Chapter 3: Dungeon Cleaners

"In the dungeons beneath the world,

survival isn't glory—it's guilt carried with gold."

The Shadows of a Forgotten Age

Long before maps were carved, before nations were born and before mana bent to mortal will—there was the Celestial Era.

A time of impossible beings and divine constructs, of gods walking among mortals and structures forged from pure will. When the Celestials vanished 10,000 years ago, they left behind the bones of their world—Dungeons. Ancient, abyssal vaults scattered across the Central and Northern Continents, buried beneath wild lands and old mountains.

Each dungeon is a maze of forgotten rooms, cursed runes, and aimless creatures—phantoms and monsters with no past and no mercy, drawn to the scent of living mana. Within them lie treasures and knowledge untouched by time: divine relics, pre-Rapture gold, and arcane secrets humanity was never meant to inherit.

To claim these, mortals needed madness—or ambition.

They became Adventurers.

—

The Price of Freedom

To become an Adventurer is to renounce your citizenship, to cast off your allegiance to kings, flags, and borders. In return, you gain a dangerous freedom: the right to wield weapons openly, conjure magic in any jurisdiction, and venture into the lawless ruins of a dead era.

Adventurers aren't criminals—but they're not citizens either. They're stateless, untamed, and often idolized. Children dream of becoming one, of earning the right to wear enchanted cloaks, to enter taverns greeted by cheers, to be immortalized in bardic songs and gilded murals.

But every myth needs its mud. Every hero's tale needs someone to clean the blood off the stage when the curtain falls.

They are the Dungeon Cleaners.

Tropico Guild — Land of the Forgotten

At the northern edge of the Central Continent, nestled near the Fractured Cliffs, a fortress of stone and market tents rose like a scar on the land—The Tropico Guild. The largest guild across all three continents. More than just a contractor hall, Tropico was a mercantile giant, trading not just in relics and mana-stones, but also in reputations, rumors, and risks.

Behind every celebrated Adventurer was a guild like Tropico—and beneath every guild, behind its glamour and gold, were the dregs: Dungeon Cleaners.

A designated branch in every guild. Their purpose? To sweep what the Adventurers leave behind. Loot was never guaranteed. Payment was sparse. But the dangers? Real as the bones of the dead gods still embedded in dungeon walls.

They were Nulls, forgotten nobles, unwanted mages. They didn't shine—they survived.

—

March into the Depths

A procession moved through the cracked hills outside Tropico's western outpost. A gaping hole in the earth awaited—Kaltar's Spine, a low-grade dungeon recently cleared of its Dungeon Master. The glory had already been claimed. The gold, taken. All that remained now were traps, hidden corridors, venom-ridden chambers, and whatever darker things the Adventurers had missed.

But this wasn't a parade of champions.

No jeweled armor. No cheers.

Just tattered gear, dented helmets, dried blood on leather straps. These were Dungeon Cleaners Division 4, of Western Branch III.

And among them, two figures stood out.

Not because of flair, but because of silence—Ashe Vaxille and Mina Meijer.

Both of them are now fifteen. Five years older, five years harder.

Mina walked with confident steps, her frame built from grit and countless close calls. Her knuckles were scarred, and she wore light armor over thick clothes—more of a brawler than noble now. Her Reddish-Pink pale hair now longer worn in a pony tail, as her golden eyes shimmered again with the same crimson spark.

Ashe stood beside her, leaner than most, but sharper. His black cloak, patched and soot-stained, flickered faintly with illusion—his only luxury. His white hair was longer, messier, and his eyes had grown calmer… colder.

The Adventurers leaving the dungeon passed them by with smug faces and condescending grins.

"Hey! If you find any quarters, you can keep 'em!" one shouted, tossing a rusted coin into the dust. "We got all the real loot already~!"

Laughter followed. A few spat near their boots. None of the Cleaners responded.

Mina rolled her eyes. "They wouldn't last a week in our part of the dungeon."

Ashe smiled faintly. "They wouldn't last a night."

—

Daily Work in the Depths

Inside the dungeon, the air was thick and sour, laced with mold and old mana. The torches Ashe conjured weren't real flames, but his illusions painted the walls with light just the same. 

His light illusions work by printing illusory light towards the walls, making it seem like the path is glowing, a trick for the eyes.

Mina ducked under a collapsed archway, grunting as she lifted a chunk of stone blocking their path.

As she used her brute strength to let the other's pass through, and Ashe last.

