The Council Hall is full of ghosts.

Not literal ones—not yet—but the memories press close. This is where you stood at your coming-of-age ceremony. Where the Elder presented you to the city. Where everything changed.

Now it’s a war camp.

Resistance fighters fill every corner. They’re armed with whatever they could find—kitchen knives, farming tools, the occasional real weapon. Their faces are gaunt, their eyes hollow. But beneath the exhaustion, you see something else.

Determination.

“You made it.” Elder Corvus emerges from the crowd, flanked by the cell leaders you met in the crypts. “We weren’t certain the tunnels were still clear.”

“They held.” You look around the hall. “How many?”

“Four hundred, give or take. Everyone who could fight. Everyone who wouldn’t give up.” Corvus’s voice is heavy. “It’s not an army. But it’s what we have.”

Four hundred against Varek’s entire force. Against an enemy who’s had three centuries to prepare.

“It’s enough,” you say. “It has to be.”

The blacksmith steps forward. “We’ve been watching the square. The patrols change at dawn. There’s a window—maybe fifteen minutes—where the defenses are thinnest.”

“That’s when we move,” Mira says. “Hit them fast, hit them hard. Create chaos.”

“And while they’re dealing with the uprising,” you add, “we reach the gem.”

Corvus nods slowly. “You understand that many of us won’t survive this.”

“I know.”

“And you’re going forward anyway.”

“Because if we don’t, no one survives.” You meet his eyes. “Not just Eldermoor. If Varek’s power keeps growing, if the founders’ suffering continues to feed it… he won’t stop at one city.”

The hall falls silent. Then, one by one, the resistance fighters begin to stand.

“For Eldermoor,” someone says.

“For the founders.”

“For everyone who fell.”

The voices swell, filling the hall with a sound you haven’t heard since the ceremony. Hope.

“For everyone,” you agree. “For tomorrow.”