The boot caught me between the shoulder blades, hard enough to drive me forward but not enough to knock me off my feet. A calculated blow—not meant to injure, only to remind me of my place.
"Move it along, Elf," one of them muttered.
The cavern stretched ahead—stone walls slick with condensation. The air was thick with mold and something fouler beneath it—the rot of things long dead. I let my breath out slowly, reaching for the thread of magic coiling in the air. It found me easily, as it always did: thin, weightless, brushing the edge of my senses like silk.
No threats nearby.
Behind me, the warriors trailed at an easy pace, their boots heavy against the stone. They were comfortable here. Too comfortable.
"You think we’ll find something worth a damn in this hole?"
”Doubt it. Last place, all we got was a cursed knife and a pile of bones."
"Still sold the knife."
"Yeah, after we lost Rory. Took his hand clean off, that thing."
Laughter. A slap on the back. The sound of men who thought they were safe.
I listened. And didn’t. This was how it always went. They talked like I wasn’t there—as if I were nothing more than a lantern. A tool. Something to light the way. I’d long since stopped expecting otherwise.
A break in the stone opened ahead. I stepped over it, bare feet finding purchase on the slick rock. The passage narrowed, curling inward like a throat before widening into darkness. Magic shimmered there—soft, present. Not new. Not fresh. Old enough to fray at the edges.
I hesitated.
"Something?"
I nodded. "Faint. A ward, but old."
"Trip it?"
"It’s nothing."
A hand clamped over my shoulder. "Good boy."
A shove followed—lighter than the kick, but just as dismissive. I stepped forward, crossing the threshold. The air stirred, rippled faintly against my skin... but nothing struck. Whatever had been here was gone.
They followed.
The first floor stretched wide and empty. No surprise. The bounty on this dungeon had drawn in everyone greedy or desperate enough to try their luck. Most hadn’t come back. The ones who did spoke of twisting corridors, walls that shifted when you weren’t looking, and shadows that watched from places you didn’t dare stare at too long.
Fungi clung to the walls—pale growths casting a thin, sickly light. Not bright enough to see clearly, just enough to make you think you could. The glow flickered, turning empty air into shapes that swayed when you blinked. Illusions. Tricks meant to catch the eye, pull you off balance.
The lich that ruled this floor? Rumor said it was gone. Faded. Weakening.
They were wrong.
Power doesn’t abandon its domain.
I could still feel it here: undead mana thick in the air, subtle but inescapable.
Like breath warm against the back of your neck. Like something standing just out of sight. Waiting.
I’d been in dungeons before. Hated every one. Different walls. Same truth. Mana pooled in them like stagnant water—still until you stepped wrong. Then it moved. Twisted.
To humans, dungeons were vaults. Treasure to claim. Experience to hoard. Crystallized mana to sell to the highest bidder.
To my people? They were scars. Wounds carved so deep in the fabric of the Weave that the world forgot how to heal. You felt it in the walls. In the air. In every breath that dragged the weight of old, dead magic, of old, dead elves, into your lungs.
But this place... wasn’t like the others.
It didn’t hum with violence soaked into the stone. No lingering screams clawing through the mana.
It felt like standing beside a beast, asleep—but breathing. Not dead. Not dying. Aware.
That was worse.
The second floor brought crystal in place of fungi—jagged veins threading across stone walls, refracting cold light in sharp, splintered patterns. The corridors stretched out deliberate, paths carved not by tools, but by something older and patient. Magic didn’t just exist here—it shaped.
The warriors shifted uneasily. Their bravado wore thin with every step.
"Wasted trip," one muttered, dragging his hand along the smooth stone. His breath curled in the cold air, a small, fleeting ghost. "Anything good’s been stripped clean."
"Unless it’s deeper."
You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.
Silence stretched. The third floor had stories attached to it. Most of them didn’t end well. But if the lich was gone...? Temptation has a way of sounding louder than common sense.
I didn’t speak. Didn’t tell them what settled cold and heavy in my bones.
The descent into the third floor came with a change in the air. tdrier now, edged with dust and that faint metallic tang of old blood that’s long since dried but never left. The tunnels opened wider, the neat lines of corridors giving way to streets.
Or what had once been streets.
This wasn’t a cave. Not some twisted dungeon hallway.
The stone beneath my feet shifted—no longer smooth. Pavement cracked, bricks shattered into uneven rubble. Murals clung to the walls in faded streaks, colors leached away by time. Statues stood broken at crossroads—faces worn to hollow suggestions. Guardians without purpose.
It was quiet. Not like before. Not the alert kind of silence that fills the space before something strikes. This was different. Abandonment. A quiet that didn’t wait for you to speak—it just was.
No bodies. No bones. No remnants of whoever had called this place home. Just ruins upon ruins, layered thick like the dungeon itself wanted to forget. Or maybe wanted you to.
