The Journey, Book 3: Chapter 6 - Previous Chapter
Chapter 7: Tower
The caverns of Cartakunthor pulsed with a slow, living rhythm. Months had passed since the blood of Vivi and Tivor had coursed into Matthious. Their stolen lifeblood burned within him still, reshaping sinew and flesh over his skeletal frame, creeping upward from fingertips, toes, and ears. The transformation stopped cruelly at his chest. There, ribs remained exposed, jagged, blackened—a visible cage around the beating heart.
Pain and ecstasy twisted together, wracking him with every pulse. He laughed, a wet, hollow sound that echoed through the cavern like a death rattle.
From the pits below, the first Undgrolls emerged. Steam hissed from their malformed bodies. Limbs bent at impossible angles, faces stretched, eyes vacant. Their guttural voices rose in raw chorus. “Hrrahn… Hrruk…” one rasped, hauling a jagged slab. Another groaned, “Grrhhk… Raaah…”
Matthious rose, pale extremities gleaming, skeletal chest exposed. His silver eyes scanned the cavern.
“Up!” he barked. “Crawl, spawn of pit and bone!”
The Undgrolls froze, claws scraping. “Rrghhh… Brrr…” one hissed uncertainly.
“Stop birthing!” Matthious snapped, voice sharp as stone. “Stop crawling! Build… or die!”
Obedience snapped into motion. They lifted massive slabs, dragging boulders from the cavern walls. The floor trembled under the weight; dust fell like rain. Their raw voices mixed with the scrape and crash of stone. “Hrrk… Thhh… Grrnn!”
Matthious floated above the growing foundation, watching. He raised his arms. “Lift it! Higher! Smash the ceiling if you must!”
An Undgroll slipped, a boulder crushing its torso. Another plummeted from a ledge. Their screams were guttural, fleeting, and the rest pressed on, hauling stone as if nothing had happened. Matthious did not flinch. He did not pause. “Weak die. Strong build. You exist to obey. Nothing else matters.”
The tower grew. Spires clawed upward, twisting unnaturally, arches bending in impossible curves. The cavern seemed to bend along with it. Undgrolls climbed precarious ledges, grunting in effort. “Hhhrr… Krrnn… Hrghh!” one hissed, straining to lift a slab twice its bulk. A second slab slipped, crushing three below. Another grunt rose in shock and pain—but still, the work continued.
“Faster!” Matthious barked, voice cutting like a whip. “Move! Work! Build!”
The exposed chest heaved with each breath, ribs creaking, yet his newly-formed fingers and toes moved with grace. Pain hammered inward, madness coiling tight in his mind. Each convulsion of agony fuelled the obsessive rhythm of the tower’s growth.
An Undgroll tripped over jagged stone and fell against a ledge. Its body crumpled under a falling boulder. Matthious’s lips twisted in satisfaction. “Good,” he hissed. “The weak perish. Their deaths serve my monument.”
He drifted along the twisting tower, inspecting its grotesque spires. Each arch, each curve, mimicked the jagged elegance of his mind. Faces of the fallen Undgrolls became etched into the stone, their guttural cries captured forever in the living walls.
“Lift higher! Tear the mountain! Let no stone stand in your path!” Matthious roared. The cavern responded with the sound of grinding stone, falling boulders, and the hissing of exhausted, obedient Undgrolls.
The tower climbed, spires curling like claws toward the cavern roof. Matthious perched along a twisting arch. Below, a slab slipped, crushing two Undgrolls. Another misstep sent one plummeting into the pit of his birth. He did not look away. “Die if ye must! Every fall is a gift to me!”
The Undgrolls grunted in compliance, their voices strained but relentless. They lifted stones again, dragged slabs higher, stacked boulders across precarious arches. Every collapse, every death, only reinforced the structure. The tower grew taller, more grotesque, a monument of stone and earth-bone reaching toward the cavern ceiling.
Matthious’s own transformation advanced, agony and ecstasy coiling tighter. Fingers fully reformed, toes long and precise, ears sharp and elegant. His chest remained skeletal, exposed. Each breath drove him deeper into madness, the raw thrill of creation through destruction intoxicating.
“Build, build, build!” he commanded. “Heed not the dying! Let the fallen pave the way!”
One Undgroll stumbled, its limbs twisting as a slab fell. Its voice hissed a warning, “Ghhrr… Rrrh…” Another fell into the pit below, crushed. “Hrkkk…” The rest pressed on, muscles straining, guttural effort punctuating the constant rhythm of construction. Matthious watched like a predator observing its prey.
The tower twisted in impossible spirals, arches curving back on themselves, jagged spires forming balconies and loops. Stone bent to the will of its master, yet the Undgrolls’ labour remained necessary. They scuttled across high arches, dragged massive blocks, screamed in their raw, guttural tongue, and fell without hesitation. Their deaths did not pause the work—they were tools, nothing more.
“Lift higher! Tear the cavern! Make it touch the stars!” Matthious shouted, voice sharp, guttural in its own right. “You exist to build. You exist to fall. You exist for me!”
The throne began to form at the apex, fused from jagged spires of stone. Faces of the fallen and dying emerged in the carved stone, their guttural screams immortalised. Matthious floated above, inspecting, approving, manipulating the final arches.
He lowered himself onto the throne, jagged stone forming to the shape of his skeletal chest and fully reformed limbs. His heartbeat synced with the rhythm of the tower, the cavern vibrating under the presence of his will made stone.
“Behold!” he rasped, voice dripping with venom. “I am the Corrupter. I am the master. I am the mountain. This tower rises because I command it. All who look upon it shall know fear.”
The Undgrolls continued to scramble, hauling stone along impossible paths. Those who fell were gone in moments, swallowed by the gaps and pits they had been born from. Matthious did not flinch. He did not speak. Their deaths were invisible to him, their lives mere tools for the monument of his ascendancy.
The tower’s spires clawed higher, reaching the cavern ceiling, twisting unnaturally. Matthious’s skeletal chest gleamed in the dim light. Extremities fully restored, chest grotesque, mind unravelling into power and madness.
“Build! Fall! Die! Rise!” he barked, the words sharp and vicious. “Obey, or cease to exist! There is no mercy! There is no pause! There is only… me!”
