"Can we go now?" the bald stranger asks. He can't stop himself from watching Ethan's shadow. "The noise you made can attract beasts I don't want to see ever again."

"After you," Ethan confirms. He places himself at the end of the group, as does Azriah. He whispers, "Can the city track you?"

"What do you mean?" she asks.

"Inside, the guards were able to track me. I think whatever I broke free from knew I escaped," Ethan explains.

"I haven't set foot in there. It looked quite unwelcoming," Azriah answers. She glances at Ethan, gauging him in turn. "Where do you come from? From the way you speak, I'd say Aldoria's high society, but there is something off about you."

Ethan glances at her with a questioning look, feigning to find her doubts laughable. He takes note of the landmarks around them as the strangers enter a tunnel that descends into the ground.

"Your clothes were made in Amberfell; that is their style. But red hair is something you'd see up north," she continues, investigating. She seems to be dissecting him with her gaze despite the low light. "You don't wear any emblem. Fallen noble banished from his home and condemned to roam these accursed lands?"

"Not even close," Ethan mocks. He takes another look. Her steps are cadenced and measured, keeping her shoulders at a constant level. He saw how heavy her halberd is; it doesn't feel like a weapon meant to kill humans. Ethan humors her guessing game, "Princess from a faraway land who came here to play monster huntress."

"Close," she says with a smirk. "But I'm no noble."

"What are you hunting?" Ethan asks. He has seen some of the region's monsters, and none of them would make good wall decoration.

"An escapee who thought he could run from his death sentence," she answers. Her intonation doesn't betray any feeling towards her supposed target.

Was she fishing for an excuse to expose her story? "So, I wasn't close at all."

"Ho, he is a monster, just of another kind," Azriah says. A smirk crosses her expression.

"Why are you so forthcoming?" Ethan asks.

"Why are you so secretive?" she retorts. Her smirk returns. "I intended to teleport to a country called Caeloria, but someone interfered with the spell, and I ended up here. Your turn."

Ethan sighs; she might not have as much information to offer as he hoped. "Why don't you teleport again?"

"I didn't cast the spell," she says in an obvious and mocking tone. "You know, I'm starting to think you might be a plant from whatever is controlling the city. You could at least make something up."

Ethan looks at his shadow as he spots Russ sniffing the air from its surface. "I was teleported out of the Realm of Ascension fifty or so kilometers west. I'm trying to get back to Aldoria."

"Ho, what ascended class did you choose?" Azriah asks. She stares at him, waiting for him to betray a lie.

"I haven't chosen yet," Ethan says.

"What classes are you hesitating between?" she pushes.

"I'm waiting to unlock Battlemage," Ethan lies.

"So, you know what the requirements are?" Azriah continues to push, trying to trap him in a lie.

"I need to rank up Spellcasting, Weapon Aura, and Spellrage to C," Ethan answers.

"My noble guess seems increasingly plausible," she muses.

The bald leader turns to them. "We are going to go through a nest. Please, stop talking."

Both answer with their silence.

The tunnel widens as they continue. Its walls turn slick with moisture, dotted with a sticky layer the strangers take care to avoid. The air turns warmer and humid with a note of spoiled meat.

The bald man motions to stay close. His hand trembles as he does.

The tunnel opens into a vast chamber with holes in the ceiling letting the moons' light through. The path circles the room, edged by a precipice. Pale, serpentine worms slither and knot together below. Their skin is translucent, their organs visible as they writhe in slow motion. Every now and then, one burrows halfway into the viscous floor.

Ethan realizes that the floor below the giant insects isn't solid but the stacked carcasses of larger beasts. Rib cages jut out of the ground, and skulls, armed with fangs and tusks as tall as him, dot the ground.

'Are they afraid of scavengers? Nobody would want to fall into them, but surely, they wouldn't climb up to chase living prey,' Ethan thinks. He looks around, trying to focus more on his soul than predator's sight. Around the holes in the ceiling, hidden by the light difference, he finds terrified worms and hungry swarms devouring them from inside. Even better hidden, he senses predatory souls staring at them from above.

Then, a sound, a faint vibration above, almost imperceptible. A tremor in the air, the tensioning of a string. A hungry soul descends from its nest.

The bald leader raises his fist to halt the ground, and everyone freezes.

'Attacking them could attract other predators; I'd lose their trust if it causes their hideout to be overrun,' Ethan thinks.

