Bone dust and the scent of brittle herbs coated his tongue as he paced into Almitad’s ritual chamber. Painted skulls lined the walls, a silent menagerie whose eyeless sockets followed his movement through the gloom.

  His boots scuffed against a large, woven rug. Its vibrant threads formed patterns of glowing runes, whimsical skeletons playing lutes, and the stylized cycles of the dual moons.

  From a ceiling hook, a lantern crafted from a cage of polished ribs pulsed with necrotic luminescence. Within it, the undead Mana Bloom’s gold-veined petals cast distorted shadows that writhed and danced on the walls.

  A flat slab of river stone dominated the center of the rug. In stark contrast to the room's whimsical bone-art, the rock was pristine and unworked. Upon it lay the pieces of Zeen’s vengeance.

  The forged barrel and intricate clockwork mechanism, born of the reforged metal of Gil’s oven. The stock, carved from the Gem-Croc’s ivory-white tooth. And Trenn’s perfectly cut emerald, a coin-sized spark of green fire.

  Trenn, sensing things were about to begin, leaned back against a far wall. He had insisted on being present. He wanted to witness the birth of an enchanted weapon.

  By the entrance, Zeen was a knot of coiled tension. His lips were pressed thin as his fingers twisted the frayed hem of his tunic. A fragile hope flickered in his eyes, a lone candle against the hollowing storm of his grief.

  Through their tether, forged in grief, guilt, and adversity, Trenn felt the turbulent cyclone of the Gnome’s soul—a maelstrom of loss and a desperate, burning need for purpose. He stood a few paces behind him, a silent anchor in the charged air, his own pain a distant echo against the raw, immediate agony of his friend.

  Almitad stood before the stone altar, her back to them. From a worn leather roll, she selected a slender stylus whose surface was a mosaic of miniature, inscribed symbols.

  Her hands, steady as the current of a river, guided the bone tip against the ivory stock. A quiet, rhythmic scrape-scrape-scrape filled the chamber.

  Fine, bone-white dust rose in the bloom’s sallow light as she carved a complex, spiraling pattern into the weapon’s stock.

  "These are not just symbols, Trenn." Almitad’s melodic voice cut through the tense air, grounding him. "Rune Arcana is about binding and repulsing. Opening and closing. Locking and unlocking." The rhythmic scraping continued, a steady beat beneath her words.

  "They create a vessel, a cage to hold the power we are about to invoke. Without them, the enchantment would bleed away like water through sand."

  Trenn's skin tingled. He focused his senses, pushing his perception past the physical world. A current of necrotic energy flowed from the undead bloom, funneling through Almitad's serene form and into the bone stylus.

  The freshly-carved grooves in the ivory pulsed with a dissonant hum. The vibration resonated in the hollows of his bones and tasted of static on his tongue. The necrotic mana sank into the runes, a caged power waiting for a purpose.

  The scraping ceased, and Almitad set the bone stylus on the altar. Her serene expression tightened, the calm in her eyes hardening with a solemn gravity.

  Her gaze settled on Zeen, but her fingers found the raw emerald.

  “The emerald is the heart,” she said softly. “But the metal… the metal is the soul.” Her gesture encompassed the reforged barrel, the firing mechanism. “It is linked directly to your quest. It was reforged from your friend’s prized possession; a friend killed by the foe you hunt.” She paused, letting the moment fill the room.

  “For it to mean anything, for it to be more than a hunk of metal, we need it filled with Gil's will."

  A knot formed between Zeen's brows. “I don’t understand? Gil is dead,” he said, the words catching in his throat.

  Almitad gave a slow nod. “Yes. That is why I peer through the World Between Worlds, and call to him. I will show him the way back to the Infiniverse. I will guide him here to speak to you.” Her gaze fixed on Zeen, became heavy with meaning. “You must speak with him. You must ask for his help.”

