The steps led down into the mountain.
They were narrow, uneven things, hacked directly into the stone rather than carved. It was too crude and impatient to be professional work. The quality was vaguely reminiscent of an intern. Each step dipped at a slightly different angle, shallow enough to slip on, steep enough to punish those who rush ahead. Water clung to the edges in thin rivulets, tracing lines that vanished into cracks below.
Cain tested the first step with his boot.
It felt solid.
So he took the lead.
The air changed almost immediately. It grew colder, pressing against his lungs in a way that reminded him of hiding in deep tunnels and bunkers—places where the earth sat heavy overhead.
Rikta followed close behind him. Takkar brought up the rear with Bill, whose bulk made the stairs groan faintly under his weight. Lorian stayed near the middle, his eyes unfocused.
The foxkin drifted along the edge of the group, her feet barely touching the stone while her tail swayed excitedly as if they were descending into a festival.
The steps curved gently, spiraling inward.
Cain kept his hand against the wall as they descended. The stones felt unnaturally smooth, and the temperature was somehow neither warm nor cold.
“Do you hear that?” Lorian whispered.
Cain paused.
At first, he heard nothing.
Then, a low, distant sound, barely audible.
It sounded like… grinding.
“What is that?” Takkar grumbled.
“Stone on stone,” Bill rumbled. “Perhaps a stone golem is nearby.”
They continued.
The stairway opened into a long, sloping passage wide enough for two people abreast, the ceiling jagged and low in places. The walls were scarred with long gouges, some shallow, some deep enough to swallow an arm.
Cain crouched and ran his fingers along one.
The stone had been melted, not cut.
“So,” Takkar muttered. “First a giant earth squid monster, and now what?”
Cain straightened. “Something that is probably still alive.”
The foxkin smiled. “Or was at some point.”
“Very helpful.”
“I try.”
They moved on.
The slope steepened gradually. Loose gravel crunched underfoot, skittering downward in tiny avalanches of its own. Cain adjusted their spacing without speaking, spreading them out. Standing too close together here would be a mistake.
The grinding sound grew louder.
The ceiling narrowed.
Cain ducked automatically.
A pebble bounced off his shoulder and clattered down the slope, vanishing in the dark below.
Everyone froze.
The foxkin’s ears twitched.
Cain slowly looked up.
A web of fractured stone stretched overhead, hairline cracks spreading outward from a central seam that ran the length of the passage like a scar.
“Shit…” he cursed. “Back. Now!”
The mountain responded first.
The seam split with a loud crack like the world snapping its fingers.
Stone came down in a wall.
A tidal wave of rock and gravel thundered toward them, the air exploding outward as tons of debris tore loose at once. The passage became a screaming chute of death, dust blasting forward hard enough to steal life.
Rikta screamed.
Takkar swore.
Bill braced on instinct, planting his feet as the first impact hit—
Cain moved.
Breakstep.
A concussive burst of force exploded from beneath him, pulverizing the ground beneath his feet. He thrust his fist into the leading edge of the avalanche. It shattered, stone exploding outward instead of forward, buying a fraction of a second that shouldn’t have existed.
He twisted and grabbed Rikta by the collar, then threw her sideways into a shallow alcove just as debris slammed through the space she’d occupied. Gravel tore at his back—
Breakstep.
The recoil tore through his legs like a hammer blow, but he launched sideways, slamming into Bill’s massive frame and knocking the troll off balance just as a slab the size of a wagon smashed down where the troll had been standing.
Cain tasted blood.
The avalanche didn’t slow.
The first wave had shattered where he hit it, but the mass behind it didn’t care. Stone poured forward like liquid, filling the space he had carved open for a fraction of a moment. Gravel hissed against the walls, ricocheting like shrapnel. The sound was deafening, a continuous roar that denied thought.
“Lorian!” Cain shouted, already moving.
The catkin stood frozen mid-step, hands clamped over his ears, eyes wide and unfocused. Blood trickled freely from his nose, streaking down his lips as the vibration hammered through him.
The noise was killing him.
A slab tore free from the ceiling above Lorian, rotating end over end as it fell.
Takkar moved.
He lunged without hesitation, ramming his shoulder into Lorian’s chest and tackling him sideways just as the slab obliterated the ground where he had been standing. Stone exploded outward, the impact throwing both of them hard into the wall.
Takkar grunted as something cracked, but he stayed upright, planting himself over Lorian like a shield as debris rained down.
“Move!” Takkar roared. “Crawl if you have to!”
Lorian didn’t answer.
He was too overwhelmed.
