The storm had wrung itself out by predawn, leaving the world rinsed and thin. The gate lamps burned short flames that refused to flicker. Kelda walked the line with a slate and a patience that made nerves behave.
"F3 probe," she said, her stamp thumping against her slate of details and notes. "Goblin squad leaders in front of dires, hobs as ribs. Elites—timber wolves—possible. If the floor is fluctuating hard, it may cough up something ugly. Door discipline, no heroics. If the door argues, you make it say 'please' and then you leave."
Niya stood like a shadow that had chosen to be useful, green cloak damp, braid high. She signed quick shapes: halt, bend, break, breach.
Trixie tightened a strap on her buckler and the porter harness. "I count for calm," she said, eyes on Taro. "I carry heavy. I cook after."
"Breath first," Taro said, settling his face wrap with her neat fingers. "Then coin."
She gave the strap a last tug. He tapped her knuckles in thanks, then squeezed—quick, ridiculous, necessary. Their eyes lingering with their shared care and charged with their protectiveness of each other.
They stepped into the mouth.
F3 had its own weather—root-pillars shouldering a low ceiling, slick grade that asked you to argue with it, stale air over musk. Chalk triangles sat at shin height where small hands could touch. The first contact came with a whistle: thin, double-pitched, a language of shove-and-bite.
Two goblin squad leaders led a pair of dire wolves around a bend the way you feed bad ideas to a fire.
"Line's there," Niya breathed, because pointing would insult the force of adventurers.
Taro let his eyes blur and felt absence the way a fist feels an opening. Rope-Cut Step slid his sole past the knee-high twine; Guard Melt—flick, flick on the same spot in one breath—softened a hop-shield; Centerline Surge took the jaw hinge short and mean. The first leader's knees forgot their job.
A dire broke high for his shoulder. Trixie brought the buckler up on his out-breath, caught fang on leather, and cut low through hip meat—no theater, just a line the leg remembered. She slid back behind his rear shoulder before the wolf realized it should be embarrassed of its new limp that wasn't there before. The second leader tried to time a shove to a whistle; Niya's arrow erased the whistle and the opinion behind it. The goblins hand going with it, as Taro was upon it and snapping its neck at an odd angle with a pair of hooks followed by a corkscrew uppercut. The rest of the monster fell easily to the blades and arrows of the party.
Combat Adaptation Registered.
Martial God's Champion — Blessed Growth: +2 to all stats.
Trixie's parry had been too clean too many times to pretend it wasn't improving.
Riposte (Novice) Unlocked — immediate thrust after true buckler catch; short window; accuracy ↑ when called on cadence.
They breathed together. The floor listened.
The corridor bent. The air changed—pine-bitter, heavier paws.
"Timbers," Niya whispered.
Two timber wolves came low and coordinated, one to shoulder-shove, one to bite where a stumble would land you. Trixie called, "Cover!" and met the shove with Buckler Guard I, then stole exactly one brick of space sideways with a neat Shield Shoulder. The bite slid through where she'd been; Taro stepped into the vacuum, Load-Bearing Breath II keeping power honest through the cuirass on slick stone, and Counter-Tempo III stole the half-beat the pair had saved. A short ladder—body, head, right—wrote the ending to the wolf's attempt at life. Niya's second shaft clipped a lunging muzzle to uncouple their ugly rhythm. The elite pair broke like a thought reconsidered.
The line surged forth as axes descended and swords stabbed true. The wolves failed to live past it. But as the party began to check for more, a pair of Goblin archers came around and fired into the group. A shielder blocked the arrow aimed at a healer. But something happened with the second.
A recruit from another file took a shallow arrow graze. Trixie braced the boy's hip with a palm and a knee and wrapped while counting, "In two… out six," until the panic bled out of his grip. Niya countered one archer with a head shot through the eye. A swordsman was upon the second freeing its idiotic head from its neck. ensuring that it wouldn't make more mistakes in the future.
They moved on, meters at a time. Floor 3 learned their names, not the other way around.
The pressure changed again—iron and sweat, a gait that didn't care what floor it was on, with heavier thumps coming towards the group.
"Big," Taro said.
From the dark came a shape broader through the shoulders than the passage liked. An orc fighter had wandered up to F3, bringing with it the idea that today's rules were negotiable. A large steel cleaver edge held in its hands, ready to carve up bodies that irritated it.
Kelda's whistle carried back: controlled fallback. Files peeled cleanly, escorting the wounded. The corridor narrowed at a root arch where the stone pinched tight. Taro took a breath that belonged to him and not to the orc.
"We hold," he said.
Niya's mouth ticked. "We hold. Under protest."
Trixie's tail twitched once, then behaved. "We hold. Under agreement."
They made a lane. Taro chalked a kill line and wedged a roll-stopper; he ran along the arch to make the orc track his movements. Trixie anchored two bolas with iron weights—one to trip, one to pull a body off a friend—then checked the buckler strap and the boy's bandage one more time for luck even as he was handed off to another adventurer for the fallback. Niya fanned to a reedbed of root and shadow with two arrows already arguing to be loosed.
The wave came first following the Orcs appearance: hobgoblin fighters with shields that thought they were smart, gob squad leaders behind with whistles, and dires trying to be punctuation. Taro threaded spear lines with Weave Engine singing in his bones; Formation Breach wrote a small accuracy bonus into his hand as he struck along a gap Rusk would have approved of. Two quick Guard Melts on the same bracer seam, one breath, made a hob think about theology. Surge finished the thought.
The line hiccuped. Trixie slipped a pair of limpers through the choke and turned a greedy stab into a Riposte that made the gob lucky to still own a wrist. Her cadence call slid through the file like a wire being pulled taut. Even as she loosed a Bola at the Orc to distract or bind it. it didn't matter, they needed time to deal with the reinforcements.
