The night pressed down on Quinn like a weighted cloak as he crouched beneath the twisted roots, staring at the retreating patrol of LEP fairies. Their faint green glow faded between the trees, leaving the manicured grounds of Fowl Manor cloaked in silver shadows.
His knuckles whitened around the length of bloodstained rebar. He should move. Every instinct told him to run, but his mind was already parsing the encounter the way he used to analyze raid bosses in his old gamer life.
The patrol's scanning pattern, the spacing between each fairy, the technology embedded in their weapons—it all screamed high-level content. He wasn't ready for that. Not yet. But there would be a time, and when it came, he wanted the odds stacked in his favor.
Quinn's eyes drifted back to the manor. A sliver of light glowed in one of the upper windows, like a lure meant to draw him closer. Somewhere in there, Artemis Fowl was writing himself into legend, plotting his first moves.
And here Quinn was, a dead gamer reborn with a cheat of his own.
"Patience," he muttered. "Speedruns only work when you know the map. Right now, I don't even have the minimap unlocked."
The System hummed softly.
[ Title: Survivor of Shadows has granted you +2 Dexterity ]
He grinned despite himself. Even his restraint was being rewarded.
Still, he couldn't stay this close to the manor. Every step he took aboveground risked another patrol. He turned back toward the roots where he'd first clawed his way out of the ruins. The earth there sagged, loose and unsettled. If the surface was crawling with fairies, maybe the safer path was below.
He ducked into the shadows, fingers digging into the soil. Clumps of dirt rained down as he pulled himself into the earth, sliding between roots and stones until the night air gave way to the stale chill of the underground.
The darkness greeted him like an old friend.
The tunnels stretched endlessly, carved from stone and root, veined with flickers of faint light. It wasn't natural illumination but something else—runes, faint and cracked, etched into the walls like the ghosts of a forgotten civilization.
Quinn ran a hand across one. The sigil pulsed faintly, reacting to his touch before dying back into silence.
"Fairy work," he whispered. "Old magic. Pre-Fowl, maybe pre-LEP."
The thought thrilled him. If these ruins connected to the foundations of the world Artemis toyed with, then he was standing in a dungeon the books had never mapped. Exclusive content.
The System chimed.
[ Hidden Area Discovered: Subterranean Veins of Haven ][ +100 Experience ]
Quinn's chest tightened. Haven. The fairy capital buried miles beneath the earth. These tunnels were tributaries of that great subterranean city, forgotten and abandoned. Which meant… he was treading on history.
And history, in games, meant loot.
He moved deeper, every step echoing softly. His Shard of Silence muted the sound, wrapping him in a cocoon of near-perfect stealth, but his heightened perception still warned him of movement. Faint vibrations rippled through the stone, distant but growing.
Not fairies. Something heavier. Something numerous.
The tunnel widened into a chamber, and Quinn froze.
Bones littered the floor. Not human bones—gnarled, twisted remnants with jagged teeth and claw marks gouged deep into the stone. The smell of rot lingered like an old stain.
And in the center of the chamber, half-buried in rubble, stood a pedestal. Upon it rested a shard, glowing with faint golden light.
The System whispered.
[ Fragment Detected: Shard of Fortitude ][ Function: Boosts Constitution of host ]
Quinn's lips curled into a grin. Exactly what he needed. His body was stronger than it had ever been, but he still felt fragile. Constitution was durability, survivability—the tank stat. With this, he could take hits as well as dish them out.
He stepped forward, careful, scanning every corner of the chamber. Nothing moved. The bones didn't shift. The shadows clung stubbornly to the walls.
Too easy.
Quinn crouched and extended a hand toward the shard.
The moment his fingers brushed the glow, the chamber trembled. Dust rained from the ceiling, the walls groaning as if awakened from slumber. From cracks in the stone, faint red light seeped, pulsing in rhythm with a rising chorus of guttural growls.
The System's warning flared.
[ Event Triggered: Guardian Awakening ][ Threat Level: Moderate ]
Quinn jerked back, gripping the rebar. The bones around him began to stir, rolling and clattering as something pulled them into motion. From the shadows at the far end of the chamber, eyes glowed—dozens of them, red and unblinking.
Figures lumbered into view, twisted creatures with gray-green skin, tusked jaws, and crooked weapons clutched in clawed hands. Their movements were jerky at first, but soon the horde poured forward, snarling, hungry.
Goblins.
Quinn's breath hitched. He had fought one troll, and barely at that. This was an entire raid party worth of mobs, their numbers filling the chamber wall to wall.
His grip tightened on the rebar.
This was no longer stealth. This was survival.
The goblins roared as one, their voices rattling the chamber, and surged toward him.
The System flashed.
[ Quest Updated: Survive the Goblin Horde ][ Reward: Random High-Tier Fragment ]
Quinn set his stance, muscles coiling. The shard on the pedestal pulsed behind him, golden light spilling across the stones like a promise.
For a moment, all he heard was his own heartbeat.
"Alright," he muttered. "Let's see if I can speedrun this."
The horde crashed forward.
And Quinn met them head-on.