2026-08-28 05:23:10
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48 | The Furnace Below
Below them, another fissure began to hiss. Garran didn't move. "Nobody shifts." The hiss thickened into a wet roar. Allen watched the crack instead of the steam crawling from it. Pell had gone still behind the broken wall, bow across his lap. Brenna stood beside him with her spear angled down toward the quarry. Heat pressed through Allen's shirt and found every place sweat had already soaked it. The stone under the outer lip jumped. KRAK! A slab broke loose below the wall and vanished into the basin. Ash rolled up in a dirty cloud. Brenna coughed. "Well. There goes the fucking floor." "Back from the lip," Garran said. They gave it space. The ash thinned. Something moved below. At first Allen saw only plates. Black ridges slid through the red-lit steam, too broad and too low to belong to another hound. Then a forelimb planted beside the central fissure. Claws scraped basalt. A heavy skull lifted through the haze. The creature was built close to the ground, a thick reptili
47 | Infinite Mana Still Bleeds
Garran stayed at the rim after the Level 154 Cinder Hound disappeared below. His eyes moved over the descent, not the monsters. "West shelf," he said. "Brenna on me. Allen, right. Pell, rear. If something runs over the edge, let the bastard go." Brenna peered down the slope and pulled a face. "Comforting." Pell settled an arrow to his string. "Could be worse." She glanced back at him. "Don't say that in a dungeon." "I said could." "Move," Garran said. Allen followed him onto the western shelf. The path slanted down beside the inner wall. The drop remained on their right, blurred by ash and dirty heat. Allen could see through the darker sections well enough. The ash was the problem. It softened the stone, hid shallow cracks, and shifted under a careless boot. His shirt stuck to his back before they reached the bend. A growl scraped out of the dark. Garran's shield came up. The Level 137 hound hit it a heartbeat later. BANG! Ash kicked from beneath Garran's
46 | The Cinder Quarry
The south yard smelled of horse sweat, oiled leather, and hot dust. Allen spotted the party before anyone called his name. A broad man with a compact shield stood beside a dispatch wagon, checking the straps on his sword belt. A woman leaned on a long spear near the equipment rack. The last Hunter, younger than the other 2, had a bow across his back and was trying to tighten a glove with his teeth. The shieldman looked up first. "Allen?" "Yeah." "Garran." He tapped his own chest, then pointed without ceremony. "Brenna. Pell. Badge." Allen pulled his jacket open just enough to show the D-rank badge at his left chest. Garran's eyes dropped to it, then to Allen's empty hands. "Weapon?" "Stored." "Briefing?" Allen touched the inner pocket. "Good. I take front. Brenna works behind my left. Pell stays rear unless I move him. Don't cross his line when he has the bow up." "Got it." Brenna looked Allen over from boots to jacket and snorted. "Guild really sent us a D-rank in a nic
45 | A Gate Worth Taking
The first posting Allen dismissed paid well enough to waste several days.D-tier escort. Merchant road. Long hours, fat travel allowance, and not much chance of anything trying hard enough to matter.He left it on the board.2 Hunters beside him were having the opposite problem. They'd been arguing over the same escort since Allen walked into the hall, mostly about who deserved the travel allowance and who smelled bad enough to ride behind the wagon.Someone at a desk shouted for a missing signature. Boots scraped across stone. A woman near the entrance swore when a rolled map slipped under her arm.The Guild was awake.Allen kept reading.An E-tier extermination near the west farms. Easy money. Easier record.He hadn't pushed through the D-rank practical just to spend days watching wagon wheels or chasing pests from a field. He wanted work that could move his Level and leave the Guild something real to record.<
44 | Her Old Eyes
By evening, Seraphina was back at the table. The wheelchair brakes were locked, her feet settled on the footrests. Her blue shawl rested over the shoulders of her pale-blue dress. Her right hand lay on the armrest. The left rested in her lap, quiet for now. Allen stopped beside his chair and looked at that hand. Her violet eyes lifted to his. "You've had time to rest," he said. "Still want to show me?" She nodded, slight but immediate. "All right." He shrugged out of his jacket. The small D-rank badge stayed pinned to the left chest as he hung the jacket on the wall peg. Then he stepped behind the right side of her wheelchair and bent close. His lips brushed the edge of her jaw just beneath her right ear. Seraphina tipped her head a little toward him before he straightened. Allen went to the hearth and picked up the scrap of cloth resting
43 | The Line That Should Not Move
Allen bent closer to the page. The amendment looked harmless enough. A line of old ink, a correction beside it, another date farther down the sequence. He'd seen uglier paperwork buying flour. Seraphina wasn't looking at the amendment anymore. Her violet eyes had shifted up the sheet. Allen followed her gaze, read the line above it, then another. Nothing. He looked at her. "Earlier?" She nodded. The records clerk clicked her tongue from across the table. "Hands off." Allen glanced down. His palm was still planted on bare wood. "I'm not touching your page." "You walked into my archive carrying charcoal. I don't trust your definition of touching." His right trouser pocket held the wrapped stub like evidence against him. "It's house charcoal. Very respectable." Seraphina's lips twi
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