By the time I reached the west inn, the courtyard behind it was already busy.
The crate was there.
I noticed it first, resting on a reinforced carrier frame near the stables, wrapped again in layered cloth and sealed tight. Seeing it outside my room felt strange, like spotting a thought I hadn't finished having in public. Someone had been careful with it. More careful than they needed to be for an ordinary archive request.
Captain Edrin Ward stood nearby, speaking quietly with two soldiers. He turned when he sensed me approach, not startled, just aware.
Up close, he looked exactly the way a man with his Standing should. Tall, broad-shouldered, built in a way that suggested years of carrying weight rather than lifting it. His hair was trimmed short, practical. Light stubble framed his jaw, softening the lines without hiding them. The faint scars along his knuckles and jaw weren't dramatic. They were the kind you stopped noticing after a while.
His eyes were steel-gray.
Calm. Measuring. The sort that made you feel seen without feeling threatened.
"You're early," he said.
"I didn't want to be late," I replied casually.
That earned a brief nod.
"Good," he said. "We'll leave shortly after midday, like I said, I don't want to delay this more than it should. Before that, introductions."
He gestured to the two soldiers beside him.
"This is Tomas," he said, indicating the man on his right. "And Lyra."
Tomas inclined his head politely. He was broad but not tall, with a solid frame that looked better suited to holding ground than charging forward. His armor was light but reinforced in places that suggested he expected to be near the center of trouble. A small satchel hung at his side, marked with simple sigils I recognized as stabilizing seals.
Support, then.
Lyra stood on Edrin's other side, one hand resting near the hilt of a short blade at her hip. She was lean, quick-looking, with sharp eyes that kept drifting toward the road and the tree line beyond the inn. Her hair was tied back tight, practical. The bow strapped across her back wasn't decorative.
Tracker.
Edrin waited until we were all facing each other.
"Tomas," he continued, "handles support and recovery. If something goes wrong, he's the one who keeps people standing."
Tomas smiled faintly. "Or at least breathing."
Lyra snorted. "He's modest."
Edrin turned to her. "Lyra scouts ahead and tracks. If there's a problem on the road, she'll see it before we walk into it."
Lyra's gaze flicked to me, brief and assessing. "I don't miss much."
"I'm sure you don't," I said.
She gave a short nod, apparently satisfied.
Edrin looked back at me. "You'll stay near the center. We're not rushing. The route should be clear, but Aetherfall has a way of disagreeing with preparation."
"I understand," I said.
"You'll also be carrying what you need to work," he added. "But you won't handle the crate on the move. That's the carrier's responsibility."
I glanced toward the frame again. "That's fine."
He studied me for a moment longer, then continued.
"The road is long," Edrin said. "Not dangerous, but tiring. Expect uneven terrain, weather shifts, and stretches with no shelter. We'll stop when needed. Tomas will monitor condition. Lyra will set the pace."
"And me?" I asked.
"You'll observe," he said simply. "And tell me if something feels wrong."
That caught my attention.
"You don't expect me to fight," I said.
" No, nothing personal. Your function isn't built for direct combat, and I know you're aware of its limits," Edrin replied. "What I expect from you is to notice the things others won't."
Lyra raised an eyebrow. "That's a lot to put on an archivist."
Edrin didn't look at her. "That's why he's here and that's why he's an archivist."
Silence settled for a moment, not awkward, just thoughtful.
Tomas broke it. "Lunch first, then we move?"
"Yes," Edrin said. "Eat. Drink. Rest while you can."
As the others dispersed briefly, Lyra lingered.
"You ever traveled this far out?" she asked.
"No," I said. "This is my first time leaving Hearthroot."
She hummed. "Then don't be surprised if the road feels longer than it should."
"Does it?" I asked.
"Sometimes," she replied, already turning away.
Tomas approached me next, offering a small flask. "Electrolyte mix," he said. "Helps with fatigue."
"Thank you," I said, accepting it.
He smiled more openly than the others. "You look like someone who forgets to eat when thinking too hard."
"That obvious?"
"Only because I do the same," he said.
Edrin called us back together after lunch.
"We move now," he said. "Lyra, lead. Tomas, behind the crate. Theo, stay between us."
I nodded, adjusting the strap of my satchel.
