Chapter 24: Stealth Farming

The keep stared down at Arwyn like some dark-fantasy game he'd waste hours on. The south gate's rusted lock hung busted behind him, still warm from the sentry's blood on his gloves. He'd dragged that Sommetal freak to an alley corner, and that Glock shot still echoed in his skull. 

But now that he was in, the dungeon was sprawling below, pitch-black and dusty as hell. Looked like dawn hadn't touched it in centuries. He moved fast, boots scuffing stone, with that Delacroix ambition pushing him deep.

Though… That fire didn't last for seconds. A torch glowed at the corridor's end, faint but growing, and chainmail clacked sharply, steady footsteps bouncing off the walls.

His eyes widened, finding at least a narrow passage at the sides. 'Don't tell me… Shit.' His brain was static, panic spiking. No side paths, no alcoves. Just this long, dumb stone hallway stretching forever. Nowhere to duck. 'Great. Just great.'

He yanked the sketchbook from his jacket, fingers shaky but fast. The torchlight crept closer, orange flickers licking the stone. Chainmail clacked louder, alongside a guard's hum cutting through. Arwyn flipped pages, landing on that concave lens sketch from the sewers. "Worked once," he muttered, pencil scratching quickly. Air warped as he slapped it down, and light bent around him, cloaking him in a bruised shimmer.

The guard rounded the corner, torch high. Chainmail glinted—Dream-forged, scratched to hell. No Sommetal shimmer, just a regular grunt. Arwyn pressed flat against the wall, breath held.

The lens flickered, Passion Energy draining from that armor. The guard's torch swept inches from his face, heat prickling his skin. "Thought I heard something," the guy grumbled, voice rough, pausing.

Arwyn's gut twisted. 'Move, asshole.' 

The guard lingered, scratching his neck and his torch dipping low. Chainmail clinked with every shift. Arwyn's legs itched to bolt, but he stayed put, lens holding… barely. "Clear," the guard muttered, turning back. The torchlight faded, and those clacks grew soft.

Arwyn exhaled, shaky, and the lens dropped just in time. "That was… too close," he hissed, breathing deeply from the sheer amount of anxiety. He wiped sweat off his brow, Glock still heavy in his waistband. The hallway stretched on, dust thick in his nose. 

He moved again, quieter now, boots padding soft. Nathaniel and Santina were down here. They had to be. That beggar's words stuck: "Blue-hair's bending bars." Arwyn knew that crazy bastard wasn't waiting.

Deeper in, the air got colder, wetter. Ink pooled in corners, black and slick. His scar pulsed, syncing with a faint hum below. Rings? Nathaniel's tricks? He smirked, picking up the pace. Stone walls turned rougher, ceiling low. This was the dungeon proper now. A growl echoed—he could barely tell it was some girl, most likely pissed off.

Another torch glowed ahead, now a different corridor branching left. More clacks—two guards this time, voices low. "Fortissimum's a myth, ya hear?" one said, scoffing. "It'd be enough if we lock 'im up with that gal at Level 3." 

The other guard grunted. "Othello'll gut him anyway."

Arwyn's pencil twitched. He flipped to Daverno's codex, pages sticking with sewer residue. A diagram glared back: Resonance Fork – Split sonic output through adjacent materials (see: vibrations).

"Vibrations my ass," he hissed, sketching jagged lines across the page—a tuning fork with serrated tines. The guard's voices thickened.

"Blue-Hair cracked the west cell's bars last night. Bent 'em like licorice."

"Bullshit. Dream-forged steel doesn't—"

Arwyn slammed his palm. The fork thrummed, sound warping through the corridor's granite.

Crack-crack-crack!

A ceiling stone dropped, then another, cascading into a rubble chokehold between the guards. Dust billowed. The two guards staggered, stopping mid-sentence.

"It's an ambush!"

The torchlight wheeled wild as the guards stumbled back. Arwyn lunged left, boots skidding around the corner. His Passion Energy bled faster than a gut wound. At this point, he only had half of his power, yet he hadn't even got past the first level yet. "Damn… I should've added a rune…"

The new corridor stank of rust and rat piss. Cells lined the walls, doors warped and weeping iron tears. A woman at another cell growled. "—rip your lungs out through your eyes, you pompous pissant—"

Arwyn grinned. There.

