Time beneath the earth did not flow; it accumulated like stagnant water in a sump. By his tenth cycle of shedding cave beetles, Ezekiel had outgrown his clothes entirely. The discarded rags of Oakhaven had long since rotted away, replaced by a primitive kilt fashioned from the cured, fibrous hide of a subterranean blind-mole, stitched together with dried needle-rat sinew.
He was growing taller, his frame lean and hard as the obsidian shelves he climbed. Yet, his body lacked the density required for true physical dominance. The bitter, glowing moss and the sparse, toxic meat of cave predators kept him alive, but they did not allow him to thrive. His joints ached with a persistent, hollow hunger. He needed salt. He needed iron. He needed the tools of civilization.
According to the dead mage's maps, the lower fringes of the Upper Tier intersected with the Chasm of Whispers—a massive, vertical fissure that breached the boundaries between the deeper dark and the surface world. It was a lawless, forgotten artery used by those who feared the light of the Church and the taxes of the Dwarven Guilds.
Ezekiel found their trail by the scent.
It wasn't the smell of the dungeon. It was the heavy, grease-laden aroma of roasted pack-beast fat, the sharp tang of cheap dwarven ale, and the unmistakable, metallic bite of raw iron ore.
Crouched on a high ledge of specular slate twenty meters above the cavern floor, Ezekiel looked down. He didn't use his naked eyes; he looked into a smooth, angled facet of black crystal near his knee.
Through the reflection, the world appeared in sharp, silver-rimmed contours.
[Versum System: Non-Hostile Entities Detected] Group: The Drifting Traders (Underdark Smugglers) Count: 7 Dushmani (Grey Gnomes), 2 Pack-Groykes
Below, a small caravan was moving slowly through the wider drift. The Dushmani—squat, grey-skinned cousins of the surface gnomes, with bulbous, pale eyes and thick leather aprons—were leading two massive, six-legged reptilian beasts laden with heavy wicker crates. They carried no torches; instead, they relied on dim, shuttered lanterns fueled by glowing subterranean oil that cast a narrow, sickly green light onto the path directly ahead of them.
"Hurry the beasts, Varik," one of the gnomes grunted in a coarse, scraping dialect of the common tongue. "The air is damp. The iron spikes in the third crate are already beginning to pit. If we don't reach the Oakhaven black-market before the next full moon, the Guild masters will cut our margins in half."
"The Groykes are tired, boss," the smaller gnome replied, whacking the flank of the lead beast with a iron-tipped prod. "The Upper Tier has been restless. The blind beasts are migrating downward. Something scared them."
Ezekiel watched them through the mirror, his pupils dilated to the absolute limit. His gaze drifted to the rear of the second pack-beast. A small crate had suffered a split along its wicker seam during the trek. Through the gap, the reflection revealed the dull, grey glint of rock-salt blocks and the dark outline of a steel iron-picker—a tool used for tunneling and scraping ore.
To fight them directly was foolish. The grey gnomes were short, but their arms were thick as tree roots, and each carried a heavy, spring-loaded iron arbalest across their backs.
But Ezekiel didn't need to fight. The Dungeon had taught him that the best predator is the one that leaves no tracks.
[Versum System: Status Evaluation] Mana Pool: 110/110 Active Skills: [Mirror Sight] (Lv. 1), [Glint] (Lv. 1)
Ezekiel slowly let the silver current of Amalgam rise into his eyes. He didn't activate [Glint] to blind them; instead, he used a passive trick he had discovered while observing the light-bending properties of the specular slate. By gently projecting a thin, vibrating film of mana into the crystals surrounding his ledge, he could distort the angles of reflection. To anyone looking up, the ledge would appear completely empty, the light from their lanterns bouncing off the slate at an unnatural angle.
He became a blind spot in their vision.
As the caravan shuffled directly beneath his perch, the trailing pack-beast stumbled on a loose fragment of slate. The beast grunted, its heavy tail lashing out, striking the rock wall with a loud crack.
"Watch the line!" the lead gnome shouted, turning back with an angry scowl.
In that single moment of distraction, while the gnomes were focused on the front beast, Ezekiel dropped from the ledge.
He didn't make a sound. His calloused, bare feet hit the soft, mossy hump of the trailing Groyke's pack with the lightness of a falling leaf. Guided purely by the silver outlines in his hand-mirror, his small, dirt-caked fingers darted into the split seam of the wicker crate.
His palm closed around a heavy, rough chunk of rock-salt and the cold, solid shaft of the steel iron-picker.
With a smooth, fluid motion, he pulled the items free, tucked them into the sinew belt at his waist, and rolled backward off the moving beast, slipping into the deep shadow of an overhanging obsidian pillar before the gnomes could even turn around.
The caravan continued its slow, heavy march, the rhythmic scraping of the Groykes' claws fading into the distance.
Ezekiel sat in the absolute dark, his back pressed against the cold stone. He broke off a tiny corner of the rock-salt and placed it on his tongue. The sharp, burning taste of minerals erupted in his mouth, making his starved body shiver with a sudden, violent rush of heat. He gripped the steel iron-picker, its heavy weight solid and reassuring in his small hand.
[Amalgam Development: Progress 45%] Resource Acquired: Refined Steel, Mineral Salt. Physical constitution stabilizing.
He looked down at the tool, then toward the descending path the traders had left behind. For the first time in three years, he had taken something back from the world of men. He was no longer just surviving on the scraps of the earth—he was preparing his arsenal.