Ash settled like snow.
The last remnants of Mortag’s body drifted to the scorched stone, soft and weightless as if the fire had remembered how to grieve. For a moment, the chamber was still.
=You have defeated (1) Ashbound Champion=
=You gain 3.0 skill points=
=Current skill points: 8.93=
=Level up! (x10) Multi-Fireball is now Rank 25/-=
=Level up! (x10) Flickerflame is now Rank 15/100=
=Level up! (x2) Nimble Hands is now Rank 6/100=
=Level up! (x5) Enhanced Fire Magic is now Rank 8/100=
=Level up! (x10) Ignite is now Rank 13/100=
=Level up! (x2) Emberheart is now Rank 4/100=
Nick sighed and looked at Ray.
She coughed once, wiping blood from her mouth with the back of her blistered hand. Her fingers were shaking as she lowered her baseball bat. Her arms were still bleeding, her breath shallow, but her expression was thoughtful.
“…Where’s the chest?” she asked, eyes scanning the room.
Nick frowned. He turned back to the platform where Mortag had made his final stand. The space was cracked, cratered, covered in soot and glowing heat veins…
But there was no chest.
No confirmation of victory.
No rewards.
He paced slowly across the chamber. “The miniboss gave us a silver chest. The goblin shaman gave us a gold one. I’m no dungeon expert, but I assume this guy should’ve given us a gold chest if he was the final boss.”
Nick stopped near the far edge of the chamber, tracing a subtle seam in the wall. There, partially hidden behind collapsed rubble and scorched carvings, was a heavy metal door embedded in the stone. It had no handle or lock, just blackened steel etched with the faint outline of a sunburst sigil.
Above the door was a faded plaque with a simple inscription:
Where Fire Weeps
Ray approached, squinting. “A vault?”
He nodded slowly. “This place is called the Siege Vault. Maybe this is why?”
He placed a hand against the door.
It was cold.
A lingering cold, like sealed history.
With a grinding hiss, the vault responded to his touch.
The door sank inward and slid open.
A rush of stale air swept past them, thick with dust and the weight of forgotten time.
Ray raised her bat again, stepping in first.
The room beyond was small, more of a chamber than a hall. Rows of carved alcoves lined the walls—-stone beds, tiny and low to the floor. The air was quiet.
But they were not alone.
Nick’s eyes widened as he saw them—dozens of small figures, crouched and watching. Eyes that glowed faintly in the dark.
Children.
Orc children.
Their eyes were fierce, even though their bodies were small and frail.
Ray froze. “Nick…”
He didn’t answer. He couldn’t.
The children didn’t attack. They didn’t cry. They just watched. Some took defensive postures. Others held dolls. One tried to hide behind the others.
Nick’s breath hitched.
Ray took a step forward—and the children recoiled.
“No,” she whispered, dropping her weapon.
He glanced back toward the plaque, words lingering in his mind like smoke.
Where fire weeps.
If fire demands everything… then what would cause fire to weep?
This was the ‘vault’.
It was the goal of the dungeon.
Dread settled into their hearts like lead.
This was the real encounter.
This was the true end of the dungeon.
Because dungeons were tragic histories.
Nick looked down at his hands.
Ray turned to him, shaking her head. “We’re not doing this.”
He swallowed. “No.”
They stood there in silence, surrounded by small, frightened yet resolute figures, echoes of a massacre sealed behind a vault.
“We’re done,” Nick said. “I won’t clear this dungeon.”
As if in response to his declaration, the atmosphere shifted.
Something stirred.
Something watched.
Something remembered.
There was a heavy pressure in the air that pressed against the ribs like grief with nowhere to go. Nick took a slow step forward, eyes narrowing. The orc children didn’t react. They just watched, their stillness unnatural, like actors locked in place between scenes.
Ray moved closer to him, voice quiet. “You feel that?”
He nodded. “Yeah. Something’s here.”