A sapper skittered high on the wall to toss clever glass. Niya broke the wrist with an arrow through it and the idea in one motion, then kicked the phial aside with a calmness that made Taro grin under the guard wrap.
The corridor inhaled. The orc arrived from the Bola distraction, snapping the ropes, but the time was bought and it was used well.
It swung a cleaver-hook in a rhythm that swore it had invented physics: heavy feint, grind, ugly hook. The first shot found Taro's guard and scraped his wrap hard enough to make sound; Ki Guard took the edge, Rooted Frame gave the rest to the ground. He read the orc's hitch—the half-reset where habits go to die—and Counter-Tempo III put a pin in that moment and widened it.
Guard Melt—flick-flick on the bracer—opened the jaw line. Surge said hello. The orc didn't like introductions. It changed plans—bulled forward, bodying for a grapple, cleaver cocked for a skull opinion.
Taro didn't back up. He stepped down and into its flow and under the guard.
Breath snapped through him like a new hinge finding its place; his ankle folded in a tidy drop that made space where space hadn't been. With a twist and a small burst of ki he found the step working better than ever.
Technique Unlocked — Ki Pulse Step (Novice): Breath-led drop-step; half-step entry inside heavy swings; brief AGI spike, grounded power transfer; minor Ki cost; short cooldown.
Synergy: Snap Step / Surge ↑.
Ki Pulse Step put him under the cleaver and inside the orc's movement. Snap Step I arrived because the breath already had; the Surge rode out of ribs into knuckles. The cleaver dipped. A short ladder—body, head, right—closed the book.
The orc sat like someone had pulled out its chair. It twitched once and remembered it had meant to be somewhere else today. It began to try and rise despite the three large bruises forming on its kidney, nose, and sternum.
The hob line sagged like a roof in bad weather. Trixie's "Cover!" call ran the corridor. Niya's arrow found a drummer before a last bad idea could assemble.
The Orc stood, ready for a second round. It soon found the mistake made as Taro was there once again. Doing twin liver blows one after the other in quick succession. The blows made it hunch in pain, allowing for an uppercut that rattled its teeth and brain. Followed by a 5 hit body blow combo that cracked ribs, and bruised the liver further. The orc began to crumple to its knees as Taro used the full force of his skills combined to land a ki coated upper cut right into the orcs throat. Collapsing the mind pipe and making the orc fall for the last time.
Combat Adaptation Registered.
Martial God's Champion — Blessed Growth: +2 to all stats.
Weave Engine I → II: longer thread chains under elite pressure; counterpower & AGI sustain ↑.
Silence arrived the way water does after a break—first a rush, then the sound of things deciding to be still.
"Extract," Niya said, low, already moving to where triage would count most.
They pulled clean: ropes recovered, wedges out, seam cloth rolled, orc token pocketed with the same neat care Trixie used for onions. Outside, the light had gone silver. The storm had scrubbed the air to the truth of it.
At the gate, Kelda listened tight and wrote tight.
Probe hold. Elite culls. Boss partner work.
"Payout," she said at last, pen biting. "Probe stipend, half-gold. Timber bonus, twelve silver. Orc fighter bounty, one gold. Standard uglies—call it thirty-two silver. Total… two gold, forty-four silver." She eyed the face wrap, the buckler strap, the way their shoulders sat nearer than yesterday. "Door team forms tomorrow. Monk lead. Breath before doors."
"Breath before doors," Taro said.
"Always," Trixie said, and bumped his pauldron with the buckler rim.
They shared a water skin on the walk home, the sort of drink you don't talk during. He checked the wrap at her calf; she straightened his face guard with exact thumbs. Niya ghosted past and did not say good work, which was how Niya said good work.
At the townhouse, the gutter held its line like a friend with good sense. The training bag moved once in the draft, then decided to behave.
They didn't make speeches. They ate hot things and wrote small numbers and let their hands brush on purpose exactly twice.
With a light massage on his hands where Trixie shared a smile with him they enjoyed their evening before bed. And he enjoyed giving her feet and calves a nice massage to ease them out of battle mode. Their time was simple, but good.
Tomorrow: map the real door.
Tonight: breathe.
Status — Taro
Class: Monk I
Title: Martial God's Champion (SSS)
HP: 740 base (10× END 74) → 1240 effective (END 124 during combat/training)
Ki: 67
Base Stats (Ch.12 → after Ch.13)
STR: 72 → 76 (+4)
END: 70 → 74 (+4)
AGI: 68 → 72 (+4)
SPIRIT: 49 → 53 (+4)
MIND: 46 → 50 (+4)
LUCK: 45 → 49 (+4)
Ki: 63 → 67 (+4)
Effective Physicals (SSS +50 active)STR 126 | END 124 | AGI 122
New/Updated Skills & Techniques
Ki Pulse Step (Novice): breath-led drop-step inside heavy swings; brief AGI spike; grounded power; minor Ki cost; short cooldown. Synergy:Snap Step I / Surge ↑
Weave Engine II: longer weave chains; sustained counterpower/AGI under elite pressure.
Counter-Tempo III, Guard Melt I, Centerline Surge (Novice), Snap Step I, Load-Bearing Breath II, Rooted Frame (Novice), Rope-Cut Step (Novice), Formation Breach (Novice).
Team Passives: Call-and-Breath I (progress ↑), Cover Call I (with Trixie).
Trixie — Updates
Riposte (Novice) unlocked
Buckler Guard I (steady), Shield Shoulder (Novice), Porter Brace I
Cadence calling under pressure: reliable
Ledger (probe day)
Start (Ch.12 end): 5g 89s
Probe hold + bounties: +2g 44s → 8g 33s
Spends: none material (kit oil on hand)
End purse: ~8g 33s