The dungeon's threshold swallowed Zehrina and Team Two, their theatrical sighs echoing into the sudden silence. A different kind of energy settled over the remaining group, like a stage set plunging into darkness after a performance. Expectation hung thick as dust, every movement and noise now cautious, deliberate. Roy stood at the edge, blinking into the ghostly light, a silent warning drumming behind his ribs. This was the precipice, his first step into the abyss he'd claimed. For all his grand pronouncements, the meticulously drawn maps, and Serenity's conjured blueprints, there was no guide for the knot tightening in his gut. He took a half-step forward, peering into the unnatural glow, and a familiar, cold anxiety seized him. The sensation was nothing new, but its weight was different, sharper, somehow personal, pressing in on him with the damp chill of a tomb.
"Nervous, Captain?" Eryndra's voice purred at his side, a grin flashing just enough teeth to remind him she was more than comfortable in such a terrifying place.
"Just admiring the, uh, architecture! Yes, that!" Roy replied, his voice full of forced confidence. He drew a deliberate breath, trying to steady himself.
The air spilling from the dungeon was thick, as if the place itself was breathing in anticipation, laced with the cold bite of stone. Beneath it, a different scent lingered. Hot and ancient, like a furnace left to cool in the very bones of the earth.
As he stepped across the threshold, the shift was an instantaneous amputation of the world behind them. One moment, the Central Court's raucous symphony and slightly humid press were a physical weight; the next, they were gone, severed clean. In their place, a precise, echoing silence devoured the air. The chamber unfurled, a testament to perfect angles and seamless blackstone, its joints vanishing into an unyielding fit.
Veins of violet energy pulsed along the floor and walls, a slow, artificial heartbeat. The light they cast was stark, a bruised glow that erased shadows but laid bare every fleck of grit. It offered no comfort, only an undeniable deliberation, as if the room had been forged for a purpose predating speech itself. Even the grit beneath Roy's boots sang with a new clarity, each step a metallic snap rebounding off the stone.
"Over there. Pygmy Goblin, Captain," Lynder's voice, a calm, professional counterpoint to the thrumming arcane energies, cut through the chamber. His gaze dissected the shadows as he pointed out the hunched, green-skinned form in a far corner. Large eyes blinked in the ethereal glow. "Juvenile variant. Barely a threat on its own."
Roy gave Lynder a terse nod in response as the trio stepped forward. Orin let his arms dangle, his knuckles cracking like grinding stones. Andri rotated her shoulders, settling into a poised yet relaxed posture. Rava, in contrast, simply exuded an air of disinterest. They advanced without drawing a single weapon. The goblin let out a reedy shriek and charged, a pathetic display of aggression that was met with casual brutality. Orin sidestepped the clumsy attack and delivered a single, open-palmed slap to the creature's head. The goblin dissolved into a shower of, ultra-thin, glittering, golden flecks before it even hit the ground.
"Done," Orin declared, sweeping a few of the larger flecks from the floor and pocketing them.
"Good work, all of you," Takara affirmed, a soft ripple of approval in her voice. Orin's grin stretched wide.
"Pygmy Goblins are barely a fair fight for an untrained toddler." Rava offered a faint shrug. "I once saw a starving ten-year-old beat up ten of them simultaneously."
Roy gawked at them, his expression a blend of disbelief and burgeoning curiosity. "They're truly that pathetic?"
The group pressed on, deeper into the echoing darkness. Another goblin, a hunched shadow of malice, darted into view. Roy halted, a flicker of raw intent in his eyes, and shot Eryndra a glance. "Cover me. I… I want a shot at this one."
"Yes! The Captain will show us how tall he is!" Orin yelled as he threw his arms wide.
Roy charged forward, nerves tight in his throat, and punted the goblin like a ball. It struck the ceiling with a dull smack, crumpled, and hit the stone floor dead. Gold flecks trickled out of its body and scattered across the floor. The Presidroids stooped to gather them wordlessly.
