Ignore the previous Quip.
I figured it out almost as soon as I posted it. orz.
I had to rewrite a bit of this chapter, and cut part of it for the next, so there's no current working chapter title (as of posting).
I'll have to think of one tomorrow.
Or suggest one of you want. ♛———♛—————————♛———♛
The bus rolled steadily through the cavern, its broad wheels humming against the smooth black road.
Buildings passed in orderly rows beyond the windows. Some stood finished and occupied, their lower levels open to foot traffic. Others remained wrapped in scaffolding, crawling machines moving across their frames like insects.
Goblins and ants filled most of the streets. Scattered among them walked humans, beastkin, and members of other Deep Tribes, many dressed in the same plain grey uniforms.
When the expedition first arrived, Strom had watched those grey-clad workers with growing concern.
Slavery wasn’t unheard of on the Skypiercer continent, but even in the Deep, the practice was generally viewed with contempt. It was associated more closely with demonic cultivators and cults such as the Cult of Iris than with any respectable clan, sect, or tribe.
Only later did the expedition learn that the workers weren’t slaves.
They were prisoners.
Bandits from the surface and surrounding caverns. Raiders from the more aggressive Deep Tribes. Others serving sentences for crimes committed within the dungeon’s territory. Rather than executing them, as most places would, or leaving them to rot in cells, the city allowed them to work and shorten their sentences.
Strom still wasn’t sure whether that knowledge comforted him.
He sat near the back of the bus with one elbow propped against the window, watching the city slide past. After a moment, he sighed and turned to scan the expedition members filling the seats ahead of him.
The bus looked much as it had during their first ride through the city: a long, enclosed carriage with broad windows, padded seats arranged along a central aisle, and enough space between the rows for armored adventurers to move comfortably. No beasts pulled it, and Strom still couldn’t sense any array or spirit engine driving it forward, save for the glowing MUD token embedded in the front panel.
The only real difference was how few people now sat inside.
Empty gaps broke up the expedition, each vacant seat mocking him.
Most of the remaining adventurers had settled into small groups. Some talked quietly, while others stared through the windows as the city passed. A few checked their weapons, armor, and supplies for the third or fourth time, clearly eager to begin the mission that had brought them into the Deep.
Strom counted them again.
Then grumbled.
“You look like a mother hen when you do that.”
He turned.
Cindy stood in the aisle beside him, one hand braced against the next seat as the bus rounded a gentle curve. Her massive siege bow rested in the rack overhead, secured beside several spears and a long-handled axe.
Beneath her armor, she wore the same white shirt and fitted black trousers she’d shown him earlier that morning.
Strom had to admit the outfit looked more comfortable than the usual layers worn beneath armor. The material sat close without bunching around her joints or gathering beneath the straps.
Maybe he really would visit that tailor after all.
He shook the thought away and glared up at her.
“We’ve been here less than a week,” he said, “and we’ve already lost six people.”
His jaw tightened.
“We haven’t even entered the dungeon yet.”
Cindy slid into the empty seat across the aisle.
“To be fair,” she said, “we didn’t really lose anyone.”
Strom’s glare hardened.
Cindy lifted one hand and began counting on her fingers.
“Two were caught stealing.”
A second finger rose.
“One ignored three separate warnings and entered a restricted construction site.”
A third joined them.
“And the twins turned out to be spies.”
Strom’s mouth tightened.
The brothers had spent their first few days asking seemingly harmless questions about transport schedules, storage routes, and the number of guards stationed around the Nexus terminal. Their curiosity had seemed far less innocent after the goblins found coded reports sewn into the lining of their packs.
Apparently, the clans had planted more sleepers inside the Guild than anyone realized.
Cindy raised her remaining fingers, then stopped.
“And Stewart…”
Her voice trailed off.
For several moments, neither of them spoke.
The bus continued through the expanding city. Outside, a line of construction machines climbed the exposed frame of another rising tower, passing materials from one platform to the next with tireless precision.
