Cloth wraps his chest, shoulders, throat. It tightens when he exhales. It squeezes harder when he moves. The fabric is thick, hand-woven, ink-stamped with symbols that repeat along every fold and overdrawn patterns that make the eye ache if stared at too long. There’s one at each wrist, each ankle, each elbow. One behind each ear. One at the base of the throat.
They aren’t just holding him down. They’re holding something in.
The stone beneath him breathes faint heat. Not fire. Not magic. Something older. Something darker. Like the memory of warmth, reheated from a long-dead sun that even now begs for death. Next comes a knife and a single droplet of blood ticks into a groove beside the altar, vanishing into script work carved so deep it drinks.
The altar is stone, but not raw. Its edges are sanded smooth, corners beveled with care, as if it were made to hold something precious. Veins of copper run through the slab like fossilized lightning, converging beneath the little one’s spine. The copper is warm. Not from fire but from use.
Each groove sparkles, carved into the altar which feeds into a spiral set beneath the body. The spiral is wide, intricate, layered like a nautilus shell, its channels inked, then scored, then hollowed again. Blood does not drip here, it flows freely in a way that is enough to be noticed, and yet never enough to be questioned.
Twelve figures encircle the spiral. Their robes are dark and dustless, stitched with thread too fine to be woven by human hands. Each stands still, stoic even, arms folded, heads bowed beneath waxen masks that glisten faintly in the wrong light. The robed figures do not sway, nor do they even seem to breathe. In fact the chanting does not even seem to come from them though they long for the opportunity to do so.
It comes from the stone walls of the room instead.
It is a sound like whispered chalk across slate, broken by the crunch of wet gravel underfoot. One by one each figure places something around the little one, paper, thread, a fragment of something broken, a book, a sacrament, a hymn, a prayer. None of it is explained but it is clear, each piece is fundamentally necessary.
Offering identified.
Vessel integrity: 92%.
Emotional resonance: sufficient.
Knife sequence: primed.
Awaiting final stillness.
The figures do not react. Instead a ritualistic knife floats gently into the room of its own accord. It weaves eerily with a tone that speaks of finality and it vibrates in anticipation of the ritual so it comes to hover over the little one’s chest, slow and silent, casting no shadow. The chanting fades.
Resonance pathways aligned.
Thread logic is stable.
Sacrament vector: hesitation.
Targeting heuristic: intent.
Sacrament pattern lock: verified.
Execution clause engaged.
Sacrificial countdown initiated.
Eight. Seven. Six…
The air thickens, not with heat, nor pressure. Just with a weight that presses gently behind the eyes. The little one stirs beneath the hovering blade, not in panic but in confusion as if to say the bindings are doing more than holding. As if to say it dulls the synaptic neurons of the subject, preventing the firing of the flight response. As if to say it forces the spine not to squirm, not to hesitate until the moment of the hour finally arrives.
A single glyph above the altar flares to life. It twists midair, geometrically clicking into final form.
Five.
The glyph above the altar pulses once… then again, too quickly. Its shape fracturing at the edges, spooling into a curve it was never meant to hold. Not broken, not failed, just… rewriting itself.
Four.
The copper veins flash white.
Three.
Beneath the spiral, a new thread begins to spin, not blood, nor magic. Something thinner, warmer, wider than the expanse of the human experience. It is a thread that the altar does not recognize and errors begin cascading a flurry of reddish glows across the altar’s space.
Two.
Nearly all of the figures remain still, except for one whose mask tilts… off-angle, uncertain. A blooming moment of doubt happening at the worst of moments forcing the space around the ritual to hiccup.
One.
The knife pivots, not with anger or even with urgency. It pivots like a compass finding north, its sacred execution clause overriding all other parameters and with a gut wrenching slam it drives its blade clean and unhesitating, into the mask titling robed figure’s gut.
No scream, just contact and the brutal efficiency of a system guided object making a corrective cut.
The system flares red, voice cold:
Hesitation confirmed.
Intent breach: sacrament executor.
Correction applied.
Then silence… followed by a low, resonant chime that is not part of any chant. The flying ritual knife jerks cleanly from the corpse. Allowing it to hover again, searching in a recalibrating way, still hungry for the parameters of its sacrament.
But before it moves again… the spiral forming at the center of the ritual shudders. A seam opens in the center, a rift, crossing thresholds. No light nor sound. Just a fold in space that wasn’t there before.
And from it, she steps through.
