The Silence Beneath
Part III of the Wilderness Trilogy
~ ~ ~
The Chaos Temple loomed on the horizon, twisted like a thorn piercing the sky. Cracked obsidian stones formed its crooked spires, and the tainted energy of the place bled into the very soil. Despite herself, Nyssarra paused at its threshold.
Beside her, Wolfthora rolled her shoulders and gave a soft grunt. “Home sweet heresy.”
They weren’t alone.
A tall figure in sapphire-plated armor stood at the temple steps, cloak billowing in the wind. His blade was sheathed, but the light radiating from it even at rest shimmered like midday sun through holy glass. He turned as they approached, and his weathered face broke into a familiar, wry smile.
“Arriving fashionably late, are we?” said Jahn Stirling.
“Paladin,” Nyssarra greeted, with a nod of fond formality. “You shine like a beacon in this cursed place.”
“Someone has to,” Jahn replied. “Though I’m not sure if I’m a warning… or bait.”
Wolfthora smirked. “I’ve always said you’d make excellent bait.”
They shared a brief, silent camaraderie—an acknowledgment of old battles and older debts.
“I take it you’ve heard?” Nyssarra asked.
Jahn’s face grew grim. “I received word from the Monastery near Edgeville. Spectral phenomena, void energy, and a half-collapsed altar singing with pre-god wars language. Thought of the two of you immediately.”
“We’re flattered,” Wolfthora said dryly.
Jahn’s eyes sharpened. “This isn’t a skirmish. It’s an unsealing.”
Inside the Chaos Temple, the priest didn’t meet them with hostility. He met them with fear.
“The earth screams in the old hours,” the gaunt man muttered, wringing bony hands. “The runes no longer burn true. Something is moving beneath us.”
Jahn stepped forward. “Do you know what it is?”
“No name. No title. Just the Silence. We found mention of it in torn scrolls beneath the temple. Said it came before Zamorak… before Zaros even. Buried here, where the gods never dared walk.”
Nyssarra exchanged a glance with Wolfthora. “The ruins. The specter. The runes—it was all containment.”
The priest nodded slowly. “Until someone started waking it.”
Jahn unsheathed his sword. The chamber lit with holy blue light. “Then we’re closing it again.”
They followed the priest’s directions to a cavern system beneath the temple—one sealed for centuries by layers of faith and fear. With each step into the darkness, the air grew heavier.
Nyssarra’s crystal pendant flickered, its harmonic hum fading as though being drowned out. Even Seren’s song was quiet here.
Wolfthora muttered, “It’s like the world itself is holding its breath.”
They reached a sealed stone gate etched with sigils from dozens of forgotten tongues. At the center was one phrase, newly uncovered, glowing faintly:
“The First Silence waits not to speak, but to erase.”
Jahn placed a hand on the stone. “This is not just a prison. It’s a warning.”
“Which means we’re exactly where we need to be,” Wolfthora said, planting her boot and shoving the gate open.
Beyond was a hollow unlike anything they'd seen. It wasn’t a chamber—it was an ancient scar.
The cavern walls stretched wide, sloping into an abyss. Floating above the pit, like an anchor suspended in smoke, was a shattered monolith—fragments of a once-whole relic humming with black light.
Around it circled orbs of spectral energy—like revenants, but older. Duller. Empty.
And at the far end stood a figure cloaked in robes darker than shadow, face hidden beneath an iron mask etched with runes that hurt to look at.
Wolfthora unslung her sword. Jahn raised his blade, light flaring. Nyssarra notched a crystal arrow, the magic trembling in her grip.
The masked figure didn’t move—didn’t even turn.
But a voice filled the air.
“You are too late.”
The monolith cracked, and darkness poured from it like liquid thought.
The revenant-specters rushed them.
Jahn surged forward, sword blazing like a beacon, carving through the first wave. Each strike rang with Saradomin’s judgment. Wolfthora met the charge with wild fury, her greatsword flashing red in the half-light. Nyssarra moved like wind between them, her arrows forming protective sigils mid-air, scattering foes before they could reach her companions.
But the specters reformed.
“They’re not fighting to win,” Jahn called. “They’re stalling!”
Nyssarra looked to the monolith. It was sinking—being pulled into the abyss.
“No,” she whispered. “It’s rising.”
The pit below was no void. It was an eye.
And it was opening.
Nyssarra reached into her satchel and pulled free her last remaining crystal—a shard of the original cavern where her mother once sang to stone and star. She infused it with every fragment of elven memory she could summon—songs of birth, of harmony, of hope.
She fired.
The crystal sang as it flew—pure, bright, defiant.
It struck the monolith—
—and shattered it.
The abyss screamed.
The robed figure dropped to its knees, mask cracking.
Jahn lunged, sword driving forward, impaling the creature through the chest.
Wolfthora swung her blade in a wide arc, severing the connection between the specters and the pit.
The eye closed.
And the world fell still.
Later, back on the edge of the Wilderness, they sat by the River Lum again. The water ran clean, the sky above lighter. Edgeville was in sight—tired, scarred, but safe.
Jahn cleaned his blade in the river. “Whatever that was… it was older than any god I’ve ever prayed to. Or feared.”
Nyssarra nodded. “And it’s not truly gone. Just… deeper.”
“We cracked the surface of something ancient,” Wolfthora added. “And what we found remembered us.”
Jahn looked to them both. “Then we remember it too. We prepare. We warn. And if the Silence ever rises again—”
“We’ll be ready,” Nyssarra said.
Night settled, but the three remained by the river, their bond tempered in battle and shadow. The Wild still loomed, but for the first time, it felt just a little quieter.
The kind of quiet you earn—not fear.
The kind you defend.