  Almitad’s voice dropped to a resonant whisper. Her chant, a current of ancient words, flowed into the chamber’s stillness. The Mana Bloom’s necrotic light pulsed to the rhythm of her voice. The air thinned, growing taut around Trenn, a heavy pressure settling on his shoulders.

  A tremor ran through the floorboards. The shadows in the far corner of the room deepened, pooling into a patch of darkness that seemed to drink the bloom's necrotic light. A low hum vibrated through Trenn's bones, a frequency of profound loss that made the hairs on his arms stand erect.

  “Gil. Join us,” said Almitad. “Follow my voice.”

  From the center of that darkness, a point of silver light ignited. It stretched, pulling the shadows with it, weaving them into a translucent, shimmering form.

  The shape solidified. It was Gil—not the hateful wraith of the ruin, but a shimmering, translucent echo of a man.

  His form was a tapestry of memories woven from sorrowful light. Trenn could make out the familiar, broad-shouldered frame of a Gnome, the ghost of a kind smile, and the faint outline of a cook’s apron tied around his waist.

  Wisps of silver smoke, the last spectral residue of the fire that claimed him, coiled slowly at the blurred edges of his form.

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  Trenn’s empathetic link, dominated by the bravado Zeen had forged from his grief, changed in an instant. The anger, the desperate purpose—it all collapsed into a raw, choked sob that tore from Zeen’s throat.

  A torrent of guilt and regret rushed through the bond, a psychic feedback so profound it made Trenn’s own chest ache.

  “Gil…” Zeen’s voice was a broken thing. “I’m so sorry. It… it was my fault. I’m the one who brought Ezy, Mara, and Trenn into our scheme. If I hadn’t, that damned Fire Elemental…”

  The spirit’s hand reached out, a ribbon of pearlescent light that passed harmlessly through Zeen’s slumped shoulder. Its reply was not a sound, but a thought that landed fully formed in everyone’s mind.

  “It was never your fault, Zeen. Never. Thanks to you, my life was a great adventure. I love you,” it said, looking saddened. “Your guilt, your pain… it is a poison. You must find a way to let go.”

  “Never!” said Zeen. “I’ll never forget…”

  “It’s not about forgetting. It’s about changing. Continue to think about me, Zeen, but when you do, be happy for the time we had. Not sad for the time taken from us.”

  Zeen looked directly at Gil. “Help me. Together… we can get our revenge. But I swear, until the One-Eye is dead and buried, I will never forgive, and I will never accept what happened to you.”

  Gil’s spectral gaze turned from the weeping Gnome to the metal barrel on the altar. “Is that why you called me here? Is that why you reforged the symbol of my quiet life into a weapon?”

  Zeen looked down. “Yes. I need your help. I need to become a warrior. The iron of my musket needs your will.”

  Gil’s spectral form flickered and sighed. “Even in afterlife, you include me in your adventures.” A new, unyielding purpose resonated from the spirit, a clear intent that filled the chamber. “I won’t deny you in death what I never held back in life. As usual, I will be by your side.” The spirit turned towards Almitad.

  “Bind me to it, Shepherd of Loss. I give it my will, and I give it my soul.” Gil’s spectral eyes turned back to Zeen. “I will be the fire in your hand, Zeen. We will get revenge together.”

  A solemn weight settled in Almitad’s voice. “If I do this—if I tether his spirit to the weapon—Gil will be denied passage to the Realm of Loss until the day my enchantment is broken.”

  Gil's form shimmered. A steady, unyielding intent flowed from the spirit, a psychic pressure that Trenn felt through his senses. A shuddering breath tore from Zeen's lungs, and he gave a single, tear-streaked nod.

  Almitad placed the emerald against Zeen’s chest. Through the tether, Trenn felt the frantic thrum of the gnome's heart beneath the stone. She guided Zeen’s trembling hand to cover the gem. “Channel it,” she instructed, her voice a calm, steadying current. “Your love. Your grief. Your resolve. Push it all into the stone.”

