Beyond the Grave: Field Notes of Berix Baublebuyer:

“There are names that shouldn’t echo past their own legends. Daggerclaw was one of them. We’d fought side by side through crypts, smoke, and too much ale—two fools who mistook survival for destiny. When we parted, he chased faith, I chased function. I used to picture him drilling recruits somewhere sunny, still muttering that my machines made too much noise.

The thing waiting in the ash wasn’t memory—it was the shape of loyalty carved hollow. Pride stitched to motion by the cruel mathematics of necromancy. Sinew tugged at scales gone dull; a wisp of smoke curled from a throat that remembered heat but not laughter. Lantern light shrank from him like humor from a funeral. Even his shadow kept formation, patrolling a world that no longer needed guarding.

The kit felt wrong in my hands. Silver, oil, dragonfire—each tool a verdict disguised as mercy. The craftsman in me whispered fix him. The friend in me whispered don’t. I’ve rebuilt broken engines that screamed less. Some repairs demand disassembly; others demand you let the noise fade on its own.

He stopped within reach of the lamplight, claws etching a spiral in the soot—broad, deliberate, the same cursed geometry that had followed me since the forest. When his gaze met mine, there was recognition without blame, a silent accounting of shared debts. For a heartbeat, I almost raised the flask. For another, I almost spoke his name. Both choices failed to move.

So I did nothing—my finest sin and my last kindness. The spiral tightened as though approving, or maybe recording my cowardice for whatever god still kept ledgers. He turned north, steps measured, smoke trailing like prayer. I followed soon after, one heartbeat late, because that was always our rhythm. Somewhere ahead, the pattern waited, and I’d already refused to break the beat that once kept us both alive.”*