The cavern roared with the clash of stone, guttural cries, and falling bodies. The Tower of Bones climbed toward the sky, a monument of earth and death, of obedience and cruelty, towering over the pit and the spawn of its master.
Matthious’s eyes glimmered silver. Fingers twitched, toes flexed, ears caught the faintest echo of the collapsing stones. His heart thudded in the cage of his ribs, every pulse mirrored in the tower itself. He leaned back, a predator atop his creation, watching, savouring, exulting.
The Corrupter had returned. The Undgrolls were expendable. The tower would endure. And Cartakunthor trembled beneath the weight of its master’s will.
Matthious rose from his seat, skeletal chest gleaming, every vein in his reformed limbs pulsating with power. His eyes, grey green and luminous, swept across the cavern. The Undgrolls continued to scramble, hauling boulders and slabs, grunting in guttural obedience. Yet he no longer needed them.
With a flick of his wrist, a fissure split the floor, swallowing a group of Undgrolls whole as stone twisted beneath him like clay. He did not flinch; the cavern itself became his instrument. His voice, short and sharp, rolled over the chamber:
“Rise!”
The tower trembled. Stones lifted themselves from the foundations, arches bending unnaturally, spirals twisting impossibly. Matthious extended his arms, and the boulders and slabs responded, floating into place, stacking, twisting, coiling upward. The tower groaned as though alive, veins of stone pulsing with each deliberate movement, echoing his heartbeat.
A massive slab, once weighing dozens of Undgrolls, lifted without effort, spinning into position at the crown. A smaller pile of slabs crashed down, splintering a dozen workers, their guttural screams swallowed by the cavern. Matthious barely registered them. His silver eyes glimmered with triumph.
“Higher,” he hissed. “Tear the sky!”
The ceiling of the cavern quivered. Stone cracked. Dust fell in sheets. Matthious raised both hands. With a thought, arches bent violently upward, spires stretching toward the roof like claws of some great, sleeping beast. The cavern shuddered as the tower punctured the ceiling, splintering rock and sending shards raining into the abyss above.
Light from the outside world bled into the chamber for the first time in centuries. Matthious let it strike his face; he did not blink. The wind from the breach whipped through the tower, carrying dust and the scent of ancient stone. The Undgrolls below screeched, scrambling to avoid falling debris, but he did not care. Their lives were instruments, their deaths irrelevant.
He extended both arms again. Stones tore from the cavern walls themselves, spiralling upward, twisting into impossible forms. Entire sections of rock lifted, suspended midair, bending toward the tower as if drawn by some dark gravity emanating from him alone. Matthious’s laughter echoed like rolling thunder: harsh, sharp, triumphant.
“See!” he bellowed. “See what your master has wrought! Let all who dwell above behold! Let kingdoms tremble!”
The tower continued to grow, tearing through the roof, bursting into the open air. Its spires were jagged, impossibly tall, twisting back upon themselves in grotesque curves. Shadows stretched across the horizon. Dust and rock fell to the lands beyond, and far-off towns would soon see the darkness rising, a column of stone visible from hundreds of miles, black as death itself, a monument of pure audacity.
Matthious’s throne formed at the apex, fused from arches and spires, jagged stone conforming to his half-restored body. Faces of fallen Undgrolls adorned its edges, immortalised in stone, their guttural cries echoing faintly in the wind that swept around the tower. He lowered himself onto it, skeletal chest exposed to the open sky, fingers twitching, ears sharp, toes gripping jagged arches.
“Bow!” he hissed, voice sharp and guttural. “Bow or break before me!”
Below, the cavern walls shook violently. Dust and stone tumbled into the abyss. Undgrolls scrambled, screamed, fell, yet their work continued. Entire sections of the tower twisted as if alive, bending and rising to impossible heights under Matthious’s will alone.
The surrounding landscape fell into shadow as the tower clawed upward, breaking into the open air. Winds howled around the jagged spires, carrying dust and the faintest echoes of destruction across valleys and mountains. Far-off settlements would see it as a wound in the sky, a black monolith rising with impossible speed and grotesque elegance.
Matthious leaned back in his throne at the apex, letting his eyes sweep over the lands. His mind swirled with ecstasy and madness, every pulse of stolen blood in his veins magnifying the tower’s growth. The stone below obeyed him as if it were alive, twisting, bending, coiling higher, unstoppable.
“Look upon me,” he hissed, a venomous whisper that carried like a command to the horizon. “Look upon the Corrupter! Tremble at the Tower of Bones! Know that I am beyond death, beyond decay, beyond all that dares to defy me!”
The tower continued to rise, breaking the clouds, reaching so high that distant mountains were swallowed in its shadow. Its form was chaotic yet purposeful—jagged spires, twisting arches, grotesque loops that defied reason. Winds tore at its surface, but no force of nature could halt its ascent. Matthious’s power poured into it invisibly, not as blood magic, but as sheer will, reshaping the bones of the earth itself.
From hundreds of miles away, watchers would see the black spire rising. It was bold. It was enormous. It was alive in the sense that it carried the mind of its master. Light bent oddly around its twisted edges. Even the sun, for a moment, seemed to recoil from it.
Matthious lifted a hand, extending it over the horizon. With a subtle gesture, entire slabs of stone lifted, spiralling into place in impossible arcs, feeding the tower’s monstrous growth. He laughed again, loud and harsh.
“All that lives below shall obey! All that stands above shall break before me! I am eternal! I am the Corrupter! I am the mountain!”
The Undgrolls continued their work, frantic and obedient, hauling stones across dizzying heights. Many fell; many were crushed by debris or lost to the chasms Matthious had opened with a flick of his mind. He did not care. Every death reinforced the spire, sharpened its grotesque elegance. Each collapse of a boulder, each scream, each fall was a brushstroke on the canvas of his dominion.
Finally, the tower reached beyond the clouds, stretching impossibly into the open horizon. Matthious seated himself fully on his throne at the apex, a grotesque silhouette against the open sky. Fingers twitched, chest heaving, eyes glittering silver. Below, the cavern trembled, the Undgrolls scrambled, stone twisted itself into impossible forms, and the tower stood—so enormous, so dark, so grotesque, so bold—that the world would never forget it.