He passed a cell where the bars looked chewed by some heathen blowtorch. Nathaniel's handiwork. Further down, a fresh-bent door hung open, edges glowing faint blue. Sketch Binding residue, as well as a carving on the same cell.

Meet me and Santina at the execution stage. West of here. Be there before noon.

"Execution stage..?" Arwyn muttered, ducking as a guard's shout echoed behind him.

The hum grew stronger. His scar pulsed in time now, throbbing like a second heartbeat. Level 3's archway loomed ahead, choked by a portcullis—Dream-forged latticework shimmering with that same Sommetal sheen as the sentry's armor.

"Perfect." Arwyn yanked the Glock, grip sweaty. There was his last bullet. He didn't sketch enough ammunition to fill the mag. Waste it here or…?

The codex fell open to a blood-smeared page. Thermal Shock Principle: Sudden temp shifts fracture, even Sommetal. (Warning: 80% Passion drain).

He glanced at the torch bracketed beside the portcullis.

"Screw it." Arwyn's pencil flew, sketching a crude ice spike—tip jagged, aimed at the torch. Compression runes jammed the edges, tightening the chill. The page glowed wrong, corners charring. Footsteps pounded closer—guards on his ass.

He slapped it down. A hiss tore out, and the ice spike shot forward, nailing the torch. Flame sputtered, then roared as frost bit the bracket. The Sommetal lattice buzzed, heat rippling from the torch's base. Not enough. "Come on," he growled.

He flipped the Codex, blood-smeared page glaring. Thermal Shock needs extremes. "Fine." Pencil scratched again. crude torch sketch, flame bloated. He slapped it fast, fire blooming huge beside the portcullis. Sommetal glowed red-hot, lattice groaning.

Ice spike still hung, and the frost crept. Arwyn lunged, kicking it deeper into the torch's base.

Crack!

Cold slammed hot, and the Sommetal shrieked, splitting jagged across the middle. He stumbled, head spinning, shoving through the gap. "Worth it," he gasped, boots slipping on slick stone.

"He's here!" another guard roared from above.

Arwyn dove through, lens collapsing as Passion Energy bottomed out. The cold hit him first—then the smell. Blood. Ink.

The corridor beyond was tighter, walls slick with condensation. His boots slipped, Glock still clutched. Shouts echoed behind, which were guards untangling from the rubble. "Sketcher's in!" one yelled, voice raw. Arwyn gritted his teeth, pushing west. 

"Execution stage. Noon." Nathaniel's note burned in his head.

A rumble hit. The stone shifted, and metal bended. Blue light flickered ahead, faint but sharp. He rounded a bend, cells thinning out. One door hung off its hinges, bars twisted like wet noodles. 

Nathaniel's trail.

"Huh. He left a path," Arwyn muttered, breath ragged. The air stank worse—rot, ink, something sour. A stairwell loomed, spiraling down, torch brackets empty. He paused, Glock up, with his scar at barely a thousand poules. 

Low. Too low. "I gotta save it," he hissed, holstering the gun. Sketchbook flipped open instead. He had to.

Footsteps clacked above. The guards were catching up, so he sketched quickly—a smoke blob, 30 poules, compressed to a pea using the rune. He slapped it down. 

Gray haze erupted, billowing up the stairs. "Cough on that," he grinned, darting down. Shouts turned to hacks behind him.

The stairwell dropped steep, stone worn smooth. Level 2 now, maybe, but then a scream pierced from a room he passed by, with a wooden label above the door. "Torture Room," it said. Arwyn was too focused on the mission though.

Another corridor opened wide and low, lit by a single torch. It'd been around the seventh corridor he'd crossed. He checked the map, squinting his eyes while sprinting through the keep. The map labeled four exits for the keep, one for each direction. Arwyn was going west.

Cells here were bigger, bars thicker. One glowed blue, rings humming loud. Was this maybe another one of Nathaniel's cells? Arwyn crept close, scar syncing hard.

Then clacks reverberated once again. Another guard, spear tip glinting red from Spire light. 

"You," the guy barked, charging. Arwyn cursed with his sketchbook up, Energy scraping bottom. A thousand left.