanking maneuvers. Whitaker, keep the Flame shielded."
"Shielded and stable, Captain," Whitaker called back, her arms wrapped protectively around the Forgotten Flame's containment unit. "No pressure, but if this thing goes critical, we'll be the first humans to achieve spontaneous combustion and dimensional evaporation simultaneously!"
"Always full of cheerful trivia, Doc," Williams said, firing a burst of dwarven-forged rounds into the nearest skeleton. "Remind me to nominate you for 'Most Likely to Ruin a Pub Quiz.'"
Maeve walked silently at the center of the column, her fingers brushing the ley-line markings that snaked up her arms. The whispers had grown louder since they'd retrieved the Flame, slithering through her mind like smoke.
You cannot outrun me, the Weaver crooned, its voice resonating in her marrow. All paths lead to my embrace.
She stiffened, her boot catching on a root. Reid's hand closed around her elbow before she could stumble. "Steady. We need you sharp."
"It's here," she whispered. "Not just in Aeltheria—in the Flame itself. It's been watching. Waiting."
Reid's jaw tightened. "Then we'll make it regret RSVP'ing."
At dusk, they camped in the shadow of a shattered watchtower, its stones etched with faded druidic runes. Whitaker spread her notes across a makeshift table—a slab of moss-crusted granite.
"Fascinating," she murmured, adjusting her cracked glasses. "These carvings suggest the Weaver isn't just a predator—it's a gardener. It doesn't merely consume worlds; it cultivates despair, nurtures division, primes civilizations for harvest."
Reid leaned over her shoulder. "So it's a cosmic farmer with a taste for apocalyptic kombucha. Lovely."
"More like a virus," Whitaker corrected. "It infects ley-lines, twists alliances, amplifies our worst impulses. Seraphine's obsession with control? Crowe's paranoia? All part of its… ecosystem."
Singh approached, her gloves streaked with soot from disarming a shadowthorn trap buried along their path. "Speaking of paranoia—Seraphine's rigged the next valley with necrotic spores. We'll need to detour west through the Bone Hollow."
Reid studied the map. "Adds three hours. Do it."
As Singh left, Maeve gripped the edge of the table, her knuckles blanching. "The Hollow is a graveyard. Thousands perished there during the Sundering. Their pain still lingers."
"Perfect," Williams said, slinging his rifle over his shoulder. "Maybe we'll meet a friendly ghost. I've always wanted to ask one why they bother rattling chains instead of, say, doing taxes."
The Bone Hollow lived up to its name. Skeletons hung from petrified trees like macabre wind chimes, their bones fused with crystalline growths that hummed with residual magic. Maeve walked ahead, her hands glowing faintly as she cleared a path through the debris.
"Cheerful place," Williams remarked, kicking a skull aside. "Think the locals do guided tours?"
"Quiet," Reid ordered. The air felt wrong here—thick, syrupy, as if the Hollow itself resented their intrusion.
They'd gone half a mile when Maeve froze. "Stop."
Ahead, the ground shimmered—not with magic, but with thousands of needle-thin spines glistening with venom.
"Shadowthorn trap," Singh confirmed, kneeling to examine the lethal flora. "Seraphine's work. Clever. It's keyed to human bio-signatures."
Reid raised an eyebrow. "Can you disarm it?"
"Give me ten minutes and a prayer."
The detour cost them daylight. By nightfall, the Gate's aura stained the horizon a sickly green, its pull unsettlingly magnetic. Maeve collapsed during first watch, her body seizing as the Weaver's voice erupted through her.
"You will kneel," it thundered, manifesting in her mind as a towering obsidian monolith studded with screaming faces. "You will burn."
Reid reached her first, pinning her thrashing limbs. "Maeve! Look at me!"
Her eyes snapped open, pupils dilated into voids. "It's not just Seraphine's gateway—it's a birth canal. The Weaver's trying to be reborn into our reality!"
Whitaker stumbled over, her tablet scanning Maeve's erratic ley-line readings. "She's right. The convergence point isn't just near the Gate—it is the Gate. The Weaver's using it as an anchor."
Reid helped Maeve sit up, her skin clammy. "Can we sever the anchor?"
"Not without the Flame," Whitaker said. "And even then…"
A sudden rustle in the undergrowth cut her off. Singh raised her sidearm, but it was only a scout returning—Private Jennings, his uniform singed.
"Seraphine's forces are massing two klicks east," he panted. "Dragon riders, corrupted elementals, the works. They'll hit us by dawn."
Reid nodded, the weight of command settling like stone. "Wake the others. We move now."
As the camp stirred, Whitaker pulled Reid aside, her voice low. "There's something else. The map I decrypted—it shows another convergence. Not here. On Earth. Crowe's new 'energy farms' in the Scottish Highlands."
Reid stared at her. "You're saying Crowe's—"
"Playing with matches in a fireworks factory? Yes. And if Seraphine doesn't kill us, his greed might finish the job."
Maeve's vision struck an hour later.
One moment, she was trudging behind Williams; the next, the world dissolved into fire.
She saw London first—skyscrapers melting like wax, the Thames boiling. Then Aeltheria, its forests reduced to ash, mountains crumbling into abysses that wept black smoke. Above it all loomed the Weaver, its form a shifting collage of agony—a thousand tortured faces fused into a single, hungering maw.
You see? it whispered. This is your future. This is your inevitability.
She woke screaming, her fingers clawing at the soil. Reid hauled her upright as the team took defensive positions around them.
"It showed me… everything," she gasped. "The Flame—it's not a weapon. It's a distraction. The real convergence is—"
A horn blared in the distance—low, resonant, vibrating through the bones of the earth.
Seraphine's vanguard had arrived.
Whitaker shouldered her pack, her face lit by the Flame's ominous glow. "Whatever the Weaver showed you, Maeve—now's the time to share!"
But Reid was already moving, barking orders as shadows circled overhead. Dragon riders.
"Later," he snapped. "Right now, we survive."
As the first fireball lit the night, Maeve gripped the Flame tighter.