The walls wept softly.
The stone passage leading to the guardian's chamber was slick with moisture, slicker still with the blood of creatures now scattered in pieces behind them. Rotting scales, crushed bones, and the occasional, twitching limb lay in heaps along the corridor, cooling in the stagnant air.
A lone torch swayed in Ryel's hand, casting the four adventurers in an unsteady light as they walked. No one spoke for a while, their boots squelching faintly with each step.
Eventually, Elric broke the silence.
"Hard to believe this dungeon gave the guild so much trouble," he muttered. His blade was still slick with something green. "Half the beasts didn't even seem coordinated."
"They weren't," said the battle cleric, Ana. "According to the old reports, they never are. Dungeons grow their creatures from nothing, don't they? No training. Just hunger and teeth."
"You sound disappointed," Ryel said, half-smiling. He adjusted his grip on the torch, watching the corridor stretch ahead into darkness. "Hoping for a clever fight?"
"I was hoping for something more intriguing," Ana said, rubbing a bruise on her arm. "So far, it has only been flesh and bone in a tunnel, running at me with murderous intent."
"We're nearly there," said Captain Deren, pausing at the next bend. His armor was scratched and darkened with soot. He pressed a gauntlet to the wall — feeling, perhaps, for the subtle hum of magic. "The guardian's room should be just beyond this turn."
The others gathered behind him.
They advanced slowly now, half from caution, half from the ache of two hours of crawling through traps, beasts, and fetid dark. Ryel counted three wounds across the group, none mortal, but enough to put their team at risk if they let their guard down.
And then the corridor opened.
The guardian's chamber was vast; its ceiling lost to shadow. At its center stood the dungeon's final sentinel.
Rusted iron covered the guardian's body like corroded scales. This was not armor to be worn, but its very form—flesh, bone, and sinew turned to iron over centuries. A dark, monk-like robe clung to its torso in strips, frayed and sunken from age and use. Its face was a helm with symmetrical, spike-like protrusions—more ceremonial than functional, perhaps hiding real horns beneath a helmet never meant to be removed. Darkness seeped from the gap where a face should have been.
It held a two-handed sword in one arm, point-down against the floor. The other hand clutched a brutal, ornamented mace—jagged and cruel, a weapon designed to maim long before it killed.
It held a two-handed sword in one arm, point-down against the floor. The other hand clutched a brutal, ornamented mace—jagged and cruel, a weapon designed to maim long before it killed. It has been standing there for a long time - like an outlandish art piece forgotten by its creator in a giant underground cellar, too terrifying to attract any potential buyers.
The four adventurers froze at the threshold.
"…So that's the thing," Elric whispered.
"It hasn't moved," Ana said.
"Not yet," Ryel muttered. "Hope this is intriguing enough for you, Ana".
Before she could quip back—
"Don't lose focus." - came Deren's voice, firm and clear unlike the whispers of his comrades.
The armored captain stepped forward alone, planting his blade in the stone. Whether to embolden his comrades or to fulfill a code of honor, he raised his voice.
"By guild decree, I speak," he called. His voice echoed through the chamber. "We have come to cleanse this place. You are the last shadow here. Make your stand."
The guardian did not respond. It only exhaled — louder now — a sound like hot breath drawn through rusted metal.
Then it moved.
Slowly at first. The blade rose, dragging sparks across the floor as it lifted. Then a foot stepped forward, splitting a flagstone. Then another. The guardian advanced, each stride a slow quake.
The adventurers braced.
The fight began.
It was not a clever battle. The guardian did not shout, or inflict curses, nor summon flames. Its sword came in cleaving arcs that split air and shattered stone. Its mace hammered with wild, sweeping swings, hunting for blood with brutal indifference.
It fought with neither fury nor joy—a mountain of metal driven by ancient purpose.
Still, it was not invincible.
Ryel baited it toward the chamber's edge, forcing it to strike stone instead of flesh. Its size betrayed it—wide blows, slow recovery. Predictable patterns.
But even predictable death was death. Its strength cracked shields, and its relentlessness left no pause for healing, no moment to breathe.
Ana's prayers flared in the dark, burning white. Elric slipped beneath its reach and scored the iron shell. He paid for it in blood, nearly losing a leg. Ana took a crushing blow to her shield arm that left it limp. Deren staggered from a shield strike that crumpled him to a knee. Only Ryel found openings—glancing cuts, precise strikes, drawing thin lines on the monster's iron skin.
And still it stood.
Until, after what felt like hours, it began to waver.
A strike from Ryel's blade found the shoulder joint. A prayer from Ana staggered it back. Deren's warcry and downward blow drove the mace from its grasp.
It did not yield.
It swung with empty fists. One blow nearly caved in Ryel's ribs, sending him flying. Even as its arms failed, it thrashed. Even on its knees, it fought. Only when Elric's secondary mace dealt a critical blow to the helm—driving several iron horns back into the monster's skull—did it finally fall.
The stone beneath cracked from its weight.
Silence returned.
"…That it?" Elric asked, breathless.
Ana stepped forward, prodded the shell with her boot.
It didn't stir.