Cold. Damp. The stench of rot. The sound of chains dragging over stone.
A flood of strange sensations poured into Duncan's mind. Yet for a long moment, he couldn't manage to open his eyes.
It felt as if his soul had been split in two—one half still anchored to the Forsaken, the other crammed into a completely foreign body. A decaying, ill-fitting machine of flesh and bone, sluggish and numb, with jumbled sensations crashing through its neural pathways like a malfunctioning relay system.
He tried to open his eyes. Tried to move his fingers.
Nothing responded.
It took several seconds for the numbness to begin lifting. Slowly, the sensations returned—clumsy, uneven. Like a body waking from deep hibernation. The dull ache of stale nerves. A creeping awareness of form.
And then he opened his eyes.
What greeted him was a dim, cavernous space, its gloom barely held back by torches burning in sconces along far-off walls. The wavering firelight revealed a scene straight from a nightmare: bodies—countless bodies—strewn across the damp, waterlogged earth.
Most were dressed in tatters. A few still wore something resembling clothing. They lay half-submerged in muck and shadow, their limbs twisted, their faces locked in the final echoes of agony.
Somewhere above, droplets of water dripped steadily from the ceiling. From deeper within the passageways, he could hear the dull echo of trickling sewage—or maybe an underground river. The sound of dragging chains—the ones he'd first heard when waking—faded steadily into the distance, swallowed by darkness.
Duncan blinked. Trying to make sense of it all.
He looked down at his right hand—a hand not his own.
Thin. Pale. Weak. The sleeve torn and ragged.
Gone, too, was the brass compass he'd been holding only moments ago.
He glanced around, remembering the birdlike shadow he'd glimpsed just before being pulled into this place—an indistinct silhouette with wings, soaring beside him in that web of starlight.
There was no sign of it now.
Wherever that shadow had come from… it hadn't followed him here.
Duncan flexed his fingers, suppressing his unease, and slowly rubbed his fingertips together.
A small flicker of green flame appeared at his fingertip.
Weaker than usual—far weaker—but it was there.
And in its dim glow, something within his mind shifted into focus: the ghostly impression of connection. Not merely to the flame… but to himself. His real self.
He could still feel the Forsaken.
He could feel his own body sitting in the captain's quarters, hand still wrapped around the compass.
The experience was bizarre. Surreal. But strangely… reassuring.
Part of him had been projected outward—cast across some vast, unknown distance—and now inhabited this alien shell. But his core remained where it belonged. On the ship. Anchored.
This had to be the compass's doing.
Its true power.
A projection? A possession? An extension of perception?
He wasn't sure yet. But whatever it was, it was functioning—and he was still in control.
And now that his initial panic was fading, his focus returned to the present.
This place… wasn't part of a ship.
It was land.
After all his days adrift on endless waters, Duncan had finally—finally—reached land.
Or at least, his borrowed body had.
He looked around again, taking in the grim surroundings with more clarity.
Whatever this place was, it wasn't anywhere good. The scattered corpses weren't victims of natural causes. This wasn't burial. This was mass murder.
And this body he now occupied…
What the hell had it gone through to wind up here?
Duncan took a breath and sat up—he'd been leaning against a large stone, awkwardly slumped.
The motion was jarring. Something felt… off.
As he inhaled, the air rushed in—and immediately out. Hollow. Wrong.
His movements were off, too. Unbalanced. Stiff.
Then he looked down.
And saw the hole.
A massive, gaping cavity where his chest should have been.
Right where the heart should be.
Gone.
A sharp wind blew through him—through him—lifting the last remnants of breath he'd taken into the cold, damp air.
From the right angle, he could see through his own body, all the way to the cavern wall behind him.
"...The fuck?!"
Even by Duncan's recently elevated threshold for the bizarre, this was enough to give him the creeping horrors.
His scalp prickled. His nonexistent goosebumps had goosebumps. Every phantom hair on his arms stood up and saluted.
But then came the second realization:
He was still standing.
Still thinking. Still speaking.
Even with a gaping wound in his chest where his heart should be, he felt no pain.
"...Am I a corpse?"
The answer, upon reflection, seemed obvious.
After a moment, Duncan had calmed. It wasn't as if he hadn't seen stranger things lately.
A ghost ship that sailed itself. A talking goat-head who could lecture your brain into a boil. A cursed gothic doll who paddled through the sea with a coffin lid like a war canoe.
Really, what was one walking corpse compared to all that?
Hell, Alice lost her head every other day and still acted like royalty.
So Duncan dusted himself off, adjusted to the weird feeling of moving with a hole in his torso, and started inspecting the others around him.
Sure enough…
All of them had the same wound.
Each body bore a cavity where the heart should have been—hollowed out, crude, brutal. He studied the first corpse closely: a middle-aged man, gaunt and filthy, likely a beggar or outcast. His face, even in death, was twisted in horror and pain.
And he wasn't alone.
Body after body. All the same.
Except for two.
Two corpses had mangled skulls instead—faces smashed against rock, bones broken. No heart wounds.
Suicides?
Had they dashed themselves against the stone to escape what was coming?
The thought sent a chill through him, even now. He had to admit—it was a lot to take in. Even for someone with Duncan's… growing tolerance for the macabre.
Eventually, he stepped away, found a cleaner stone a bit further out, and sat.
He needed time to think. To breathe—metaphorically, at least.
This wasn't random violence. It wasn't ordinary murder.
This had the shape of something worse.
Something ritualistic.
A cold, systematic harvest.
He summoned a flicker of spirit flame and once again reached out for the Forsaken. The connection remained strong. He could return at any time. Retreat to safety.
But…
He needed to know what was going on here.
If there was land… if there were people… there was knowledge. Information. Answers.
Even if he had to find them in a crypt.
Even if he had to find them while riding around in a corpse with a missing heart.
Duncan stood, the wind whistling softly through the hole in his chest.
He looked toward the tunnel—the same one from which he'd heard the chains earlier.
Someone was down here.
Someone who could walk these halls without fear.
And anyone who could call this place home… probably knew something worth hearing.
Reckless? Yes.
But Duncan had come to a simple conclusion:
He had nothing left to lose.