"Roy, you were so amazing!" Eryndra said, voice carrying open delight. Roy flushed, tugged at his face like a mask, and briefly slipped into the booming cadence of his Thunder Rider persona to hide his embarrassment. "No one can stop me when the stars conspire in my favor!"
From behind the group, Orden burst into furious applause, each clap echoing like cannon fire.
They pressed on. The sterile blackstone corridor gave way in an abrupt shift to a vast expanse of dry heat. The air shimmered, hot and brittle. The floor turned from stone to a sweep of tall golden grass, each stalk whispering under an invisible current. Overhead stretched a ceiling so distant it blurred into haze, a self-lit vault of heat and dust that felt more like open sky than any chamber carved by mortal hands.
"This is the first floor, how is the ceiling so high up? Technomedia can't be more than fifteen feet above us," Roy asked.
"Without a doubt, this is the work of spatial magic," Lynder answered, his gaze sweeping the horizon.
"The sector boundaries are the same as they were a thousand years ago. No bleed-through, no transition. One world simply ends, and another begins. The magical principles required are… staggering."
"It's nice and warm," Orin declared happily, stretching his arms.
Andri, however, looked uncomfortable in the sudden heat. "I prefer the cold."
"Look left, everyone. Redcaps. Like their goblin cousins, truly weak. Aside from one goblin variant, which I highly doubt we will see in this dungeon, we need not fear any member of the goblin family tree," Lynder explained.
The pack of Redcaps, their crimson hats a startling splash of color against the yellow grass, erupted from a nearby thicket. They were juvenile, small and yipping like angry dogs. Rava sighed, lifted a hand, and a wave of compressed air flattened the entire pack, their bodies dissolving into another puff of golden dust.
As the last fleck of gold dropped, Rava, who was walking point, suddenly stopped. A faint hum echoed. He looked down to see his boot resting on a newly glowing runic seal set into the hard-packed earth. A moment of tense silence hung in the air. Then, from a hidden panel in the high ceiling, a small bundle dropped, landing at his feet with a soft, rustling thud.
"Just a pile of twigs?" Eryndra asked in bored contempt.
Roy stared at the pathetic twig trap, then at the ceiling, then back at the twigs. He let out a long, weary sigh. "Okay. So, invisible triggers exist. At the very least, that's good to know."
The next sector was a glacial corridor, its walls sheer ice that glowed with veins of buried light. The cold bit through clothes in a breath, sharp enough to sting the teeth. At first, the place seemed deserted. No goblins of any variety. The silence was broken only by the soft crunch of boots on frost. Then Andri, peering into an ice cave hollow, stopped. Inside, a large cluster of goblins huddled together, their bodies stiff, eyes frozen wide. Frost clung to their lashes. They had been caught in the sector's own cruelty, preserved like dolls behind glass.
Lynder observed the scene with a detached calm. "The dungeon devours its inhabitants. Even monsters are subject to its laws."
The following sector shifted to blistering heat. The ice gave way to dunes of coarse sand and a sun that wasn't there but pressed down like iron. Goblins shrieked at their arrival, their eyes wide with primal terror, as they scrambled desperately into the sand, their trembling heads poking out like terrified children.
Roy slowed, pity edging into his voice. "Is killing them mandatory? They are so...pathetic."
"No," Lynder replied. His tone carried nothing of mercy, only fact.
They turned their backs to move on, but the goblins broke cover, scrabbling forward in a frenzied rush against their unsuspecting targets.
Lynder's expression sharpened, a muscle ticking in his jaw. Black mist unfurled at his imperceivable command and swept over the pack, unraveling them into nothing. Not even the usual gold flecks remained. "Cowardly vermin."
Slightly afraid, Roy gave a dry laugh. "And here I was, just about to do the same thing."
From there, the path offered little resistance. Sectors folded one into another, each as shallow as the last. They reached the first true boss, a redcap a bit taller than the rest. Lynder noted, almost idly, that it was still juvenile despite its size. Orin closed the gap in a flash, flicked his finger against its chest, and split the creature neatly in half. The two halves hit the floor with a wet slap. Roy's stomach lurched, bile rising at the sheer gore of it.