The tunnel sloped upward, the stonework changing from my half-finished arches to rough, natural rock. The lantern's light painted the walls in sickly yellow. Each step squished — the ground was damp, as if the place had been sweating for years.
I thought about the two corpses back in the chamber. On the one hand, I'd just committed murder. On the other… the building permit for this "project" clearly belonged to me now.
"Finders keepers," I muttered. My voice bounced back from the walls, deeper than I remembered it being. I could get used to that.
The tunnel opened into a cavern, wide and irregular. Stalactites hung like rotting teeth. There were old campfires here — blackened stone circles, bits of bone. This place had been used before. By who? Didn't matter yet.
I knelt near one of the fire pits and dragged my new tracker knowledge to the surface. The skill wasn't flashy — no glowing text, no fanfare — but I could read the scene like a blueprint. Scuffed marks on the ground: human boots, maybe a week old. Smaller prints alongside them, lighter weight — probably an elf. They left together. No signs of struggle.
Useful, but not urgent.
The far side of the cavern had a narrow exit. I squeezed through and found myself staring at something far more interesting than footprints: sunlight.
It was faint, but real — a jagged crack in the rock ahead, opening into a mossy ravine. Birds chirped. The smell of fresh air hit me like a slap. I didn't realize how stale my lungs had been until that moment.
My first thought was: Ventilation shaft. My second thought was: Also, hunting route.
I tested the crack. A human would've had to squeeze sideways. In my current shape, I barely scraped the edges — ghoul perks. On the other side, I crouched in the ravine's shadow. The walls were high, covered in roots. Trees leaned overhead, filtering the light into shifting patterns.
Perfect.
From here, I could plan an entry point to the surface world without advertising my presence. But before I started carving doorways, I needed resources. Materials. Labor. And by "labor," I of course meant unpaid, unwilling, preferably not breathing anymore.
The Reforge whisper tugged at me again. I remembered the clone I'd briefly made in the chamber — the adventurer's face fitting over mine like a mask. That trick alone could get me into any town. Maybe even a guild hall.
The more I thought about it, the more my new "design" came together.
Step one: Get to a settlement.
Step two: Infiltrate with clone disguise.
Step three: Identify targets with useful skills — craftsmen, mages, warriors.
Step four: Absorb, evolve, repeat.
You didn't need to knock down walls if you could just become the guy holding the keys.
I crouched at the edge of the ravine, scanning for movement. A dirt path ran along the base, partially overgrown. It sloped gently to the south, toward what looked like cultivated fields in the distance. Perfect — farmers meant food, and food meant civilization nearby.
The path was empty, so I reshaped myself. I pictured the taller of the two adventurers — square jaw, short beard, leather armor. The change rolled over me like hot wax cooling into a mold. Skin knit together, bones shifted subtly, even my scent adjusted. In the space of a breath, I was him.
I tested the voice — it came out close enough. A little rougher, but people heard what they expected.
I followed the path at a casual pace, swinging the lantern like I'd just come from a routine dungeon crawl. No one ever questioned a man who looked like he was on familiar ground.
About twenty minutes later, the path widened and joined a cart road. On the horizon, I saw my first goal: a small walled town, nothing fancy. The kind of place where gossip traveled faster than news and the guards were more interested in tavern brawls than their job.
Exactly the kind of place where a newcomer could vanish into the crowd — or, in my case, several newcomers at once.
The gate guards barely looked up when I passed. One of them muttered something about "Kerrick back from another failed dive" and waved me through. Good. I filed away the name "Kerrick" for later use. Apparently, my borrowed face already came with a reputation.
Inside, the town smelled like baking bread, manure, and desperation. Narrow streets wound between squat stone houses, each one with laundry flapping from lines. A couple of children chased a dog through the mud. I ignored them.
I headed straight for the market square, letting my tracker's instincts map the flow of people. Merchants hawked cheap pottery and half-wilted vegetables. Off to one side, a blacksmith hammered at a bent sword, his forearms roped with muscle. That could be useful. On the far end, a scribe's stall was stacked with maps and rolled contracts. That could be very useful.
And then there was the tavern. Always the best starting point for information.
I pushed open the door. The smell of ale and sweat hit me instantly. A dozen heads turned, saw "Kerrick," and promptly lost interest. Perfect.
I took a seat in the corner, back to the wall. From here, I could see the whole room — the dice players, the drunk in the corner, the barmaid flirting for tips. And more importantly, I could start sketching my first draft of this town's blueprint in my head.
Step by step, stone by stone. I didn't just build bridges. I built empires. And now, I was going to build one out of corpses and stolen faces.