Chapter 3: Grey Hollow – Depths
Grey Hollow changed in the first dozen steps.
The last of the lichen light fell behind Rei, and with it went clean edges and honest distance. Damp air pressed close. The slope under his boots stayed gentle, yet it kept pulling him down, stone shifting from slick limestone to rough shale to grit that rasped when he landed wrong. Water dripped ahead in a steady rhythm that gave him tempo without giving him comfort.
His HUD hovered at the edge of his vision, bright enough to feel rude in the dark.
[Grey Hollow – Depths]
Tier: Glitched
Recommended Level: 5
Status: Active Hazard
Progress: 3%
End of Beta: 29 days, 23 hours, 48 minutes
Logout: (Greyed Out)
Rei let out a slow breath through his nose. "Active hazard. Love that for me."
He kept moving.
His ribs still argued when he drew too deep, so he kept the inhale short and made the exhale do the work. Ember Circulation ran beneath it like a second rhythm—quiet, steady, more like his body remembering how to hold itself together than anything flashy. The warmth stayed contained, tempering the tremor in his hands and keeping his focus from slipping.
The passage opened into a longer corridor that bent out of sight. Stalactites crowded the ceiling, blunt teeth of stone. Thin threads of pale fungus crawled along the walls in lazy spirals, their glow weaker than before—enough to sketch edges, enough to hide the rest.
Rei flexed his fingers inside the Clawed Gloves. The leather hugged his knuckles like it had been shaped for this.
A scrape echoed from ahead.
Rei slowed. Weight centered. Breath steady.
A red overlay assembled near the corner.
[Enemy Detected]
Hollow Crawler | Lv. 2
HP: 70/70
The thing skittered into the weak glow—long-limbed, low to the ground, jaw opening too wide for its skull. It moved in sharp bursts, claws scraping stone in short, hungry arcs.
Rei swallowed once. Level two. Recommended level five. The mismatch sat wrong in his gut, like the dungeon couldn't decide which rules it cared about.
He set his stance—shoulders loose, knees bent, ready to give and take. "Alright," he said under his breath. "You first."
The Crawler launched.
Rei shifted aside at the last moment. Claws scored the stone where his ribs had been. He cut across its flank with his right hand, aiming for the joint where plating met softer tissue.
HP: 56/70
The creature snapped for his forearm. Rei pulled back and let its momentum carry it just past him. He stepped in with his left shoulder, drove his palm into the side of its head, and pushed with his whole body instead of forcing power.
Impact. A wet thud against the wall.
HP: 31/70
Rei didn't chase. He watched the way its back legs bunched, the twitch that came before the next burst.
When it sprang again, Rei pivoted and cut across the base of its neck in a tight, efficient arc.
The Crawler shuddered, then broke apart into drifting motes that dissolved into the air.
[Hollow Crawler defeated.]
EXP gained: 22
Rei exhaled and let Ember Circulation smooth the shake out of his hands. He refused to linger. Standing still in a place labeled Active Hazard sounded like a dare.
A few minutes later the corridor split.
Left: a tight slope that dipped toward the sound of moving water.
Right: a wider hall where the fungus glow held a little stronger, yet the air smelled stale—dust trapped in a closed room.
Rei paused at the fork and listened.
The left held motion. The right held stillness.
His instincts tugged toward the left. That bothered him enough to take the right.
The wider hall carried him into a chamber that looked like it had been shaped by tools. Straighter walls. Flatter floor. Broken supports jutted from the stone at odd angles, their wood darkened and splintered by age and damp. A shallow pool sat at the center, water dark as ink, surface mostly calm.
A rusted cart lay on its side near the pool, contents spilled: cracked ceramics, scraps of cloth, and a small leather satchel half-rotted by moisture.
Rei's gaze locked on the satchel.
He approached in slow steps, eyes scanning corners. No scrape of claws. No wet breathing. Only drip-water and his own breath.
He crouched and nudged the satchel with a claw tip.
It shifted, heavy with damp cloth.
Rei opened it carefully.
Inside, wrapped in soggy fabric, sat a single amber vial sealed with black wax. The liquid looked thicker than water—more like resin that held light instead of reflecting it.
The HUD flickered.
[Item Acquired]
Sealed Amber Vial (Unidentified)
Rei rolled it between his fingers. A gentle steadiness warmed his palm, subtle but real, like his circulation had found an easier groove for half a heartbeat.
He didn't chase the feeling. Curiosity was how dungeons collected people.