The wind howled around the tower’s jagged crown. The world below was a smear of shadow and cloud, so distant that even mountains looked like ash heaps. Matthious sat motionless upon his throne.
He exhaled once, a dry, shuddering breath. Then he raised one hand.
A sound like distant thunder rolled through the spire. The air thickened, vibrating with unseen force. In the hollow between his palm and the world, something began to form—black mist at first, then streaks of dark crimson weaving through it like veins.
From that haze, the Book of Blood Magic materialised.
It appeared not as an object conjured, but as a thing remembered—as though it had never truly left him. Its cover twitched, alive with muscle and sinew. The latch came undone with a whispering click, and the book opened of its own accord.
The pages fluttered violently, riffling past hundreds of runes and sigils, until they stopped on a single page—empty, then slowly bleeding with ink that had the texture of living blood.
The words formed themselves.
“Your blood is not the last.”
Matthious’s eyes narrowed. “What?”
The letters shimmered again, shifting like living things beneath the skin of the page.
“Your ancestral line still walks the earth…”
For a long, pulsing moment, Matthious said nothing. His skeletal chest rose and fell with a slow, deliberate rhythm. Then, the corner of his mouth twitched upward.
“…more power for me.”
The words hung like venom in the cold air.
The book quivered. Its pages turned again, faster now, until it settled once more. The new script bled through the parchment, forming in long, seductive curves:
“I can tell you how to attain even more power… power beyond blood and bone. Power that would make you a god.”
Matthious leaned forward, eyes reflecting the crimson shimmer. His tongue passed slowly over cracked lips, tasting the air as if it carried the promise of divinity itself.
“Yes…” he whispered. Then, louder, with a hiss that curled like smoke, “More power. I want to be… a god. Tell me how!”
The pages turned again of their own accord, a furious flutter that echoed like wings. The book stilled.
And then the words appeared, drawn in thick, glistening script:
“Were-cat blood.
Direwolf blood.
Dragon blood.”
Matthious stared at the page, his pulse quickening. He repeated the words under his breath, savouring them. Each syllable was a sacrament.
“Were-cat… direwolf… dragon.”
A sound broke from his throat—a low, ragged laugh that grew until it filled the tower, bouncing from every curve and arch. The Undgrolls below paused their labours, staring upward in silent terror.
Matthious rose from the throne, clutching the book in one hand. The power inside him pulsed brighter now, flaring against the blackened ribs of his chest.
“Three lives,” he murmured. “Three beasts. Three rivers of blood.”
He snapped the book shut. The sound cracked like thunder. The crimson mist that had summoned it dissipated, but the echo of its promise lingered in the air, whispering through the wind that coiled around the tower’s spires.
His fingers flexed, claws of light glinting from their tips. “Then I will find them,” he said. “And when I do… the gods will kneel.”
Below, the Undgrolls roared in their throaty chorus—“Rrhhkk! Hrnnnh! Hrrr!”—sensing the command before it was spoken.
Matthious turned his gaze northward, toward the lands beyond the horizon. The wind tore at his exposed chest, the half-flesh, half-bone testament to what he had already become.
The tower stood beneath him, black and eternal, its shadow swallowing the world. And in that silence between the thunder and his next breath, the Corrupter smiled—sharp, hungry, and inhuman.
The wind tore across the lands, carrying the chill of stone and shadow. Lightning forked across the horizon, illuminating the Tower of Bones in sudden flashes. The colossal spire had reached its zenith, black and jagged, impossibly twisting as though carved by the Corrupter’s own claws. It would grow no taller. Its form was complete—a monument to power, grotesque and undeniable, visible for hundreds of miles across mountains, plains, and forests.
In the kingdom of Thomaz, the tyrant king sat uneasily upon his throne. The Corrupter had returned long ago, and no one doubted it. The tower rising into the open sky did not mark his arrival—it was a display of his might, a bold statement that none could ignore. From the highest parapet, a watchman squinted through the wind.
“There… there it is,” he muttered, voice trembling, eyes fixed on the spire clawing into the clouds. “The Corrupter’s tower… it is real. It stands.”
King Thomaz’s hands tightened around the arms of his throne. “So he flaunts his power,” he growled. “Good. Let the world see it. Let the fear spread.”
Far to the north, in the Buradoth Mountains, King Althor stood atop a cliff, surveying the horizon. The dwarven scout beside him pointed toward the black monolith, awe-stricken.
“By the ancestors…” the scout whispered. “It… it reaches the clouds. It is complete.”
Althor’s jaw tightened. His hand gripped the hilt of his axe, knuckles white. “He shows us his dominion. He does not need to come for us yet; we feel it in every stone beneath our feet.”
In the forested city of Caa Alora, the elves noted the same spectacle. From a high watchtower, a sentinel’s eyes traced the jagged spire cutting into the sky. The elders had known the Corrupter was loose. They had feared him. But to see his monument—complete, final, eternal—filled even them with quiet dread.
“He rises,” the sentinel murmured, “not to strike… but to remind the world what waits for those who defy him.”
Across all lands, the shadow of the Tower of Bones stretched over valleys, rivers, and hills. Its grotesque spires twisted toward the heavens, black against the sunlight. Winds whipped around its peaks, but it remained still, impervious, complete.
Matthious sat atop his throne at the apex, skeletal chest gleaming, extremities fully restored. The world lay beneath him, small and fragile. The book of blood magic hovered in his hand, waiting. He surveyed the horizon with silver eyes, lips curling into a cruel, sharp smile.
“This is my mark,” he hissed, voice low and vicious. “Let all kingdoms, mountains, and forests know… my power is absolute.”
Below, the Undgrolls toiled in silent obedience, their guttural voices echoing faintly in the shadow of the monolith. Their work had ended; the tower had reached perfection. Their lives were spared for now, though they remained instruments of the Corrupter’s will.
The wind clawed at the top of the Tower of Bones, dragging long, ragged howls through the sharpened spires. Matthious sat upon his grotesque throne, half-silhouette, half-skeletal. Yet at his chest, the change halted. His rib cage remained stark and exposed, a cracked altar to agony.
Pain burned through him. It steadied him. It was the one sensation the centuries hadn’t dulled.
