The hopelessness in the caretaker’s words—as much as the words themselves—stopped the party from saying anything immediately.

  “All these bodies,” Seeyela said. “They’re not dead?”

  “Just wishing they were,” the caretaker said with a cold laugh. “They aren’t the only ones.” With his hand, he slowly reached up and pulled back the hood of his cloak. The top of his scalp and his left eye were wrapped with more dirty, blood-stained bandages, while his nose twisted painfully to the side, crimson still dripping from it.

  As soon as the party got a good look at him, he pulled the hood back up.

  “Got all that when a Cinder-Bloke got a little too close,” the caretaker said. “Few hundred years ago. Few thousand? More? It all blurs together. Hurts every day. And it’ll never stop.” He looked down at the corpse with the newly broken finger beside him. “It’s worse for them. And the others.”

  “Why can’t you heal?” Seena said.

  “We’re cursed,” the caretaker said. “By the Raze. By what they did. When that made it so they always go back to the way they were, it also made it so nobody else could be born or die. We’re trapped in these bodies. Except, we don’t reset, like they do. They can never change from what they are, and we can never change back.

  “Every injury we get, it stays with us, forever. Some of us tried killing ourselves, hoping it would end the suffering. It didn’t work. Just trapped them…” he looked across the lines of corpses, “in their own bodies. With nothing but their pain to keep them company.”

  “This looks like more than people killing themselves,” Yanily said, his voice lacking some of the usual mirth he had. “Did the Raze do this?”

  “We aren’t worth their time,” the caretaker said. “The sent some of their Endless centuries ago, who killed most of who you see here. Haven’t been back since. Most of the others are a result of the Cinder-Blokes. Hah, even they stopped coming by eventually. Not enough of us here to make it worth stamping us out.”

  “And, you’re in pain right now?” Romin said.

  The caretaker gave a harsh laugh as a reply. “I’m always in pain. Right now. Yesterday. Tomorrow. If there even were days, anymore, instead of one long nightmare without end.

  “But…” he trailed off, looking again at the party in front of him. “If you’re really real, and not just kind of real in my head, why do you all look so… fresh? No bandages. No injuries. Not even a pimple. You have no idea how annoying one of those can be for eternity.

  “How?”

  “Like we said before,” Hiral said. “We’re not from here.”

  “Here is all there is!” the caretaker half-shouted. “It has to be. If there is a there, why didn’t we ever leave here to go there?”

  “We’re from Genesis,” Hiral said, testing something out. “Inside the dungeon.”

  The man completely stopped at the sentence. Just like a dungeon construct would. Did that mean…?

  “You can’t be,” the caretaker said quietly, interrupting Hiral’s thoughts. “You can’t be. Unless you’re not actually real, and it’s not just me hallucinating, but the whole world? Are you a figment of the world’s imagination?”

  “Nope,” Yanily said. “I’d… uh… pinch you to prove it, but I don’t think you’d like that. So, take my word for it?”

  “It’s a dungeon,” the caretaker said. “How did you come out of it?”

  “You know about Genesis and the dungeon it’s trapped inside?” Hiral said.

  “It’s rude to answer a question with another question!” the caretaker snapped, his personality going all over the place the more they talked to him. Then again, an eternity of endless pain might wear down on the mind.

  “You’re right,” Hiral said, patting the air to calm the man. “We came through the Black Gates. As far as we can tell, Genesis itself isn’t a dungeon, it’s just trapped inside one. The world is real.”

  “The rumors were true,” the caretaker hissed in a quiet whisper. “True… and we didn’t believe them. But, how could we, considering the source? They could’ve been lying, telling us they were connected to there.”

  At the words, the caretaker suddenly stood up straighter. “There is a there! More than just a here. There is a there!” He turned, far faster than anything he’d done up to this point, to look back in the direction of the Fountain. “Maybe they can take us…”

  “Your turn to answer some questions,” Hiral said. “You know about Genesis being in the dungeon?”

  Hiral had to repeat the question a second and third time before the caretaker finally turned from the Fountain to look at him again.