Mina let go as she swiftly followed through behind Ashe.

"You woke up early today," she said, glancing back. "That's so not you."

Ashe shrugged. "Had a dream about monsters whispering in my ears. Figured I'd rather face the real ones."

They laughed. Quietly, but honestly.

They had a rhythm now—five years of surviving together shaped it. Mina took the front, breaking traps, cracking locks, smashing weakened floor panels with her reinforced fists. Ashe stayed behind, cloaking them in multi-layer illusions, casting detection veils over unstable mana zones.

At one point, they found a corpse—an Adventurer's body, half-eaten, hidden behind a false wall. A trap had been missed. 

Mina called over the others as she marks this spot has a corpse in it.

Mina clenched her jaw. Ashe said nothing. They pushed forward. While leaving the Dungeon Cleaners to retrieve this corpse since their mission is to simply: Retrieve Corpses, Collect leftover loot, & scavenge for valuable items.

Later, they came across an untouched chamber. Runes pulsed faintly around the ceiling.

"Looks empty," Mina said.

"That's what the last guy thought." Ashe knelt, fingers brushing over a faint glyph.

Then he snapped, summoning a double illusion over the floor. A light pulse revealed a mana-gravity trap—deadly for anyone not attuned. Mina sighed and helped him disable it with a series of targeted stabs with her magic-imbued dagger.

They collected scraps, missed relic fragments, unclaimed crystals, even food packs discarded by the Adventurers. It wasn't much, but it was enough to live another week.

—

Two Against the Abyss

By day's end finishing whatever they can find within the Northern Route, they sat by a sealed chamber, their bags heavy with barely-sellable finds.

Ashe laid back, arms behind his head, gazing at the dark ceiling.

"Think we'll ever get out of this gig?"

Mina looked over at him, sweat on her brow, blood on her elbow. "Out? Maybe. Up? Probably not."

"What if we cleared a dungeon ourselves, no Adventurers, no scraps. Just us."

She thought for a moment. "Then we'd be dead doofus, I'm a Null with a knife and you're an Illusionist who only hides."

He grinned. "I'll conjure the mural if we died then."

And then they both laughed. Not bitterly, but with something close to hope.

For now, they were just Dungeon Cleaners—the bottom rung of a world still ruled by gold and mana. But they were alive. They were together. And every dungeon was another step toward something more.

The exit from Kaltar's Spine was a steep incline of jagged stone and warm air that smelled faintly of rust and ash. The two teens emerged—bruised, tired, but intact. The sun had dipped past the mountains, casting long shadows across the battlefield-like field near the dungeon maw.

But something was wrong.

There, slumped over a makeshift desk just outside the dungeon entrance, sat a familiar figure—Captain Ferris Orlean. His hulking frame, clad in weather-worn blue leather and reinforced steel pauldrons, looked unusually still. Beside him stood Betty, his ever-diligent assistant, a sharp-eyed woman with ink-stained gloves and a slate board tucked under her arm.

And around them, only three Tropico Guards, silent and grim.

Mina blinked. "Is that…?"

She didn't wait. Straightening her back, she marched over and saluted sharply. "Sir! What brings you here?"

Captain Ferris lifted his head slowly, his weathered face drawn in tight lines of fatigue. His broad eyes met Mina's, and even through the strain, there was warmth in them—but something darker too.

"Ah, Vaxille. Meijer." His voice, usually booming with charisma, now sounded brittle. "Glad to see you both made it out."

Ashe frowned, stepping beside Mina. "Something happened?"

Ferris exhaled through his nose. "Yeah. Something happened."

—

A Man of Equal Worth

Ferris Orlean had once been a decorated officer of the Elynthian Monarchy, a man raised by protocol and national pride. But years ago, he turned his back on flags and courts, trading them for a worn adventurer's cloak and the chaos of dungeons, finding his place in the Tropico Guild.

Unlike most, Ferris never cared about power or pedigree. To him, worth was measured in effort, in sweat and survival—not bloodline.

It was why Mina, a Null girl with no mana signature but fists that could crush bone, earned his respect. And Ashe—quiet, clever Ashe—whose illusions even Ferris admitted he couldn't see through, these two had become a silent asset of the guild when Ferris found them.

To Ferris, they weren't just Dungeon Cleaners.

They were his best.

Ferris motioned toward a scroll case on the table, then looked them both in the eye.

"You two… are among the six survivors," he said.