We turned a corner. The street emptied into a vast chamber. Ceiling arched high above, sections collapsed to let in fractured shafts of cold, pale light. Dust hung suspended, lazy in the beams. Somewhere, water dripped—steady. The kind of sound that measured out time until you forgot it mattered.
That was when I felt it.
Something shifted.
The air pressed tighter. Like lungs filling. Like something noticing.
The doors behind us slammed shut.
Steel rasped out of sheaths. Boots shuffled on stone. Breath quickened—mine included.
Movement flickered above. A shape. Small. Wiry. Perched on a crumbling balcony. Eyes gleamed in the gloom.
A goblin.
But not a goblin. I could feel the mana radiating from his body.
He dropped down. Landed light despite the iron mace strapped to its back—too large for something its size. Should’ve been unwieldy. But he gripped the weapon, lifted it like it belonged in his hands.
And then he smiled.
But the orcs struck first.
They came from the side passages, from the alcoves above, dropping into the fray with heavy steps and heavier blades. They moved through the ruins like they had lived in them for years. Their strikes were brutal but controlled—honed by experience, not mindless aggression. One of them, larger than the rest, brought his axe down in a sweeping arc, forcing the nearest warrior to stumble back. Another orc followed up, hammering the man’s shield with the flat of his sword, forcing him further off balance.
Kobolds slithered between them, darting through broken doorways and vanishing behind toppled statues, their knives flashing in and out of sight. One leaped onto a fallen column, kicking off with startling agility before driving a dagger down into an exposed throat. Another slid low between an orc’s legs, using the larger fighter’s reach as cover before slashing at a warrior’s hamstring.
The warriors barely had time to react.
I stepped back, my senses reaching—searching for magic, for traps, for anything—
A blur. Too fast.
A kobold darted past me, barely more than a flicker of movement. Not like the others. It was faster, its short spear, more of a sword, aimed low as it cut across the battlefield in perfect tandem with the goblin.
A quick, clean slice against the back of a warrior’s leg, cutting deep. The man stumbled. That was all the goblin needed.
The mace came down like a hammer against an anvil.
A crunch. A scream. Then silence.
One down.
The second warrior swung, heavy and desperate. The goblin slipped beneath the blow, the movement effortless. The faster kobold was already moving behind him, pressing the attack, forcing the man to turn, overextend—
Another strike.
The goblin’s mace took him in the ribs. A sharp, wet sound followed as the warrior crumpled.
Nearby, an orc caught a sword strike on his bracer, snarling as he rammed his opponent backward with sheer brute force. A kobold at his side took the opening, clambering up the man’s chest and driving its knife into the gap beneath his chin.
Something slammed into my side—broad, heavy, all muscle and momentum. The impact sent me sprawling. My shoulder struck stone, pain jolting through me as I hit the ground.
The fight continued without me. I tried to push up, but my vision spun. Blood in my mouth. The taste of dust.
I turned my head in time to see the last warrior fall.
The kobold’s blade had found his throat. The goblin’s mace had found his skull.
And now they turned to me.
The goblin cocked his head. His grip on the mace was easy, casual. Too casual. A creature that small should not have been able to swing something that heavy, let alone with the kind of precision I had just seen. And yet, there he stood, utterly unconcerned.
The kobold wiped its blade clean with practiced efficiency. No urgency, no nerves, just a methodical swipe across the fabric of a fallen warrior’s cloak.
Not a sound in the chamber but the distant drip of water on stone.
I was the only one left.
And I had nothing.
A heavy silence settled over the chamber. The scent of blood clung to the air, but neither the goblin nor the kobold seemed to care. They had killed, and now, just as easily, they had stopped. No celebration. No gloating. Not even menace. Just the stillness of creatures who had done many times before.
The goblin tilted his head at me, squinting. Then, in a slow, deliberate voice, he said, "What that?"
The kobold let out a sharp, exasperated sigh. "It elf, numbskull."
The goblin’s frown deepened. He stepped closer, eyes narrowing as he inspected me like a puzzle.
"What elf?"
The kobold threw up its clawed hands. "Pointy ears! Tall! Thinks it better than us!"
The goblin made a thoughtful noise. His yellowed eyes swept over me again, slow and assessing. Not like a predator. Just... curious.
"It big goblin?"
"It is not big goblin!"
The goblin ignored him.
Instead, he beamed at me, showing a mouth full of sharp teeth.
"Hi, pointy ears. Grib take you to Bone King now. Don't be scared."
He held something out to me. Something small. Round.
"Here. Hold slime, make feel less scared."
I looked down.
A tiny blue slime wobbled in his outstretched hand. It let out a faint, gurgling noise.
I took it. Though, I’m honestly not sure why. The little creature was warm to the touch and jiggled like one of those human desserts I’d seen when forced to work in the kitchens. Neither sick, nor clammy like I imagined. Blue and gentle as an ocean wave.
I looked back up to the goblin. Grib? Then I looked back to the slime wobbling gently.
What in the name of the goddesses had just happened?
I was thoroughly, completely, baffled.