  “Ages ago,” the raspy voice said. “When more of us were… upright.” His hand waved in the direction of the lined bodies. "After the Raze brought us to the place that only had one sun, we had… time. Time to question. To research. To wonder what they’d done to themselves, and to us.”

  “What did you find out?” Seena said.

  The caretaker’s head turned back to the Fountain instead of answering.

  “Should Laseen try healing him?” Yanily whispered through the party chat.

  “If it doesn’t work,” Laseen said. “My needles would only cause him more pain. We should wait for Wule to get here.”

  “Hey, what did your research tell you?” Seena pressed.

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  “The Raze found the same thing we did,” the caretaker said. “Time. But they used it for something different. Somehow. They moved us here. Or, maybe I should say now? It’s been now for so long, but if there’s a there, maybe there’s also a then? A before? A later? Oh, to see a later would be a dream.”

  “But Genesis?” Hiral said.

  The caretaker held up his two hands, the lantern hanging from one of them. “They had to balance things out. Like they can’t change, and we can’t change back, they did the same thing with the whole world. This world is Genesis, but not anymore.”

  “Stop a second,” Seeyela said. “We’ve been using the name for our world, but it was made up by the Progenitors, wasn’t it? How does he know our world is called Genesis?”

  “It’s always been Genesis,” the caretaker said with a giggle.

  That’s new.

  “Probably part of the story,” Hiral said. “The Progenitors just thought they were naming the world, but they were probably acting out one of the things that had to happen. Even if they didn’t realize it.”

  “You’re going to explain everything that doesn’t make sense as just being part of the original story, aren’t you?” Seeyela deadpanned, and Hiral could only shrug. It was true. It could explain things that didn’t quite add up.

  “How did they do it?” Hiral asked the caretaker instead of answering Seeyela. “How did they put another version of Genesis in a dungeon? How can we get it out?”

  “They had time,” the caretaker said, like that answered everything. “And the Black Gates. They had some of those too. Used them as anchors to hold it in place.”

  “So,” Yanily said. “All we need to do is remove the anchors after all?”

  “You can’t,” the caretaker said. “Black Gates don’t exist in one place. They’re here. And there. And everywhere, all at once. They’re now, then, later, before, whenever. Time and space don’t mean the same things to them. They can move through either of them as easily as you walk down the street.”

  “There has to be a way to free them,” Seeyela said. “If we can do that, we can get Genesis back to where it’s supposed to be. When it’s supposed to be.”

  Hiral looked at the woman, the confidence in her words, like she had a definite way to do that. She only met his eyes for a second before her attention was back on the caretaker. Whatever she had up her sleeve, she wasn’t sharing.

  “It’s not that simple,” the caretaker said. “Just removing the Black Gates would collapse the dungeon. The space where that Genesis is. Then there would be no then or there, just now and here. Again. Always. Forever. Don’t make me hope if you can’t take me there!”

  “… make the dungeon collapse?” Hiral repeated the important part of the outburst. “Would that free Genesis?”

  “Have you ever freed anything inside something that’s collapsed?” the caretaker asked back.

  “Question to answer a question…” Hiral said flatly before he could stop his mouth, and the caretaker winced.

  “That was rude of me,” the caretaker admitted. “In my defense, I haven’t talked to anything other than my own hallucinations in a long time.”

  “What about the other people still in the city?” Seena said. “The ones who turned off the lights when we got here.”

  “They’re hiding from pain,” the caretaker said. “Everything is a threat when any small accidents could make you hurt forever. Stub your toe? You know how much that hurts? Imagine that for a thousand years. Hitting your funny bone? Leg falling asleep? Stepping on one of the Let-Go building blocks? Agony. Like us, you’d wish you could die. Except you couldn’t.

  “They won’t do anything that risks that. Instead, they hide in their padded homes where they can’t hurt themselves.”

  “Is there a way to get Genesis out of the dungeon?” Hiral said. The information about the others was great and all, but it didn’t help them with their main concern.

  “Probably,” the caretaker said.

  “Probably?” Hiral questioned. “You…?”

