Shattered mask

The infirmary was too quiet.

Not in the way silence should be... but in that haunted, suffocating kind of quiet that pressed into your ears and made every breath feel wrong.

Riven sat up slowly... the thin white sheet clinging to his back. It was warm from his body... soaked near the shoulder where the bandages bit into skin.

He winced as he peeled it off.

Pain pulsed along his side... dull but constant. His fingers brushed over the ribs... still there. Still broken.

But he was alive.

Somehow.

He turned his head... eyes catching the shadows along the far wall. His mask lay there, propped neatly against the chair where the doctor must've left it. The Abyssal Mirror. Always watching.

Always waiting.

He rose.

The infirmary door creaked as he stepped through it. No one stopped him.

The hallway outside was dim. Red glyph-lights hummed gently against the stone walls... their glow casting slow-moving patterns like veins on old flesh.

And then—her.

Nira.

She was crouched against the edge of the corridor... hands working over something small and round. She didn't look up when he approached. Her fingers were covered in black soot... the same shade as the cracked orb on the floor between her knees.

Riven watched her in silence... for once unsure what to say.

"...What is that?" he asked finally.

She flinched.

Just slightly.

But it was there.

"Core," she muttered. "One of the ones from the Dreadspawn... what's left of it."

He crouched beside her... every joint in his body complaining.

"You made it explode," he said. "Back in the tunnels."

"I cracked it," she replied, brushing her hair from her face with the back of her hand. "It's... unstable. Cores hold what's left of the essence. Fear... memory... power. It's like compressed nightmare."

"And all it takes to blow it up...?"

She looked at him then.

Her eyes were tired. Older than they should be.

"If you want to rupture one... you just need to hit the right fault. Crack the outer shell at the seam. They all have one... just like a bone. You shatter that... the energy surges outward. Doesn't last long. Doesn't leave much behind."

Riven nodded slowly.

"...Dangerous."

Nira shrugged. "Everything down here is."

He sat back on his heels... staring at the broken core.

So fragile... and yet it nearly killed them all.

She reached into her satchel, pulling out a small hooked tool. "You want to learn how to do it?"

Riven hesitated.

Then nodded.

---

When he stepped outside the infirmary an hour later... the air was cooler.

Cooler and heavier.

Nira had stayed behind, muttering to herself as she toyed with another cracked core. Her hands moved with a kind of rhythm... not artful. Just... practiced. Like she'd done it too many times before.

The halls were mostly empty now. Voices echoed in the distance. Movement stirred far off, behind layers of rusted doors and shadowed corridors.

Riven moved slowly... every step a reminder of how badly the Dreadspawn had torn through him. His leg throbbed... wrapped in thick layers of cloth, crusted with dried blood and that bitter-smelling salve the doctor used.

But he was walking.

And he was going somewhere.

Where... he didn't quite know.