Mina blinked. "Six?"

"There were fifteen of you," Betty added quietly, her voice controlled but trembling at the edges. "The other nine were found crushed. Some… beyond recognition."

Silence.

Ashe's jaw clenched. Mina stared at the ground. Neither spoke.

"It wasn't your fault," Ferris said softly. "But I need to know—what route did you take?"

Ashe exchanged a glance with Mina before he answered. "We went north. Mina spotted an incline, and I veiled us through it. Turned out to be a hidden corridor. Led straight to the Dungeon Master's corpse from the ceiling."

Ferris nodded. "That explains why you two avoided it…"

Betty stepped forward, holding out a folded piece of parchment paper. "This was drawn by one of the Adventurers. After the incident. Apparently, they forgot to mention a collapsing corridor trap in the western route."

She unfolded the parchment—on it was a hand-sketched layout of the dungeon's western wing. A thick red line marked the 'dead zone', and beside it, a thin blue arrow curved toward a small alcove labeled 'Safe Passage'—a hidden crawlspace meant to bypass the trap from below.

Mina sneered, gritting her teeth as she thought about it;

They knew.

They didn't say anything.

Ashe took the parchment silently, studying the angles. His mind was already racing.

"I need someone to recover the bodies," Ferris said heavily. "Before dusk, if possible. They deserve more than rotting in the dark."

"We'll do it," Mina said without hesitation.

"But…" Ashe interjected, "we'll need help."

—

A Second Descent

Mina stepped forward, hands behind her back, posture formal. "Permission to request support, sir."

Ferris raised a brow. "Go on."

"If we're retrieving bodies from a trap-heavy section, we need an extra set of eyes on pressure plates, glyph runes, and mana sensors,"

Ashe added.

"At least one cleaner for recovery and two guards for muscle. Disarming traps isn't our specialty."

Ferris stroked his beard, thinking.

Then he nodded to Betty.

"Assign them one of the surviving cleaners. Make sure it's someone with rune knowledge. And you—" he turned to one of the green-clad Tropico Guards nearby—"grab one more and gear up. You'll escort them inside. Stay sharp, follow their lead."

The guard saluted with a silent nod.

Betty passed the parchment fully to Ashe. "Be careful. We don't know if all the traps have reset."

Ashe tucked the parchment into his belt pouch. "Understood."

As they began their preparations, the sun dipped below the ridge, and the dungeon maw loomed open like a throat waiting to swallow them again.

But this time, they weren't going in for loot or glory.

They were going back for the dead.

To honor those who didn't make it out.

This is what real adventuring looks like.

The cold valley wind of the Central Continent swept through the tents like a ghost—silent, indifferent, uncaring.

Mina held the flap open as she and Ashe stepped inside the largest tent stationed just outside the dungeon maw. It smelled faintly of parchment, metal, and fatigue.

Inside, four of the six surviving Dungeon Cleaners remained. 

Two sat slumped over on their sleeping bags, faces hollowed out by grief and exhaustion. The other two—older, sharper—crouched near a wide canvas sheet spread across a collapsible table. It was a full map of the dungeon of Kaltar's Spine, sketched out by hand and filled in red and charcoal markings. Runes. Glyphs. Pressure lines. They were still actively updating it.

Mina kept her voice gentle. "Looks like hell in here."

Ashe stepped forward and tapped one of the mappers on the shoulder. "Hey. Betty gave us this—" he handed over the parchment—the one detailing the secret crawlspace and the fatal trap corridor.

The man barely glanced at it. "We know. We've been mapping it since morning."

Ashe flushed slightly and stepped back.

Mina gave him a sympathetic pat on the back, then turned to address them all.

"Captain Ferris wants us to recover the bodies," she said. "They deserve better than being left down there. We just need someone who can crack runes to disarm the corridor."

For a moment, no one spoke.

Then, one of the resting Dungeon Cleaners—young, mid-to-late twenties but aged beyond his years by the look in his eyes and the scruffy beard he wore like armor—raised a hand.

"I can rune crack," he muttered. "Spent two years studying trap glyphs in Karbrak before they kicked me out."

Mina offered him a faint but grateful smile. "You're in. Tropico's sending two guards with us too. Just in case anything's still crawling down there."

That earned a flicker of hope across the tent. The two mappers exchanged a look, then one spoke. "We'll come. We know the terrain best."

Mina nodded. "Good. Five of us."