Further ahead, the dense urban blocks began to thin. Tall buildings gave way to broad stretches of open ground, then to trees so immense they made the towers behind them seem modest.
Strom turned his attention forward.
“At least he’s alive,” Cindy said eventually. “The healers said they stopped the mana deviance before his furnace cracked.”
Strom snorted.
Any form of deviance was serious. Even if Stewart survived without being crippled outright, he’d likely have lost years of progress. There was no guarantee his mana furnace would ever stabilize enough for him to cast anything stronger than a cantrip again.
Cindy leaned back, folded her arms, and crossed one leg over the other.
“My point,” she said, rolling her eyes, “is that you’re a worrywart.”
“We’re in the Deep,” Strom replied, as if that settled the matter.
Cindy raised a brow. “What other Deep city looks anything like this?”
Strom narrowed his eyes.
“All the more reason to be wary.”
Cindy sighed and sank deeper into her seat.
“Maybe, but—”
Before she could continue, Storyteller rose from her seat near the front of the bus.
The goblin woman turned to face the passengers, steadying herself with one hand against the nearest seat.
“Your attention, please,” she called.
The conversations around the bus faded.
Storyteller had served as the expedition’s guide through the city for most of the past week, answering questions, explaining local rules, and intervening whenever someone wandered too close to an area they weren’t permitted to enter.
“We’ll be approaching the Dragon’s Garden shortly,” she continued. “Please prepare for arrival. Your liaison will meet you at the entrance.”
Cindy straightened at once.
“Did you hear that?” she asked, excitement returning to her voice. “We’re almost there.”
Strom looked toward the front windows.
Beyond them, the black road wound between towering trees, leading deeper into the strange forest surrounding the dungeon.
Despite himself, he sat a little straighter.
A faint grin tugged at the corner of his mouth.
“Finally.”
——————————————————
Strom was the last to step off the bus.
He paused at the bottom of the steps and swept his gaze across the clearing as the doors slid shut behind him.
The expedition had already broken into small groups. Some checked weapons and packs while discussing their plans for the dungeon. Others spoke more quietly, their attention straying again and again toward the walls ahead.
Strom couldn’t blame them.
The walls surrounding the Dragon’s Garden rose nearly twenty meters, bone-white beneath dense layers of crawling green vines. They looked as if they were poured in a single piece rather than built, without visible joints or gaps large enough to exploit. Even from a distance, Strom judged them thick enough for a grown man to lie across the top without either arm hanging over the sides.
Walls that looked capable of keeping out even the strongest spirit beasts.
Or, if other dungeons were anything to go by, keeping something in.
The barrier stretched in both directions until distance swallowed it. To the left, it vanished into the forest. To the right, it crossed the broad river without any visible break, its foundations sinking beneath the current before rising again along the oddly barren far bank.
Strom’s gaze climbed toward the top.
Massive constructs sat at regular intervals, maybe a dozen meters apart. Their long barrels and reinforced housings reminded him of the spirit cannons mounted aboard the flying ships favored by the great sects.
Only perhaps ten times larger.
He folded his arms and studied the nearest one. What could warrant defenses like these?
As if answering the unspoken question, a shadow swept across the clearing.
Several adventurers looked up as a broad-winged spirit beast drifted through the cavern sky. One of the massive, griffin-sized bats common to caverns this large, Strom assumed. It flew well above the wall, high enough that even an early Second Realm attack from the ground would have struggled to reach it.
The instant it crossed the boundary, one of the cannons turned.
The movement was smooth and immediate. No crew rushed to load it. No array flared around its base. The barrel simply tracked the beast, adjusted by a fraction, and fired.
A thin beam of azure light lanced from the muzzle.
