The cart's iron-rimmed wheels ground against uneven stone, their rhythmic groans filling the Undermantle's cramped tunnel. A single rune-lamp flickered atop the frame. Jagged shadows jumped across the rough-hewn walls.

  Two figures sat in the cart's bed, silhouettes hunched against the cold. The lead figure's lantern swung in slow arcs outside, its beam cutting through the gloom to reveal the tunnel's pitted ceiling. The trailing guard's footsteps scraped against loose gravel, sharp in the confined space.

  Alph shifted his weight. His boots braced against the vibrating floor, fingers tightening around the cart's side rail. Moisture coated the wood and soaked into his gloves; the damp chill stung his skin. The cart rattled through interconnected mine tunnels where shored-up support beams gave way to raw, natural caverns. Deep ore veins glinted in the rock walls. Geothermal vents hissed from the darkness, steam curling around artificially stabilized shafts that cut deeper into the earth.

  Haldrix exhaled smoke, the pipe's ember flaring. "Steady. The engine runs on my mana. I'll stop it if it veers off. You just hold those rails tight and keep it from happening."

  He tapped the pipe against his palm, sending a shower of sparks onto the cart's floor. "First time driving, eh? How's it sit with you?"

  Alph leaned back, fingers loosening on the rail.

  "Elder Haldrix," he called over the rumble, "this is wonderful. I wish I could power it myself."

  Haldrix flicked his wrist, dismissing the thought with a curl of smoke. "No need for apologies. But mark this, no mana means no progress on the Artisan path. You'll hit a wall sooner than you think."

  The cart clattered over uneven stone. Alph's gaze flicked to Haldrix's brass-plated arm, the runes etched into the metal pulsing faintly with each breath.

  If anyone could fix it, I hope it'd be him.

  He studied the deep-set creases and iron-gray braids of the runesmith's face. Could Haldrix mend a shattered mana core, or was this another dead end?

  He shifted his grip on the rail, the wood rough under his palms. "Varrick mentioned your work on self-sustaining runes," he said, keeping his voice light. "And something about artificial mana cores. That true?"

  Haldrix's eyes lit up, his beard rings humming as he drew breath to launch into explanation, but Thorfin's voice boomed over the cart's rumble.

  "Uncle Haldrix, spare the lad your usual rant. We've heard that lecture enough times to carve it into stone." Thorfin's boots thudded against the stone floor at the front of the cart. His shield gripped his left wrist; his axe hung ready in his right hand.

  From the back, Rugnir rubbed his temples with a pained nod. "Every visit, without fail." He shifted the crossbow in his hand, then wiggled his shoulders, settling the daggers strapped to his back.

  Haldrix exhaled a sharp plume of smoke through his nose, brass fingers tapping against his thigh. "Brutes and their tiny brains," he muttered, then took another long pull from his pipe.

  Rugnir leaned forward, his voice low and conspiratorial. "He'd corner us for hours when we came to see Varrick. Runes, cores, mana theory. Never could just let us drink in peace."

  Alph's fingers tightened around the rail, splinters biting into his skin. Damn it. The old smith's enthusiasm had been his one opening, and Thorfin's interruption had slammed it shut.

  He suppressed the scowl before it formed. A long game required patience. He loosened his shoulders, let his muscles go slack, and smoothed his features into the vacant attentiveness of an apprentice watching his betters. The opportunity would present itself.

  Rugnir's voice cut sharp through the clatter of wheels. "Hold."

  Haldrix's fingers twisted. The mana feed snapped off, and the cart lurched to a stop. Thorfin's hand dropped to his axe before the dust settled.

  Alph's grip tightened on the rail. Two golden orbs hovered ahead, brass rings spinning unevenly around them. The metal bore scars; pitted surfaces, jagged notches where the rings had ground against each other. They wobbled like drunken fireflies, their movement erratic, unstable.

  He didn't recognize them. But he had a guess.

  Thorfin's shield snapped up, the etched runes along its rim flaring to life with a crackle of blue-white energy. The air hummed. A static field rippled outward, distorting the dust motes between them and the spheres. He lunged forward without hesitation, boots pounding against uneven stone. The impact sent both orbs spinning wildly, their brass rings screeching as they collided with the cavern wall.

  Rugnir had already moved. His crossbow was cocked, twin bolts notched and ready before the spheres could stabilize. The strings twanged in quick succession. The bolts streaked through the air, tips glinting with a sickly black sheen. They struck true, embedding deep into the pitted armor. The corrosive coating hissed on contact, eating through the plating in seconds. Exposed rune circuits flickered beneath, their glow erratic, desperate.

  Thorfin didn't wait. His axe arced down in a single, brutal motion. The blade bit through the compromised circuits with a shower of sparks. The orbs shuddered, their light guttering like dying embers, then fell dark.

  Silence reclaimed the cavern, broken only by the slow drip of condensation from the ceiling.

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  Haldrix scowled at the wreckage. "Ruined," he muttered. "That was prime Sphere Guardian plating, gold alloy, perfect for rune insulation. And now it's eaten through by your cheap corrosion."

  Rugnir's fingers twitched against his crossbow. "Without those bolts, we'd be charred meat on the cavern floor."

  Alph tilted his head, eyes tracking the way Thorfin's fingers brushed over the scorched plating. "What are these things?"

  Thorfin hefted the salvaged piece and tossed it onto the cart with a metallic clatter. "Sphere Guardians," he grunted, wiping soot-stained hands on his thigh. "Vicious little bastards when they're running right. These ones were half-rusted, barely holding a charge. That's why my axe made short work of 'em."