A woman. Older. Not hunched, but resilient and confident strides forth. She wears a long skirt, an apron half-scorched at the hem with flour remnants in the middle, and a cardigan that doesn’t match the decor of the room. In one hand, she carries a wrapped cloth bundle tied with a ribbon. In the other, shears. Not silver or gold or a legendary metal. Not glowing or wreathed in flames or ice. Just… used, dripping with the remnants of a berry jam bag she had sliced open to cover some biscuits, just moments ago.
Unknown entity detected
Emotional mote: Blue
Mote source: Jam Shear, Flour remnants, mismatched cardigan?
Query: Is “Jam” a recognized rite fluid?
System… recalibrating ambient tone profile
The knife halts, a voice adding to its indecision, gentle, firm. Warm as wool soaked in sun, “Now hold on just a moment, Sir Stabs-A-Lot. What do you think you’re doing with that little one?”
Above the altar, glyphs begin to distort. Some dim, some burn brighter, and one snaps out entirely.
Unknown entity detected.
Signature mismatch.
Emotional resonance exceeds threshold.
Emotional resonance far exceeds threshold.
Emotional resonance exceeding maximum threshold.
Query: Is this… an offering?
The woman hearing the words looks at the knife, the spiral and then the child on the altar below her. She exhales calm and certain.
“No I am not.” she says, “No one asked nicely and you can’t just take something sacred without asking. I mean really, youngin’s these days, where are your manners?”
One of the robed figures, closest to the altar, leans back a fraction. Not far, just enough for the system to notice, forcing the knife to pivot.
Hesitation detected.
Witness integrity compromised.
Correction applied.
It sings now. Not with joy but with a clarity of a key turning in a lock long since rusted shut.
Blasting forward the blade finds itself driving forward into the cultist’s throat. Not messily or cruelly but simply because the sacrament demands it. The blade zips straight through its mark before then starting to make concentric spiraling circles as it spins faster and faster. In a widely varying weave that has the air humming with tension, like a loom pulled too tight.
Until one of the robed figures breaks stillness and steps toward the little one still on the altar, grasping a small dirk from their robes.
Turning Eileen sees the motion and from atop the altar trims her body, even, measured, practiced, far too clean for panic, she was a seasoned veteran after all. There isn’t fear in her eyes for she is protecting the innocent and she will not be thwarted.
She moves between them without flourishing. No sprint, nor lunge. Just the surety of someone with the calm of having slapped a goose out of someone’s kitchen...
Shears rising in a gentle slope she catches the impractically ornate dirk wielded by the cultist whose attack loses all force given Eileen’s sheer mechanical advantage and superior fabric cutting skill set.
Sliding the blade away, the cultist finds their footing as they prepare for another strike but as they do so they step a single foot back and that is enough.
Sacrament: trigger.
Hesitation: confirmed.
Execution vector: realigned.
To her left now another cultist presses forward, in their hand is a club which they wrestle from their robes, the weight of the strike already off kilter. Allowing Eileen’s grip to stay firm and focused as she deftly blocks the attack. Her cardigan sleeve riding up just enough to reveal an old scar threading across her forearm.
Then with a pivoted stance, she turns the cultist’s momentum against them and allows them to slide past her hip all but throwing them into another cultist. Both of which fumble to get away from each other and the nearby altar, the ritual knife responding in kind.
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Sacrament: triggers.
Hesitations: confirmed.
Execution vector: realigned.
A third cultist then tries to come from underneath, they manage in the chaos to grab onto the little one's shoulder and with the other hand they wield a small pocket knife. But as they bring it to bear, they find their wrist meeting the tip of Eileen’s sturdy boots. The force of the hit disarming the cultist who sneers until Eileen clips the top of their hood playfully with her shears.
“Mind your posture Sir Pointy Hat. You’ll throw your back out if you're not more careful.”
Unfortunately for the cultist, the playful snip forces them to duck, an act that the flying knife registers as hesitation for they should have pressed the attack.
Sacrament: trigger.
Hesitation: confirmed.
Execution vector: realigned.
From Eileen's side comes a fourth cultist, this one wide and burly, built like a house. They strike not in an attack, but instead a clearly choreographed blow meant to scare Eileen presumably, off the altar, but she doesn’t flinch. She doesn’t pause at all in fact, instead she shifts her weight and raises her jam covered shears. Not high, not wide, just ready.
The cultist strikes. She meets the blow with a flick of steel. Not a cut this time nor a block. But instead with just enough intent to force the makeshift club to skim off the shears with a burst of friction. Sparks flashing and vanishing.
A strategy that has the fourth cultist stumbling backwards unsure. The ritual flying knife however knows its duties.
