Severin’s next boot came down on damp clay.
The cold changed with the step. Wet grass and open wind disappeared behind him. Close mineral air pressed against his face, carrying fresh blood, wet earth, and fine grit from newly fractured stone.
Ahead, the wounded beast remained in sight. Its plated haunch flashed between dark ribs of rock as it ran, its stride shortening on one hind leg without dragging the limb.
[Dungeon Entered: Faultroot Warren]
[Dungeon Rank: E]
Neither message slowed his stride. The beast still had a junction to choose.
The entrance hollow was barely long enough for the beast to reach full speed. Gray-brown stone pushed through the clay in fractured shelves. Dark mineral seams curved along the walls like roots trapped beneath the surface. Some ended in fresh breaks sharp enough to catch cloth. Water darkened the ground around them without forming a channel, and nothing showed the polish of an old road.
Behind Severin, the return was a flat boundary across the hollow. No doors stood on this side. No hinges, gatehouse, or fortress wall occupied the space where the two leaves had risen in the field.
Blood dotted the clay ahead of him.
A bend in the hollow hid the field, but the first junction remained in sight. The guide had less than a dozen paces before the routes split. Severin shortened one stride around a projecting shelf, let the hem of his coat clear the stone, then lengthened the next. The animal’s lead did not grow.
Its claws scraped once at the first junction. A narrow crack opened to the right, wide enough for the animal to enter if it turned its shoulders. The broader passage continued forward and down.
Without looking toward the crack, the beast took the descending route without slowing.
Older claw marks crossed beneath the fresh drops. They crowded the broad passage, pressed over one another near the turn, and ran toward the entrance hollow. The guide’s retreat followed the same line in reverse.
Severin had left it alive for one answer. It had given him that much.
He closed the remaining distance.
At the sound of his approach, the beast tried to turn around a jut of stone. Its front claws bit into the clay. The forequarters bent before the hindquarters followed, lifting two plates over the shoulders and opening a thin seam along the upper back.
Wisdom’s Edge entered there.
The point drove down through the exposed gap and into the upper spine. The beast’s front legs folded before its jaws finished opening. Its weight pulled against the blade for a fraction of the turn.
Severin drew the sword free and caught the falling flank with his boot. He redirected the carcass toward the wall instead of letting it block the passage.
Its body struck stone, slid half a pace, and settled beside the junction. One rear claw scratched a crooked line through the clay. Then it stopped.
Blood ran along Wisdom’s Edge and gathered at the point.
Severin looked down at the body. Black mist could have taken the carcass and the blood around it into the Vault. That would erase the junction’s newest line before he had read the older ones. He left the body against the wall and returned two steps toward the junction. The narrow crack held damp clay of its own, but only a few shallow disturbances crossed it. One could have come from loose stone. Another ended where water had softened the edge. Nothing inside carried the concentrated traffic beneath his boots.
Many lighter clawed tracks had come from below. They overlapped where the route narrowed, spread through the junction, and continued toward the threshold. Several passed beneath the dead guide’s fresh blood. The outflow had not searched the entrance zone. It had followed the easiest open line.
Severin shifted his attention farther down.
A second pattern pressed through the smaller marks. Severin set the side of his boot beside the nearest impression. The smaller claws barely crossed half the sole. The deeper mark spread past both edges and sank through the wet surface into firmer clay. Loose stone inside it had been crushed instead of kicked aside.
He followed the pattern for several paces. One impression lay partly beneath a later cluster of lighter claws. Another showed beside a raised shelf where the smaller bodies had passed around the stone. The spacing repeated with the same broad weight and continued inward.
None of the deeper impressions turned toward the entrance. Something larger had probably stayed below while the smaller beasts found blood, grain, and movement outside.
Severin wiped one side of Wisdom’s Edge against the dead beast’s plates. Most of the fresh blood came away. A dark line remained in the fuller, joining the stains from the field.
He glanced once toward the flat return boundary.
Fifteen dead beasts remained outside beside the overturned cart. The horse and driver were alive, and witnesses had watched the threshold appear. One more beast lay against the wall behind him. The runner would return with help, and news of the threshold would travel with him.
Questions and records would follow, along with people eager to set terms around the place. More villagers would see the doors before the driver could be carried away. Every minute he spent near the entrance gave them more time to reach it.
Taking only what he could carry out today would leave him with corpses and a story other people could price. A living Rank E dungeon promised more than a single haul. Creatures could return. Its materials and routes could be measured. Whoever controlled the place would need the village road, its hands, and its witnesses.
He had no reason to ruin a source before learning what it produced.
Little fresh traffic marked the side crack. It could wait; nothing there joined the heavier trail.
The guide had chosen the broad descent. Lighter tracks pointed out along it, while the heavier impressions continued in.
Severin stepped over the nearest deep print and followed them down.
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