Episode 66: The Sound of Stone Falling
The trap was set.
A narrow choke corridor flanked by jagged outcroppings led into a bowl-shaped cavern with a natural overhang. Vines and thorny growths now pulsed along the rim under Elowyn’s guidance.
Carved arcane sigils burned dimly in the stone, the fruit of Theron’s scroll and Cedric’s divine touch. Overhead, Lira had rigged explosive crystal charges in natural seams, packed with powdered copper and Elowyn’s flammable sap. Tessa placed the final bait herself:
Bran’s tattered brown hat.
It lay in the dust, slouched and proud like its owner. The juggernaut would recognize it. Of that, they were certain.
And it did.
The air thrummed before it came—the same grinding roar of adamantine against earth, the tectonic growl of a construct with no soul and no fear.
“IT’S COMING!” Lira shouted from her perch.
Tessa ducked behind a stone lip, crossbow loaded. “Round two, you oversized bastard.”
The juggernaut barreled into view—taller than Thog, broader than a house cart, all jagged metal plates and glowing eyes like twin furnaces. It saw the hat, let out a reverberating bellow of hatred—and charged.
“NOW!” Theron shouted.
Elowyn’s vines surged to life like grasping hands, wrapping around the beast’s limbs and slowing it just enough for Thog to leap from cover and slam Whelm into the side of its head. The impact echoed like a temple bell. Sparks flew.
“THOG SMASH YOU INTO RECYCLING!”
Cedric charged from the flank, golden light surrounding his blade. “By Pelor’s radiant beard, have a taste of good old-fashioned metallurgy!”
The juggernaut spun, backhanding Cedric into a wall—his armor absorbed the hit, but barely.
Tessa loosed bolts one after another. “Hey, rust bucket! You left your manners back at the forge!”
“Maybe it’s shy,” Lira quipped from above, loosing a bolt that embedded in the creature’s knee joint. “Or deaf. Definitely ugly.”
Theron chanted, raising his staff. “Time to melt some gears—by the flame within the stone, seal this fate!”
The glyphs beneath the juggernaut flared—white-hot fire erupting into vertical sheets that licked up its legs and sides. Steam blasted out as its plates began to warp and buckle.
“NOW, LIRA!”
With a grin and a prayer, Lira smashed the fire crystal charge.
The ceiling came down.
Explosive force drove burning rock and dust into the juggernaut’s head and shoulders. The thing howled—a sound like a dying furnace—and stumbled back into the magical funnel of fire and stone.
Elowyn clenched her fists. “Crush.”
The roots above twisted and drove stone down like a hammer from nature itself.
With a final, shuddering shriek, the juggernaut fell, its red eyes dimming, chest caved in, and molten ichor pooling from its core.
Silence.
Then a long, drawn-out sigh from Thog. “Thog think we won.”
Cedric wheezed, dragging himself upright. “We either won or died and the afterlife has exceptionally poor ventilation.”
Theron leaned against a rock. “Let’s not tempt metaphysics.”
Lira exhaled slowly. “Okay... that was deeply satisfying.”
Tessa, however, didn’t laugh.
She was already walking toward the place where Bran had fallen.
The others let her go.
She found him—what was left of him—among the rubble outside the mist chamber. His hat had been the only thing whole. His revolver, dented but salvageable. A pocket watch. A silver belt buckle scorched but intact. And...
A folded piece of parchment, pressed flat and sealed in a brass locket.
She didn’t open it.
Not yet.
She gathered these things gently, wrapping them in a linen scarf.
Then she knelt beside what remained and whispered softly.
“Rest now, Brick... You were rough and kind and maddening as hell. But I liked the way you looked at me—like I mattered. And I loved that voice of yours. Like a dusty trail song that’d never die.”
She paused, her throat tight.
“I think... I think I started to love you, cowboy. Even in the middle of all this madness.”
She set the hat atop the bundle and stood.
Behind her, Elowyn approached quietly. “We’ll carry him with us. In every step.”
Tessa nodded without looking back.
“Then let’s make the rest of this damned tomb regret he ever died here.”