They walk. Hours. The sun moves normally. Birds sing. It feels like thier world.
Then they see it:
A valley. Green hills. A river. Smoke rising from distant chimneys.
TARO
"People."
YUKA
"Yh Real civilization."
A walled city, cobblestone roads, people in simple clothes. Horses. Carts. No electricity. No cars. It was like stepping into a history book.
[VELHEM GATES]
Guards stop them. With Spears.
GUARD
"Strange clothes. Rift-born?"
MONAKI[ Not sure on what to reply]
"Yes."
Guard: "what are you looking for in velhem?"
MONAKI: "We need work."
The guard laughs.
GUARD
"Everyone needs work. What can you do?"
.Taru replies "nothing specifically but we are hard working" then she stares intensely at him.
GUARD
"Adventurer's Guild. Go East of here. They take anyone stupid enough to go underground."
He waves them through. MONAKI, TARU and YUKA suprised and not sure of what was going on.
[ADVENTURER'S GUILD]
Loud. Smells of beer and sweat. A board lists jobs: Rat clearing. Escort duty. Ore collection. Dungeon scout.
A woman behind the counter MARLA, gray hair, one eye looks them up and down in disgust.
MARLA
"Fresh meat. Rift-born?"
MONAKI
"Yes."
MARLA
"Rules. Newbie's starts from bronze rank. Silver gets escorts. Gold gets dungeon deep-dives. Platinum..." She taps a purple badge on her own chest. "Platinum gets the real money. The real monsters."
She slides three bronze tokens across the wood.
MARLA
"Clear the sewers beneath the fish market. Ten copper each. Welcome to Velhem."
[There quickly rushed to go do it as there were starving.] There cleared it and soon after there were given another task.
Escort duty. There were to escort a merchant's caravan. Bandits attacked the caravan Yuka brings out a hand made bow shot at the bandit. It went with an enormous force behind it and it wiped out the bandits. The merchant: [suprised and afraid]"what immense power" and he pays them extra.
Ore collection. Deep mine. Cave-in. Taru holds up the ceiling while others run to go fetch ore. Everyone was suprised at TARU and YUKA immense strength.
They rise. Bronze to Silver. Silver to Gold.
[GUILD HALL at NIGHT]
Marla calls them over. The hall quiets.
MARLA
"Fastest climb in ten years. You kids are either lucky or cheating, anyways we're going to find out soon."
She drops a map. Complex, old.
MARLA
"Platinum job. The Iron Lords want the Depths of Varn mapped. Level four. No one's returned from level four."
YUKA
"Pay?"
MARLA
"Five hundred copper. Each. Plus whatever you find."
MONAKI
"We'll take it."
[DEPTHS OF VARN]
Firelight. Wet stone. The first three levels are easy they've done harder. Gold rank taught them: move quiet, strike first, trust no one but each other.
Level four is different.
The walls are smooth. Carved. older.
TARO
"Air's cold."
YUKA
"Too cold."
They find a door. Metal. Rusted but intact. Monaki pushes it open.
[Frost rushes through that instantly begins to freeze everything liquid, This brought back painful nostalgia]
There saw a room. Their room.
Desks. Chairs. A whiteboard with equations—Monaki's handwriting. A hamster cage, empty, broken.
TARU
"This is... this is the school lab."
MONAKI
"What the hell"
He touches the whiteboard. Dust comes off. Fresh. Days old, not years.
YUKA
"Look." There see the machine. With the mouths intact as if someone was working on it. snow had crept inside. They see the school courtyard. Frozen. Survivors huddled around fires.
MONAKI
"A gateway back. It's been here all along."
[SCHOOL COURTYARD]
They step through. Cold hits like a wall.
The survivors turn. Faces gaunt, hungry, hopeful.
PRINCIPAL
"Monaki? Is that You? You found a way?"
MONAKI
"Yes. Everyone. Now. Move."
They organize. Twenty-three students and Four teachers in total.
Taru helps the injured walk. Yuka counts heads. Monaki holds the gateway open—his arm freezing, scales spreading, but he holds it.
One by one, they go through.
A student slips on ice. Monaki catches her. Another hesitates, scared. Yuka pushes him through.
The Principal is last. He stops at the gateway. Looks at Monaki.
PRINCIPAL
"You first."
MONAKI
"I hold it open. Go."
The Principal steps through.
Monaki looks at his arm. Black veins at his neck now. He steps toward the gateway
ROAR.
Not from the school. From above.
The dragon. The same dragon. Hundred-foot wings. Metallic skin. It dives toward the gateway, toward the heat, toward the escape.
TARO (from the other side, screaming)
"MONAKI! COME ON!"
He runs. The dragon spits at the principal which freezes the principal and he breaks into tiny bits. MONAKI dives through the gateway
[DEPTHS OF VARN ]
He rolls out. The Metal door begins to shut itself. The dragon's head pushes through, squeezing into it.
YUKA
"Shut it down!"
Monaki pushes the door shut.
The dragon's head—severed clean—drops to the floor. Blood like molten copper pools, hissing.
Silence.
They look around. Twenty-three students. Four teachers. Minus one.
The Principal didn't make it.
His hand still sticks out from the stone.
TARO (whispering)
"He was right behind me."
YUKA
"The dragon. It got him.
Monaki looks at his hand. The scales spread to his chest now. He can feel his heartbeat in them. Two rhythms. One human. One not.
MARLA [walks in]
She stands in the doorway, Platinum badge glinting. Sees it all.
MARLA
"Level four. You mapped it. Found something that shouldn't exist I see." She looks at the dead dragon head And the hand in the stone. "Platinum rank. All three of you."
She tosses three purple badges. They hit the floor. No one picks them up.