Her gaze fell on a small figure in the corner—curled up, barely moving. A girl no older than seventeen. Her cloak was wrapped tightly around her, face hidden.

Mina stepped forward, but one of the others shook his head.

"Don't. Her best friend died in that corridor. She's not ready."

Mina's heart sank. She gave the girl a brief, respectful nod, then turned back to the others.

"Let's move."

Outside, the sun had all but vanished behind the canyon edge. The dungeon yawned open again—its breathless silence somehow heavier than before.

Near the maw, Captain Ferris hunched over the Light-Radyo, tapping out a series of morse-code beeps. His face was hardened, unreadable. When he saw the seven approach, he nodded once. The Tropico Guards—sheathed in green leather and hardened darksteel—stood flanking the tent, sabers clinking lightly at their sides.

"Watch your step," Ferris muttered as they passed. "This time, bring everyone back."

—

The Corridor of Death

The seven descended into Kaltar's Spine, guided by dim soulstones embedded in the walls. The two mappers, their eyes twitching across every crack and seam, led the group carefully into the Western Route of the dungeon.

Ashe stayed close behind, whispering a soft incantation under his breath.

Chant of the Veil of Stillness

"Lither, slather, hush and bind—

Glass of breath and shade of mind.

Whispers fall where echoes flee,

Turn their gaze and unsee me.

By rootless step and hollow tone,

Let silence carve me all alone."

A faint shimmer covered the group—the Veil of Stillness, an anti-detection spell he had spent months mastering. The monsters that still lingered in the lower levels wouldn't notice them... unless they made too much noise.

The dungeon was quieter than before. Too quiet.

They turned a final corner—and the corridor lay before them.

A long, jagged hallway of cracked obsidian stone. And across its length—blood.

Bodies crushed between walls. Splattered remains. One lay face-down, a hand still outstretched toward a glyph etched on the floor. The metallic stench of blood and ozone clung to the air like invisible smoke.

One of the mappers clenched his fists.

"The adventurers knew. They knew and said nothing."

The rune cracker stepped forward, adjusting his gloves.

"No time to curse their name now. Let's make sure this doesn't happen again."

He, Mina, and Ashe moved toward the crawlspace, a narrow gap just under a sloped slab beside the corridor.

The Tropico Guards stayed behind, keeping watch, blades half-drawn.

The rune cracker knelt beside the wall, pulling a bent steel prybar from his back. With practiced care, he nudged the prybar into a subtle groove—click.

A tile shifted open, revealing a rune matrix of pulsing blue glyphs inscribed in concentric rings.

"Found the control plate," he muttered. "Looks like standard Strygan glyphwork—early Celestial Era. Easy to read, but…"

He trailed off.

"But what?" Ashe asked.

"These aren't just kill traps. They're recursive. If you crack them wrong, they don't just trigger the wall—they reset and launch a secondary defense… probably mana bursts or flame runes."

Mina crouched beside him. "Can you do it?"

The man nodded slowly. "Yeah. Just give me a minute—"

CLINK.

A sound.

From behind.

Everyone froze.

One of the Tropico Guards called out, voice low. "Movement. Down the right tunnel."

Ashe turned to look out of the crawlspace, eyes narrowing. A flicker. A shadow.

Then a sound like wet stone sliding against bone.

Mina looked back to the rune cracker. "Hurry."

He didn't answer. He was too focused, sweat forming on his forehead.

The guards stepped forward, sabers now fully drawn. The shimmer of Ashe's veil held—but only if they didn't attack.

"Hold," Ashe whispered, raising his hand. "They haven't seen us yet—just sensed something. If we don't—"

A snarl cut him off.

Then—a monster stepped into view.

It wasn't one of the mindless guardians.

It was a Celestial Revenant—a creature bound by ancient energy, part knight, part beast. Its armor was jagged, crusted with old blood, and its glowing eyes scanned the hallway slowly, lips curled into an eternal growl. It was a tall slim beast with armor hugging its limbs, chest, & head but not it's joints.

And then…

It looked straight at them.

The shimmer cracked.

The veil was broken. As the Revenant's red eyes sharpened narrowing towards the two large figures.

The Tropico Guards.

"Oh gods—" one of the mappers breathed. As the guards shielded them.

Mina drew her daggers.

Ashe crawled back into the crawlspace.

