The flight to the north-east was a study in changing landscapes and mounting tension. The vibrant, chaotic tapestry of the Crossroads' hinterlands gave way to rolling, rocky foothills, which then began to steepen into the formidable barrier of the Serpent's Spine mountains. These were not the welcoming, green peaks of picture books, but jagged, granite fangs clawing at the sky, their slopes strewn with scree and their high passes choked with eternal snow. The air grew thin and cold, and a constant, keening wind whistled around the Wind Dancer's hull, a lonely sound that spoke of isolation and hardship.
It was a land that bred tough, insular people, and Silvervein was its archetypal child. As the settlement came into view, nestled in a high valley like a nugget of raw ore in a granite fist, its nature was immediately clear. This was no graceful city of ziggurats or spires. It was a functional, grim monument to extraction. Wooden mine-head frames, blackened by soot and weather, dotted the mountainsides like skeletal giants. The buildings were low, sturdy structures of rough-hewn stone, their roofs weighted against the wind. The only signs of wealth were the heavily fortified strongholds of the mining guilds, their banners—a crossed pick and hammer on fields of grey and silver—snapping in the bitter air.
But even from a distance, something was wrong. The great smelters, which should have been belching plumes of smoke into the crisp mountain air, were cold and silent. The usual cacophony of industry—the crunch of ore-carts, the shouts of foremen, the relentless hammering from the forges—was absent. A funereal hush lay over the valley.
Zahra guided the Wind Dancer to a secluded landing in a box canyon a mile from the town's main gate. "The air is sick," she announced, her face pale as she dismissed her navigation spells. "Not with blight or corruption, not like the Scourge. This is… thinner. A sickness of absence. The mana here is… drained. Brittle."
Amani nodded, her hands pressed to the cold stone of the canyon wall. "The spirits of the mountain are in pain. They speak of a 'leeching,' a 'slow cold.' They do not blame the people. They blame a 'shadow in the stone.'"
This was the nature of the Crawling Swarm. It wasn't a physical invasion; it was a parasitic decay, a draining of vitality from the very land and its people.
They decided on a cautious, infiltrative approach. The full group would draw too much attention. Instead, Shuya and Kazuyo would go, accompanied only by Lyra for her tactical eye and Yoru for her unparalleled ability to gather unseen intelligence. Neema, Zahra, and Amani would remain with the Wind Dancer, a hidden reserve and an early warning system.
Disguised as a traveling merchant's son (Kazuyo), his bodyguard (Lyra), and a silent, scholarly aide (Shuya), with Yoru vanished into the environment, they approached Silvervein's main gate. The guards there were haggard, their eyes sunken in sockets of bruised flesh. They moved with a lethargic slowness, and a dry, wracking cough seemed to be universal among them. They barely glanced at the forged guild passes Zahra had provided, waving the group through with a listless indifference that was more alarming than any suspicion.
The inside of Silvervein was a vision of a community in its death throes. The streets were not empty, but filled with people moving with the same profound exhaustion as the guards. Miners, their powerful frames now gaunt, sat on porches, staring at nothing. The sound of coughing echoed from every other doorway. There was no conversation, no laughter, only the wind and the hopeless silence of the ill. The very color seemed leeched from the world, leaving everything in shades of grey and dust.
Lyra's sharp eyes scanned the defenses, the layout. "No organized quarantine. No field hospitals. It's as if they've just… given up," she murmured, her professional disgust warring with a pang of pity.
They found a public house, The Dusty Geode, which served as the town's unofficial heart. The air inside was thick with the smell of weak ale and sickness. They took a table in a corner, ordering meager drinks to maintain their cover.
The conversations they overheard were fragments of despair.
"...the Deep-Delve seam. That's where it started. The air went bad..."
"...the Guild Masters have sealed themselves in their halls with their private physicians..."
"...the Church men came yesterday. They walked through, in their clean robes. Didn't touch anyone. Just looked. One of them said 'the rot is advanced.' They're coming back in a few days with 'the cure.'"
The way the man said "the cure" was laden with a terror that surpassed his fear of the sickness.
Yoru reappeared beside their table so smoothly she seemed to condense from the gloom. Her voice was a bare whisper. "The sickness is not contagious through air or touch. It is geospheric. It radiates from the mines, weakening all who remain here for long. The Church knows this. Their 'cure' is not medicine. It is a company of Purifier knights, camped a half-day's march from here, waiting for the order to put the entire town to the void-fire and seal the mines."
The confirmation was as cold as the mountain wind. This was the trap. The Church had identified a community succumbing to the Swarm's influence. Instead of helping, they were using it as bait, a poisoned well for the Sun-Bearer to drink from.
"What's the source?" Kazuyo asked, his voice low. "Amani said a 'shadow in the stone.'"
"The deepest active shaft," Yoru reported. "The 'Mother Lode' vein. The miners broke into a new chamber a month ago. They brought something up with the mythril. Or they woke it."
That was their target. Not the town, not the Church's army, but the source of the sickness itself, buried deep in the mountain's gut.
As they finalized their plan in hushed tones, a commotion broke out at the pub's door. A woman was screaming, her voice raw with grief and fury. "He's not a thing to be burned! He's my father! Let me through!"
A man, his face a mask of grim authority—a Guild enforcer—blocked her way. "It's the law, Lena. Once the shakes set in, they go to the isolation barn. You know that. It's for the good of the town."
"The good of the town?" the woman, Lena, shrieked. "The town is dying! What good is there left?"
Shuya watched the scene, the woman's desperate love a stark contrast to the enforcer's hollow duty. This was the human cost of the Swarm's influence, the collapse of community into brutal survivalism. He saw Lyra's hand tighten around her tankard, her knuckles white. He saw the flicker of pain in Kazuyo's eyes, the king who could not save his subjects.
They were not here just to disrupt a Demon King. They were here because of Lena and her father. Because of the listless guards and the coughing children. The trap was secondary. The need was absolute.
As dusk began to settle, casting long, cold shadows through the dying town, they slipped out of The Dusty Geode. Their destination was not the comfort of an inn, but the yawning, black entrance of the main mine shaft, a portal that seemed to breathe out the cold, sickly air of the mountain's afflicted heart. The Church waited in the wings, their void-fire ready. The Swarm festered in the deep dark. And Silvervein, suspended between them, held its breath, unaware that its fate now rested on a Sun-Bearer, a Null-Son, and their small band walking willingly into the darkest part of the trap. The true battle for Silvervein would not be fought in the streets, but in the lightless caverns where a "shadow in the stone" was slowly consuming a mountain's soul.