As Orion touched down on the drainage flue, the impact sent a ringing jolt up his spine, worsening the constant pain he was in.
He stumbled, his shoulder scraping the tunnel wall, and fought the urge to hack. A cough could tear the fresh repair open, and he couldn’t afford that.
Garrick landed in a crouch beside him a moment later, splashing into the brackish water.
No later than that, the maintenance shaft groaned, and a thunderous crack reverberated above them. The access hatch blew outward, immediately followed by a cascade of concrete rubble and twisted rebar.
They scrambled away even as more debris choked the shaft, sealing the exit with a deafening crash that sent a thick cloud of dust rolling over them.
The intense noise from the collapsing base subsided into a muffled tremor. The dense bedrock absorbed most of the vibrations, shrouding the drainage flue in complete darkness and silence.
Jordan muttered a brief incantation, and a pale sphere of Light mana bloomed from his gauntlet, driving back the shadows.
The light also revealed that they made for a grim picture.
Esmeralda was coated with a layer of chalky dust, her coat ruined and her pale skin spotted with various fluids.
Erethemor wasn’t much better off, having taken the brunt of the Mage-Killers’ attacks, only to be slapped around by Verner.
Only Jordan stood tall, but he was carrying the unconscious Daus, who hung limply over his armored shoulder.
“We need to keep moving down before the collapse worsens,” Garrick ordered. He sheathed his greatsword and turned to Orion. “I hope you still have the map in your head, kid, because our guide isn’t in any shape to help.”
That was an understatement. It was, frankly, a miracle Daus was still alive, and Orion wouldn’t bet on him lasting much longer.
Still, he didn’t say as much. He wasn’t in good shape himself, and proposing that they leave someone behind after they’d just been betrayed wouldn’t be well received.
With some effort, he pushed himself off the wall. The potion in his veins kept the worst of the shock at bay, providing a dull warmth, but the damage remained. The healed tissue still felt tight, restricting his breath.
It took him two tries to activate the Arcane Overlay. Static clouded the edges of his vision, a direct result of his strained connection to the Field, but he forced his mind to cut through the interference, pushing a thin sliver of energy into [Holographic Containment]. The sensory field extended into the dark, feeding spatial data back into his thoughts until he managed to align it with the map he’d built.
“I know where we are. The flue slopes downward for another half-mile," Orion rasped. "It intersects the natural limestone faults, so as long as we follow the water, we should be able to find the exit.”
Thus, they began the march.
Every step demanded Orion’s full attention, as did the constant need to disconnect and repair the link to the Field, lest he exhaust himself and they be left with no map.
It was enough to distract him from thoughts of Verner’s dagger. He set aside the betrayal, the calculations behind a Collegium mage’s betrayal of them, and the raw fury he felt at himself for trusting him. Anger required energy, and his stamina was a finite, rapidly draining resource.
As expected, the concrete pipe eventually gave way to natural stone. The tunnel continued for a while before widening into a subterranean cavern carved by centuries of underground rivers, its floor uneven and slick with moss and loose shale.
Compared with the first leg, they weren’t making very good time, but it was the best they could do given the current conditions.
Especially with the possible threat of Verner returning to finish his job if he realized they hadn’t died in the collapse.
No, don’t waste time thinking about that. Later.
A hiss cut through the silence.
"Halt," Garrick commanded, throwing an arm out.
Dutifully, Jordan sent his light ahead, revealing what had caused the noise.
A hundred yards ahead, the cavern floor dipped into a wider basin. The ceiling above the depression was fractured, split by deep fissures that ran toward the base of the foundation. A viscous yellow fluid seeped through the cracks, dripping steadily.
It didn’t take a genius to recognize it as the liquid from the shattered vats, seeping through the bedrock.
The sludge pooled in the depression, eating into the limestone in a foaming reaction. Yellow fumes rose from the reaction, coalescing into a thick cloud near the ceiling.
Orion felt a faint warmth on his wrist. The enchanted bracer they had been given activated, its runes glowing a dull blue. The magic filtered the caustic vapor before it could reach his nose, providing a stream of clean, breathable air. The rest of the team’s bracers followed suit, shielding their lungs from the poison.
The native fauna, however, possessed no such protections.
A rapid clicking echoed from the dark crevices above. The toxic fumes had agitated the creatures nesting in the high faults. Pale, chitinous shapes dropped from the shadows, striking the stone floor with bony thuds.
They were blind cave-crawlers, larger than even the other beasts they’d encountered so far. Generations in the dark had bleached their segmented shells to a translucent white, giving them an eerie appearance, and the burning alchemical runoff drove them into a mindless frenzy.
Their mandibles snapped wildly, dripping milky venom as they thrashed in the fumes, attacking everything in sight, even the very stone around them.
One of the crawlers must have caught the scent of blood on the team, because it swiveled its eyeless head, emitted a high-pitched shriek, and charged.
“Behind me!" Garrick barked as he stepped in front of Orion, bringing his sword down.
The strength behind the blow was such that he sheared through the crawler’s pale carapace, splitting the creature in two. Foul-smelling gore splashed across the floor.
But by then, four more crawlers scrambled down the walls, their dozens of legs clicking frantically on the rock.
Because Jordan could not fight while carrying Daus, nor could he leave his quarry, he stepped back and settled in to protect the druid and Orion, keeping his Light sphere high to illuminate the targets.
