*Day 30 after the Fall - Outside the Forgotten Fortress*
S'pun-duh was already gone before anyone could stop him.
"Wait for the plan—" Marcus started.
"Plans are for people who think! Which is 12.7% less efficient than immediate action!" S'pun-duh shouted back, already fifty meters ahead—52.7 meters, to be precise—his literal mind calculating the exact distance while committing to the stupidest possible approach.
Which was straight through the front.
Duh grabbed Thom'duhr's arm before the scholar could follow. "Let him go. Statistical probability suggests 63.2% chance of finding something valuable, 36.8% chance of death. Acceptable risk."
"That's your brother!"
"That's why I know he'll be fine. Too stupid to die right."
S'pun-duh hit the outer wall at full speed. Not metaphorically. Literally ran into it—the same mathematical certainty his literal mind craved. Impact at exactly 23.4 kilometers per hour. Bounced off, kept running along it until he found a crack 47 centimeters wide. Squeezed through. Disappeared.
Inside the Forgotten Fortress, everything was wrong.
Not broken-wrong. Rebuilt wrong. Walls that used to be stone were now part flesh, part metal, part screaming. The Distillatori hadn't just occupied the fortress—they'd infected it.
S'pun-duh didn't stop to appreciate the horror. Stopping meant thinking. Thinking meant fear. Fear meant slow. His literal mind preferred simple equations: forward = good, stopping = death.
He ran through corridors that breathed. Past doors that were mouths. Over floors that might have been skin or metal or both.
As the corruption pulsed with harmonic resonance at precisely 47.1 Hz, the air thickened with recognition. First guard he met: human, probably. Hard to tell under the soul-coin armor. Coins welded to flesh at precisely 0.7 soul-grams per significant memory—market rate applies, with 12.3% premium for urgent requests. Each one whispered the exact harmonic frequency of what had been sacrificed—mother's lullaby at 0.7, wedding night at 1.2, daughter's laugh at 0.5.
S'pun-duh went under his swing—calculating the arc at 73 degrees—grabbed his sword, kept running. The guard spun, confused. Where did he...
Second guard: Death Angel hybrid. Wings of smoke and edge. Beautiful and terrible and—
S'pun-duh threw the stolen sword without stopping. It went through the Angel's eye. Not because he even aimed—he never aimed. Because at this speed, everything was in the way.
Third room: the machine.
The God-Eater filled the space like a cancer, pulsing at precisely 47.1 Hz—the harmonic frequency that had destroyed Crysillia. Dragon bones formed its skeleton. Metal that shouldn't exist made its skin. And at its heart—
Vash'nil. The dragon egg. Cracked. Leaking. Screaming in frequencies only dragons heard, resonating with the same harmonic vulnerability that had once powered Crysillia's greatest achievements.
S'pun-duh should have investigated. Should have gathered intelligence. Should have done anything except what his literal mind demanded—direct action, no metaphors.
Which was try to grab the egg.
His hand hit the containment field. Electricity and corruption and pure wrongness shot through him. He flew backward, hit the wall, kept running even as his muscles spasmed.
"WHAT—"
Vorgoth stepped from shadow. Not dramatically. Efficiently. Like a butcher approaching meat.
"Too fast. Interesting. Usually they think before they touch."
S'pun-duh charged him.
Vorgoth didn't move. Didn't need to. The soul-coins embedded in his chest sang, and reality bent. Duh's charge became retreat. His forward became backward. His speed betrayed him.
"Momentum is just physics. Physics can be negotiated."
He tried again. Same result. His own velocity twisted against him.
"You're one of the dwarves. The twins. Your brother takes corruption, you run from thought."
"Fuck you."
"Eloquent."
Vorgoth gestured. Soul-coins throughout the room resonated. The walls grew restraints. Not metal—something worse. They grabbed him for the beard mid-run, held him in space.
"Let's see what happens when we slow you down."