The light dimmed.
Not in the way a torch fades, but in the way sorrow dampens in a room. It was like stepping into a cathedral mid-funeral.
Like walking through the ashes of a memory.
The children did not move.
They couldn’t move anymore.
Nick turned his gaze upward. At the center of the ceiling was a symbol, half-worn, etched into the vault stone: a fractured circle wrapped in chains. And from that broken mark, faint light began to fall.
A flicker.
Then a thread.
Then a slow drift downward, like a single snowflake of flame.
It spiraled once, then twice, before stopping in front of Nick, pulsing faintly.
A voice bloomed in his mind—a presence, shaped like words.
“Who are you?”
Nick stared at the anomaly. “Just someone passing by.”
“You carry many familiar elements. A hint of nostalgia… old friends, and old hatreds braided together.”
Silence. Then another pulse.
“I watched you.”
The thread of light stretched toward Ray.
“You, who burns for another.”
It circled back to Nick.
“You, who carries the torch.”
Nick’s eyes narrowed. “What are you?”
“A fragment. A remnant. A witness.”
Ray tilted her head. “You’re… the dungeon core?”
The presence pulsed once—acknowledgement, or maybe resignation.
“As I said, I am but a fragment.
I do not remember when I woke.
Only that I was given a fire.
Told to hold it.
Told to remember.
Told to burn.”
Nick’s jaw tightened. “And you do?”
“No.”
The light dimmed for a moment.
“But I tried not to forget.
“They gave me this place.
“They gave me the names.
“Told me who the monsters were.
“Told me what to do when they screamed.”
Nick’s hands closed slowly into a fist. “And did you believe them?”
“I did. At first.
“Until they started screaming like children.”
The thread of light drifted toward the orc children still huddled in the shadows. They didn’t flinch from it. One even reached up as if trying to touch it.
“They told me monsters could not grieve.
“But grief came anyway.”
The flame returned to Nick’s eye level, uncertain now.
“I have played this memory thousands of times. Only one has reached this room. None have made the same choice as you.”
Ray crossed her arms tightly, her voice rough. “Then end it. You’re the core, right? You can stop this.”
A long pause.
“I cannot.”
“What do you mean you can’t?”
“I am but a fragment.
“I was made to burn.
“Not to stop burning.”
The light began to tremble slightly, pulsing outwards like a heartbeat growing too fast.
“This place is built from things I do not remember.
“I cannot touch the edges.
“I cannot close the wound.
“I am the wound.”
Nick’s breath caught.
He stared at the fragment of light, then slowly stepped forward. The tiny spark hovered in the air like a question with no answer.
“You want to be free,” he said softly. “But you don’t know how.”
The thread pulsed once. “This memory cannot end. I was created to contain it.”
“To contain… the past?”
“No. To contain them.”
Nick glanced around the vault. The orc children. The branded souls. Mortag’s ashes still warm behind them.
“You’re a prison.”
Another pulse. “A seal.”
It circled once more, orbiting the ceiling, brushing against the edge of the chained circle etched in the stone.
“Someone made me. Broke me. Filled me. Then forgot me.”
The silence that followed was deafening.
Nick’s brows furrowed. A hint of an idea crossed his mind. It was a wild idea, spawned from the depths of fantasy storytelling.
There was no way it would actually work.
Slowly, he opened his palm. “If you can’t end it from the inside… maybe I can take you out.”
“You cannot. The seal binds me here.”
He smirked. “I’ve got a cheat skill.”
Ray tilted her head. “You do? What…?”
Nick raised his other hand and snapped his fingers.
A soundless ripple passed through the air.
And then—there it was.
A massive wardrobe erupted into existence behind him with no flare of magic, no swirl of wind—just presence. An impossible shape, solid and grand, rooted into the very bedrock of the dungeon as if it had always been there.
