Chapter 6: Ember-what?

Chapter 6: Ember-what?

Another voice answered, “Containment Room Three just pinged. No breach. Just… movement.”

The rumble came again, louder this time. Heavier. Heat started bleeding into the room, subtle but rising.

A containment glyph along the far wall flared, casting jagged blue light against the ceiling. The kind of light that meant whatever was inside had just stood up.

Then came the voices.

A low, resonant chant—layered and ancient—began humming through the stone, drawing mana from the air. A failsafe. The kind they used when things started breaking rules.

“Room Three’s waking up,” someone said, too loud.

“Was it scheduled for release?”

“... No.”

“Then shut it down!”

“It’s not responding to suppression glyphs!”

Forten instinctively stepped back. Alden didn’t move—just tightened his grip around his quill.

The next sound wasn’t a surge. It was a roar.

A sound like a collapsing forge, shaking the walls, hot and alive.

Containment Room Three’s reinforced doors bulged, metal groaning as if something inside was peeling it back with its teeth. The runes along the frame began to fracture, containment magic flickering like it was afraid.

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Then—BOOM.

The doors cracked open.

Not all the way. Just enough for the heat to flood in—dry and acrid, stinking of molten stone and old ash.

Then came the claws.

Massive, hooked things like forge tongs dipped in fire scraped against the floor. The beast stepped forward—slow, deliberate.

Twice the size of a trailcart. Its body looked welded together from obsidian plates and boiling marrow. Veins of molten orange pulsed beneath its cracked hide. The ribcage rose and fell like a furnace bellows. Fur clung to it in scorched tufts, hissing smoke.

It had no eyes. Just a yawning mouth full of semi-liquid glass—constantly melting, reforming, flexing with heat.

It moved, and the floor cracked.

“Shield wall!” someone shouted.

Trailblazers scrambled. Glyphs spun to life, casting dome-shaped sigils overhead. Too late.

The beast lunged.

One swipe. A junior initiate flew across the hall like a tossed doll, hitting the wall with a sickening crack.

Someone cast a binding glyph. It ignited midair. The flame swept through robes. Another scream.

“Call for backup!”

“Get a Channeler!”

“Get—”

“Get Olin!”

The creature advanced again.

The very air warped. Scrolls curled. Stone glowed faintly red beneath its claws.

And then…

Walter hopped off the desk.

Soft-footed. No hurry. Just a gentle pom-pom-pom on polished stone.

He sauntered.

Past the clerks. Past the panic. Past the glowing wards and flaring spells and shouts for containment.

He didn’t look afraid.

He didn’t even look impressed.

Someone moved to stop him—“Hey, stop! Grab that construct!”—but Walter sidestepped without breaking pace.

He walked right into the open space before the monster.

The beast reared back.

A gout of flame spilled from its jaw—raw heat, loud and blinding.

Walter looked up.

And waved.

Not frantically. Not defensively. Just… hi.

The molten beast hesitated. Its claws flexed. Jaw stuttered.

And then—slowly—its entire body lowered.

The room watched, frozen.

The creature—this six-legged engine of destruction, this walking furnace—bowed.

All the way down.

What passed for a head lowered. Its molten jaw dimmed. And the frontmost limb— part claw, part limb, part guess—touched the ground in a gesture that was unmistakably reverent.

It held.

Still.

Submissive.

Before a bear a hundred times smaller than it was.