Chapter 126: The Warm Fourteenth

"Save that for the technicians. They’ve spent the last six weeks making sure the thing doesn’t explode."

At the same time, Tobias Finch was trying to inspect a new Undercity drainage line.

Unfortunately, somebody had decided to name it after Alvian.

"Vance Way," a worker announced, showing him a painted sign.

Tobias stared. "It’s a sewer pipe."

"A very important sewer pipe."

"Name it Sewer Pipe Number Four."

"That’s not very inspiring."

"Neither is the smell. Get back to work."

A messenger brought Tobias an interview invitation. He wiped his mechanical hand on it.

"Tell them the council meets on Thursdays. Anyone who wants to see how we work can come carry garbage."

Alvian had hoped to cross the merchant district without being noticed. He’d managed three stalls before a boy pointed at him.

"Mum, that’s the healer!"

Within seconds, three people approached. One wanted to shake his hand. Another asked about an injured cousin. The third pressed a letter into his palm and hurried off before he could refuse.

’Great. Even running errands is dangerous now.’

"I’m not the appointment desk," he told the man asking about his cousin. "The Assembly handles that."

"But can you look at him?"

"If I start treating people beside the cabbage stall, somebody will eventually complain about the cabbage. Go to the medical wing."

The man laughed and finally moved.

[Ding!]

[Public recognition pattern updated]

[Regional reputation: HEALER / CREATOR]

[Former hostile designation: No longer dominant in public feeds]

[Combat EXP awarded: 0]

[The System regrets that surviving interviews does not count as a boss fight]

’It should.’

Alvian ducked down a side street and found Leo waiting beside Martha’s shopping basket.

"You took ages," Leo said.

"People kept stopping me."

"I told them you went the other way."

"Good thinking."

Leo held out a small piece of charcoal. "Can I draw you on the clinic wall?"

"No."

"What about just your sword?"

"Also no."

Martha lifted the basket and smiled. "He’s already drawn your sword twice. You’re negotiating with the wrong person."

A communication crystal buzzed in Alvian’s pocket. Hendricks’s voice came through, sharp and annoyed.

"Vance. Someone’s selling fake healing appointments at the eastern market. I need you to tell the Assembly before people hand over more credits."

Alvian looked at the groceries, then at Leo.

"Go home with Mum. I’ll catch up."

"Again?"

"Again."

```

┌──────[ Profile]──────┐

│ [Host]: Alvian Vance

│ [Level]: 70

│ [Talent]: Clearwater/Dissolution/Reformation [Unique]

│ [Skills]: Genesis Forge [S-RANK]

│ Abyssal Dissolution Domain [S-RANK]

│ Void Step: Annihilation [S-RANK]

│ Severing Void Edge [S-RANK]

│ Dissolution of Form [CONCEPTUAL]

│ Clearwater Palm [D-Rank, Enhanced]

│ [Weapon Mastery]: Short-Sword [MAXIMUM, evolved]

│ [STR]: 530 | [AGI]: 290 | [VIT]: 855

│ [INT]: 215 | [Essence]: 287

│ [Karma Points]: 53

│ [EXP Bank]: ~4,737,100

│ [World Will]: Monitoring (creation-tolerant)

│ [System Version]: 3.0 → 4.0 (1/2 conditions met)

│ [HP]: 1,710/1,710

│ [Genesis Forge]: Apprentice

│ [Patients Healed]: 231

│ [Creation EXP]: ~849,100

│ [Array Status]: SELF-SUSTAINING

│ [Alliance Status]: FORMAL FIVE-PARTY ACCORD SIGNED

│ [Bounty Status]: FORMALLY VOIDED

│ [Criminal Charges]: DISMISSED

│ [Crown Posture]: NEUTRAL STATEMENT, REVIEW REQUESTED

│ [Dimensional Connectivity]: 7 LAYERS RESTORED

│ [System Classification]: RESTORATION PROTOCOL

│ [System Origin]: RESTRICTED

│ [Accord]: MUTUAL DEFENSE, TECHNOLOGY, TRADE, JUSTICE

│ [Version 4.0 Condition 2]: IN PROGRESS

│ [Public Reputation]: HEALER / CREATOR

│ [Next Priority]: PRE-CATACLYSM ARCHIVE INVESTIGATION

└─────────────────┘

```

The Ironjaw Rat should have stopped at the fire.

It didn’t.

WHOOSH!

A sheet of orange flame filled the tunnel, washing over the broken rails and the rat charging between them.

"What the fuck?" Mara Keene shouted.

The creature came straight through, whiskers burning, metal teeth snapping. It slammed into her shield hard enough to throw her against the wall.

BANG!

"Mara! Down!" Jace Morrow barked.

The veteran delver struck the floor with his palm. A wall of stone shot up beneath the rat and pinned its body against the ceiling.

CRACK!

Its skull split. Black blood dripped onto the rails.

Bex, their lantern technician, stared. "Ironjaws always run from fire."