It was a monolith of dark, polished wood. The jewels above the door shimmered subtly, casting a soft glow across the chamber’s ashen gloom.
Ray sighed. “You’re finally going to tell me what that thing is?”
Nick approached the armoire and ran a hand along the carved wood. “This is my Infinite Wardrobe. It holds everything I am.”
The fragment hovered uncertainly. “A vessel?”
Nick nodded. “Another prison. A home.”
He extended his hand again, offering an invitation. “If you’re really a fragment—if you want to stop this endless loop—then come with me. I can’t promise anything. But I can promise this: I won’t forget you.”
The light paused.
Then it pulsed once, twice—
And drifted toward the wardrobe.
It phased through the carved wood, passing into the armoire like a whisper entering memory.
=Would you like to bind Dungeon Core Fragment to the Infinite Wardrobe?=
-Yes / No-
He selected ‘Yes’.
The plaque outside the vault door flared with sudden light.
Where Fire Wept
And then dimmed again.
Nick placed a hand on the wardrobe and whispered, “Sleep now. We’ll figure the rest out.”
Ray glanced at the children still crouched in the shadows. “What happens to them?”
The wardrobe pulsed once with a low, harmonic chime. A sound like the echo of an old bell long buried, rising from beneath layers of stone and silence.
Then—
The air changed.
The ground no longer groaned with tension. The heat in the walls ceased its eternal breath. The very pressure of the dungeon relaxed as if the memory had finally finished grieving.
Behind them, one of the children moved.
A small orc girl with too-thin arms, her cheeks smudged with soot and time, looked up. Her eyes glowed faintly.
She took a step forward. Then another.
One by one, the others began to follow.
None of them cried. None of them spoke. They simply began to fade.
Like morning mist touched by sunlight.
Soft glimmers lifted from their limbs as they walked, their bodies unraveling into drifting sparks—-embers without flame, tiny souls untangling from a memory that had held them for far too long. Some held hands. One turned to wave before dissolving. Another placed a small carved doll on one of the stone beds and bowed.
And then they were gone.
Ray stood frozen, one hand loosely gripping her baseball bat, the other clenched at her side.
Nick didn’t say anything. He couldn’t. There was no sound to give this moment.
Only breath, and silence, and the absence of pain.
And then—
CRACK.
The floor beneath them lit with white fractures of light, like glass under pressure.
The ceiling above ruptured with shimmering seams.
Nick’s eyes widened. “The dungeon’s collapsing.”
The dimensional space had begun to fail, no longer sustained by a core.
A silent countdown had begun.
Ray turned just in time to see the last glimmer of the wardrobe flicker and disappear. “Nick—!”
Too late to run.
Too late to think.
The world inverted.
—
They landed hard—flat on their backs—on grass.
Fresh air hit them like a slap.
Birdsong.
Cool breeze.
Yelling voices.
Nick sat up fast, coughing.
They were on the outskirts of the adventurer camp outside the dungeon. Scorch marks and soot still clung to them, but the burning was gone. Ray’s wounds were completely healed, but she was still covered in blood. She gasped, then doubled over laughing and crying at the same time.
All around them, others appeared. Dozens of adventurers burst into existence across the treeline and open fields, some tumbling, some screaming, all of them coughing and dazed.
Adventurers who had been inside the dungeon when it collapsed.
And above them—
Ash began to fall.
No fire or flame.
Just ash.
It drifted from the sky like snow, soft and slow, a gray flurry that danced in the breeze before settling gently on their skin. It carried no heat or weight.
Only memory.
Only mourning.
Ray reached out a hand and caught a flake on her palm. It melted against her skin like nothing at all.
Nick let himself fall back onto the grass, his eyes locked on the sky.
The clouds drifted like nothing had changed.
But everything had.
He took one long breath, then muttered.
“Now that… was a dungeon.”
The memory didn’t end in fire, but in ash.
Soft. Final. Free.
(End Part 1)
Project Knightfall 