Brimma knew before the Herald even opened his big, slobbering mouth.

  The Final Trial’s platform felt colder than the grave under her boots, the void yawning wider than any cave she’d ever crawled through. Ten champions stood in their places, each with their hungry eyes locked on the Founding Crystal burning like a false dawn in the distance.

  She searched for her companions, she already knew something was wrong, and yet she hoped like the foolish old woman that she was. The Herald’s voice was already bellowing like a drunk rooster, rattling her skull, but Brimma forced her eyes across the platforms and the fractured battlefield, hunting for familiar faces.

  There, Kael. The elf was a streak of lean muscle and shadows, bow clutched tight. For a heartbeat, relief warmed her chest. Then she saw the medallion flare in his hand. His body blurred, blinked, and was gone.

  Brimma’s lips pressed into a thin, wrinkled line.

  “So that’s it, then,” she muttered. “Off you hop, boy. Clever, I’ll give you that. Cowardly, but clever. You’ll live to sulk another day.”

  She didn’t know how to feel about it. They’d bled together. Hid together. Survived together. She’d thought they were all in this mess to the bitter end. But of course it was the smart choice. Maybe she should do the same, leave this cursed place while her bones were still intact. A shiny bauble like that Founding Crystal wasn’t worth her skin.

  And yet… her eyes slid to it. The way it pulsed, the way it whispered legacy, power, change. Even an old crone wasn’t immune to its call.

  Brimma snorted, forcing her gaze elsewhere.

  Alistair.

  She felt for the bond, tugged it tight, and there he was, a nightmare wreathed in ash and ghostfire, carving a bloody path through the shades. He sprinted like a predator unleashed, armor trailing smoke, blades dripping with fury. A fearsome sight.

  “By the roots,” Brimma rasped, shaking her head. “Look at you. Strutting about like a lord of shadows. Always charging in like you’ve got more lives than sense.” Her mouth twisted, but her eyes softened despite themselves. “Still… you’ll make the gods choke on their wine if you keep that up.”

  The faintest warmth flickered in her chest. Pride, damn it all.

  And then she searched for Thess.

  Her gaze swept the battlefield again. The juggernaut, the sorceress, the beastkin. Strangers all. No moss-green hair. No golden eyes.

  Nothing.

  The realization struck like a hammer to the chest.

  Thess wasn’t with them anymore.

  Her staff trembled in her hands, and the ache in her joints had nothing to do with age. “No,” Brimma whispered, her throat closing. “Not you too, my dear Thessaly. My lovely child…”

  The void roared around her, gods howling, the Herald shrieking, but Brimma barely heard any of it.

  Another granddaughter gone. Another piece of her heart ripped out.

  Memories came unbidden, her granddaughter’s laugh, the gentle weight of a child curled against her knee, the way life had been ripped away from her family once before. And now again. Another granddaughter stolen. Another branch of her heart torn out.

  “My dear Thessaly,” Brimma whispered, voice cracking like dry bark. “Why… why not me? I’m old. I’m brittle. You had all your blooming ahead of you.”

  The gods roared overhead, drunk on their spectacle, but she barely heard them.

  She forced herself to look at the others, to focus on the present and grasp whatever slim chance she had on getting the damn crystal or at least help Alistair get it...

  Her eyes narrowed as she saw a slim, hooded man waiting at his own platform as chaos unfolded below. The necromancer. He stood there, empty-handed, no pets, no corpse-puppets, no groveling familiars. The kind of calm that wasn’t calm at all, but a trap waiting to be sprung. Brimma had seen that look before, in spider dens, in gamblers’ eyes, in her husband’s face the day he promised he was “just having one more ale.”

  “Don’t you dare pretend you’re harmless,” she muttered, knuckles white on her staff. “Old Brimma wasn’t born yesterday.”