And the rune cracker shouted: "I NEED TEN MORE SECONDS!—"

—

Battle of grit

The Celestial Revenant—a twisted remnant of long-lost souls bound by dungeon mana—was one of the most feared creatures one could encounter inside the Spine.

It emerged suddenly earlier, as if clawing itself out from the very bricks of the dungeon wall, radiating hunger and malice.

Without hesitation, the two Tropico Guards stepped in.

As the two mappers hid behind walls, covered by the Tropico Guards.

Mina, still crouched near the crawlspace with Ashe and the rune cracker, finally unsheathed her dagger—a simple, unadorned blade.

Yet within its core, It had it's own mana humming faintly, tuned for lethality since she's a Null who can't use magic. If she could land a blow beneath its armor—piercing flesh directly—then even a Revenant could be slain.

The monster let out a deep, echoing roar.

The first Tropico Guard ducked low, avoiding its brutish swing, and engaged in a precise dance of blades.

—the Way of the Sword—

His saber flickering with practiced movements. He slashed low, cutting through the Revenant's knee and ankle tendons with surgical accuracy.

The beast staggered.

But rage knows no physics.

With one clawed hand, the Revenant grabbed the guard's face and hurled him backwards. His armored body tumbled down the dungeon stairs, each thud reverberating through stone.

"Hold it off!" the second guard shouted, buckler raised.

The Revenant lunged at him, its heavy arms crashing down like hammers. The guard parried with the buckler, each impact forcing him back. His saber sliced at the monster's side, but the armor was too thick, too ancient.

Until it suddenly hugged the Tropico Guard, pushing him back into a wall as it clawed its way against his buckler and eventually his armor.

"NOW, GIRL— ATTACK ITS BACK!" he roared at Mina.

Mina broke into a sprint.

She slid low behind the Revenant, kicked the back of its already damaged knee.

The creature buckled, crashing down to one knee as it still advanced, clawing at the surviving Tropico Guard.

In one smooth motion, Mina leapt onto its back, and drove her dagger into the nape of its neck—once, twice, three times—until it shrieked in agony.

It suddenly lurched backward, collapsing onto its back—and her.

Mina gasped as the air was knocked from her lungs. She was now trapped beneath the full weight of the dying Revenant as it thrashed, slamming its skull back repeatedly—cracking her ribs with each impact.

Still, she kept stabbing, her hand slick with its putrid blood, until—

SHNK!

The Tropico Guard, now recovered, rammed his saber into the creature's chest, piercing the core beneath its broken ribcage. Its glowing eyes dimmed. The Revenant went limp.

Silence.

Mina winced as a sharp sting flared in her thigh. The guard's face paled as he withdrew his saber.

"Gods—did I hit you?"

She nodded, face strained. "Just a scratch."

He quickly knelt, rolling the dead creature off her and inspecting the wound. Blood trickled down her leg, but it was shallow.

"You're lucky," he said, offering a relieved chuckle. "A little to the left and I'd have given you a second navel."

Mina smirked faintly. "Wouldn't be the weirdest thing on my body." As she winced in holding in the pain, bravely.

He grinned, patted her on the back. "Brave for a Null. Have that wound checked later."

Then he stood, hearing the groans of his fallen comrade echoing from the stairwell.

His boots clanked against stone as he rushed off to help.

—

Trap Disarmed

Mina limped back toward the crawlspace, checking on the progress. Ashe and the rune cracker were still crouched over the exposed glyph panel, their faces tense with focus.

The rune cracker looked up, sweat streaming down his face."I cracked the last sequence—should be inert now. Though I wouldn't recommend—"

Before he could finish, Mina stepped out into the corridor.

Both Ashe and the rune cracker shouted in unison,

"DON'T—!"

Too late.

She took another step. Then another.

The corridor—once a deathtrap that had claimed nine lives—remained still. Silent. Harmless.

Mina turned back, raised her arms, and said flatly,

"It's safe."

Ashe exhaled sharply, shaking his head with a crooked grin.

"Guh!? You stupid!? Ya show-off."

The rune cracker slumped to the floor.

"Gods, please don't do that again, Null..."

Mina just shot back a sly smirk—though her face paled as her eyes drifted to the corpses lining the corridor.

"You guys handle it," she muttered, bracing herself against the wall. "I need to patch this wound before I start dealing with dead bodies..."

Ashe and the rune cracker nodded. Behind them, the two mappers emerged from their hiding spot, ready to begin the grim task of clearing the corridor.

—

The Retrieval

They worked in silence.