The avalanche wasn’t just loud; it was everywhere. Reflections, echoes, vibrations through the stone—it was a crowd screaming directly into his skull.
Breakstep.
He drove the force downward, slamming it into the slope beneath him and launching himself forward in a brutal, uncontrolled leap. His shoulder hit the wall near Takkar hard enough to jar his teeth, but he didn’t slow.
He grabbed Lorian by the collar and yanked.
The boy came loose with a broken gasp as Cain hauled him bodily across the stone and into the same shallow alcove Rikta was sheltering in. He slammed his forearm across the alcove’s mouth just as another surge of debris blasted past, stone grinding inches from his face.
Lorian collapsed immediately, retching, hands clawing at the stone as his breathing came in sharp, panicked bursts.
Cain turned back.
“Takkar!”
The beastkin was still standing—just barely.
He had wedged himself sideways in the passage, braced between the wall and a jutting rock spur, his muscles locked as the avalanche slammed into him. Gravel piled against his legs, crushing him. A larger slab struck his shoulder and glanced off, shattering bones.
“I’m… fine!” Takkar snarled, voice strained. “Just…get…”
The stone behind him cracked.
Breakstep.
In the blink of an eye, Cain moved behind Takkar and struck the wall.
The concussive burst rippled sideways, collapsing the rock spur Takkar was braced against. The beastkin lost his footing as the anchor vanished, almost collapsing entirely.
Breakstep.
Cain slammed into him shoulder-first.
They tumbled together into the alcove as the passage behind them filled completely.
Stone sealed the opening with a final, thunderous crash.
Darkness swallowed them.
For a heartbeat, there was nothing but ringing in their ears and the sound of ragged, uneven breathing.
Then Bill’s voice boomed from somewhere nearby.
“I am still here!”
Cain twisted around.
The troll stood farther down the passage, half-buried up to his waist in rubble, both arms planted into the stone as if he were holding the mountain itself. Gravel poured around him, but the largest pieces had jammed against his frame, forming a crude arch.
Following the angle, the large pieces would have crashed into Rikta and Lorian…
“I cannot move!” Bill added helpfully.
Cain stared and started to smile in relief.
Then he swore.
The stone was still moving.
The rubble behind Bill shuddered, compacting unnaturally, as if pressure were being applied from deeper within the mountain. Pebbles began to vibrate. Larger stones shifted, grinding forward with slow, deliberate force.
This wasn’t an aftershock.
Something was pushing the stone toward them.
The foxkin’s voice drifted from behind them, far too cheerful given the circumstances.
“So rude…”
Cain’s stomach dropped.
“Takkar. Get Rikta and Lorian moving. Now.”
“What about Bill?”
Cain looked at the troll, then at the stone flowing toward him like a solid tide.
“I’ll buy time.”
He stepped forward.
Breakstep.
He hit the rubble directly in front of Bill.
The force detonated outward, blasting a crater through compacted stone and gravel. Bill lurched as the pressure eased for a split second.
“Now!” Cain shouted.
Bill heaved.
Muscles bulged like coiled steel as the troll tore himself free, stone screaming in protest as he ripped upward and forward. He stumbled past Cain just as the space he’d occupied vanished, crushed flat as the mountain surged again.
They dove into a crack in the wall as the passage behind them collapsed entirely, stone smashing together with enough force to send a shockwave through the rock beneath their feet.
Silence fell again.
It was abrupt—too fast, as if something had halted all the moving stone in an instant.
Cain leaned against the wall, chest heaving, legs trembling from the strain. His vision swam, black spots dancing at the edges.
But he couldn’t pass out now.
Something was wrong.
Very wrong.
The grinding sound resurged, closer this time. It multiplied, from ahead, from behind, from above.
The foxkin peered into the darkness, ears flicking. Her tail began to sway faster.
“…Oh,” she said.
Cain looked up at her.
“What?”
She smiled, wide and delighted.
“He’s angry.”
The mountain roared again.
‘He?’
This didn’t feel like a test.
It felt like a command.
Distant thunder rolled through stone. Individual fractures snapped open, one after another in rapid succession, the sound overlapping itself. The rhythms collided, accelerating until Cain couldn’t tell where one sound ended and another began.
The mountain was still waking up.
Takkar pushed himself upright with a strangled grunt, his left arm hanging wrong. His shoulder caved inward. Blood soaked through his sleeve, dark and spreading. He sucked in a breath and hissed as his ribs protested, then spat to the side.
“Next time,” he growled hoarsely, “I’ll stay back and watch camp or something.”