Sacrament: trigger.
Hesitation: confirmed.
Execution vector: realigned.
But this time as the knife recovers itself from its realignment, it finds another cultist, fingers outstretched, reaching not for the point, but the hilt. Hesitation in the catch doing them in.
Sacrament: trigger.
Hesitation: confirmed.
Execution vector: realigned.
The body drops, no scream, no flare. Just failure made formal. Another robe lunges now and Eileen is starting to lose count.
Regardless, practice has made for perfection with her and her shears are moving before she can even finish the thought. She steps sideways, slips low, and slides one blade of the shears under the attackers sash. A single, practiced snip. The belt gives way.
The robe loosens and the cultist falters, hands darting to preserve modesty, posture, control.
Eileen straightens. The shears stay low in her hand, sticky with thinned jam. She looks down at the edge. “Sharp enough,” she murmurs. “But dulling fast.”
The knife halts again, tilts and then with ding from the system, severs the lifeforce of the robeless one.
Uncertainty expressed.
Witness veil broken.
Pattern deviation: lethal.
The cultist collapses, clothes still twisting in the air.
The little one below her, watches her intently now. No sound, just breath. Eyes shifting every so often towards the corners of the spiral where more figures stand in the shadows of the room, none of them moving to assist.
Except for one, a staff wielder who tears a makeshift staff from a mounted bracket on the wall. Their mask having fallen off to reveal a face seared by ritual scarring, lips branded, eyes stitched at the corners. “For the Ascender!” they scream, as they lunge, wild and fast but sloppy.
The weapon swings high, desperate to break through something sacred and Eileen meets it with a stoic block that dissipates the momentum with little effort, though the club does sweep half a dozen robed figures away from the altar, allowing her to crouch so that she can begin loosening knots calmly, with a snip from her shears here or there. Unweaving ritual threads with a hum at the back of her throat.
Until her right hand is forced to rise again to block a second strike, this one jarring her wrist, even as the blow glances off and slides wide.
“Stop fussing,” she says politely to the robed one, her fingers already returning to the next knot. “You’ll knock the tea over dear.”
The cultist growls, recovers, swings again. This time lower, aimed for her ribs.
Eileen twists slightly, knees still rooted to the ground. Letting go of the knot in her left hand she draws a long knitting needle from her hair and with a flick of her wrist, drives the needle across the five foot gap between them. With a thunk it pins the hood of the robed cultist to a pillar, the sudden lock arresting all the momentum of the weapons swing.
Buying her just enough space to shift her elbows, roll her shoulders and yank another knot, slipping it free. While the little one underneath blinks, unsure whether to believe what’s happening.
Unfortunately the cultist with the staff stops attacking, its hesitation not from fear, but from confusion.
But the ritual doesn’t care.
Pattern break registered.
Aggression without clarity.
Intent deviation: fatal.
For the ritual knife always answers.
Again she works now in concentration, the little one lying still below her, eyes wide, limbs unmoving, not frozen by fear, but by the weight of what the ritual demands. Obedience, acceptance, sacrifice without choice.
“Hold still, love,” she murmurs. “This’ll only take a moment.”
The strikes start to come in waves. Wild, misplaced, desperate. Some break through. Bruises, welts and cuts blossoming and raising across her body. Blood even beads where fabric gives. But Eileen does not falter.
Her shears swap back and forth both steady and sticky with jam. Allowing her to slide through knots and thread with a rhythm that doesn’t waver. Not a song, but a hum, low and firm, not for the child, but for the ritual itself.
The altar hums again beneath her knees. The bindings twitch one last time and then go still.
Eileen finishes the last knot with a soft click of her shears. The fabric peels away from the child’s chest like parchment surrendering to heat. “There,” she says, smoothing the child’s shirt down gently. “All that fuss. Honestly.”
The child looks at her, confused, trembling, but not afraid. Not anymore because Eileen is smiling.
“You need a name, don’t you?”
The ritual flinches, names have power. More than mortals possibly know. The air thickens like it's holding its breath. There were reasons dungeons don’t name sacrifices. It made everything less clear, it blurred the lines between emotions and intent and the runes as if understanding dim overhead, before then blooming brighter, fighting to stabilize themselves against an imminent collapse of the ritual that no one is going to be able to stop.
She lays a hand on the child’s shoulder. Warm, solid, present. “Fenn,” she says, as though the word has always been there. “I know your name, it shall be Fenn.”
The naming strikes like a bell behind the world.
