Chapter 6: Carved Rooms
Rei went down until the air turned sharper in his lungs.
Carved lines ran along the stairwell walls in clean, repeating bands. They brightened and faded in measured beats, throwing edges into relief, then softening them again. The rhythm stayed steady enough to count with his breath.
His ribs tugged when he pulled too deep, so he kept the inhale restrained and let the exhale do the work. Ember Circulation stayed compact—life moving in a disciplined loop, tempering the tremor out of his hands and smoothing the ache into something he could carry.
The stairs ended on a seam in the floor.
Beyond it, the same worn blockwork continued—smooth stone, hairline joins, shallow scuff marks like old traffic had passed through. Rei lifted his foot to cross.
Fear hit him so clean it stole the motion out of his leg.
It landed like a hard certainty in his gut. One more inch forward and something would go wrong in a way he couldn't take back. Rei froze with his weight still on the last step, breath held tight enough to sting.
He lowered his foot back without letting it touch the tile.
His pulse climbed; he pinned it down with a slow exhale. The carved lines along the wall brightened together.
When the glow swelled, the space over the first tile felt tight against his skin, prickling along his forearms. When it faded, the pressure eased—enough to move.
Rei watched the cycle twice. Brightening. Fading. Brightening.
He waited for the fade, stepped onto the first tile, and shifted his weight in one smooth line. He crossed on the ebb, two steps at a time, then held still on the next swell with both feet planted where the seam lines looked least disturbed.
A faint hiss seeped up through the floor joins, thin as steam, then stopped.
Fade. Rei crossed the last span and reached the far side.
He let out a long breath through his teeth. "Grey Hollow is committed to the bit."
The corridor stayed quiet. The wall-lines kept their rhythm, brightening and dimming with the same measured beat.
A passive HUD flicker assembled at the edge of his vision.
Dungeon: Grey Hollow – Depths
Status: Active Hazard
Progress: 14%
The number jittered once, then smeared sideways for a heartbeat.
Progress: 11%
Progress: 14%
A thin bar tried to render beneath it, failed halfway, and collapsed into a short block of static.
Progress: ERROR
Rei narrowed his eyes. The dungeon had been unstable from the start. A broken meter didn't change the floor in front of him.
He moved on.
The construction past the seam felt deliberate. The air tasted of dust and old oil. Shallow channels ran along the base of both walls, carrying a thin flow that made enough noise to blur smaller sounds. Alcoves repeated at even intervals, cut into the stone like a place meant for someone to stand watch.
The glow-lines brightened again.
A pale shape waited near the next threshold where the corridor widened.
Rei kept his gaze soft and took in the outline instead of forcing detail. A fox, pale enough that the carved light bled through it at the edges. Clean lines. Still posture. It stood in the brightest band of glow without flinching.
Rei slowed, then kept walking. He held his hands low, claws angled down rather than raised.
"You again," he said quietly.
The pale fox didn't move. Its eyes stayed on him with a steady calm that made the corridor feel sharper by contrast.
A second presence flickered behind him—too quick to catch head-on. A darker shape touched the wall-shadow at the edge of the glow, then slid away as if distance was flexible.
Two watchers.
Rei crossed the threshold into the room.
Square walls. Lower ceiling. Glow-lines traced neat rectangles along the floor edges and highlighted the slickest patches where water sheen kissed stone. A raised strip of drier rock ran down the center, traction you could trust until you couldn't.
Movement stirred near the far side.
Three figures stepped into the light.
Humanoid, lean, with plates of pale stone fused over muscle like armor grown wrong. Their eyes caught the carved glow and reflected it back. One carried a short blade with a hooked tip. Another held a spear with a proper head and bindings that looked maintained. The third braced with something like a compact crossbow—wood and metal stripped down to function.
A new overlay blinked in.
[Carved Warden] Lv. 3
HP: 80/80
[Carved Warden] Lv. 3
HP: 80/80
[Carved Warden] Lv. 3
HP: 80/80
Rei's jaw tightened.
"Okay," he murmured. "That's an upgrade."
The crossbow snapped.
Rei shifted off the dry strip before the bolt reached him. It cracked into stone where his shoulder had been and skittered into the channel with a sharp clatter. The sound vanished under running water.
The spear warden advanced with measured steps, aiming to push him off traction. The blade warden stayed half a pace back, ready to cut into his ribs the moment his footing turned. They moved with a practiced shape, slow enough to control the space, fast enough to punish a mistake.
Rei kept his stance low and his weight centered. Ember Circulation ran steady, reinforcing joints and muscles, giving his limbs a quiet resilience instead of a burst.
He refused the center line they wanted.
He stepped toward the channel lip on purpose, choosing a spot where the stone edge gave him a fraction of elevation. The spear warden adjusted and committed—exactly what Rei wanted.
The jab came in.
Rei slid his front foot along the lip and let the spearhead scrape stone where his leg had been. He stepped inside the line and raked claws down the shaft near the head.
Metal squealed. The bindings held.
The blade warden took the opening and swung low for his ribs.
