Opening: The Rift Stirs
The ground beneath the Dawnbreakers and Auren began to quake.
Cracks spiderwebbed across the cavern floor.
Rift energy pulsed upward — angry, hungry.
The very earth groaned like a wounded titan.
The horrors hidden deep within the Well had awakened.
Mutated beasts — once native to this world, now twisted beyond recognition — began to claw their way from the depths:
Chitinous flesh pulsing with Rift veins.
Faces split into too many jaws, too many teeth.
Moving like nightmares stitched together by rage.
Auren's Warning
Auren turned — the chains on his arms rattling — and faced the crew.
"They are the sins I helped unleash," he said, voice like a broken drum.
"But if you fight beside me… I swear I will not let them touch you."
Zaraya only grinned fiercely, cosmic fire burning at her fists.
"We're Dawnbreakers, Auren."
"We don't leave our own behind."
Auren blinked —
just for a moment, caught off-guard —
then nodded once.
The ground exploded.
The fight for the Sorrow Wells had begun.
The Battle
Zaraya charged the front — fists blazing with cosmic strikes, ripping apart Rift horrors faster than they could regenerate.
Kaelen unleashed his shadow army — his newly forged shade (from Cassik's corrupted soul) leading the charge with ruthless precision.
Jaxen sniped incoming horrors with pinpoint accuracy — the crack of his blasters echoing like war drums.
Lyren wove barriers and kinetic blasts — tearing apart Rift creatures with ancient spells of pure force.
Plo deployed destabilizer drones — causing pockets of Rift anomalies to collapse, taking beasts with them.
Aerin sang battle-chants — enhancing her allies' durability, weaving roots of surviving plant life to shield them.
And Auren —
Auren was a force of nature unleashed.
His twin Riftbound swords screamed through the air —
the chains allowing devastating mid-range whiplashes.
Every swing carved through abominations like thunder splitting mountains.
When he slammed the twin blades into the earth —
gravity rippled outward, flattening a dozen creatures at once.
The Rift Horror: Final Threat
But from the deepest pit crawled a true horror:
A Riftbeast forged from the death throes of the dead Gods themselves.
A creature with a semi-solid body of broken stone, Rift fire, and bone.
Towering. Seething. Malicious.
It screamed — a sound that cracked stone and made Aerin falter for a heartbeat.
Auren stepped forward.
"This is mine to end."
The Dawnbreakers + Auren vs. the Rift Horror
Together they attacked:
Zaraya took the right flank — distracting the creature with brutal cosmic hammer strikes.
Kaelen's shadows entangled its legs — slowing its devastating charges.
Lyren cracked its armor with piercing energy bursts.
Jaxen and Plo coordinated pulse blasts — disrupting its regeneration nodes.
Aerin kept the team alive — shielding from Rift flare attacks.
And Auren…
Auren unleashed his Echo of the Dead Gods:
His body became sheathed in ancient spectral armor.
His Riftbound blades burned brighter — as if remembering lost wars.
Every strike he landed sent echoes of dead gods howling through the Well.
Finally,
with a bellow that shook the crumbling cavern,
Auren wrapped his chains around the creature's throat,
hauled it down,
and plunged both swords through its heart.
The Rift Horror screamed once more —
then disintegrated into starlight and ash.
Silence fell.
Only the battered breathing of the Dawnbreakers remained.
Aftermath: A Bloom of Hope
The cavern began to collapse —
but not from corruption.
From purification.
The death of the Rift Horror had begun healing the Well's ancient wounds.
And then…
Aerin stepped forward.
Ignoring the dust, the broken earth, the pain still trembling in her hands —
she knelt.
She whispered an ancient Druidic prayer:
The First Root.
Her magic seeped into the scorched ground.
And there,
in the middle of blackened ruin,
a single white bloom
pushed its way free from the earth.
Delicate. Fragile. Pure.
Auren stared at it —
at the impossibility of it.
His fists clenched.
His body shook.
And then, slowly, heavily…
He knelt beside it —
bowing his scarred forehead to the ground.
Not for worship.
For forgiveness.
For hope.
Final Moments: A New Beginning
Back aboard the Radiant:
The Dawnbreakers offered Auren a place among them — no speeches, no conditions.
Just quiet acceptance.
Zaraya simply extended her hand.
Auren looked at it —
looked at the crew —
and for the first time since the fall of his world,
he smiled — tiny, broken, real.
He clasped her hand in his massive, scarred one.
"Where you go," he said, voice soft and sure, "I go."
The Dawnbreakers had gained more than another sword.
They had gained a fortress.
A shield.
A brother