  Zeen held Gil's gaze. Through the tether, Trenn felt the full weight of their shared lifetime—a flood of partnership, of shared laughter and quiet understanding. The psychic torrent channeled through the weeping Gnome, a raw power that blazed from his hand into the gem.

  The Shepherd of Loss began a litany. She spoke of shared memories, of love, and of purpose.

  The gem on Zeen’s chest flared as an incandescent pulse banished the necrotic gloom, searing the chamber in a moment of blinding radiance. A pearlescent tendril of light extended from the center of Gil’s ghostly form. It flowed from the shadows and connected to the musket’s forged barrel on the stone altar.

  The new tether solidified and braided upon itself. It became so complex, it reminded Trenn of the connection that once bound Mara to the Mana Forest.

  Almitad’s eyes widened. “The enchantments… they all took hold…” She plucked the blazing stone from Zeen’s chest and quickly set it into the ivory stock. The carved runes flared instantly. Their caged mana wrapped around the gem’s incandescent core. The light from the runes tightened, locking Almitad’s enchantments in place.

  “Speed, power, resilience, and range. All of my Enchantment Arcanas are locked into your weapon’s stock,” she said, baffled, analyzing the runecarved stock that contained the enchanted emerald. “I’ve never worked with such a powerful catalyst.”

  A final, discordant hum resonated from the weapon, a vibration that traveled through the stone floor and up Trenn's legs.

  Gil and Zeen looked at each other before turning to the weapon. “Do it,” Gil said. “Make me whole.”

  The radiance receded, plunging the chamber back into the sallow light of the undead bloom. A heavy quiet settled in the room; every eye was turned to Zeen. The Gnome’s ragged breathing had stopped. The air itself felt thick with the weight of Gil’s decision.

  Zeen pushed his exhaustion aside. He reached out with a steady hand and took the finished stock from the altar. He began to assemble the weapon. The runecrafted stock was Zeen's resolve. The soulbound barrel was his grief. The clockwork mechanism was his vengeance.

  “I swear on this weapon, on Gil’s soul,” Zeen said, lifting the weapon to his lips. “I will kill the One-Eye, or die trying.”

  The fire cast a flickering light on their faces. The frantic work of the past weeks was done, leaving a heavy quiet in its place.

  He watched the flames dance across their features. They were healed, scarred, and irrevocably changed.

  "Now hold this plating down so I can secure it."

  Zeen grunted, bracing a slab of makeshift plating against the Scrapper’s frame. The machine’s cockpit was a large wooden barrel, fitted over the undead Beaver Kin’s skeleton from under its hips to the top of its ribcage.

  Ezy climbed inside. Her iron hook moved with a practiced economy of motion, tightening a brass bolt with a final, solid twist.

  The machine resembled a macabre puppet. Skeletal arms, legs, and a long, wide tailbone jutted from its reinforced barrel body.

  Splints of wood held together by strips of scavenged metal braced the long bones of its arms and legs. Sharpened metal spikes ran across the splints and capped each bony fist.

  The Scrapper's control panel was nothing like the Stomper's complex array. It held only a few levers and dials, most of them inert. Almitad had bound the undead machine to Ezy's will, allowing her to move it with a thought.

  An acrid scent of herbs and rendered fat pulled Trenn’s gaze to the fire.

  Mara knelt beside a simmering cauldron. The explosive grace of a predator was gone from her movements, replaced by a scientist’s meticulous focus. She held a glass vial to the light, inspecting the moss-green liquid within, her vulpine brow furrowed in concentration.

  She uncorked it, sniffed the contents, and gave a satisfied nod before setting the vial into a padded leather case.

  Trenn’s gaze shifted from one companion to the next.

  They were a unit, a strange and broken whole, reforged in the crucible of their shared trauma. It reminded Trenn of the Goblin Wars. Of the bond he had forged with Mara between the killings and the quiet campfires.

  He turned his gaze to Almitad.

  "Tell us about Dawn's Tears. It's time to end this."

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