After a few more turns down the spiraling passageway, past rusted pipes and dust-choked corners where even the wind felt stale, the group finally stopped. Luckily, this stretch of the Lower Ward was safe — or at least safer. Clear of any of those winged rats that infested the previous chamber.
Kael glanced behind him.
Was the reason this place was quiet because the massive iron door at the entrance had already been sealed tight by them? Probably...
They marched on until they stood before another massive door. This one was different — withered, old, and crumbling around the edges as if no one had maintained this entire section for decades.
'Was this whole part of the prison even being cared for at all?'
The guard clicked his tongue, then grabbed a pitch-soaked rod from the wall rack. With the flint striker, he sparked it to life, flame bursting at the tip. He handed a second torch to the old man, and a third to Beardy.
"It's crucial you keep these lit," the guard warned. His eyes then flicked to Kael and the boy — both empty-handed.
"As for the ones without torches… stay close. Don't wander."
Kael gulped softly at that. The guard didn't seem to notice — or didn't care — and with one hand he heaved the ancient door upward.
The hinges screamed as the slab of iron lifted, the groan echoing through the hall.
The chamber on the other side was enormous. Not fully dark — the torches illuminated just enough — but dim enough that Kael wished it was pitch black.
Because then he wouldn't have seen the thing in the back corner.
An abjection. Massive — big enough that its hunched frame could've rooted itself as a crude little hut — its limbs were dangled unnaturally long, ending in fingers that were more like hooked talons than anything human. Patches of its skin had sloughed away, revealing dark tendons beneath, while other parts had grown into thick, lumpy calluses as if hardened by years of scraping against stone.
A ridge of malformed bone jutted down its back, twisting to one side like a spine that had given up halfway through growing. Chains thick as Kael's forearm wrapped around its neck, biting into the scarred, leathery flesh. Its breathing came in laborious and wet heaves.
And when its eyes caught the light of the open door — they snapped toward the group.
The creature let out a roar so powerful Kael felt it in his teeth. Dust rained from the ceiling. The floor vibrated.
Then it lunged.
The chains yanked it back a split-second before impact — but still it surged again, slamming its weight forward in furious, snapping motions.
The whole group flinched. Beardy swore loudly, stumbling back into the others. The boy was startled slightly. Even the old man froze mid-step, his body was tensed like a wire about to snap. Whereas Kael felt his legs move before he could think, instinct dragging him backward as his heart was pounding in his chest.
For a moment, all of them retreated as one — a single, panicked motion.
Then the guard moved.
He stepped into their path, planting himself between the group and the monstrosity. With a sharp, practiced motion, he thrust his burning torch forward, the flames licking out toward the creature.
The fire's glow washed over the creature's face — and instantly, it recoiled violently. As if the flame itself were a blade pressed to its throat. It curled away with a pitiful and fearful hiss.
"Move," the guard ordered.
They followed, keeping to the farthest wall with their torches angled outward. Even Kael and the boy pressed shoulder-to-shoulder with the others, trying to make themselves smaller.
Beardy's voice trembled."What… what is that thing?"
"A Brayhound," the guard answered.
"Was supposed to be this prison's sentry beast." He snorted. "Never tamed. Never fulfilled its purpose."
Kael watched as the creature shrank from the torchlight, trembling.
"We trained it to fear fire," the guard went on. "Every time it disobeyed, we burned it until it learned. Fire means pain. And pain means obedience."
They reached a fractured walkway soon after.
What remained of the floor stretched across the chamber in broken, uneven platforms, each separated by jagged gaps that plunged into a yawning abyss. The torchlight barely reached the bottom. It might not have had a bottom at all.
Even the guard hesitated, a flicker of doubt was tightening his grip on the torch.
But he pressed on.
"Step where I step," he said. "And don't look down."
'Easy for him to say...'
Kael swallowed and followed as every inch of his muscle taut. Each platform groaned beneath their weight, causing dust to spill into the blackness below. Every step was like a gamble and a dare.
Until the first sign of trouble came quietly.
One by one, their torches began to diminish.
The first guttered because of the draft — a steady, cold wind breathing up from the abyss below, thinning the flames until they struggled to cling to their own heat.
The second died minutes later, choked by the stale, dust-laden air of the chamber.
When the third torch — Beardy's — finally sputtered and dimmed out completely, the group froze.
They didn't have to wait long.
The creature lurched.
The moment darkness deepened around it, the abjection rammed against its chains with a savage roar, surging toward the group. It couldn't reach them — not yet — but every violent heave sent shuddering tremors across the broken platforms, rattling stone, groaning metal, and the hanging walkway beneath their feet.
"Move! Quickly!" the guard barked.
The group sprinted cautiously.
Another tremor hit — stronger this time. Stone cracked. Chains screamed. And with it, Beardy's footing slipped.
He didn't even have time to curse.
The platform beneath him snapped loose with a crack and dropped straight into the abyss, taking Beardy with it. His silhouette vanished without a sound, swallowed whole by the dark.
No one slowed. No one even looked down.
Their breaths merged into a rising panic as they leapt from slab to slab, the very floor collapsing behind them.
And then—
A sound Kael prayed he had imagined:
Chains straining. Links warping. Metal being changed… bent… torn.
"You're shitting me..."
His blood ran cold. The creature was stepping closer, and its restraints were breaking.
"What—" Kael's voice stopped halfway. "It's — it's coming loose!"
A metallic snap exploded through the chamber.
The chain finally gave.
The abjection surged forward — no longer just reaching, but charging, its massive body thundering across the hanging platforms with its crazed eyes.
Kael acted before he could think.
He yanked out the small vial — the one he'd hidden earlier — and hurled the remaining oil across the platform behind him, splashing it in a wide slick. Then he spun and struck the flint wheel with desperate, frantic sweeps.
Once — no spark.
"Shit!"
Twice — nothing.
"Fuck!"
The creature thundered toward them with its unstoppable momentum.
"COME ON, YOU FREAK!"
Kael struck again—
A spark caught.
Then another.
On the fourth strike, the oil ignited with a violent WHUMP, a curtain of flame roaring to life across the platform.
The creature never had the chance to stop. Its momentum carried it headlong into the blaze. The fire didn't burn it deeply — not fast enough — but the memory of fire did. Pain. Conditioning. Terror.
The abjection shrieked, a raw sound that rattled the chamber. It reared back, scrambling — but the platform beneath it had already weakened from its earlier thrashing. The flames devoured the last of its support.
Until the creature finally slipped. Its claws scraped stone. And then it plunged downward, vanishing into the same endless dark that had taken Beardy moments before.