Chapter 193: Saint Orlan’s

Arthur woke first.

Nothing had attacked them overnight, and the heavy scraping beneath the chapel hadn’t repeated after those first few sounds. He packed his bedroll quietly and laid his gear out while Emily and Chloe woke and started packing.

They didn’t waste time on an elaborate breakfast. Chloe ran a quick physical check on Arthur’s wrist and Emily’s knuckles before sorting her medical bag, pulling the specialized cleansing supplies and salves toward the top.

Emily strapped her heavy gauntlets on, already looking impatient.

Arthur checked Whisperwind, secured a dozen standard arrows, and separated out the smaller bundle of silver-tipped and alchemically treated shafts so he could draw them by touch. He strapped the Necrotic Dagger to his thigh. Decay magic probably wasn’t going to impress anything currently walking around the crypt, but the blade was still a blade.

They left most of the heavy camp supplies hidden inside the old pilgrim shelter and walked back to the chapel carrying only what they needed for a dungeon run.

Arthur walked straight to the back of the chapel.

The original mechanism behind the cracked saint statue was undeniably sealed beneath thick, repaired mortar. He didn’t waste time ripping the wall apart. From the layout Arthur remembered, the crypt still had to connect somewhere beneath the altar.

They started checking the floor.

Emily found it ten minutes later.

"Hollow," Emily said, stamping her heavy boot near the edge of the chancel steps.

Arthur crouched down. Beneath a thick layer of accumulated dust and old, melted candle wax, he found the edge of a heavy iron ring set into a stone panel.

The crypt entrance hadn’t been destroyed after all. The repairs had simply left him looking in the wrong place.

He pulled another standard arrow, waited for a clear angle between Emily’s shifting legs, and pinned the crawler’s skull to the stone floor.

Arthur grabbed the ring, braced his legs, and hauled upward. The stone groaned, then lifted, sliding back to reveal a dark, narrow stairwell plunging straight down into the cold.

The destination was correct. Reality had just changed the route.

They headed down.

The temperature dropped noticeably within the first dozen steps. The smooth, religious carvings on the walls gradually transitioned into older, heavier burial architecture.

Chloe paused near the bottom of the stairs, shining a small magi-tech light over the wall.

"Wards," Chloe said.

Arthur looked. Faint, intricate lines were carved into the stone, surrounding the archway that led deeper into the crypt.

"Cracked," Chloe said, pointing to a deep fissure running through the center of the carving. "I wouldn’t trust them."

Arthur nodded and stepped through the archway.

He recognized the general layout immediately. It was a narrow entry corridor lined with shallow alcoves and stacked burial niches. The stone was old, damp, and smelling heavily of decay.

It reassured him slightly. The crypt itself was exactly where it was supposed to be.

Then he noticed a thick wooden support beam bracing a section of the ceiling.

The timber was old and rotting, but it definitely hadn’t been placed there when the shrine was built centuries ago, and it certainly hadn’t been there in the game. Someone had entered these crypts and tried to reinforce the failing stonework long after Saint Orlan’s original age.

Clatter.

Arthur stopped.

The sound echoed from the darkness further down the corridor.

Four figures staggered out of the gloom.

Two were ordinary corpses, wrapped in decaying burial shrouds. One was dragging itself out of a lower niche, its legs completely ruined. The fourth was taller, wearing the rusted remnants of old chainmail and a heavy iron helm.

Arthur drew Whisperwind, pulled a standard arrow, and released.

The shaft struck the armored corpse dead center on the rusted visor.

Clang.

The arrow snapped against the heavy iron plate. The impact threw the creature’s head back, but it stayed upright and lurched forward, the rusted chainmail rattling loudly in the quiet crypt.

"These ones are less shitty," Emily noted, stepping into the center of the narrow corridor.

"We’re getting closer," Arthur said.

Emily didn’t wait. She lunged forward, grabbed the armored corpse by the rusted shoulder plate, and drove her gauntlet straight into its exposed throat, crushing the rotting windpipe and the spine behind it.

Arthur shifted his aim, ignoring the two ordinary corpses stumbling toward Emily, and focused on the crawler dragging itself across the floor toward Chloe.

He pulled a treated arrow, waited for a clear angle between Emily’s shifting legs, and pinned the crawler’s skull to the stone floor.

Chloe stepped forward, sweeping her heavy iron-shod staff across the shins of the nearest standing corpse, dropping it to its knees. Emily spun and kicked its head off.

The fight lasted less than a minute.

Arthur walked past the destroyed bodies and stopped near a section of the wall. In the game, there was supposed to be a junction ahead. The left path led to a dead-end burial room, the right path continued toward the lower crypt, and a hidden supply niche sat right here behind a stone relief of a saint.

He pushed his fingers into a crack near the edge of the relief and pulled.

The stone swung open.

Inside sat a small, incredibly dusty wooden shelf. A glass vial filled with a thick, golden liquid sat next to a small pouch.

Arthur pulled them out and handed them to Chloe.

Chloe wiped the dust from the vial and checked the seal. "Healing draught. Still sealed." She opened the pouch and checked the contents. "Low-grade holy salt. Someone left an emergency stash down here."

She looked up at him, surprised.

Emily leaned against the wall. "Lucky guess?"

"Extremely," Arthur said, turning back toward the corridor.

They reached the junction a minute later.

Arthur stopped.

In the game, a wide stone corridor continued straight ahead, leading down a short flight of stairs toward the lower crypt.

In reality, the stone corridor ended in a massive wall of collapsed stone.

It wasn’t a fresh cave-in. The rubble was settled, covered in decades of dust and pale white mold. The original route had been completely destroyed and sealed.

Arthur checked the game layout in his head. There was no alternative route. The corridor was the only way down.

But reality clearly disagreed.

A few feet away from the cave-in, the stone floor was heavily scraped. Newer, cruder masonry framed a jagged opening that had been physically cut through the burial wall, forming a rough side passage that angled sharply downward.

Arthur stared at the rough opening for another second.

"This way."

The side passage was incredibly narrow. The ceiling hung low, and the stone walls closed in uncomfortably.

Emily squeezed past him and took point.

Arthur let her. There wasn’t enough room to fully draw Whisperwind without scraping one of the limbs against the stone, so he fell in behind her with one hand resting on the Necrotic Dagger.

He activated Eagle Eye.

Through the sharpened vision, the details of the rough tunnel jumped out at him. The dust on the floor wasn’t settled. It was churned and freshly disturbed. Deep scrape marks scored the stone floor, running through the dust again and again.

Something heavy had been moving through here recently.

Arthur remembered the dragging noise beneath the chapel the night before.

The narrow passage finally opened up, dumping them into a room Arthur didn’t remember at all.

It wasn’t huge. It looked like an old ossuary. Yellowed bones were stacked neatly into deep recesses carved into the walls, staring blankly out into the center of the room.

At the far end of the chamber sat a heavy, sealed stone door. A large, faded carving of a sunburst—Saint Orlan’s symbol—decorated the center.

But the door wasn’t sealed anymore.

It had been forced partially open.

From the inside.

Fresh, jagged scratches tore across the stone floor where the heavy door had been violently shoved backward, leaving a gap just wide enough for something large to squeeze through.

Emily walked closer, looking at the dark gap.

"That wasn’t in your useful information, was it?" Emily asked quietly.

Arthur stared at the damaged doorway, his hand tightening on the hilt of the dagger.

"No."

Then something moved in the darkness beyond the door.