"Tell that one," Mara said, trying to pull her shield off her arm. The rim had bent around her wrist.

Jace broke the metal with two fingers. "You hurt?"

"My wrist’s fine. My pride’s probably dead."

"Good. Pride doesn’t need bandages."

He crouched beside the rat. Most of its fur was burned away, yet its jaws had kept working until the stone crushed its head.

Jace had delved for thirty years. He’d never seen an Ironjaw ignore fire.

"How many rats have we seen?" he asked.

Bex checked the survey slate. "Six today. Same count as last week’s patrol."

"And how many charged us?"

"All six."

Jace wiped his palm on his trousers. "Log that. We’re heading down."

Mara looked toward the stairwell marked FOURTEEN.

"We’re going deeper after that?"

"We’re finding out why that happened. Keep your flame ready. Apparently the rats have developed a death wish."

Two months after the healing array’s activation, the new Guild accord meant little down here. The tunnels still had teeth.

At the fourteenth level, Bex lifted her lantern to check a ruined service platform.

Something scraped overhead.

SKRRR!

A Sludge Crawler uncurled from the shadows and dropped toward the light.

"It’s coming for the lantern!" Bex shouted.

She ran sideways as the crawler struck the floor, spraying acid across the stones. A second crawler squeezed from a wall crack and turned its head directly toward the bright crystal in her hand.

"They usually hide from that," Mara said.

"I noticed!"

Jace raised a Stone Ward between the pair. Acid splashed over it, leaving smoking holes in the surface. The first crawler climbed the barrier, dragging its heavy body over the top.

Mara kicked a loose rail upright and drove it through the creature’s mouth.

CRUNCH!

"Bex, kill the light!"

The lantern went dark.

The second crawler hesitated. It turned in a circle, clicking its claws against the floor as though it had lost its target.

Jace thrust another stone spear through its side.

THUD!

Both creatures fell still.

Mara leaned against the wall, breathing hard. "Rats that love fire. Crawlers that chase light. What’s next? A Sludge Beetle asking for a bath?"

Bex didn’t laugh.

She was watching her survey crystal.

"Jace. Come here."

The crystal’s usual green line had turned blue. The marker showing dimensional Essence in the surrounding stone jumped, settled, then jumped again.

Jace touched the wall.

It wasn’t hot. The rocks felt cold through his glove.

But under his Stone Sense, the entire level seemed to push back against his hand.

DUMM.

The survey crystal shook.

A few seconds later, it happened again.

DUMM.

"The bedrock’s warm," he said quietly.

Mara touched it too. "Cold as hell."

"Not that kind of warm."

Bex held up a temperature strip. The reading hadn’t changed.

Then her scanner climbed again.

"It’s not heat," she said. "Essence pressure. And it keeps coming in bursts."

A third pulse knocked dust from the roof. Something scratched against stone in the distance.

"Pack the instruments," Jace said. "We are not staying to meet whatever heard that."

Four stamped replies from Crown-loyal Guild offices lay on Elara Thorn’s desk. They had finally agreed to release contracts demanded by the tribunal. She ignored them and played Jace’s recording again.

The rat charged through fire every time.

"Yes, Guildmaster," Jace said through the communication crystal. "Watching it again won’t make the bastard turn around."

"I know. I’m checking if Mara threw the fire in the wrong direction."

"I heard that!" Mara yelled from the background.

Thorn switched to the Essence readings.

Other survey teams had reported Essence pressure for five days. Two mentioned violent monsters, but nobody had linked the reports.

"Any more creatures than usual?" Thorn asked.

"No," Jace answered. "Same patrol counts. They just want to kill everything they see."

Thorn’s expression tightened. She touched a second crystal.

"Finch. I need the Undercity network. And get Serah Garrick on the line."

Tobias was in the middle of an argument about street patrol wages when the call reached his council desk.

"Tell the idiot he can’t pay guards in meal vouchers," he said to Hendricks, then answered Thorn.

He listened without speaking. By the time she finished, he’d stopped tapping his mechanical fingers against the table.

"Fourteenth?" he asked.

"The lowest regular survey routes," Thorn replied.

"Pull the rookies out. Use experienced crews only, and nobody goes alone."

"Already ordered."

"Good. Send me the readings."

Hendricks alerted the Warren stations. Warning crystals flashed along the lower lifts, stopping supply parties while injured delvers came up.

Serah received the recordings in the Academy laboratory, where she had been sorting recovered pre-Cataclysm Talent diagrams.

"You’re saying the stone is pulsing?" she asked.

"Like something hitting it from underneath," Jace answered.

She put three separate survey readings beside one another and marked the exact moment each crystal shook.

The peaks appeared one after another.

Serah leaned closer.

"Bex, where were you when you took the first reading?"

"North passage, level fourteen."

"And the second team?"

"West maintenance shaft."

She mapped them beside the third reading, taken from a lower pit in the southern tunnels. The northern passage stood highest, the western shaft between them.