The book of blood-magic pulsed in his lap, breathing like a sleeping beast. Its last message seared across the inside of his mind:
Were-cat blood. Direwolf blood. Dragon blood.
Three lines of power. Three ancient strengths. Three dues the world owed him.
A whisper slid through his skull — his own voice, stretched thin, multiplied, woven with echoes that no sane mind could hold.
More… more… more…
Matthious smirked, twitching as fresh skin rippled over bone. “Yes. I hear your hunger. It mirrors mine.”
He thought first of the dragon. And hatred surged like wildfire.
Elqiana — the opal-white dragon, radiant as frost-fire, wings that blotted moonlight, power old enough to remember his first rise and first fall.
And on her back… Tarasque. The one rider who dared stand against him. The girl with steel in her gaze and defiance carved into her spirit.
The whisper inside him twisted like a knife.
They mock you just by being alive. They carry the sky above you. They breathe power you have yet to claim.
Matthious’s fingers dug into the throne’s stone arms hard enough to carve new scars.
“They think themselves beyond me,” he growled. “That gleaming lizard and her self-righteous little rider.”
The pain in his half-formed limbs sharpened, flaring like lightning inside him.
Kill them. Drink them. Burn their names from the world.
“Yes,” he breathed, “and I will.”
A tremor of fury rippled through him.
“I will tear Elqiana from the heavens and grind her opal scales beneath my heel. I will snuff Tarasque’s fire like a candle.”
His lips peeled back, a smile carved from malice.
“They believe themselves chosen? They will learn they are prey.”
But with the next heartbeat, his expression shifted. The cruelty sharpened into calculation. His eyes narrowed, cold and clear despite the madness.
“I am not delusional,” he murmured. “Not completely.”
The wind paused around him, as if listening.
“I cannot take the dragon now. Not in this half-formed shell.”
He glanced at his exposed chest — ribs jutting like fingers grasping at the air. “Not yet.”
Admitting the limit tasted bitter, but it was still truth. Elqiana’s fire could melt stone. Tarasque’s strength of will could cause a storm of her own. To fight them now would be suicide — glorious, furious suicide, but suicide nonetheless.
The internal voice simmered.
Then choose another path. Claim blood within reach. Build your strength first.
Matthious tilted his head, silver eyes gleaming.
“Yes… the easier hunt.”
The whisper coiled around his mind.
The direwolf.
Matthious’s breath shuddered in pleasure at the thought.
The direwolves — ancient creatures, older than many kingdoms.
Bone like ironwood.
Muscles like braided rope.
Instincts honed by generations of winter and war.
“Yes,” he hissed. “The direwolf is attainable.”
He could almost feel the power waiting in that blood — strength, endurance, primal dominance. A foundation upon which to build the body he deserved.
“With the wolf’s blood in my veins… I will stand taller. Strike harder. Heal faster.”
His smile stretched wider. “Even a dragon would think twice.”
The inner voice purred.
Break the pack. Drink the howl. Let winter’s strength forge your flesh.
Matthious rose slowly from his throne, every movement a chorus of agony and rebirth. His silhouette was a grotesque tapestry of elf and corpse, sinew threading over bone, skin trembling as it grew.
He stepped toward the edge of the spire, wind tearing at his hair, his half-formed body trembling with hunger and purpose.
“The direwolf…” he whispered.
“First the wolf, then the cat…”
His eyes shimmered like polished blades.
“…and then, when my body is whole—”
His teeth lengthened as he grinned.
“—I will take the dragon.”
The whisper swelled behind his eyes.
Tarasque. Elqiana. They will fall. They will bleed. They will kneel.
Matthious inhaled the distant scent of forests and snow, of living heartbeats waiting out there in the dark of the world.
The tower’s walls were still humming from his last surge of power, but Matthious barely heard them. His mind had folded down to a single point of intent, sharp as a fang.
The wolves. Their blood. Their strength.
He moved across the chamber with a sudden, jittering purpose. Shadows spilled around him as he reached the old shelving built into the stone—relics, bones, dried herbs, scraps from lives he’d long stopped remembering. His hands dove into the clutter without hesitation.
“I kept it,” he muttered. “I know I kept it…”
Jars clattered. A brass astrolabe cracked against the floor. A mummified hand sailed over his shoulder and landed with a dusty thump. He shoved aside rolled parchments, shattered a glass vial he hadn’t meant to touch, cursed, dug deeper.
The whispering in his skull grew amused. Desperate little creature… tearing at your own nest.
“I had it,” he snarled. “A direwolf pup—winter born—its blood was mine.”
He yanked open a lower drawer with such force the wood splintered. Out came more debris: a twisted charm of river-iron, a broken blade hilt, an amulet he didn’t remember stealing. All useless. All in the way. He hurled them aside.
Finally, beneath a collapsed stack of leather-bound tomes, something small and dull glinted.
Matthious froze.
His fingers closed around an iron vial, cold even in the tower’s heated air. The weight of it was unmistakable—heavy in the way blood itself can feel heavy, as if memory were thick inside it.
A shudder went through him.
“There you are.”
He lifted it to the light. Inside, the single drop of direwolf blood clung to the metal like a clot that refused to die.
The inner voice purred. Old, but still alive in its own way. Find them. Tear them from the night.
He pressed the vial to his forehead, breathing in its metallic scent, letting old instincts stir like waking predators.
“Yes,” he whispered. “Your kin will answer you.”
He swept aside the debris he’d created, clearing a space on the floor. With ritualistic calm—a stark contrast to his frantic searching—he drew a line across his palm, letting crimson fall in fat drops. He emptied the vial into the waiting bowl of powdered bone.
The two bloods met with a hiss, a sigh, a sound like something recognising itself.
Matthious dipped his bleeding hand into the mixture.
The tower stilled.
Then came the pulse. A deep, throbbing resonance, as though the world itself had inhaled through fangs. It coursed through him, pulling at his bones, tugging him toward something living, something wild.
He grinned, teeth bared.
“They’re close enough to reach.”
The resonance deepened, vibrating along his spine—upright, insistent, calling.
The direwolves had not hidden well enough.
And Matthious, clutching the lingering heartbeat of their kin, was already moving toward the hunt.