The restraints didn't just hold—they drained. Pulled speed from muscles. Made movement into syrup. For the first time in his life, The Stubborn experienced stillness.
It was worse than death.
"No no no NO—"
"Yes. Feel it. The weight of being present. The horror of having to think."
His spinning mind, usually three steps ahead of his body, crashed into the present moment. He had to actually experience where he was. What was happening. The reality of—
The God-Eater. He could see it clearly now. Not just machine. Alive. The dragon egg at its heart wasn't power source—it was becoming something else. Something like Malakor but worse. A dragon-machine fusion that would—
"Open the Prima. Yes." Vorgoth approached. "Your corruption-touched friend is the key. When she arrives—and she will arrive—her very existence will activate it. Prototype meeting purpose."
"She'll kill you first."
"Maybe. Probably. But the machine will activate regardless. That's the beauty of good design—it doesn't need its creator to function."
The restraints tightened. Duh' felt his ribs crack. But also—felt them crack. Had to experience the slow progression of bone breaking instead of it just being done.
"Your brother will try to save you. Take your corruption. It will kill him."
"He won't—"
"He will. It's his nature. Like running is yours."
Vorgoth pulled out a soul-coin. Fresh. Still warm. The soul-coins pulsed with the three-degree chill of corruption, each one containing precisely 0.7 soul-grams of what had been sacrificed.
"This one's empty. Waiting for new residence. Dwarven souls are dense—approximately 4.3 soul-grams. Valuable. You'll make excellent currency."
He pressed it against S'pun-duh's chest.
The extraction began. Not fast—Spu' would have preferred fast. Slow. Pulling his essence out like thread from cloth.
But S'pun-duh did what S'pun-duh did.
He moved.
Not his body—that was held. His soul. Moved it faster than the extraction. Slipped sideways. The coin pulled, but he was already elsewhere in his own body.
"Impossible."
"I don't think, remember?" He grinned through blood. "Souls think. Mine just goes."
The extraction faltered. Can't render what won't stay still.
Vorgoth sighed. "Fine. Traditional methods."
He pulled out a knife.
That's when the wall exploded.
Not from outside. From below. Thom'duhr's calculations had been right—there were maintenance tunnels. And Duh had been digging while his brother played distraction.
"You think too much," Duh said, gray arm hanging useless, good arm pulling his brother free.
"You think too little," S'pun-duh gasped, ribs definitely broken.
"Together we make one functional dwarf."
They ran. Even broken, Duh ran. Because running was breathing, and breathing was not being still.
Behind them, Vorgoth didn't pursue. Didn't need to.
"They'll be back. With her. The machine will activate. Everything proceeds as designed."
The fortress sealed itself. Flesh-walls healing. Metal-doors growing.
Outside, S'pun-duh collapsed at Ora's feet.
"The egg. Vash'nil. It's becoming something else. And the machine—when you get close, it'll activate. You're the key."
Ora looked at the fortress. At the corruption leaking from its wounds.
"Good. I was worried I'd have to find the keyhole."
"You don't understand—"
"I understand perfectly. I'm walking into a trap."
"Then why—"
"Because sometimes the trap needs to catch something to realize it's caught something worse."
Philosophy through action. S'pun-duh almost respected it.
"Next time, wait for backup," Marcus said.
"No."
"You almost died."
"Almost doesn't count if you're fast enough."
Duh helped his brother stand. Felt the new corruption in him from the restraints. Pulled what he could. Added it to his own collection.
Both brothers graying now. Both dying in increments.
"We're idiots," Duh said.
"Yeah, but we're fast idiots," he said, grinned through pain.
They looked at the fortress. At what waited inside.
Tomorrow, they'd assault it properly.
Tonight, they'd rest.
Except the never-tired dwarf, who never rested.
He'd run circles around the camp, memorizing every approach, every weakness, every possibility.
Because thinking was for people with time.
And time was what they'd almost run out of.
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