Rei turned his hips and let the cut pass in front of him, close enough to feel air move, then drove his forearm into the blade arm to jam the follow-through. Pain flared in his bruised side anyway. He forced his breath to stay even and kept his feet under him.
The crossbow fired again.
Rei heard the twang and dropped his shoulder. The bolt shaved past his ear and cracked into the raised strip behind him.
He used the moment the wardens expected him to retreat.
Rei stepped forward.
Close range took the crossbow out of clean angles and forced the spear into short jabs instead of long thrusts. He hooked a claw into a seam where stone plating met strap on the spear warden's wrist and yanked sideways.
The spear line drifted. The blade warden's next cut clipped the spear shaft instead of Rei's ribs.
Rei took that collision as his gap.
He drove his shoulder into the spear warden's chest and forced it back onto the slick patch. Its heel hit wet stone.
Traction failed.
The warden slid a fraction into the channel groove and wobbled.
Rei cut across the inside of its knee with one clean rake. The leg buckled. The warden dropped into the channel with a splash and a dull grunt.
The crossbow warden tried to backpedal for space.
Its heel found the glow-line edge where the floor changed texture. It skidded, caught itself, and raised the weapon anyway.
Rei crossed in three steps, planted on the dry strip, and slapped the crossbow aside with his left claw. He drove his right into the seam under the warden's plating at the collarbone—soft gap, hard intent. The claws bit. The warden's body jolted, then sagged.
One down.
The blade warden came in with a short, angry swing, hooked edge aiming for his forearm.
Rei let it commit and stamped on the blade's flat with his boot, pinning it to stone. The warden yanked; Rei used the pull to drag it forward into his space and drove clawed knuckles into its jawline.
Stone plating cracked with a sharp sound. The warden dropped.
The spear warden surged out of the channel, wounded leg dragging, hands reaching for the fallen crossbow.
Rei got there first. He drove a claw through the reaching hand, then ended it before the room could fill with noise.
Silence returned, thin and tense.
Rei stayed still for two breaths, scanning corners and ceiling seams. His hands trembled at the edges; Ember Circulation smoothed the adrenaline into something he could hold. He tested his ribs with a controlled inhale and felt the bruise answer back—real, but contained.
Across the room, in the brightest band of carved-line glow, the pale fox stood where it had been, calm and steady.
Rei kept his distance, eyes narrowing. "You've been following me," he said. "Or the dungeon keeps putting you in my path."
The fox blinked once.
Rei watched that small movement like it mattered. In a place where everything tried to steal balance, anything that stayed steady earned attention.
A flicker touched the wall-shadow near the far archway.
The darker fox-shape appeared lounging on a ledge that hadn't held anyone a heartbeat earlier. Its posture looked relaxed. Its eyes stayed sharp.
Rei exhaled, the corner of his mouth lifting despite himself. "You're claiming the best seats?"
The shadow fox's tail flicked once—quick, pleased—then the shape blurred and reappeared two alcoves down, as if space had folded for it and unfolded again.
Rei stared at the new position, then huffed a quiet laugh. "Jinx," he said, letting the name land like a test.
The shadow fox held still for a beat, then flicked its tail again.
Approval, or amusement. Rei couldn't tell. Either one felt better than being alone.
He looked back to the pale one.
"Vesper," he said, and the name settled into place with the same certainty as the carved rhythm. Calm. Clean. Watching from the light.
The pale fox's tail moved once, small and precise, then the glow brightened and its outline thinned with it, fading into the brightness until only the room remained.
Rei wiped his claws against a dry strip of stone, then turned toward the exit.
The corridor beyond tightened again. Glow-lines thickened into brighter bands. The channels deepened by a finger's width, and the water noise carried farther. The air picked up a metallic tang that sat on his tongue.
The wall rhythm stayed steady for five paces.
Then it stuttered.
For a heartbeat, one groove doubled and snapped back. Rei's eyes watered from the sudden brightness. The corridor held together anyway.
He kept moving.
At the end of the passage, stone and metal met in a fitted seal—grooves aligned to the wall rhythm, a boundary set into the architecture. No handle. No obvious gap large enough to pry.
Rei stopped three steps short and let his breath settle.
The space beyond felt heavy in the simplest way he could describe: pressure held behind a closed line.
Jinx flickered into view on the wall to his left, perched near the ceiling seam like it belonged there. Vesper stood farther back in the glow, pale outline steady.
Rei glanced between them, then back to the seal.
"Alright," he said under his breath. "We're doing this smart."
He lowered to sit with his back against the corridor wall, just off the channel splash, and let Ember Circulation run slow and steady. His ribs eased a fraction as the loop tempered the ache. He kept his eyes on the sealed line and the rhythm in the grooves, and he let the corridor stay quiet around him.
When the glow faded to its softest beat, Jinx dropped from the wall and padded past his boots, close enough that Rei felt air shift. Vesper stayed in the light, watching without closing distance.
Rei rested his hands on his knees and breathed.
He'd go through when he was ready.