Chapter 7: Tower
The caverns of Cartakunthor pulsed with a slow, living rhythm. Months had passed since the blood of Vivi and Tivor had coursed into Matthious. Their stolen lifeblood burned within him still, reshaping sinew and flesh over his skeletal frame, creeping upward from fingertips, toes, and ears. The transformation stopped cruelly at his chest. There, ribs remained exposed, jagged, blackened—a visible cage around the beating heart.
Pain and ecstasy twisted together, wracking him with every pulse. He laughed, a wet, hollow sound that echoed through the cavern like a death rattle.
From the pits below, the first Undgrolls emerged. Steam hissed from their malformed bodies. Limbs bent at impossible angles, faces stretched, eyes vacant. Their guttural voices rose in raw chorus. “Hrrahn… Hrruk…” one rasped, hauling a jagged slab. Another groaned, “Grrhhk… Raaah…”
Matthious rose, pale extremities gleaming, skeletal chest exposed. His silver eyes scanned the cavern.
“Up!” he barked. “Crawl, spawn of pit and bone!”
The Undgrolls froze, claws scraping. “Rrghhh… Brrr…” one hissed uncertainly.
“Stop birthing!” Matthious snapped, voice sharp as stone. “Stop crawling! Build… or die!”
Obedience snapped into motion. They lifted massive slabs, dragging boulders from the cavern walls. The floor trembled under the weight; dust fell like rain. Their raw voices mixed with the scrape and crash of stone. “Hrrk… Thhh… Grrnn!”
Matthious floated above the growing foundation, watching. He raised his arms. “Lift it! Higher! Smash the ceiling if you must!”
An Undgroll slipped, a boulder crushing its torso. Another plummeted from a ledge. Their screams were guttural, fleeting, and the rest pressed on, hauling stone as if nothing had happened. Matthious did not flinch. He did not pause. “Weak die. Strong build. You exist to obey. Nothing else matters.”
The tower grew. Spires clawed upward, twisting unnaturally, arches bending in impossible curves. The cavern seemed to bend along with it. Undgrolls climbed precarious ledges, grunting in effort. “Hhhrr… Krrnn… Hrghh!” one hissed, straining to lift a slab twice its bulk. A second slab slipped, crushing three below. Another grunt rose in shock and pain—but still, the work continued.
“Faster!” Matthious barked, voice cutting like a whip. “Move! Work! Build!”
The exposed chest heaved with each breath, ribs creaking, yet his newly-formed fingers and toes moved with grace. Pain hammered inward, madness coiling tight in his mind. Each convulsion of agony fuelled the obsessive rhythm of the tower’s growth.
An Undgroll tripped over jagged stone and fell against a ledge. Its body crumpled under a falling boulder. Matthious’s lips twisted in satisfaction. “Good,” he hissed. “The weak perish. Their deaths serve my monument.”
He drifted along the twisting tower, inspecting its grotesque spires. Each arch, each curve, mimicked the jagged elegance of his mind. Faces of the fallen Undgrolls became etched into the stone, their guttural cries captured forever in the living walls.
“Lift higher! Tear the mountain! Let no stone stand in your path!” Matthious roared. The cavern responded with the sound of grinding stone, falling boulders, and the hissing of exhausted, obedient Undgrolls.
The tower climbed, spires curling like claws toward the cavern roof. Matthious perched along a twisting arch. Below, a slab slipped, crushing two Undgrolls. Another misstep sent one plummeting into the pit of his birth. He did not look away. “Die if ye must! Every fall is a gift to me!”
The Undgrolls grunted in compliance, their voices strained but relentless. They lifted stones again, dragged slabs higher, stacked boulders across precarious arches. Every collapse, every death, only reinforced the structure. The tower grew taller, more grotesque, a monument of stone and earth-bone reaching toward the cavern ceiling.
Matthious’s own transformation advanced, agony and ecstasy coiling tighter. Fingers fully reformed, toes long and precise, ears sharp and elegant. His chest remained skeletal, exposed. Each breath drove him deeper into madness, the raw thrill of creation through destruction intoxicating.
“Build, build, build!” he commanded. “Heed not the dying! Let the fallen pave the way!”
One Undgroll stumbled, its limbs twisting as a slab fell. Its voice hissed a warning, “Ghhrr… Rrrh…” Another fell into the pit below, crushed. “Hrkkk…” The rest pressed on, muscles straining, guttural effort punctuating the constant rhythm of construction. Matthious watched like a predator observing its prey.
The tower twisted in impossible spirals, arches curving back on themselves, jagged spires forming balconies and loops. Stone bent to the will of its master, yet the Undgrolls’ labour remained necessary. They scuttled across high arches, dragged massive blocks, screamed in their raw, guttural tongue, and fell without hesitation. Their deaths did not pause the work—they were tools, nothing more.
“Lift higher! Tear the cavern! Make it touch the stars!” Matthious shouted, voice sharp, guttural in its own right. “You exist to build. You exist to fall. You exist for me!”
The throne began to form at the apex, fused from jagged spires of stone. Faces of the fallen and dying emerged in the carved stone, their guttural screams immortalised. Matthious floated above, inspecting, approving, manipulating the final arches.
He lowered himself onto the throne, jagged stone forming to the shape of his skeletal chest and fully reformed limbs. His heartbeat synced with the rhythm of the tower, the cavern vibrating under the presence of his will made stone.
“Behold!” he rasped, voice dripping with venom. “I am the Corrupter. I am the master. I am the mountain. This tower rises because I command it. All who look upon it shall know fear.”
The Undgrolls continued to scramble, hauling stone along impossible paths. Those who fell were gone in moments, swallowed by the gaps and pits they had been born from. Matthious did not flinch. He did not speak. Their deaths were invisible to him, their lives mere tools for the monument of his ascendancy.
The tower’s spires clawed higher, reaching the cavern ceiling, twisting unnaturally. Matthious’s skeletal chest gleamed in the dim light. Extremities fully restored, chest grotesque, mind unravelling into power and madness.
“Build! Fall! Die! Rise!” he barked, the words sharp and vicious. “Obey, or cease to exist! There is no mercy! There is no pause! There is only… me!”