  “I wasn’t in charge of setting up the monitoring stations around the Black Gates,” the caretaker said. “Before everything went bad.”

  “Who was?” Hiral said. “Maybe they could help us.”

  “Nulokin,” the caretaker said.

  “Nulokin?” Hiral said, and every head turned to look at the corpse on the ground beside the caretaker. The one whose hand he’d stepped on. “That Nulokin?”

  “It’s not a common name,” the caretaker said. “Unless you know another one you’d like to introduce me to?”

  “No need to be sarcastic,” Hiral said. “Laseen, what do you think? Could you fix the body enough if your healing works on them?”

  “I…” the vampire started.

  “It would be a bad idea,” Wule’s voice came over the raid chat. “I’ve inspected the sparks of life around a few of the bodies, and if the ones there are in the same shape as these ones, even if the people woke up, it would be bad. Real bad.

  “It’s like their souls can’t break free from the shackles of their own bodies. Worse, they somehow still feel everything happening to their bodies. These people have been in pain so long, I don’t even know what would wake up. Broken minds would possibly be the best outcome. More likely they’d be raging beasts, simply lashing out in their own pain.”

  “We’d be torturing them even if we healed them?” Hiral said.

  “Yes,” Wule answered.

  “Who you talking to?” the caretaker said. “Hallucinations like mine? Are they cute? Mine never are. Wish they could be.”

  “We’ve got other friends nearby,” Hiral said.

  “Closer than you think,” Nivian said, climbing the last stairs to bring him up to the same level as the others. “After the first house, Wule did more inspections as we came this way.”

  “That was quick,” Yanily said, and Seeyela nodded her agreement.

  “I thought it important we join you,” Nivian said, the rest of his party following behind him.

  “That’s more like it!” the caretaker said. “Those two look like what they should.” He pointed at Bash and Igwanda, the two most obviously undead. As a wight and draugr, their bodies had some imperfections that never quite went away, no matter how much they were healed. Then there was the pallor of their skin. “And you!” he said to Nivian. “You look freezing. Skin that white.”

  “It’s his skin you comment on?” Wule said. “Not the blue fire for eyeballs? Or the blue tears running down his face?”

  “Some things aren’t polite to ask about,” the caretaker said.

  “Did you find out anything else, Wule?” Seena said.

  “Just that even if we did heal them,” the Grower said. “There’s no guarantee we could reattach the souls properly to their bodies. They all should’ve died. The separation of body and soul started, but it’s like something snagged. Healing their wounds doesn’t fix that.

  “And,” he continued dramatically. “All of them are so old. If time advanced even a single minute, as they are now, they would turn to dust.”

  “But, time doesn’t advance,” Romin pointed out. “They would be fine if… ah. You want them to find a way to leave Terminus.”

  “Correct,” Nivian said. “If they stay, when we succeed, this world will cease to exist. Time will advance, and they will all die.”

  “I can only wish for death,” the caretaker said.

  “We will find a way to free Genesis,” Nivian said, voice full of confidence. “Whether we defeat the Raze or not to do that, it will be the end of Terminus as it is. It will either cease to exist, or it will return to normal time. Both of those options would mean the end of you and your people.”

  “And we would happily take that option. It would be a final release for us. A gift.”

  “What if it didn’t have to happen that way?” Nivian said. “What if I offered you all a way to live again. Free of the pain and suffering you’ve been through, with a chance to start a new… life?”

  “I’d say you were crazier than me,” the caretaker said, but something else had crept into his voice. Hope?

  “Nivian doesn’t do crazy,” Wule said. “Crazy ideas, yes. Which this is.”

  “Nivian?” Seeyela said. “Do you have a way you think you can save them?”

  “I do,” Nivian said.

  Seeyela just looked at him and crossed her arms, making it very clear she didn’t want to have to keep asking.

  Instead of directly answering her, the Death Knight looked at Hiral. “You have the Urn of Ur’Thul?”

  “Of course I do…” Hiral said, eyes widening at the realization of what Nivian was thinking.

  Nivian looked at Seeyela. “I want to bring them all back as undead.”

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