A tremor ripples through the altar, not through stone, but through the meaning and intent of the idea of altars. The spiral falters, its channels jittering, realigning, and failing to recalculate.
One glyph above the altar sparks, trying to reshape itself into something legible. Another simply vanishes.
Naming protocol violated.
Offering classification failed.
Emotional signatures exceed all possible parameter bounds.
Loop continuity is unsustainable.
Ritual instance terminating.
The light from the copper veins pulses once. Then again, then stops entirely. The resonance of the space choking its channels which can no longer hold the breath of the room's intent nor the space of its shape.
Eileen strokes Fenn’s hair once, gently. “It’s alright, love,” she says. “The scariest part is done.”
But the room disagrees.
Runes rupture, one by one, like overripe fruit splitting from within. A low chime sounds, distorted and stretched thin. Then another. Then…
Pattern collapse imminent.
Interceding ritual detected.
Host core rerouting... attempting containment.
The knife doesn’t drop.
It rusts instead before ending the life of every cultist in the room, all of them rushing for the exits, none of them making it out alive.
The killing does not halt the corrosion. Tip to hilt, the metal blossoms with splitting blooms, even as blood spills across its blade and hilt, like it’s aging a thousand years in the space of a heartbeat.
Fenn meanwhile clutches Eileen’s apron and somewhere, just beneath the stone, something begins to hum.
Not loudly, not yet. But the note is wrong. Like it was never meant to be heard by any mortal still breathing and it plans to ensure that remains the case.
Until the light shatters around them but not as an explosion for there’s no force, no heat. Just meaning unspooling too fast to hold form. Around Eileen and Fenn every remaining rune cracks and ruptures while the copper veins underneath them go dark.
Fenn begins to glow, not with power, not with holiness, but with attention. The Dungeon finally sees him now. Not as a vessel for sacrifice. Not as a ritual component for use. But as something it must now define and definition requires categorization for dungeons.
Offering rejected.
Name-bound entity misfiled.
Emotional tether exceeds archival density.
Ejection required.
Eileen wraps her arms around him. “Its going to be alright,” she says again, though her voice has softened with something quieter. Grief, maybe. Or perhaps memory. “You’re going to be misplaced for a little while sweetie, but someone will come find you..”
A yellow mote gathers between them, soft as steam rising from a teacup, shaped like breath caught in prayer. It floats in place, shy and slow, before nestling briefly against Eileen’s shawl.
Unauthorized Emotional Mote Detected
Yellow: Comfort.
Improper context.
Beneath their feet, a spiral of runes light up not carved, not glowing, but projected. Or better yet… perhaps remembered. It flickers twice, then flattens into a shape too simple to describe and too heavy to look at directly.
Misfiled offering rerouted.
Matron-Echo signature recorded.
Anchor pattern: unresolved.
The stone beneath them dissolves into thread.
Fenn vanishes. Not in light or in smoke or in meaning but in texture. Like cloth being folded and squeezed too quickly into a drawer.
While the knife finally clatters to the fracturing floor. Dull, bent and forgotten in a way that has Eileen exhaling.
The door shuts behind her. Not a bang, not a collapse, just in the way aging wood meets familiarity.
The sigil on the floor still hums under the rocker. Her shears are warm. Her apron is sliced clean across. Her injuries always carried through these events, though she was unsure of why. “Fourth time this decade if my math is right.” she mutters. “Well maybe fifth. I am starting to lose count… gosh that’s never a good sign.”
With a sigh she glances towards the kettle, still full. Still boiling, in a way that makes Eileen inhale through her nose. She then drifts across her living room and into the kitchen where she sets the shears on the table, gently, like a coiled pet.
Before then unwrapping the yellow mote which always followed her after, nestling it into one of the nearby planters in the window beside the rosemary. “There,” she says. “Let’s see if you bloom better here.”
She then refolds her apron with the torn edge tucked beneath. Placing two teacups out onto the kitchen counter. One for her, the other just in case.
She opens the breadbox and frowns at the last slice. “Too crusty for company,” she mutters. “I’ll need to bake tomorrow.”
The room is quiet, but not still. Something has shifted. The wind is holding its breath.
Then… A cry. Not quite fox. Not quite not. Unfortunately it is not the cry, a little one would make.
So Eileen doesn’t look up, instead she continues listening, her fingers nearly settling on the shears again coated in dried jam flakes.
Not in alarm or in fear or in the possibilities of future unknowns. Instead she just listens intently, “I told him it was only for a little while,” she murmurs, not quite smiling. “Let’s hope this time the world agrees with my promise.”