He studied the seal. Smooth wax. Clean glass. No obvious mechanism. No obvious trap. The lack of obvious traps felt like a different kind of patience.
"Later," he said quietly, and slid it into his inventory.
The warmth vanished with it, leaving only the memory of steadiness.
Rei rose and backed away from the pool. He kept his weight light, ready for slick stone.
A sound cut through the drip-water—thin, strained.
"Hey… hey. You. Please."
Rei froze.
The voice came from the far side of the chamber, beyond the broken cart and a cluster of fallen supports where the fungus glow didn't reach cleanly.
Rei shifted one step, letting the angle open.
A person lay pinned beneath a beam and a slab of stone. Older than Rei, maybe mid-twenties, armor scuffed and dark with wet. One arm was trapped. The other was outstretched, fingers trembling, palm turned up as if offering proof they were real.
Their face looked wrong in the way a face looks wrong in a place like this—too expressive for a dungeon that had offered him teeth and silence so far. Their eyes tracked Rei with sharp awareness.
"Thank—" The word broke into a cough. "Thank Lucid. I thought it was… I thought it was over."
Rei held still, claws angled down. His breath stayed steady. Ember Circulation kept his body warm under the damp.
"Who are you?" Rei asked. His voice came out level, even with his pulse ticking fast.
The pinned person blinked, then gave a strained smile that tried for humor and landed on desperation. "Name's Tovin. I'm… I was… supposed to meet my group in Ashfall. I took a shortcut. Grey Hollow took offense."
Rei didn't step closer. "How long have you been here?"
Tovin's eyes flicked away, then back. "Long enough to hate that drip." Their gaze snapped to Rei's hands. "You're alone."
"Yeah." Rei kept his stance. "What happened?"
Tovin swallowed hard. "The floor gave. The beam came down. I—" They sucked in air like the chamber made breathing expensive. "I can't feel my leg. The rock's on my hip. I can't move it."
Rei's eyes tracked the mess of supports. One wrong shift could bring the whole pile down, and he had already learned that this place loved angles and consequences.
He listened for water movement. For scraping. For anything besides that drip.
The chamber stayed quiet.
Too quiet.
A prickle ran along the base of Rei's skull—low resolution, an instinctive wrongness rather than a clear reading. It didn't point. It didn't explain. It sat there like a hand on the back of his neck.
Rei kept breathing.
Tovin's eyes tightened, reading Rei's hesitation. "If you're thinking I'm bait, I get it. I would think it too." Their mouth twisted. "I'd still like to live."
Rei's jaw set. He glanced at the pool, then at the supports, then back to the pinned person.
"Talk to me," Rei said. "Start with why you came into a dungeon that says Recommended Level five."
A bark of laughter tried to form and turned into another cough. "Because I thought I was special," Tovin rasped. "Because the beta started and I wanted to catch up fast. Because I saw a timer and my brain decided it meant I had to sprint."
That landed close enough to sting.
Rei took one careful step closer—enough to see the pinned person's face clearly, enough to see their fear sit under the sarcasm.
"You've got anything in your inventory?" Rei asked.
Tovin blinked. "Bandage. Water. A knife I can't reach. Why?"
Rei's claws flexed once. "Because if I try to lift that beam and it shifts, I need something to stop you from bleeding out while I figure out the next problem."
Tovin's throat bobbed. Relief flickered, sharp and bright. "You're actually—"
Rei held up a hand, stopping the flood before it started. "Keep talking. If you lie, I'm leaving you here."
Tovin's smile came back, thin and grateful. "Fair."
Rei crouched near the edge of the debris field without crossing into it. He studied the beam and stone, the points where weight rested, the places where a claw could find purchase without sliding.
The pool reflected the fungus glow in oily ribbons. For a heartbeat, the reflection sharpened—pale light where there should have been only dark—and a fox-shaped outline hung in the surface like a mirage.
Rei's breath hitched once.
The outline vanished with the next ripple.
Rei didn't stare at the pool. He didn't ask questions out loud. He kept his focus on the living person pinned under rock.
"Alright," he said, voice quiet. "We're going to do this carefully."
Tovin let out a shaky breath that tried to become a laugh. "If we live, I'm buying you a drink in Ashfall."
Rei's mouth twitched. "You're going to owe me more than that."
He shifted his weight, set his feet, and reached for the beam with deliberate hands.
The choice settled in his chest like a weight he accepted on purpose.
Whatever Grey Hollow wanted from him, it could wait until after he tried to pull someone out of the dark.