  Her lip curled. She thought of the way Alistair and Kael had rolled their eyes every time she barked at them, the way they acted like her warnings were overcautious prattle. She’d called them squirrels in a sack more than once, and she hadn’t been wrong. One was reckless, the other secretive. Both too young and too sure of themselves. And now one of her girls was gone because youth always thought it had forever.

  “Stupid children,” she rasped, though the tremor in her voice betrayed her. “Always thinking tomorrow is guaranteed.”

  She wiped her eyes roughly with the back of her sleeve and squared her shoulders.

  Enough weeping. Enough weakness. She was still here, wasn’t she? And if the gods wanted a show, then she’d give them one that would rattle their divine teeth.

  Brimma bared her crooked smile, every wrinkle on her face deepening like cracks in stone. “Alright, you shade-spawned bastards. Let’s see how you like a grandmother’s touch.”

  The void swallowed her, and the Arena roared back.

  Shades came immediately, hollow champions with cracked armor and ghostlight eyes, swarming across the fractured stone. Brimma didn’t even get a chance to spit before they were on her.

  “Of course,” she grumbled, snapping her staff up. “No time for introductions, just straight to the killing. Typical.”

  Her gnarled branch pulsed green, spitting a jagged bolt of energy into the nearest shade. It staggered, its form twitching with the impact. Another bolt. Another. Four, five in rapid succession before the damn thing finally unraveled into ash.

  “Stubborn pests,” she muttered. “I’ve seen weeds with more courtesy.”

  Two more closed in, rusted weapons raised. Brimma snarled, firing again. The first shade crumbled under her barrage of bolts, but the second got close enough to swing. She ducked, the blade whispering past her ear, and smashed her staff into its chest. The wood cracked against phantom bone, green sparks flaring, and the shade dissolved with a shriek.

  [Enemy Shade Destroyed: +1]

  EXP Gained: +420

  “Ha! Didn’t like that, did you? Old Brimma’s still got teeth.”

  She straightened, breath ragged, and then froze.

  Because while every other champion sprinted toward the Founding Crystal or fell into duels with one another, one figure stood still.

  The Necromancer.

  His robes hung like rotting banners, tattered but heavy with quiet menace. His hands were empty. No pets, no familiars, no stitched horrors crawling at his heels. He looked… vulnerable. Almost pitiful.

  Brimma narrowed her eyes. “Oh, no. No, no, no. I know that trick. I’ve seen spiders play dead too, waiting for flies to come close.”

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  Her skin prickled.

  The shades rushing him slowed, their hollow heads tilting. Then they stopped altogether, as though caught by an unseen leash.

  The Necromancer lifted his arms.

  Green runes flared across the void, slithering into the shades’ broken bodies. Their eyes lit one by one, pale, sickly emerald. The first dozen dropped to their knees, spines bowing, before snapping back up in unison.

  “Ah,” Brimma whispered. “And there it is.”

  More shades turned. Dozens. Then hundreds. A tide of broken champions shackled by his will, their chants rising in a bone-deep rhythm that made the Arena tremble.

  The Necromancer’s lips moved. Low words. Binding words. Words Brimma recognized from old tomes better left unopened. Each syllable sent another wave of shades to their knees, each gesture flooded them with dark power.

  And then he buffed them.

  Waves of shadow pulsed from his hands. The shades grew sharper. Faster. Their broken armor thickened with spectral plating, their weapons gleamed like new.

  A disciplined army rose where moments ago there had been only chaos.

  And they came for her.

  “Of course they bloody did,” Brimma hissed, backing up fast.

  The first wave hit hard. She fired green bolt after green bolt, her staff crackling with desperate magic. Four, five, six shots just to bring one down, and still they pressed in. She spun, slamming her staff down.

  [Seismic Bloom – Activated]

  The ground around her erupted in jagged stone flowers, petals blasting outward. Half a dozen shades were knocked back, their forms shredded. For a heartbeat she had space.

  Then the next wave poured in.

