Confined to the barracks. The words are a sentence more subtle than the whip, but just as effective. I am a prisoner in plain sight. Every glance from the other workers is heavy with suspicion. I am the outcast, the protected one, the problem. They avoid me like the plague, afraid of being associated with me. My isolation is an invisible wall, stronger than stone.
The day passes in a slow agony. I am not allowed to work, which means I am not entitled to the evening meal. The quartermaster made that clear with a contemptuous gesture. The hunger, contained since morning, returns with a vengeful fury. It feeds on my inaction, on my frustration.
Status: Normal → Starving (Severe)
Night finally falls. The barracks fall asleep. But for me, the day is just beginning. Waiting here, helpless, is out of the question. The officer's "confinement" is a formality. No one will come to check if I'm on my straw pallet. No one cares enough about me for that.
I slip out of the barracks. The Shadow Throat-Cutter dagger is a reassuring presence against my hip. This time, I'm not just hunting for experience. I'm hunting out of rage. I have to transform this humiliation into power. It's the only alchemy I know.
The sewers welcome me with their putrid familiarity. My Night Vision pierces the darkness, turning this cesspool into my kingdom. I am faster, more efficient than ever. The Level 2 Shadow Rats are no longer a challenge. They are snacks. A stealthy blow, a silent death, a devoured core. The ritual is well-rehearsed, almost mechanical.
Experience: 22/250 → 47/250
Experience: 47/250 → 72/250
I kill, I devour, I press on. The physical hunger is sated, but not the hunger in my soul. I need more. A greater challenge. A greater reward.
I venture deeper than ever before, following tunnels that descend into the bowels of the earth. The air grows colder, the smell changes. The usual stench is replaced by the scent of damp earth and decaying vegetation. The brick walls of the sewers give way to natural rock faces. I am no longer in the city's constructions. I am in something much older.
The sound of running water is replaced by an almost total silence, broken only by a distant echo. A strange sound, a rhythmic clinking, like bones striking stone.
My instincts scream at me to turn back. This is unknown territory. But the anger simmering inside me pushes me forward. I am a ghost, a shadow. I can watch without being seen.
I follow the sound to its source. It leads me to a vast underground cavern, so large that my night vision struggles to make out its edges. The floor is littered with bones—animal and, I see with a shiver, human. In the center of the cavern, a creature I have never seen before is moving.
It is roughly human-sized, but its form is gaunt, skeletal. It is composed of yellowed bones, held together in an unnatural way. No skin, no muscle, just animated bone. In its empty eye sockets, two points of ice-blue light burn. In one of its bony hands, it holds a rusted pickaxe, which it brings down again and again against a vein of dark rock embedded in the cavern wall. That is the clinking I heard.
My interface gives me the answer.
Name: Undead Miner
Level: 5
Status: Focused
Level 5. A monster far more powerful than the Alpha Shadow Rat. And it isn't bestial. It's performing a task. It's mining. That intelligence makes it infinitely more dangerous.
Fighting it would be suicide. But I can't help but watch. What is it mining with such obsession?
The creature finally manages to break off a fragment of the black rock. It picks it up with surprising delicacy and places it in a canvas sack at its feet. The sack is already half-full.
Curiosity wins out over fear. I have to know what that ore is. I use the darkness and the countless stalagmites as cover to get closer, moving with the slowness of a predator. Every step is calculated. A single sound and I'm dead.
I manage to position myself behind a large boulder, only a few meters from the monster. From here, I can see the ore more clearly. It's not just black rock. Thin veins of a pale, almost luminescent blue material run through it. It pulses with a faint magical energy.
I have no skill in mineralogy, but I know this is something valuable. Something worth far more than the experience this monster would yield.
A crazy idea takes root in my mind. What if I didn't fight it? What if I stole its haul?
The plan is insane. The Miner is Level 5. If it detects me, it will kill me with a single blow. But the risk... the reward... This is my chance to escape my condition. With this ore, I could buy my freedom, decent equipment, a new life far from the barracks and from Caelan.
I wait. I watch it for what feels like an eternity. Its pattern is simple. It strikes the vein, picks up a fragment, turns, and puts it in the sack. Its back is to me for one or two seconds in each cycle. That is my only window.
My heart is pounding so hard I'm afraid it can hear. I draw my dagger. Not to attack, but to be ready. I wait for the right moment.
It strikes the rock. The sound of the impact covers the faint noise of my footsteps. I slip out from behind my cover.
It bends down to pick up the fragment. I move closer.
It turns to place it in the sack. I'm almost upon it.
It turns back to the vein. Now.
In two silent steps, I am next to the sack. I grab it. It's heavier than I expected. The moment my fingers close around the canvas, the creature freezes. It sensed something.
It turns slowly. Its blue eye sockets fix on me. There is no surprise, no anger. Just a cold, deadly void.
Pure panic overwhelms me. I failed.
I don't think. I throw the sack over my shoulder and I run.
The Miner lets out a cry, not from its nonexistent throat, but a sound that emanates from its very soul. A spectral moan, full of ancient rage. The sound chills my blood, but it also fuels my adrenaline.
I hear the clatter of its bony feet hammering the ground right behind me. It is fast. Terrifyingly fast.
I zigzag between the stalagmites, using the terrain to my advantage. The sack throws me off balance, but I refuse to let it go.
A searing pain explodes in my back. It threw its pickaxe at me.
HP: 50/50 → 32/50
I stumble, nearly falling. The pickaxe is lodged in the sack, the cold metal biting into my flesh through the canvas. The sack absorbed most of the impact. If it had hit me directly, I would be dead.
I don't dare look back. I run, my breath burning in my lungs, my back on fire. I reach the narrow tunnel I came through. It's my only hope. The monster is too wide to navigate it quickly with its lanky limbs.
I hear a sound of frustration from behind me as I dive into the passage. I keep running, without stopping, until the sound of its footsteps fades, replaced by the familiar rush of sewer water.
I don't stop until I'm back in an area I know. I collapse against a wall, panting, my whole body trembling. I'm alive.
I shrug the sack off my shoulder. The pickaxe is buried deep among the ore fragments. I pull it out with an effort. My back is bleeding, but the wound isn't deep.
I open the sack. In the spectral light of my vision, the ore glows with a soft blue light. It's beautiful. I plunge my hand into it. The stones are cold, vibrating with energy.
Item: Soul Ore (Raw)
Rarity: Rare
Description: A rare ore found in the depths of the earth, where spiritual energy crystallizes. Used by master blacksmiths to create enchanted equipment. Has great value.
Great value. I did it.
The joy is short-lived. I survived, but I've drawn the attention of something powerful. The Miner knows I exist. It will not forget. And I can't sell this ore openly. A street kid trying to sell a fortune in magical ore? I would attract the attention of the guards, the thieves' guilds, every predator in the city.
This treasure is also a curse. Another cage.
I sit in the darkness of the sewers, a sack of impossible riches on my lap, the blood drying on my back. I have escaped death, but I am more trapped than ever.
I have to be smarter. Stronger. I have to find a way to turn this raw resource into real power. And for that, I need knowledge. I need someone who understands the value of what I'm holding, without stabbing me in the back to take it.
My mind turns to the only place where one can buy secrets and sell treasures in the shadows.
The Black Market.
It's a dangerous place, a viper's nest where a man's life is worth less than the price of a dagger. Venturing there is an even greater risk than facing the Undead Miner.
But I no longer have a choice. To use this key I've just stolen, I must venture into a cage far larger and darker than the sewers.