Bill knelt nearby, one massive hand pressed against his side. Stone dust coated his skin in gray streaks, filling the deep cracks along his arms and chest. One of his tusks had snapped clean off at the base. He picked it up, looked at it for a second, then let it fall.
“I believe,” he rumbled, “that the mountain is rather displeased with us.”
“Not shit,” Cain muttered.
Lorian hadn’t moved.
He was crouched against the wall, hands locked over his ears, rocking slightly as blood continued to drip from his nose. His breathing was uneven, shallow, like every sound stabbed straight through him. When another tremor passed through the stone, he whimpered and curled tighter.
Rikta knelt beside him, one hand gripping his shoulder, the other clenched white-knuckled in her lap. Sweat slicked her brow, her face a pale green tint.
The foxkin stood apart from them all, ears swiveling as she took in the sounds around them.
Cain followed her gaze.
The passage ahead—what little of it they could see—was changing.
Cracks split open along the walls in patterns. Long, spiraling fractures carved their way outward, stone peeling back in thick plates. Heat rolled out of the openings, carrying a heavy, metallic tang.
Then something moved inside one of them.
A tentacle forced its way through the rock with a wet, grinding sound, suckers ripping free chunks of stone as it emerged. It was thicker than Cain’s torso and its surface was crusted with mineral deposits, veins glowing faintly beneath.
It slammed into the floor.
The impact rattled the chamber hard enough to knock loose dust from the ceiling.
Then another crack split open.
Another tentacle followed.
Then another.
Cain’s stomach dropped.
“Shit…”
The foxkin’s smile widened, delighted and a little apologetic.
“He’s done being subtle.”
The walls burst.
Stone exploded outward as entire sections of the passage tore themselves open. The passage didn’t collapse; it unfolded, revealing cavernous spaces beyond. From each rupture, something emerged—huge, asymmetrical shapes dragging themselves free of the mountain like parasites shedding skin.
Eyes opened.
Dozens of them.
Tens of dozens.
Pale. Reflective. Unconcerned.
One kraken hauled itself fully into view, its bulk scraping stone as it settled, tentacles unfurling with lazy inevitability.
Then another did the same.
Then another.
The chamber filled with them. There were so many that Cain’s brain refused to finish counting.
Ten..
Thirty….
More.
Their silhouettes were visible through widening fractures as the mountain continued to split itself apart to make room.
Each one was as big as the first.
Each one radiated pressure.
Heat warped the air. Water pooled and steamed from an unknown source. The stone beneath their combined weight began to fracture underfoot.
‘This is too much…’
He knew this place was called a death zone, but he hadn’t understood just what that meant.
Cain slowly raised his hands, palms open, fire already responding to his will. Sparks danced along his fingers.
Then he stopped.
Even if he burned one.
Even if he burned two.
Even if he burned until his heart gave out and his soul tore itself apart—
There were too many.
And more were still coming.
Takkar followed his gaze and let out a low, incredulous laugh that turned into a cough. Blood flecked his teeth.
“…You’ve got to be kidding me.”
Bill shifted, placing himself between the nearest kraken and the rest of the group, even as his legs trembled under the strain. He planted his feet anyway.
“I can hold one for two seconds,” he said simply. “Or perhaps two for one second.”
Rikta’s voice shook. “What’s the point? There’s nothing we could possibly do to survive against this…”
Lorian let out a broken sob.
Cain clenched his fists.
The foxkin finally looked at him directly.
Her expression wasn’t mocking.
It was almost sympathetic.
“This,” she said gently. “Is a different place to die.”
The nearest kraken moved.
Tentacles slid forward, suckers tearing gouges through stone.
Another followed.
Then another.
The sheer weight of inevitability pressed down on Cain’s chest until breathing hurt.
The mountain had made its point.
They weren’t welcome here.
He lowered his hands.
“We retreat,” he said. “Now.”
Takkar stared at him. “How?”
Cain met his eyes.
“We—”
Another kraken tore itself free of the wall behind them. Stone cracked and peeled away to make room for it.
“Oh, fuck you,” Cain complained.
This wasn’t a test or a puzzle.
It wasn’t meant to be overcome.
He slammed his hand downward.
The Infinite Wardrobe appeared without a sound.
The massive armoire erupted into existence, dark polished wood gleaming despite the lack of distinct light. Its sheer presence displaced air, dust swirling outward as if reality itself had made room for it.
The krakens reacted immediately.
The nearest one struck, suckers slamming against the wardrobe’s side—
But nothing happened.
The impact rang like a cathedral bell, the force dispersing uselessly.
