I couldn’t move. Not even a twitch.

  The divine magic holding me wasn’t just a spell. It was a sentence, locking me in place, forcing me to watch.

  Grib’s body lay in the center of the chamber, crumpled and split. His blood seeped into the stone, pooling like spilled ink. His bucket sat a few feet away, still smoldering, blackened from the mage's fire.

  He had fought for me. Believed in me. And now he was...

  I couldn’t bring myself to finish the thought.

  “Well, that’s done,” the rogue said.

  Her voice was too casual. Wrong in the way that I imagine Death would be on a playground. She knelt beside Grib’s body, her dagger catching the glow of the mushrooms as she reached for his hand.

  “Stop,” I rasped.

  She slid the ring from Grib’s fingers and held it up to the light. “This’ll fetch something nice.” She tucked it into her pouch. “He’s not going to miss it.”

  Something deep inside me twisted. “I said don’t. Leave him.”

  Her smirk widened. “Relax, bone boy. You’re lucky we left your skull attached.”

  “Enough, Raven,” the leader snapped. His voice was sharp, tired.

  His shield was still raised, like he expected me to lunge at him. An insult, considering I couldn’t even move my goddamn arms.

  The cleric turned, her holy symbol still glowing in her grip. Despite the conviction I heard, her voice was thin. “A lich on the first floor… it’s unnatural. We need to contact the church.”

  “I can barely tolerate you,” the rogue quipped. “And you want a bishop to join the party?”

  “Get ready, lich,” the leader said, fixing me with a look that wasn’t quite pity, but wasn’t far from it. “You won’t survive the next encounter.”

  They left. Their footsteps faded into the tunnels, their voices vanishing like they had never been here at all.

  And Grib was still dead.

  The spell wore off a few minutes later.

  I collapsed forward like a bony ragdoll, weightless and useless. I could move again, but It didn’t feel like freedom.

  If anything, the weight pressing on me had only grown heavier.

  I pulled myself upright.

  Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  The chamber was different. Not darker. Not colder. Just… emptier. Like something had been cut out of it. A piece removed. A voice gone.

  I made my way to where Grib lay, each step dragging me deeper into some darkness I’d never experienced before. I knelt beside his body, my hands hovering uselessly over him, fingers curling and uncurling, desperate for something to do but terrified of touching him.

  “I’m sorry, Grib,” I whispered.

  The words were nothing.

  Sorry didn’t fix anything. Sorry didn’t mean anything. Sorry was a placeholder for something that should have mattered, but didn’t.

  A sharp, unwelcome heat flared in my chest. Anger. It was ridiculous. An emotion I couldn’t justify considering this was my own damned fault… but there it was, hot and wild and insistent.

  I stood abruptly, skeletal hands curling into fists. I needed to do something. Anything.

  My gaze caught the faint trail of blood leading out of the chamber. The mage’s blood, from where Grib’s spear had found its mark. A thin, winding thread leading me forward.

  I didn’t think. I just started walking.

  The cave mouth was just ahead. A jagged, yawning wound in the dungeon, leaking daylight in thin, desperate strands. I could see it—just barely. A sliver of sky beyond the rocks. A hint of green. The world outside.

  I ran for it.

  And slammed into something that wasn’t there.

  It stopped me cold. No warning, no resistance to push through—just a sudden, absolute no.

  I staggered back, shaking off the shock, then reached forward. My fingers met nothing. The air should have been empty, but it wasn’t. Something was there, unseen and unmoving, pressing back with an impersonal, unyielding force.

  I pushed harder. It didn’t give.

  I curled my fingers into a fist and hit it. Bone met nothing. Bone met everything. A solid wall of refusal that rang up my arm like an insult.

  “Let me through!” I shouted, slamming my fists against it. The sound of bone on magic cracked through the cavern. “They killed him! Let me through!”

  The system responded. Cold. Detached. Indifferent.

  Notice: You are not allowed to leave your assigned dungeon.

  I hit it again. Harder. Again. And again. My fists clattered uselessly against it, but I didn’t stop. Couldn’t stop. My anger came in sharp, chaotic bursts, breaking through the silence because something had to break.

  Beyond the barrier, the blood trail stretched toward the outside, fading into the distance, leading somewhere I would never reach.

  Nothing had changed. But everything was different.

  And behind me, Grib’s body waited.

  I turned back. Walked to him. This time, when I knelt, I let my hands rest on his shoulder.

  His face was frozen in the same determined expression he’d worn in life.

  “You idiot,” I said.

  He had trusted me. Fought for me. Died for me.

  And what had I done?

  If I was able to cry… I’d never felt the sensation of tears that couldn’t exist until right this moment. And it was definitely one of the worst things I’d ever experienced.

  “I’m sorry, Grib,” I said again. “I should’ve stopped them. I should’ve done… something.”

  And then the system UI appeared.

  The words hovered in the air, clear and wrong in the dim glow of the cavern.

  Recommendation: Create Undead. Would you like to raise Grib - Goblin Leader?

  Your current soul counter is 0/1.

  I froze.

  My hands hovered over Grib’s broken body. The prompt did not move.

  Would you like to raise Grib?

  I couldn’t speak. I couldn’t move.

  I could only stare.