As we passed through the edge of town, I glanced back once at Hearthroot. The buildings looked smaller from this angle, less like shelter and more like memory.
Edrin noticed.
"This is your last chance to change your mind. You can hand everything over to us, and we'll bring it to the capital. It doesn't have to be your problem. They can deal with it themselves," he said quietly.
"I won't," I replied firmly.
He didn't push. He just nodded and turned forward.
The road stretched ahead, pale and unassuming.
And for the first time since arriving in Aetherfall, I wasn't walking it alone.
~~~
The road out of Hearthroot did not announce itself.
There was no gate, no marker carved into stone, no sense of crossing a boundary. One moment we were still within sight of tiled roofs and familiar paths, and the next the buildings thinned, the ground sloped, and the land began to stretch in a way that felt less planned.
Lyra took the lead without being told. Her steps were light, measured, her attention split between the path ahead and the space around it. Tomas walked near the crate and its carrier, checking straps, listening to the subtle sounds of metal and wood shifting as the frame moved. Captain Edrin kept an easy pace between them.
I stayed where he indicated, near the center.
After the first hour, I spoke.
"I should tell you something," I said quietly, keeping my voice low enough that it wouldn't carry farther than needed. "I'm not good at pacing."
Edrin glanced at me, expression unchanged. "In what way."
"My physical stats are low," I said. "I won't slow you on purpose, but I can't maintain long stretches without rest."
I didn't open my status. I didn't list numbers. I just stated the truth.
I believed that if a group was going to move together into something unknown, there had to be a minimum level of honesty. Even if I didn't know where that honesty would end.
Edrin nodded once. "Understood."
That was it. No follow-up questions. No doubt.
"Most archivists prefer administrative posts," he added after a moment. "Cities. Courts. Record halls attached to kingdoms. Not roads."
"I figured," I said.
"They tend to work best where time moves slowly," he continued. "You don't strike me as someone who chose this by comfort."
I didn't answer that. I wasn't sure how to.
We walked in silence for a while after that, the rhythm of footsteps settling into something steady. The land rolled gently at first, grass giving way to packed earth and stone. The sky stayed clear, but the air felt heavier the farther we went, as if distance itself carried weight.
After some time, curiosity won out.
"How big is Aetherfall?" I asked.
Edrin didn't answer immediately. He adjusted his grip on the strap across his shoulder, eyes forward.
"Big enough that no one has walked all of it," he said. "Small enough that people keep thinking they might."
"That's not an answer."
"It's the most accurate one," he replied.
I waited.
"There are at least twelve known kingdoms," Edrin continued. "Independent territories, alliances, fractured domains that barely qualify as nations. Some cooperate. Some don't. Trade moves where it can."
"And beyond that?"
He exhaled slowly. "Beyond that is the mist."
I had heard of it, of course. Everyone had.
The dark mist that clung to the edges of known Aetherfall. A boundary no map could pin down, shifting and swallowing landmarks without warning.
"Has anyone crossed it?" I asked.
"People try," he said. "Some return. Most don't. Even Aetherfallians don't know what's past it."
Lyra glanced back briefly. "And the ones who come back don't talk much."
That shut down further questions.
The first night came without incident.
We made camp beneath a shallow rock overhang, just enough shelter to block wind. Tomas set wards that weren't magical so much as practical. Noise dampeners. Heat retention. Small measures that added up.
We ate quietly.
No one told stories. No one forced conversation. The road didn't encourage it.
I slept lightly, waking often, not from danger but from the sense that the silence around us was too complete. When morning came, it arrived cleanly, like nothing had happened.
The second day followed much the same pattern.
Slow pace. Regular breaks. Lyra scouting ahead, returning with short updates. "Clear." "Tracks, old." "Nothing fresh."
Too clean.
By the third night, the feeling settled in my chest, familiar and unwelcome.
It felt safe.
Not the earned kind of safety that came from preparation and awareness. The hollow kind. Like a room that stayed quiet because everyone inside was holding their breath.
I sat near the fire, watching the flames curl and collapse, and tried to explain it to myself. The route had been cleared recently. The expedition had already passed through. There was no reason for resistance.
And yet.
Predators waited. They didn't rush. They watched.
The land around us felt like that. Still. Patient.
I didn't say anything. Not yet.