The spirit beast twisted to evade, but the beam struck where it was going rather than where it had been. It punched through the creature’s chest, burst from the other side, and scorched the cavern ceiling beyond. Its wings folded instantly, and the beast dropped without so much as a cry, turning slowly as it fell.
Cindy released a low breath beside him.
“Guess that answers how they stop people from sneaking over the walls.”
Her eyes remained fixed on the distant body as it tumbled. Nearly a full minute passed before it vanished behind the trees, revealing just how high it had been flying.
Strom grunted in agreement.
Several other adventurers had apparently wondered the same thing, as more than one gaze that had been measuring the walls with open interest snapped away.
Strom smirked.
Movement at the edge of the clearing caught his attention, where Storyteller had been speaking with a woman in brown robes. As their conversation ended, the pair turned toward him.
The woman had the unmistakable look of a scholar-mage rather than an adventurer. A golden badge pinned to her robes marked her as a Senior Guild Scholar, a rank high enough to command respect in any guild hall on the continent. Curly reddish-brown hair, a shade lighter than Cindy’s, framed a youthful face behind a pair of glasses.
Either she was extraordinarily talented for her age, Strom thought, or she was far older and stronger than she appeared.
It was hard to tell with prodigies.
Storyteller stopped before him and gestured toward the woman.
“Team Leader Strom,” Storyteller began. “This is—”
“Magnolia Greenwood,” Strom said.
Both women paused.
The mage blinked, then pushed her glasses higher on her nose.
“Ah… yes,” she said, a faint edge of nerves entering her voice. “I assume Bert told you about me?”
“He did.” Strom inclined his head. “Though I’ll admit, Ms. Greenwood, I wasn’t expecting to meet you here.”
She gave a small, uneasy laugh.
“Honestly, neither was I.”
Before she could explain, Cindy slipped past Strom and planted herself directly in front of the mage.
“Is it true you fought a Kigendoro all by yourself?!”
The question burst out with enough force that Maggy immediately stepped back.
For one brief moment, she looked like a cornered mouse. Her eyes darted toward Storyteller, then Strom, as though searching for an adult to intervene.
Then, perhaps remembering that she was supposed to be the senior authority present, she straightened and forced a stiff smile.
“Ah, please, call me Maggy.” She adjusted her glasses again. “And as for the Kigendoro, I wouldn’t say I… fought it, exactly. I mostly… held it back.”
Cindy’s lips parted, but Maggy quickly raised both hands.
“There were other people there too!”
Cindy’s excitement didn’t dim in the slightest.
“Even so! It was a Kigendoro. A Second-Realm Greater Drake!” Her voice rose with every word. “That’s only one step removed from a Flood Dragon!”
Maggy laughed again, softer and no less uncertain, clearly at a loss for how to handle Cindy’s… enthusiasm.
Strom stepped forward, caught Cindy by the shoulder, and pulled her back.
She gave an offended whine as he moved her aside and took her place before Maggy.
“I assume you’re the liaison Storyteller mentioned?” he asked.
Maggy blinked, then nodded.
“Ah. Yes, I am.”
The shift was immediate.
The young mage straightened, her uncertainty falling away the moment the conversation turned to official business. Her shoulders squared, her voice steadied, and she regarded Strom with the calm focus expected of a Senior Guild Scholar.
Strom hid a small smirk.
It seemed his first assessment had been correct. Maggy might be helpless against someone like Cindy, but no one reached her rank so young without considerable talent. Nor would the Guild assign her to an expedition this important if she weren’t competent.
Maggy turned and gestured toward the distant entrance.
“I’ve been instructed to show you the ropes, in effect, and help your team understand how the Dragon’s Garden operates,” she said. “It isn’t quite like any dungeon you’ve visited before.”
Her gaze swept across the expedition, lingering briefly on the adventurers still watching the walls.
“We’ve had no deaths so far,” she continued. “And the Guild would like to keep it that way.”
Strom shared a look with Cindy, then nodded.
Together, they followed Maggy across the clearing.