Erethemor was not so limited and roared, stepping to the edge of the acid pool. He inhaled, letting his internal furnace burn hot, and unleashed a line of white fire. The flames swept across the charging beasts and the sludge alike, flash-boiling the alchemical fluid and sending a thick cloud of steam hissing into the air, cooking the leading crawlers inside their own shells.
Several of the creatures popped and curled inward, dying instantly.
While that had rid them of a problem, it had caused another. The path they’d taken before was now inaccessible because large chunks had been turned to slag, and climbing down was impossible because too much sludge had pooled in the basin, creating a small lake.
When Orion made that clear, Esmeralda’s eyes flashed. “I’ll take care of that.”
The rapier vanished from her hands, returning to her veins as a stream of blood, and she extended her pale hands toward the slaughtered crawlers.
Drawing on the Field, she drew the translucent gore from the dead beasts, mixed it with the cooling, vitrified slag left by Erethemor’s fire, and formed a dark crust. Esmeralda then pushed the magic outward, forcing the hardened coagulation to spread across the sludge pool, forming a narrow bridge.
"Move quickly," she warned, her fangs bared in concentration. “I can feel the acid eating away at the blood.”
Garrick went first, testing the crust with his boot. The surface cracked slightly, weeping small drops of fluid, yet held his weight. He crossed the basin, then turned to wave the others forward.
Jordan followed, his steps wide and careful, balancing Daus on his shoulder. Erethemor crossed next, eyeing the brittle surface with distrust.
Finally, Orion stepped onto the bridge. The heat radiating from the sludge beneath the crust baked the soles of his boots, yet he didn’t make the mistake of focusing on it.
His paranoia was rewarded when, halfway across, a surviving crawler dropped from a hidden fissure directly above him.
The beast landed on the edge of the bridge, scrabbling for purchase and snapping its mandibles inches from Orion’s face.
Though he would have liked to say he’d prepared for this, the truth was he reacted on pure instinct. Mana answered his sudden call, and a kinetic pulse shot outward.
The spell lacked his usual overwhelming power and had none of his finesse, yet even that much was enough to spike the pain in his lung, turning his vision white. The weak kinetic shove caught the crawler mid-air, throwing its trajectory off by a few inches. The beast missed his throat, its sharp legs catching the sleeve of his coat and tearing the fabric.
By then, however, Garrick reached across the gap, grabbed Orion by the collar, and hauled him roughly onto the safe limestone on the far side. The crawler hit the brittle crust hard, its target missed, and its weight shattered a portion of Esmeralda’s blood-bridge.
The beast shrieked as it plunged into the boiling green sludge, dissolving into a foaming black mess within seconds.
"You need to stay alert, kid," Garrick grunted, releasing Orion’s coat.
"I am," Orion gasped, leaning on his knees as he fought to steady his breathing. “It’s my cast speed that’s compromised.”
"Save your strength, then," Esmeralda advised. “We’ll take care of everything.”
It would probably have been more reassuring if he hadn’t seen Verner smack them around not that long ago.
Still, they pressed deeper into the faults. The distant rumbling of the collapsing base faded, replaced by the rhythmic drip of condensation. The tunnel twisted in sharp, disorienting angles, and the limestone walls closed in until they were forced to walk single-file.
Without [Holographic Containment], they would likely have been lost long ago, as multiple branching tunnels opened around them, but even it wasn’t perfect, especially because Orion couldn’t keep it active all the time, and in their haste, they’d been forced to backtrack several times.
The mapped data showed that their path should have begun to slope upward toward the cliff face, but the air remained completely still. There was no draft, no scent of the outside.
Yet a faint presence brushed against his sensory field when he activated it again to confirm they were on the right path.
It was a thread of nature mana, distinct from the overwhelming power of [Overgrowth]. This magic felt ancient, settled, and strangely serene.
The corridor ended in a solid wall of white limestone where there should have been none. Jordan held his Light sphere close to the rock, revealing no cracks, seams, or hidden levers.
Despite that impossibility, Orion wasn’t too worried.
"A dead end," Erethemor growled, his tail lashing in frustration as he side-eyed Orion. “Looks like your map is wrong.”
Ignoring him, Orion slowly walked up to the wall. "The Field here is folded. I can sense the light bending around something.”
Something about this felt familiar. If he’d been in possession of his full faculties, he would probably have realized sooner, but it was only as he pressed his hand against it that he connected the dots.
“Jordan, bring Daus here,” he ordered.
His friend looked confused, but complied.
As expected, the closer the druid got, the more the mother-seeds in his pack began to glow, until what had been a solid limestone wall shimmered.
The illusion rippled like water disturbed by a stone, dissolving into a curtain of sparkling mist. The scent of nature washed over them, erasing the stink of the tunnel.
“It must have been a Tier Four ward," Jordan breathed, stepping through the mist.
They followed and emerged into a hidden grove.
The space was a wide, open-air alcove carved deep into the cliff face, completely shielded from the outside delta by the ancient illusion. Its floor was carpeted with soft, vibrant green moss that felt like velvet underfoot. Thick wooden columns framed the alcove's open edge, supporting a natural dome of smooth white stone. A small, crystal-clear spring bubbled from the rock wall, filling a stone basin before spilling quietly over the cliff's edge. Trees cast shade around.
It seemed that the Iron State had constructed its base next to this place, completely blind to its existence.