Failure Converter didn't stir. That was the strangest part. Whatever this was, it hadn't crossed the line into abnormality. It was tension without trigger, threat without shape.
On the fourth night, Edrin sat beside me, close enough that the firelight caught the faint scars on his knuckles.
"You've been watching the dark," he said.
"I don't trust it," I replied.
He nodded. "Good."
"You feel it too?"
"Yes."
That was all he said.
We broke camp early the next morning.
The road narrowed. The ground grew darker, the soil packed tighter, as if something heavy had passed through too many times to count. The air felt thicker, not harder to breathe, just resistant, like moving through water.
Lyra slowed the pace without being told.
No one complained.
Whatever waited ahead, it was letting us come closer.
And I had the distinct feeling that when it finally moved, it would not miss.
~~~
A week passed on the road.
I felt every day of it.
My legs ached in a way that sleep never fully erased, and my shoulders stayed stiff no matter how often I adjusted the straps of my pack. I learned to hide it. Not because anyone demanded it, but because stopping to acknowledge fatigue made it worse. If I kept moving, my body complained quietly. If I paused too long, it screamed.
So I kept moving.
The strange part was that nothing went wrong.
No ambush. No sudden shifts in terrain. No monsters wandering too close to camp. Every night passed without incident, and every morning greeted us with the same calm stretch of road ahead. Too calm.
By the eighth day, the forest thinned.
The dense green that had surrounded us for days slowly gave way to scrub and dry grass. Trees grew farther apart, their leaves smaller, their shade weaker. The ground changed color, brown fading into pale yellow, then into something closer to ash.
Then, without warning, the land opened.
I stopped walking before I realized I had done it.
Ahead of us stretched heat and dust and sand, rolling outward in uneven waves until it blurred into the horizon. The forest ended sharply, like someone had drawn a line and decided life stopped there. The air shimmered faintly above the ground, and the wind carried grit that stuck to skin and fabric alike.
Tomas whistled under his breath. "Well," he said. "Here we are..."
"Halfway," he added after a moment, glancing back at me.
I stared at him. "Halfway?"
He nodded, entirely too calm about it.
Lyra had drifted closer at some point. She caught my expression and grinned. "Yes."
Just yes.
I wanted to groan. I wanted to sit down and refuse to move until someone explained why halfway felt like a personal insult. Instead, I swallowed it and pulled my hood up.
Everyone followed suit.
The sun sat high, bright and unforgiving, and the wind cut sideways, warm and dry. Sand crept into seams and folds, into boots and sleeves. Each step felt heavier than the last, not because the ground resisted, but because the heat pressed down like a hand.
Captain Edrin studied the open land without surprise.
"This was expected," he said. "The previous expedition cleared the road, not the region."
Lyra nodded. "Sand zones don't stay clear for long."
"How long?" I asked.
She shrugged. "Hours. Days. Depends on what's moving underneath."
That answer didn't sit well.
We moved forward anyway.
The sand shifted underfoot, not dangerously, but enough that balance required attention. The wind rose and fell in uneven bursts, sometimes carrying nothing, sometimes flinging grit hard enough to sting exposed skin.
It was Tomas who stopped first.
He raised a hand, palm down.
Everyone froze.
I felt it then. Not a sound. A vibration. Faint, distant, like something heavy moving far below the surface.
Lyra crouched, pressing her hand to the ground. Her expression tightened.
"Earth worms," she said quietly.
"The big type ones?" Tomas asked.
"Yes."
I swallowed. I had read about them. Sand-dwellers that grew large enough to swallow wagons whole, blind but sensitive to movement and sound. Not aggressive by nature, but territorial and easily irritated.
"How many?" Edrin asked, too untroubled.
Lyra listened again, eyes unfocused. "At least two. Maybe more. They're spread out."
Edrin nodded, unsurprised. "There's no way the last team wiped out all of them."
Tomas sighed. "Of course not."
"They don't hunt the same way," Edrin continued. "You remove one, another moves in. It's not a threat you clear. It's a condition you work around."
The vibration grew stronger.
I felt it in my boots, a low hum that made my bones feel hollow. Sand shifted nearby, subtle ripples forming and fading as something massive adjusted course beneath us.
My breath came shallow.
This wasn't the kind of danger that announced itself with claws or roars. It was slow. Patient. Hungry in a way that didn't require intent.