The foxkin’s ear flicked sharply.
“Huh…” she murmured. “What is this?”
Cain grabbed Rikta first and opened a door, shoving her inside. “All of you, inside. Now.”
Lorian barely resisted as Cain hauled him forward and threw him through the threshold. He vanished into the wardrobe’s interior with a choked gasp.
“Bill!”
The troll hesitated for half a heartbeat, then turned and ran, rubble exploding under his feet as he barreled into the wardrobe.
Another kraken slammed down, tentacles smashing into the stone where Bill had been standing moments before. The chamber shook violently.
“Takkar!”
The beastkin grimaced, pain carving deep lines into his face as he forced himself upright and staggered forward. Cain caught him under the arm and half-dragged, half-threw him through the doors.
Stone cracked overhead.
The chamber was collapsing.
Cain turned back just as a tentacle whipped toward him.
Breakstep.
He vanished from where he stood and reappeared inside the wardrobe, rolling to disperse some of his momentum. The tentacle smashed uselessly through empty air.
He spun and slammed the doors shut.
The instant the wardrobe sealed—
The mountain howled with fury.
Cain released his spell.
The wardrobe vanished.
Stone crashed together where it had stood, tentacles slamming into each other in frustrated violence as the chamber collapsed inward, erasing the space entirely.
***
The interior of the wardrobe was quiet. In the aftermath of their escape, it was warm and stable. The faint scent of polished wood lingered in the air.
Everyone lay where they’d fallen.
Cain sagged against the inner wall, chest heaving. His legs finally gave out as he slid down into a seated position. His hands trembled.
Takkar let out a long, shaky breath. “Remind me,” he muttered. “Why did we decide to go into those mountains instead of sensibly sneaking across the border?”
Rikta laughed weakly, then buried her face in her hands.
Bill lay on his back, staring up at nothing. “We are… very small,” he said thoughtfully.
Cain closed his eyes.
They were in limbo again.
After such a dangerous gamble, they hadn’t moved forward a single step.
Now, they had to wait for Nick to find time to release them again.
“This wasn’t how the story was supposed to end…” the foxkin mumbled to herself, looking around at the interior of the wardrobe with curiosity.
“You’ve been here before,” Cain pointed out. “Was it really that unexpected?”
The foxkin tilted her head, her ears flicking as she studied the wardrobe’s interior like a scholar confronted with an unsolvable theorem.
“This place is beyond me,” she replied. “I cannot see its inner workings, nor do I understand how it is connected to you.”
Cain opened his eyes.
“It’s my cheat skill.”
She smiled faintly at that, then looked away again, tail swaying as if listening to something distant.
“The will behind Voskeg is not pleased,” she said.
“Well, that makes two of us,” he grumbled.
Rikta lifted her head. Her face was pale, streaked with dust and dried blood, but her eyes were sharp again. “Will it come after us?” she asked quietly. “Nobody else has ever escaped before…”
“No,” the foxkin assured them. “It will not leave Voskeg. Everything has a time and a purpose.”
Bill shifted, rolling onto his side. “What is the purpose of those mountains?”
Cain stared at the dark wood grain in front of him.
“It’s probably hiding something. The challenges escalated in response to our persistence. If we had given up sooner, I doubt we would’ve encountered such an overwhelming response so quickly.”
The foxkin’s smile faded.
“You understand now,” she said. “Voskeg can’t be conquered yet.”
Cain looked at her.
“Yet?”
She nodded. “Voskeg must be conquered someday. Since you challenged them as the protagonist, it is now your role to uncover the hidden secrets. But you cannot conquer it yet. That task still lies far ahead.”
Cain didn’t reply immediately.
He pictured the avalanche.
The stone krakens.
It was too far beyond his current level.
He honestly couldn’t even comprehend being powerful enough to tackle those mountains.
Even if he could kill every kraken with a single fireball…
Was there a way to win against the mountains themselves?
He couldn’t see it.
Not yet.
But maybe someday…
Takkar let out a slow breath. “So what happens now?”
Cain shrugged. “We’ll find a different way. I know some people in the city. I’ll ask them to hide you for a while.”
Rikta nodded. Bill grunted in agreement. Lorian, curled and quiet in the corner, managed a small, shaky nod.
The foxkin watched Cain for a long moment, then smiled again.
“Good,” she said. “Then the story may continue.”
Cain leaned his head back against the wardrobe’s wall and closed his eyes.
They failed to cross Voskeg.
But the journey wasn’t completely in vain.
He opened his status window.
‘What should I spend 100 skill points on?’
Project Knightfall 