Glistening limbs descend on a single, silk-thin strand. The spider's body is the size of a horse, its eyes like wet pearls gleaming in the moons' light. Its mandibles snap with a sharp, metallic click as it snatches one of the worms. Its front legs wrap around its victim and roll it into a blanket of silk as it drags it to the ceiling.

A silent sigh of relief spreads through the strangers, and the leader motions forward. Soon they reach the other side of the cavern and exit into a narrow tunnel. A wooden door waits at the end; the bald man unlocks it and motions them in.

A low tunnel of carved stone opens into a wide hollow, its walls braced with timber beams slick with pitch. Beyond the entry, the ground drops in terraces. Each level is a makeshift platform of planks and scaffolding. Wooden houses, huts, and sheds cling to the slopes with only a few lit insides. The ceiling stretches far above them, jagged with giant stalactites.

Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

The bald man leads the way down a winding ramp. "Welcome to Haven Under."

Ethan notes the defenses before the people. Walls and spiked barricades section each level every few dozen meters. The place is built like a series of chokepoints, forcing any attack into consecutive kill boxes. Another strategy would be to jump down from level to level, but it would be a dangerous, ten-meter fall. And the most attractive landing points are trapped with spikes camouflaged under rags.

A dozen men loiter in post with bows, crossbows, and spears at their sides. Analyzing them, Ethan notices the high levels of dark Ether floating in their bodies, outside of their thin flow of Ether. The bald man guiding them is the same, but Azriah closed herself to the surrounding Ether and hides her aura well.

Azriah's eyes sweep the camp. "You live down here?"

"You'll get accustomed to it. With how strong you are, the boss will allow you to stay in the best houses on the lower levels." He points into the darkness below. "You'll just need to make yourself useful."

"I don't think either of us plans to stay," Azriah comments.

"Yeah, I gathered," the bald man says. "Usually, the people running off from the city are scared, normal people who take weeks to heal. I don't know the names you mentioned, but if you want to leave this place, you'll need plenty of supplies. The boss explored quite far from here, and for now it's just more of the same."

"Who is your boss? Can we meet him?" Ethan asks.

"Not right now; he should be back soon; he went south to scout some ruins he thought interesting." A hint of worry crosses the man's expression. "My name is Jarek, by the way."

"Azriah," Azriah answers.

"Viktor," Ethan lies, using the name still appearing on his doctored status.

Shops begin to surround them as they pass the first few sections dedicated to defense. They contain the essentials – basic clothing, food, simple weapons, and armor. The people owning them are all working in the backrooms, crafting their own supplies.

"If you have any artisan skills or abilities, there will be a way to put them to use," Jarek says. He glances through a hole in the slope, behind which lies a mushroom-growing chamber.

"What were you doing outside?" Ethan asks. By all accounts, even though it is Spartiate, they have all they need to hole up here.

"Scavenging, killing what we can to level up, searching for others like us," Jarek says. "My team is out most days, and we check on the city every now and then. You were lucky we heard the commotion."

"What are you scavenging?" Azriah asks.

"A very long while ago, the city extended far beyond the walls," Jarek begins. "There are a lot of buildings buried by the forest. You can find tools, gear, etcetera. Most of it's useless junk, but every now and then you stumble upon something that is still useful."

They pass a young man who is rubbing an oily rag on the beams holding the terrace above them. A modern gauze wrapped in bandages covers a long cut on his left arm.

'Someone from Earth was, or is still here,' Ethan thinks.

"You didn't even look surprised when you saw us," Azriah begins. "And neither were you when we mentioned other countries and cities. Which means you know about the outside world. Do you have records about this very long while ago? I'd like to know more about this place, and I'm sure he does too."

"Not really," Jarek denies. "I've lived all my life in this place, as almost everyone else has. We only learned that there was something to hope for when the boss came. And trust me, once you've seen him, you'll never be surprised by anyone's color."

"Ho so?" Ethan asks.

"He's as black as night," Jarek says.

"How did a Kandali get here?" Azriah asks.

"No idea what that is, but he said it was a dungeon stone," Jarek answers.

'Don't get your hopes up,' Ethan tells himself, thinking of the disappeared Four. He refrains from asking pointed questions that would make Azriah suspicious. "Going back to her point, is there anyone who can tell us more about the region other than your boss?"