The cavern roared with the clash of stone, guttural cries, and falling bodies. The Tower of Bones climbed toward the sky, a monument of earth and death, of obedience and cruelty, towering over the pit and the spawn of its master.
Matthious’s eyes glimmered silver. Fingers twitched, toes flexed, ears caught the faintest echo of the collapsing stones. His heart thudded in the cage of his ribs, every pulse mirrored in the tower itself. He leaned back, a predator atop his creation, watching, savouring, exulting.
The Corrupter had returned. The Undgrolls were expendable. The tower would endure. And Cartakunthor trembled beneath the weight of its master’s will.
Matthious rose from his seat, skeletal chest gleaming, every vein in his reformed limbs pulsating with power. His eyes, grey green and luminous, swept across the cavern. The Undgrolls continued to scramble, hauling boulders and slabs, grunting in guttural obedience. Yet he no longer needed them.
With a flick of his wrist, a fissure split the floor, swallowing a group of Undgrolls whole as stone twisted beneath him like clay. He did not flinch; the cavern itself became his instrument. His voice, short and sharp, rolled over the chamber:
“Rise!”
The tower trembled. Stones lifted themselves from the foundations, arches bending unnaturally, spirals twisting impossibly. Matthious extended his arms, and the boulders and slabs responded, floating into place, stacking, twisting, coiling upward. The tower groaned as though alive, veins of stone pulsing with each deliberate movement, echoing his heartbeat.
A massive slab, once weighing dozens of Undgrolls, lifted without effort, spinning into position at the crown. A smaller pile of slabs crashed down, splintering a dozen workers, their guttural screams swallowed by the cavern. Matthious barely registered them. His silver eyes glimmered with triumph.
“Higher,” he hissed. “Tear the sky!”
The ceiling of the cavern quivered. Stone cracked. Dust fell in sheets. Matthious raised both hands. With a thought, arches bent violently upward, spires stretching toward the roof like claws of some great, sleeping beast. The cavern shuddered as the tower punctured the ceiling, splintering rock and sending shards raining into the abyss above.
Light from the outside world bled into the chamber for the first time in centuries. Matthious let it strike his face; he did not blink. The wind from the breach whipped through the tower, carrying dust and the scent of ancient stone. The Undgrolls below screeched, scrambling to avoid falling debris, but he did not care. Their lives were instruments, their deaths irrelevant.
He extended both arms again. Stones tore from the cavern walls themselves, spiralling upward, twisting into impossible forms. Entire sections of rock lifted, suspended midair, bending toward the tower as if drawn by some dark gravity emanating from him alone. Matthious’s laughter echoed like rolling thunder: harsh, sharp, triumphant.
“See!” he bellowed. “See what your master has wrought! Let all who dwell above behold! Let kingdoms tremble!”
The tower continued to grow, tearing through the roof, bursting into the open air. Its spires were jagged, impossibly tall, twisting back upon themselves in grotesque curves. Shadows stretched across the horizon. Dust and rock fell to the lands beyond, and far-off towns would soon see the darkness rising, a column of stone visible from hundreds of miles, black as death itself, a monument of pure audacity.
Matthious’s throne formed at the apex, fused from arches and spires, jagged stone conforming to his half-restored body. Faces of fallen Undgrolls adorned its edges, immortalised in stone, their guttural cries echoing faintly in the wind that swept around the tower. He lowered himself onto it, skeletal chest exposed to the open sky, fingers twitching, ears sharp, toes gripping jagged arches.
“Bow!” he hissed, voice sharp and guttural. “Bow or break before me!”
Below, the cavern walls shook violently. Dust and stone tumbled into the abyss. Undgrolls scrambled, screamed, fell, yet their work continued. Entire sections of the tower twisted as if alive, bending and rising to impossible heights under Matthious’s will alone.
The surrounding landscape fell into shadow as the tower clawed upward, breaking into the open air. Winds howled around the jagged spires, carrying dust and the faintest echoes of destruction across valleys and mountains. Far-off settlements would see it as a wound in the sky, a black monolith rising with impossible speed and grotesque elegance.
Matthious leaned back in his throne at the apex, letting his eyes sweep over the lands. His mind swirled with ecstasy and madness, every pulse of stolen blood in his veins magnifying the tower’s growth. The stone below obeyed him as if it were alive, twisting, bending, coiling higher, unstoppable.
“Look upon me,” he hissed, a venomous whisper that carried like a command to the horizon. “Look upon the Corrupter! Tremble at the Tower of Bones! Know that I am beyond death, beyond decay, beyond all that dares to defy me!”
The tower continued to rise, breaking the clouds, reaching so high that distant mountains were swallowed in its shadow. Its form was chaotic yet purposeful—jagged spires, twisting arches, grotesque loops that defied reason. Winds tore at its surface, but no force of nature could halt its ascent. Matthious’s power poured into it invisibly, not as blood magic, but as sheer will, reshaping the bones of the earth itself.
From hundreds of miles away, watchers would see the black spire rising. It was bold. It was enormous. It was alive in the sense that it carried the mind of its master. Light bent oddly around its twisted edges. Even the sun, for a moment, seemed to recoil from it.
Matthious lifted a hand, extending it over the horizon. With a subtle gesture, entire slabs of stone lifted, spiralling into place in impossible arcs, feeding the tower’s monstrous growth. He laughed again, loud and harsh.
“All that lives below shall obey! All that stands above shall break before me! I am eternal! I am the Corrupter! I am the mountain!”
The Undgrolls continued their work, frantic and obedient, hauling stones across dizzying heights. Many fell; many were crushed by debris or lost to the chasms Matthious had opened with a flick of his mind. He did not care. Every death reinforced the spire, sharpened its grotesque elegance. Each collapse of a boulder, each scream, each fall was a brushstroke on the canvas of his dominion.
Finally, the tower reached beyond the clouds, stretching impossibly into the open horizon. Matthious seated himself fully on his throne at the apex, a grotesque silhouette against the open sky. Fingers twitched, chest heaving, eyes glittering silver. Below, the cavern trembled, the Undgrolls scrambled, stone twisted itself into impossible forms, and the tower stood—so enormous, so dark, so grotesque, so bold—that the world would never forget it.