  Her staff fired again, bolts ripping holes through phantom torsos. The shades screamed, their green-lit eyes unblinking as they clawed forward. Their weapons scraped her armor, slicing shallow cuts into her side.

  [Damage Taken: -14 HP]

  [Damage Taken: -11 HP]

  HP: 248 → 223 / 248

  “Damn persistent ghosts!” she barked, smashing her staff into another’s head. “I told you already, you’ve no business here!”

  But they weren’t listening to her. They were listening to him.

  The Necromancer stood untouched, calm in the storm, his army swelling. Every shade she killed, two more turned their heads toward his call, shackled to his will. And his eyes, those black glass eyes, never moved. He was watching. Measuring.

  The next wave nearly broke her.

  They surged as one, a wall of hollow faces and ghostfire blades. Brimma fired, snarled, spun her staff in wide arcs. She slammed down a [Thornbloom Totem], its rotating stone petals spitting projectiles into the horde, but it was like throwing pebbles into a river.

  “Not like this,” she muttered, chest heaving, panic crawling up her throat. For a moment she clutched her medallion, ready to use it and flee this nightmare.

  The shades closed in. Too many. Too close.

  She did the only thing left.

  [Shapeshift – Rat Form]

  Her body cracked and shrank, bones collapsing inward, fur sprouting. In an instant she was a darting blur of brown, squeaking as ghostly blades swiped overhead. The shades shrieked in fury, clawing at the ground where she’d been.

  Tiny paws carried her through cracks in the stone, through gaps between specters. She scattered into the chaos, tail whipping behind her. For a moment, blessedly, she was beneath notice.

  Safe.

  When she emerged again, panting, she was back in her gnome form, staff shaking in her grip. Sweat plastered her hair to her brow. Her chest hurt. Her eyes burned.

  And still the Necromancer stood, his army chanting, his hand raised.

  Brimma spat into the void, voice cracking. “Fine. Play your games, corpse-wrangler. But I’ll not be your fodder.”

  She tightened her grip on her staff, green energy pulsing faintly at its tip. Her knees trembled. Her back ached. But her eyes were flint.

  “Let’s see how long your toys last against a grandmother’s temper.”

  The battle became a blur of stone, shrieks, and green fire. Brimma’s staff shook in her hands as she spat another volley of bolts, the wood crackling with strain. Shades dissolved, more replaced them, and she cursed under her breath.

  “Bloody pests. You’d think dying once would’ve been lesson enough.”

  She slammed her staff into the ground.

  [Thornbloom Totem – Activated]

  A stone flower burst from the cracked floor beside her, its petals snapping open to spit jagged shards into the shades. Ghostly torsos ripped apart in showers of ash.

  She spun, gasping, then thrust her staff downward again.

  [Seismic Bloom – Activated]

  The earth buckled. Sharp stone flowers erupted in a circle, knocking shades sprawling, their screeches rattling her ears. The ground quaked beneath her feet, fragments of stone tumbling into the void.

  Brimma staggered, staff clutched tight, sweat dripping into her eyes. “Old bones weren’t meant for this nonsense,” she wheezed, firing another green bolt. “But here we are, killing ghosts like it’s gardening season.”

  And then she froze.

  Because one of the shades wasn’t like the others.

  It fought differently. It moved with memory. Every step, every strike, carried a rhythm Brimma knew too well.

  Her throat closed.

  No moss-green hair now, no golden eyes. Just a faint shimmer, a husk. But when its hollow gaze locked on her, Brimma felt it in her marrow.

  “Thess…” she whispered.

  The shade stilled. For a moment the battlefield seemed to fall away. No roars, no screams, no gods above. Just the two of them, staring across the broken stone.

  Brimma’s staff sagged in her hands. Tears welled hot, spilling down her cheeks. “It should’ve been me,” she choked. “I’m old, rotting, useless. You... you had your whole life ahead of you. All that kindness, all that bloody light you carried. And now look at you.”