  His fingers flexed around the haft of his weapon. "If they'd been fresh? They'd have danced circles around us, peppering the lot with lightning before we could blink."

  Haldrix jabbed a finger at the twisted metal. "Fools. This is not scrap; it is brass colossi era plating. Our forefathers forged it when they built the city atop the Titan's remains. You have butchered history with that axe."

  His prosthetic arm whirred as he turned the piece over. "Fine. Yes, they were guardians, meant to burn trespassers to ash. If they'd been whole, you'd be cinders now." He tossed it into the wooden crate with a clang. "But this will have to do."

  Alph's hand stilled on the plating. "Wait. You're saying there's a Titan buried under Val Karok?"

  Thorfin barked a laugh. "You didn't know? Damn, thought that was common knowledge."

  Rugnir shot him a look. "Thorfin." He turned to Alph, voice low. "Varrick mentioned you're from the archipelago, right?"

  Alph nodded. "Swiftwind Island. Been here a month. Local history's not exactly common knowledge where I'm from."

  Alph inhaled. A faint metallic tang coated his tongue, sharp and old, rising from the damaged plating. His fingers traced the jagged edge of the twisted metal. Centuries of rust had eaten into it, yet the core held firm beneath his touch.

  "Elder Haldrix, you said something about a brass colossi era? What is that?" The words came out quieter than he intended. His hand drew back from the plating.

  "The Age of Brass Colossi." Haldrix's beard rings flared amber. "When Val Karok and its sister-cities built war-constructs to crush surface kingdoms and deep horrors. These were their inventions. Forged atop the Titan's corpse, powered by stolen cores."

  The cart jolted forward with a hum of mana, its wheels grinding against uneven stone.

  His gaze dropped back to the rusted metal. "These things are centuries old. How are they still running?"

  Haldrix's fingers twitched. "Because they're not just metal. They're alive."

  Thorfin snorted. "Alive? They're scrap."

  "Not scrap," Haldrix snapped. "Self-sustaining. The runes feed on ambient mana, repair themselves over time."

  Rugnir's fingers drummed against his thigh. "Yeah, sure, then why are these ones so rusted?"

  "You dolts." The gold rings in Haldrix's beard pulsed a hot amber. "You never learned a thing I taught; now you fail even to listen." He slammed a fist against the cart's frame, sending a vibration through the metal. "The runes sustain and repair themselves, but the outer plating remains mundane metal. I should send you all back to the forge-school."

  His tone flattened as he turned to Alph, clinical now. "Self-sustainability and self-repair. Every artisan wants to crack these rune circuits, but they're nearly impossible to decipher. The workshop where they were forged, that's the only place the true schematics would exist." He shook his head. "No excavation has found it."

  A pause. His prosthetic fingers stilled against the plating. "This expedition might finally uncover that workshop."

  Rugnir's hand went still on the crossbow. "Might."

  Thorfin grunted, arms folding. "Or we'll dig up more rusted junk."

  Alph's gaze lingered on the crate. The hum of the cart's mana wheels faded into the background.

  The Undermantle swallowed sound differently than the surface. Nylessa had expected the silence to feel familiar, some ancestral pull toward stone and dark that her blood was supposed to carry. It didn't. The air pressed against her chest like a wet cloth, and the rune-lamps bolted to the tunnel walls threw light at angles that made depth impossible to judge.

  She rolled her shoulders beneath the leather harness and kept walking.

  "How do you feel?" The dwarven mage fell into step beside her, robes snagging on uneven ground. A brass-capped staff clacked against stone with each stride. The mage's eyes swept Nylessa, curiosity sharp, cataloguing. "This place should feel natural to you, given your heritage."

  Nylessa's jaw tightened. "Not really."

  "Oh." The mage paused. "I assumed, given the dark elf lineage, that underground spaces would feel like,"

  "Home?" Nylessa didn't look at her. "Nah. Feels like the whole damn ceiling's crushing me."

  The fighter on her left said nothing, which she appreciated.

  Behind them, the carts groaned over a ridge in the track. One of the men perched atop the forward cart leaned forward, forearms on his knees, gaudy rings catching the rune-light. "That's interesting, actually. I always thought you dark-skinned elves liked damp, claustrophobic environments more than your nature-loving cousins from the east. Is it a cultural thing, or more of a—"

  A dry voice cut from the second cart. "S'kan, hands off." The man didn't glance up from his ledger, just kept scribbling. "Degwin's orders. She handles traps, keeps us alive, and does whatever the hell she wants otherwise. That's the deal. Don't go digging into her business like you do with your servants."

  S'kan sat back. His rings stopped catching the light.

  Nylessa tapped her vest. "Yeah, that's the deal. My Trap Sense doesn't miss. You're covered." She flashed a quick grin. "No need to sweat it."

  The fighter shifted his pack, boots scraping stone. "You won't be the only one earning coin here. This isn't some private dig." He waved a broad hand toward the tunnel's fork, three mouths of deeper dark. "Archeology Guild opened the invitation wide. Teams from half the continent are crawling these tunnels. Runewright Society alone sent four groups."

  The mage snorted. Her staff rapped the stone, twice. "Hope none of them settle things with steel. Rival teams, tight spaces, fresh ruins, wounded pride. Bad mix."

  Nylessa said nothing. The conversation, the carts, the mage's assumptions, all of it faded. Her focus narrowed to the darkness ahead.

  Alph was somewhere in these same unmapped tunnels. One assassination contract already shadowed him. Now he had to navigate around every ambitious team crawling through the passages, each driven by competing interests and no rules worth mentioning.

  The ceiling pressed lower.