The wind howled around the tower’s jagged crown. The world below was a smear of shadow and cloud, so distant that even mountains looked like ash heaps. Matthious sat motionless upon his throne.
He exhaled once, a dry, shuddering breath. Then he raised one hand.
A sound like distant thunder rolled through the spire. The air thickened, vibrating with unseen force. In the hollow between his palm and the world, something began to form—black mist at first, then streaks of dark crimson weaving through it like veins.
From that haze, the Book of Blood Magic materialised.
It appeared not as an object conjured, but as a thing remembered—as though it had never truly left him. Its cover twitched, alive with muscle and sinew. The latch came undone with a whispering click, and the book opened of its own accord.
The pages fluttered violently, riffling past hundreds of runes and sigils, until they stopped on a single page—empty, then slowly bleeding with ink that had the texture of living blood.
The words formed themselves.
“Your blood is not the last.”
Matthious’s eyes narrowed. “What?”
The letters shimmered again, shifting like living things beneath the skin of the page.
“Your ancestral line still walks the earth…”
For a long, pulsing moment, Matthious said nothing. His skeletal chest rose and fell with a slow, deliberate rhythm. Then, the corner of his mouth twitched upward.
“…more power for me.”
The words hung like venom in the cold air.
The book quivered. Its pages turned again, faster now, until it settled once more. The new script bled through the parchment, forming in long, seductive curves:
“I can tell you how to attain even more power… power beyond blood and bone. Power that would make you a god.”
Matthious leaned forward, eyes reflecting the crimson shimmer. His tongue passed slowly over cracked lips, tasting the air as if it carried the promise of divinity itself.
“Yes…” he whispered. Then, louder, with a hiss that curled like smoke, “More power. I want to be… a god. Tell me how!”
The pages turned again of their own accord, a furious flutter that echoed like wings. The book stilled.
And then the words appeared, drawn in thick, glistening script:
“Were-cat blood.
Direwolf blood.
Dragon blood.”
Matthious stared at the page, his pulse quickening. He repeated the words under his breath, savouring them. Each syllable was a sacrament.
“Were-cat… direwolf… dragon.”
A sound broke from his throat—a low, ragged laugh that grew until it filled the tower, bouncing from every curve and arch. The Undgrolls below paused their labours, staring upward in silent terror.
Matthious rose from the throne, clutching the book in one hand. The power inside him pulsed brighter now, flaring against the blackened ribs of his chest.
“Three lives,” he murmured. “Three beasts. Three rivers of blood.”
He snapped the book shut. The sound cracked like thunder. The crimson mist that had summoned it dissipated, but the echo of its promise lingered in the air, whispering through the wind that coiled around the tower’s spires.
His fingers flexed, claws of light glinting from their tips. “Then I will find them,” he said. “And when I do… the gods will kneel.”
Below, the Undgrolls roared in their throaty chorus—“Rrhhkk! Hrnnnh! Hrrr!”—sensing the command before it was spoken.
Matthious turned his gaze northward, toward the lands beyond the horizon. The wind tore at his exposed chest, the half-flesh, half-bone testament to what he had already become.
The tower stood beneath him, black and eternal, its shadow swallowing the world. And in that silence between the thunder and his next breath, the Corrupter smiled—sharp, hungry, and inhuman.
The wind tore across the lands, carrying the chill of stone and shadow. Lightning forked across the horizon, illuminating the Tower of Bones in sudden flashes. The colossal spire had reached its zenith, black and jagged, impossibly twisting as though carved by the Corrupter’s own claws. It would grow no taller. Its form was complete—a monument to power, grotesque and undeniable, visible for hundreds of miles across mountains, plains, and forests.
In the kingdom of Thomaz, the tyrant king sat uneasily upon his throne. The Corrupter had returned long ago, and no one doubted it. The tower rising into the open sky did not mark his arrival—it was a display of his might, a bold statement that none could ignore. From the highest parapet, a watchman squinted through the wind.
“There… there it is,” he muttered, voice trembling, eyes fixed on the spire clawing into the clouds. “The Corrupter’s tower… it is real. It stands.”
King Thomaz’s hands tightened around the arms of his throne. “So he flaunts his power,” he growled. “Good. Let the world see it. Let the fear spread.”
Far to the north, in the Buradoth Mountains, King Althor stood atop a cliff, surveying the horizon. The dwarven scout beside him pointed toward the black monolith, awe-stricken.
“By the ancestors…” the scout whispered. “It… it reaches the clouds. It is complete.”
Althor’s jaw tightened. His hand gripped the hilt of his axe, knuckles white. “He shows us his dominion. He does not need to come for us yet; we feel it in every stone beneath our feet.”
In the forested city of Caa Alora, the elves noted the same spectacle. From a high watchtower, a sentinel’s eyes traced the jagged spire cutting into the sky. The elders had known the Corrupter was loose. They had feared him. But to see his monument—complete, final, eternal—filled even them with quiet dread.
“He rises,” the sentinel murmured, “not to strike… but to remind the world what waits for those who defy him.”
Across all lands, the shadow of the Tower of Bones stretched over valleys, rivers, and hills. Its grotesque spires twisted toward the heavens, black against the sunlight. Winds whipped around its peaks, but it remained still, impervious, complete.
Matthious sat atop his throne at the apex, skeletal chest gleaming, extremities fully restored. The world lay beneath him, small and fragile. The book of blood magic hovered in his hand, waiting. He surveyed the horizon with silver eyes, lips curling into a cruel, sharp smile.
“This is my mark,” he hissed, voice low and vicious. “Let all kingdoms, mountains, and forests know… my power is absolute.”
Below, the Undgrolls toiled in silent obedience, their guttural voices echoing faintly in the shadow of the monolith. Their work had ended; the tower had reached perfection. Their lives were spared for now, though they remained instruments of the Corrupter’s will.
The wind clawed at the top of the Tower of Bones, dragging long, ragged howls through the sharpened spires. Matthious sat upon his grotesque throne, half-silhouette, half-skeletal. Yet at his chest, the change halted. His rib cage remained stark and exposed, a cracked altar to agony.
Pain burned through him. It steadied him. It was the one sensation the centuries hadn’t dulled.
