Void System: Every Heroine Makes Me Stronger

The broad passage opened into an irregular chamber barely 6 paces across.

Gray light lay across damp clay and exposed stone. It came from no lamp or flame Severin could see. He searched the walls and ceiling once, found no source, and returned his attention to the floor. The light was enough to show the deeper impressions crossing the chamber toward a lower opening.

Lighter claw marks scattered toward shallow breaks in the walls. A scrape came from the left.

Two low creatures crouched inside a shallow hollow, each no higher than Severin’s knee at the shoulder. Dark plates rose over their backs in overlapping rows. Their narrow heads stayed low beneath the first ridge, short foreclaws planted in the clay.

Both pulled away when Severin entered. One struck the stone lip with its flank and sent crumbs of clay rolling into the chamber. The other showed small, pale teeth, but its feet kept carrying it backward. They disappeared far enough into the hollow that only the upper plates remained visible.

They stayed inside the hollow, away from both the deeper trail and the passage behind him.

Leave them.

He kept Wisdom’s Edge low at his right side as he crossed. The creatures watched him pass, then settled deeper into the hollow.

The heavier trail continued through the lower outlet. Its walls closed around him after several paces, bringing his right shoulder near a rib of stone. The coat’s hem brushed damp clay once. He shifted half a step toward the center without slowing.

The passage opened beside an empty pocket on the right. It was too shallow to hide anything larger than the creatures behind him. A skin of water covered one depression in the floor, trembling after his step and then going still. A thin crack above it held nothing but old dust.

The smaller tracks divided around the pocket. Several entered and ended in scuffed clay. The deep impressions continued around the left-hand bend.

Severin followed them.

They had sunk past the softened surface and left their shape in denser clay below, sometimes crushing chips of stone beneath them. The spacing held even where the floor tilted. Whoever made them had not needed the short corrective scratches left by the lower creatures.

At the next turn, a fresh scrape crossed the outer wall above Severin’s knee. Pale grit showed through the darker mineral crust. A broken chip rested below it with one clean face still dry.

The body that made the deeper marks had brushed the wall while turning. Broad enough to touch stone and keep moving.

The route narrowed again.

Krrrk.

Claws dragged over stone inside a knee-high notch on the right.

A third creature climbed into the passage 4 paces ahead. Its body stayed low beneath the plates, foreclaws spread for purchase as it turned into the center line. Broken stone crowded the notch behind its hindquarters. The left wall stood too close for a clean path around it.

A dry rasp came from the creature’s throat. Then it drove straight at him.

Severin shortened one step and let the sword rise from beside his leg. The creature lifted its head during the last pace, opening the left side of its neck beneath the nearest plate.

Wisdom’s Edge crossed the exposed line in one descending cut.

Bone gave beneath the edge. The creature’s own weight carried it past the strike and into the left wall.

Plate hit stone with a hard crack.

The body fell behind Severin’s forward foot, twitched once, and stopped. One hind claw scraped twice against the clay without moving it. Blood ran along the sword’s lower edge and dropped beside the corpse. The center of the passage remained open.

Severin’s breath had not changed. He stepped past before the spreading blood reached his boot.

The notch held broken stone and shallow claw marks. Nothing inside it had joined the heavy trail. The two creatures in the earlier hollow had not followed, and no new movement came from behind him. He continued without touching the corpse.

The passage bent twice more. One short stretch held only scattered claw marks and damp clay. Pebbles clicked beneath his heel and rolled into a groove along the wall.

Another stretch narrowed beneath a rough shelf. Severin lowered the sword point until he cleared it, then brought the blade back to the line of his advance. The gray wash weakened around each turn, leaving the farther stone almost black, then showed again on the next exposed face. It revealed the floor and walls only at close range.

The deeper impressions changed near the next bend.

Before, they had formed a line. Here, they pressed over one another within the same limited span of clay. Some faced along the passage. Others angled across it. One deep print had been filled halfway by the edge of another. The ground nearest the turn had been packed harder than the route behind him, and small stones lay pushed away from the inside edge.

A broad scrape marked the outer wall. It began low, climbed with the curve, then disappeared beyond the bend. Several older scuffs dulled the stone around it, too worn to judge their age but concentrated in the same place.

Whatever made the deep impressions had turned here again and again.

Close.

A narrow fissure opened on the left, barely wide enough for Severin’s shoulders. The gray light died within 2 paces. Fine grit inside remained undisturbed except where moisture had loosened it from the wall. No deep impression turned toward it.

Severin left it unexplored and stayed with the main route.

His pace shortened as the passage tightened toward the turn. Wisdom’s Edge angled forward in his right hand, low enough to clear the stone rib and high enough to rise without striking the floor. His fingers settled more firmly around the grip.

Loose chips crowded the inner edge. Severin placed his feet on the packed clay between them. The space beyond remained hidden by the curve, and the gray light weakened to a dull smear across the stone ahead.

No claws scraped now. The air smelled of wet earth and the fresh blood along the blade. Water ticked somewhere inside the wall, too irregular to measure distance by.

He reached the last stone rib.

A heavy vibration traveled through the floor.

Loose dust jumped from a low stone lip and slid across the clay in one thin line toward Severin’s boots.

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