"Maybe," Jarek says.

They follow him several levels down and along a path leading them away from the bulk of the camp. A hut stands at the entry of a stone path lit with luminescent fungi. They enter through flaps and find an old woman sitting cross-legged on a mat.

Jarek lights up an oil lamp hanging from the central post.

The flame reveals the sunken features of the woman. Excess skin started to grow from around her eyes and mouth, slowly covering them. Lesions show on her hands and ears, and little of her hair remains.

"What happened to her?" Aziah asks.

'She's turning into a hollow,' Ethan guesses to himself. His etheric senses see that most of her body is corrupted by dark Ether that seeped into her flesh, outside of her control.

"Something that can happen to anyone – you, me, anybody, anything that lives here," Jarek says. He grabs a clay pitcher and pours a glass of water before holding it before the woman. He crouches down to her level. "How are you feeling today?"

A long pause follows. The woman seems to not have registered their presence.

"The system calls it Hollow metamorphosis." Jarek stands back up and places the glass next to the pitcher. "She's turning into a Hollow. A monster that doesn't do anything but listen, and you don't want them to hear you."

"Why?" Ethan asks.

"There's something out there that hears through them. It doesn't care about other monsters; it hunts us. Nobody who's seen this monster ever lived to speak about it." Jarek uses the lamp's flame to light a stick of weak incense, hiding the smells of the transformation.

"How do you know it's linked to them if nobody ever made it out?" Azriah asks.

"When it is near, the Hollows wail as if they were in tremendous pain," Jarek says. "All of this to say that if you see someone turning, you must warn the others."

"Is there a chance she is going to heal?" Ethan asks.

"No," Jarek denies.

"Then why keep her here if she's about to turn?" Azriah asks, echoing Ethan's next, somber question.

"There is a tree down the luminescent path that attracts them. When she turns, she'll go join the others, far from the camp. Some choose to end their life when they realize they are going to turn. But those who cannot we leave here." Jarek explains. He twists a dial on the lamp to kill the flame. "She was our teacher for the kids. I'm sorry, but she won't be able to answer your questions."

'Insight,' Ethan thinks, wanting to see the details of the curse.

Liska Ravnic Lv.3/20 (Broker) Human

Strength: 3 (8) Charisma: 8 (13) Dexterity: 3 (8) Perception: 22 (12) Constitution: 5 (10) Willpower: 6 (11) Intelligence: 9 (14)

Ability Identification (E)

Alteration Dark ether corruption (Extreme) Hollow metamorphosis (Major)

'I don't sense any Eldorian like with the curse of monstrosity. But the Dark Ether corruption and what's turning her are two different alterations.' Ethan tries to sense if there is something else than dark Ether invading her body. He doesn't find anything of etheric nature and fails to sense her soul.

"Can you draw the dark Ether out of her body?" Azriah asks, looking at Ethan.

"Maybe," Ethan says. He flicks his fingers and reignites the lantern with a cast spark. Summoning a coal stick, he draws the ritual he made the night before under Jarek's perplexed gaze. He guides Ether to it, cleansing the hut's center from dark Ether.

"What is happening?" Jarek asks, staring at the glowing ritual.

"This ritual repels dark Ether. It doesn't last long, but it can shield you when you can't control your own Ether. Like when you sleep." Ethan extends his right hand and guides threads of his own Ether to grab the shards of dark Ether invading her. 'No need to use the lantern.'

"Ritual?" Jarek asks, stunned.

It takes Ethan forever to drag out the shards, where they mix back into the surrounding Ether. "All done."

The woman remains immobile and silent.

"At least you tried," Azriah comments.

Liska gasps for air as if reaching the surface, seconds away from drowning. Her hands clutch the ground, breaking her weakened nails. Her eyes snap open, glassy and milk-white between folds of skin.

Jarek steps forward, happiness and alarm flickering across his features. "Liska–"

She screams. Her hands claw at him in desperation, smearing blood onto his face.

Ethan's soul echoes the terror she feels, screaming at him that something is lurking in the darkness, hunting him. It isn't a hungry predator, but wrath coming for who escaped its grasp.

A sound rises from the tunnels outside, faint at first, but growing. A chorus of wails, sung by tormented souls. They echo through the cavern halls, distorted and inhuman – dozens of voices blending into a single agony that vibrates the ground.

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