The book of blood-magic pulsed in his lap, breathing like a sleeping beast. Its last message seared across the inside of his mind:
Were-cat blood. Direwolf blood. Dragon blood.
Three lines of power. Three ancient strengths. Three dues the world owed him.
A whisper slid through his skull — his own voice, stretched thin, multiplied, woven with echoes that no sane mind could hold.
More… more… more…
Matthious smirked, twitching as fresh skin rippled over bone. “Yes. I hear your hunger. It mirrors mine.”
He thought first of the dragon. And hatred surged like wildfire.
Elqiana — the opal-white dragon, radiant as frost-fire, wings that blotted moonlight, power old enough to remember his first rise and first fall.
And on her back… Tarasque. The one rider who dared stand against him. The girl with steel in her gaze and defiance carved into her spirit.
The whisper inside him twisted like a knife.
They mock you just by being alive. They carry the sky above you. They breathe power you have yet to claim.
Matthious’s fingers dug into the throne’s stone arms hard enough to carve new scars.
“They think themselves beyond me,” he growled. “That gleaming lizard and her self-righteous little rider.”
The pain in his half-formed limbs sharpened, flaring like lightning inside him.
Kill them. Drink them. Burn their names from the world.
“Yes,” he breathed, “and I will.”
A tremor of fury rippled through him.
“I will tear Elqiana from the heavens and grind her opal scales beneath my heel. I will snuff Tarasque’s fire like a candle.”
His lips peeled back, a smile carved from malice.
“They believe themselves chosen? They will learn they are prey.”
But with the next heartbeat, his expression shifted. The cruelty sharpened into calculation. His eyes narrowed, cold and clear despite the madness.
“I am not delusional,” he murmured. “Not completely.”
The wind paused around him, as if listening.
“I cannot take the dragon now. Not in this half-formed shell.”
He glanced at his exposed chest — ribs jutting like fingers grasping at the air. “Not yet.”
Admitting the limit tasted bitter, but it was still truth. Elqiana’s fire could melt stone. Tarasque’s strength of will could cause a storm of her own. To fight them now would be suicide — glorious, furious suicide, but suicide nonetheless.
The internal voice simmered.
Then choose another path. Claim blood within reach. Build your strength first.
Matthious tilted his head, silver eyes gleaming.
“Yes… the easier hunt.”
The whisper coiled around his mind.
The direwolf.
Matthious’s breath shuddered in pleasure at the thought.
The direwolves — ancient creatures, older than many kingdoms.
Bone like ironwood.
Muscles like braided rope.
Instincts honed by generations of winter and war.
“Yes,” he hissed. “The direwolf is attainable.”
He could almost feel the power waiting in that blood — strength, endurance, primal dominance. A foundation upon which to build the body he deserved.
“With the wolf’s blood in my veins… I will stand taller. Strike harder. Heal faster.”
His smile stretched wider. “Even a dragon would think twice.”
The inner voice purred.
Break the pack. Drink the howl. Let winter’s strength forge your flesh.
Matthious rose slowly from his throne, every movement a chorus of agony and rebirth. His silhouette was a grotesque tapestry of elf and corpse, sinew threading over bone, skin trembling as it grew.
He stepped toward the edge of the spire, wind tearing at his hair, his half-formed body trembling with hunger and purpose.
“The direwolf…” he whispered.
“First the wolf, then the cat…”
His eyes shimmered like polished blades.
“…and then, when my body is whole—”
His teeth lengthened as he grinned.
“—I will take the dragon.”
The whisper swelled behind his eyes.
Tarasque. Elqiana. They will fall. They will bleed. They will kneel.
Matthious inhaled the distant scent of forests and snow, of living heartbeats waiting out there in the dark of the world.
The tower’s walls were still humming from his last surge of power, but Matthious barely heard them. His mind had folded down to a single point of intent, sharp as a fang.
The wolves. Their blood. Their strength.
He moved across the chamber with a sudden, jittering purpose. Shadows spilled around him as he reached the old shelving built into the stone—relics, bones, dried herbs, scraps from lives he’d long stopped remembering. His hands dove into the clutter without hesitation.
“I kept it,” he muttered. “I know I kept it…”
Jars clattered. A brass astrolabe cracked against the floor. A mummified hand sailed over his shoulder and landed with a dusty thump. He shoved aside rolled parchments, shattered a glass vial he hadn’t meant to touch, cursed, dug deeper.
The whispering in his skull grew amused. Desperate little creature… tearing at your own nest.
“I had it,” he snarled. “A direwolf pup—winter born—its blood was mine.”
He yanked open a lower drawer with such force the wood splintered. Out came more debris: a twisted charm of river-iron, a broken blade hilt, an amulet he didn’t remember stealing. All useless. All in the way. He hurled them aside.
Finally, beneath a collapsed stack of leather-bound tomes, something small and dull glinted.
Matthious froze.
His fingers closed around an iron vial, cold even in the tower’s heated air. The weight of it was unmistakable—heavy in the way blood itself can feel heavy, as if memory were thick inside it.
A shudder went through him.
“There you are.”
He lifted it to the light. Inside, the single drop of direwolf blood clung to the metal like a clot that refused to die.
The inner voice purred. Old, but still alive in its own way. Find them. Tear them from the night.
He pressed the vial to his forehead, breathing in its metallic scent, letting old instincts stir like waking predators.
“Yes,” he whispered. “Your kin will answer you.”
He swept aside the debris he’d created, clearing a space on the floor. With ritualistic calm—a stark contrast to his frantic searching—he drew a line across his palm, letting crimson fall in fat drops. He emptied the vial into the waiting bowl of powdered bone.
The two bloods met with a hiss, a sigh, a sound like something recognising itself.
Matthious dipped his bleeding hand into the mixture.
The tower stilled.
Then came the pulse. A deep, throbbing resonance, as though the world itself had inhaled through fangs. It coursed through him, pulling at his bones, tugging him toward something living, something wild.
He grinned, teeth bared.
“They’re close enough to reach.”
The resonance deepened, vibrating along his spine—upright, insistent, calling.
The direwolves had not hidden well enough.
And Matthious, clutching the lingering heartbeat of their kin, was already moving toward the hunt.