"Slow steps," Edrin said. "No sudden movements. Keep spacing."
"And if one surfaces?" I asked.
Lyra glanced at me. "Then we move fast and pray it chooses wrong."
Comforting.
We adjusted formation, spreading out just enough to reduce vibration without losing cohesion. Every footstep became deliberate. Even breathing felt too loud.
The sand to our left bulged.
Not breaking the surface. Just rising, settling, as if something immense had turned in its sleep.
Sweat slid down my spine.
I focused on keeping my pace even, matching the rhythm of the group. Failure Converter stayed quiet. That meant this was still within the bounds of what Aetherfall considered normal.
That did not make it less terrifying.
The vibration passed beneath us, drifting away toward the open dunes. After several long minutes, Lyra lifted her hand again.
"Clear," she said.
No one relaxed.
We didn't speak until the sun dipped lower and the heat softened into something tolerable.
As we resumed our slow march across the sand, I glanced back once at the forest line now far behind us.
The land ahead was wide and empty and watching.
And whatever waited at the end of this road wasn't done letting us approach.
~~~
The ground split open.
Not cracked. Not shifted.
It opened.
Sand burst upward in a violent arc, a wall of dust and debris thrown into the air as if the land itself had been torn apart. The vibration that followed was no longer distant or subtle. It slammed into my body, rattling my teeth, stealing the air from my lungs.
Something massive rose from beneath us.
A mouth, wide enough to swallow a house, tore through the surface. Rows of jagged, stone-hard ridges lined the inside, spiraling inward into darkness. Heat rolled out of it, dry and suffocating, carrying the sharp scent of minerals and blood long ground into the sand.
An extra-large giant sand worm.
No. Larger than that.
This was not one of the roaming hunters Lyra had warned us about.
Captain Edrin reacted instantly.
"Kar'thessa!" he shouted.
The name cut through the chaos like a blade.
Queen of the Giant Sand Worms.
I had read about her once, buried deep in an old record marked unreliable and exaggerated. A territorial monarch that rarely surfaced, one that did not hunt travelers unless something had drawn it out.
Something had.
The worm's body continued to rise, segment after segment pulling free from the earth. Its hide was not smooth like the others described in texts, but layered with hardened plates, cracked and scarred, as if it had survived countless battles beneath the dunes. Each movement sent tremors racing outward, knocking balance from my legs.
Lyra swore under her breath. Tomas braced himself, planting his feet, already reaching for the seals at his waist.
Edrin raised his arm. "Scatter! Do not bunch up!"
We moved on instinct.
I stumbled backward, heart hammering, sand giving way beneath my boots. The worm's shadow fell over us, blotting out the sun as its head twisted, sensing vibration, sound, fear.
Then it roared.
The sound was not loud in the way screams were loud. It was deep. Low. A pressure that crushed inward, making my vision blur and my stomach churn. I tasted blood.
And that was when it happened.
A sharp, burning sensation flared behind my eyes.
My vision flooded red.
A system window slammed into existence, not hovering politely at the edge of my sight, but forcing itself into focus.
[SUB-FUNCTION TRIGGERED]
[FAILURE CONVERTER: ACTIVE]
The text pulsed violently, each blink heavier than the last.
This was not normal danger.
This was not a mistake of terrain or timing or bad luck.
This was something that should not have happened. A convergence. A deviation.
I staggered, clutching my head as information poured in, not as images, but as certainty. The kind that came from collapse, from understanding born not of success, but of things going catastrophically wrong.
Kar'thessa was not supposed to be here.
Not on this path. Not now.
Her emergence meant one thing.
The land had been disturbed deeper than it should have been.
The sealed site.
My breath hitched.
The worm lunged.
Sand exploded outward as her head crashed down where we had stood seconds earlier, jaws snapping shut with enough force to pulverize stone. Lyra rolled aside, barely escaping as the ground caved in behind her.
"Move!" Edrin shouted.
I tried.
My legs felt like they were submerged in lead. Fear clawed at my chest, ancient and primal, telling me to run, to hide, to disappear into the sand and never be found.
Failure Converter burned hotter.
This wasn't just a fight.
This was a warning.
A guardian stirred too early.
Something below had noticed us.
And Kar'thessa had answered the call.