  The shade didn’t speak, it couldn’t, but it smiled. Sad, faint, tender. It lifted a hand, a small gesture, urging her forward. Fight. Live.

  Brimma let out a strangled laugh, half sob, half growl. “Don’t you dare tell me to go on, you stubborn child. I buried one granddaughter already, I don’t get to bury two. This isn’t fair. This isn’t...”

  Her voice cracked, breaking into a ragged cough. She wiped her tears on her sleeve, leaving streaks of ash and sweat.

  “Gods damn it, Thessaly,” she muttered, glaring at the shade even as her knees shook. “You were supposed to outlive me. Be better than me. Not die here for the amusement of those crow-faced bastards watching above.”

  The shade’s smile softened, and then it moved. Not against her. For her.

  It tore into the other phantoms with eerie precision, intercepting blades, pushing Brimma clear of killing blows. Thess fought as if she had never left her side, her silent defiance shielding Brimma from the tide.

  Brimma barked a wet laugh, raising her staff again. “Fine then. If you’re going to haunt me, you’d better make yourself useful.”

  She spat another green bolt, blowing a hole through a shade’s skull. The Thornbloom Totem whirred at her side, spraying thorns into the mob. Thess’s shade darted ahead, scattering enemies, giving Brimma space to breathe.

  For the first time since stepping into the void, Brimma stood tall, staff blazing with defiance.

  “You hear me, girl?” she rasped, voice trembling but fierce. “If you’re going to stick around, we fight together. I’ll shout, you block, same as always. And we’ll make those gods choke on their own laughter before we’re done.”

  She wiped her face again, lifted her staff, and snarled at the endless swarm.

  “Come on, then! See how you like fighting a grandmother with her girl at her side!”

  And the battle raged anew, Brimma and Thess, bound by grief and fury, shoulder to shoulder in the storm.

  Brimma loomed over the champion, her spider form blotting out the fractured sky. Eight legs braced against the shifting stone, mandibles dripping venom, and too many wounds trailing ichor down her hide.

  The enemy squirmed beneath her bulk, armor dented, blade trapped uselessly under her weight. With a hiss she raised one massive leg, the jagged claw gleaming, ready to strike down with finality.

  Her gaze flicked sideways. To Thess.

  The shade stood at her flank, silent as ever, her moss-green hair only a memory, her eyes faint echoes of what they’d been. But Brimma felt her there, every bit as real as the living.

  “Do it, girl,” Brimma raged inside her head, her many eyes narrowing, wishing Thess could hear her. “Strike. Take it. Come back. Gods damn it, take the life that’s owed you!”

  For a moment she dared to hope.

  But Thess only shook her head. Slowly. Sadly.

  Brimma’s chest cracked open. The realization hit harder than any blow the Arena could give her. Thess would not return. She wouldn’t take the victory. She was choosing Brimma instead.

  “You stubborn child,” Brimma whispered inside her head, her spider’s mandibles trembling. “Always giving, never taking. Always too good for this rotten world.”

  Their eyes met, conveying what they couldn’t say. Thess’s shade smiled, faint but warm, urging her onward, urging her to live.

  Brimma’s heart tore clean in two.

  The gods roared above, but she didn’t hear them. All she heard was her granddaughter’s silence.

  A guttural scream ripped out of her throat, half human, half monstrous. It shook the broken stone, it rattled the shades, it bellowed her rage into the void itself.

  Then she drove her leg down.

  The enemy champion shrieked once before the claw pierced his chest, the sound cut short as his body unraveled into ash and echoes.

  [Enemy Champion Defeated]

  [EXP Gained: +12,600]

  Brimma reared back, her spider form trembling with fury and grief. Her mandibles clicked, her legs scraped stone, her body shook as though it could barely contain the storm inside her.

  And when she finally spoke, it wasn’t to the gods, nor to the Arena.

  It was to the girl who would never return.

  “My dear Thessaly,” she whispered through fangs and sorrow. “My lovely child.”

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