Chapter 7: The Dead City

At around three hundred feet down, the straight cliff wall turned inward, opening onto a wide rock shelf that jutted out over a vast underground cavern.

Silvester let go of his grip and dropped six feet onto the stone shelf. He landed silently on the balls of his bare feet, absorbing the force of the fall with his knees, and immediately crouched behind a broken stone pillar.

He took a slow, deep breath and released his Close skill. A heavy fatigue washed over his body, particularly his limbs, but his mind remained completely sharp and clear.

He had made it to the sixth floor, the Dead City. It was a cavernous ruin—the remnants of a massive ancient metropolis dragged down from the surface thousands of years ago.

Glowing reddish-green moss wrapped around the giant stone pillars as they reached up into the dark ceiling. Broken stones littered the ruined streets, which were bordered by roofless stone houses with sprawling, broken doorways. The air was heavy, thick with wild threads of mana and the stench of rotting meat.

From the dark shadows behind his pillar, Silvester surveyed the ruined terrain below.

Three blocks of ruined streets lay between him and the massive archway leading to the seventh floor. But the open ground was far from empty.

Four bone-scraper hounds stalked through the stone ruins.

They were massive, hairless hunting beasts, each the size of a young elephant. Their hides were a decaying grey, traversed by visible black veins. Their heads lacked eyes; instead, they had oversized ears and long snouts filled with sharp, constantly twitching yellow teeth.

’Blind hunters,’ Silvester thought. He activated his Locksmith’s Eye and observed the beasts from twenty-five paces away. They relied entirely on sound and heat to track prey.

Fighting a bone-scraper hound would be bloody and dangerous, especially in the frame of an eight-year-old child. Their hides were thick, and a single loud screech would summon the entire pack across the floor.

Silvester had no intention of fighting them.

He put his boots back on, pulled the laces tight, and invoked his skill.

Close.

He projected a steady wave of golden magic along the edges of his coat and trousers. This locked the loose fabric into a rigid, silent state that eliminated friction. As he moved, his clothes produced no rustle or sound whatsoever. Next, he sealed his collar to trap his body scent inside his shirt.

Close.

He suppressed his inner body heat, matching it to the exact cold temperature of the surrounding ruins.

He stepped out from behind the stone pillar and walked onto the open ground.

A bone-scraper hound stood less than nine feet away. Its broad ears flared wide as it sniffed at a small pool of stagnant water.

Silvester snuck right past the beast.

His footsteps made no sound. His Close skill absorbed the impact of his boots on the stone, eliminating the tiny vibrations that would normally echo through the floor. To the beast’s senses, Silvester was invisible—a cold stone block moving through a cold stone city.

Silvester glided across the open space like a shadow, advancing with smooth, measured steps.

He crossed the three street blocks, passing more hounds gnawing on the bones of ancient cave beasts, until he reached the far edge of the ruins.

The entrance to the deep water tunnel leading to the seventh floor was a massive iron door set directly into the face of the cliff.

The door was an ancient dwarven mechanism known as a Four-Vane Pressure Gate, according to the dwarven texts his butler, Ignatius, had given him while he was confined to the stone room.

It was constructed from three-inch-thick iron and steel reinforced with heavy brass pins, designed to seal off the tunnel during underground floods. A massive iron wheel was set into the center of the door, jammed tight by centuries of grime and an ancient locking mechanism.

Silvester stood before the door, inspecting the lock with his Locksmith’s Eye.

Inside the iron housing sat six heavy lock pins, encrusted in thick layers of hardened stone dust. Above the lock ran a small pipe designed to use hydraulic pressure to drive the giant iron lock bar into the frame.

Silvester reached out and pressed his small palm against the central iron wheel.

Open.

Aperture Shift.

A tiny spatial opening formed directly inside the locked metal housing. Silvester reached through the rift with a thin strand of golden magic, bypassing the outer rust entirely.

He targeted the hardened dirt clogging the inner lock pins.

Open.

A rapid yet silent pulse of vibrations radiated from his magic thread. The hardened dirt inside the lock crumbled into fine powder and sloughed off the iron pins.

Silvester shifted his focus to the six inner lock pins.

Using his golden mana thread as a pick, he lifted the first pin.

Click.

The second pin lifted and settled smoothly into place.

Click. Click.

The third, fourth, and fifth pins followed.

Click.

The final pin locked into place.

Next came the heavy lock bar. Without water pressure in the system, the solid iron bar weighed nearly five hundred pounds—far too heavy for an eight-year-old child to move through physical strength alone.

Silvester didn’t bother trying to pull it. Instead, he examined the counterbalance mechanism inside the door frame.

Aperture Shift.

He opened a second spatial rift beneath the heavy bar’s lever and created a localized anti-gravitational pocket inside the housing.

CREAK.

With a low metallic groan echoing inside the frame, the five-hundred-pound iron bar slid sideways, disengaging from the stone jamb.

He pushed the heavy iron door inward, opening a gap just wide enough for his small frame to slip through.

Behind him, the sudden scrape of metal echoed across the open stone floor.

The four bone-scraper hounds froze. Their ears swiveled toward the water tunnel entrance. With piercing shrieks, they lunged forward, heavy claws clicking rapidly against the stone as they charged the open door.

Silvester did not run.

He slipped through the narrow gap into the pitch-black water tunnel, turned around, placed his hand on the inner lock of the heavy door, and lifted his chin.

The lead beast leaped across the final ten feet, opening its jaws wide with razor-sharp teeth aimed at the spot where Silvester stood.

Silvester gripped the inner lock pin.

Close.

He slammed the massive iron door shut with a surge of magical power.

THWACK!

The three-inch-thick iron door slammed flush against the frame. The lead beast’s snout caught in the heavy iron edge, crushed in a spray of dark blood before the locking bar snapped back into place with a ringing CLACK.

Click-click-click-click-click-click.

All six lock pins engaged once more, sealing the door securely from the inside.

Silvester stood in the dark water tunnel, listening as the frantic scraping faded on the other side of the door.

He pulled the brass Ever-Burn Lantern from his spatial pouch and channeled mana into it. Warm golden light flooded the narrow passage, illuminating a sloping tunnel carved with ancient dwarven runes.

The air in the tunnel was fresh and dry, carrying a distinct scent of coal smoke, molten iron, and cold fire ash.

Silvester raised his lantern, adjusted the strap of his spatial pouch, and began his solitary descent into the deep dark.