The corridor floor was soaked with dried blood and ichor. One by one, they retrieved the nine corpses—some crushed, some shredded, some unrecognizable. Each was handled with care, wrapped in linen from the satchels they carried, then carried up through the routes.

Outside the maw of the dungeon, the wind had grown gentler. The sun now dipped low, casting long shadows across the ridges and open valley.

The dead were laid out in a neat row, above clean sacks that had been repurposed as temporary burial cloths. The smell of dried blood mixed with the desert air.

Then, a quiet presence approached.

It was the girl from earlier—the one who hadn't spoken, hadn't moved.

She knelt beside one of the bodies, cradling its head. Her friend. Her only friend.

No words passed her lips.

Her shoulders trembled, but no sound came. Only silence.

Mina stood nearby, arms folded, unsure if she should speak. Ashe stepped beside her but said nothing either. There was nothing to say.

In death, there was only remembrance.

The wind whispered over the bodies.

One of the Tropico Guards brought out small mana flares—blue, gentle flames. He lit one for each of the fallen.

Nine lights flickered beneath the setting sun.

—

The Weight We Carry

Captain Ferris stood solemnly before the nine shrouded corpses, now lined with flaring blue mana torches. His voice rose into the dry air, reciting a sacred Elynthian-Staynic prayer—an old hymn of passage once whispered by priests and soldiers alike. His tone was steady, almost ritualistic, but not without grief.

"May your spirits find warmth beyond the Hollow Gates.

May your names be remembered by earth and sky alike.

And may no shadow cling to your soul…"

The rest of the gathered Dungeon Cleaners & Tropico Guards bowed their heads, murmuring the final refrain in unison:

"You did not fall for nothing. May your souls rise to the heavens of Evalonne."

A hush settled over the group.

After the rites, the bodies were gently lifted into the back of a canvas-covered carriage, their linen shrouds now marked with their names—written in quiet respect with red wax and charcoal. The wind tugged gently at the cloth, almost as if trying to lift them skyward.

Nearby, Mina and Ashe were loading their own spoils: sacks filled with what remained from the dungeon—mana crystals, fragment cores, melted silver, broken relics, and even a few slabs of corrupted bone. They stacked the haul onto another carriage, already half full from other adventuring groups who had cleared different wings.

It was quiet work.

Eventually, Ashe broke the silence.

"You sure your leg's alright?"

Mina, brushing dust off her coat, didn't even look up. "Stabbed in the thigh by a friendly sword. Happens all the time."

"That's... not comforting," Ashe replied, his brow furrowed.

Mina finally glanced over, a sly smirk creeping onto her lips. "What, are you gonna kiss it to make it better?"

Ashe rolled his eyes, but the corner of his mouth twitched upward. "You mock me, and yet I was the one worried about you."

"Worried?" Mina gasped playfully, holding a hand to her chest. "Are you catching feelings, Ashe?"

He muttered something under his breath about regretting ever asking, and Mina laughed—soft, but genuine. The moment was small. Fragile. But needed.

Together, they walked over to Captain Ferris, who stood by a makeshift desk beneath a flickering Light-Radyo.

The Captain noticed the two approaching and turned to them.

"I've already paid the others," he said, voice low. "You two, though…"

He placed two heavier-than-normal pouches of silvers onto the desk.

"Added a quarter of the nine's share. You're owed more than what was promised."

Ashe reached out slowly. Mina didn't move at first.

"W-wasn't this was meant for them?" she said flatly.

Ferris nodded. "I know. But they're gone. And you're not. This is the life we chose."

Mina picked up the pouch alongside Ashe. "Yeah," she whispered, "I know."

No words of gratitude were offered.

None were expected. In the grim arithmetic of the Dungeon, survival equaled inheritance.

By late evening, the two carriages rolled away from the Dungeon Maw, passing through the ravaged ridges of Kaltar's Spine toward Tropico western outpost III near the Capital. The lanterns swayed with every wheel's turn, casting long shadows against the walls.

Mina sat beside Ashe on the second carriage, her eyelids growing heavy.

She leaned sideways, her head resting softly against his shoulder, the tension finally leaving her limbs. Ashe didn't flinch. He simply looked upward—toward the open sky.

The moon hung above them, pale and distant. First quarter of the cycle. Still growing.

The night was quiet, save for the wheels, the wind, and the creaking wood.

And so they rode on—two souls who had survived one more crawl into the dark.