The water struck his back with a constant, almost meditative force. Beneath the hidden waterfall, Kael let himself be swallowed once more by the cold. His eyes were closed, his breathing steady. For a moment, there was no Dungeon, no hunters, no voice pulsing inside him since that night.
And, like every morning for the past two days, he felt it again.
That gaze.
Not violent. Not overly curious. Just... present.As if a silent consciousness was watching him from beyond the mist, never daring to come too close.
Kael opened his eyes and glanced over his shoulder.
Nothing.
As always.
He sighed, resigned.
—"You're still there, huh...?" —he murmured, without anger. Without fear— "But you never do anything. You just... watch."
He didn't know if it was a creature of the Dungeon, an adventurer, or just a persistent illusion. But he had stopped fearing it.It didn't seem to want to hurt him.Not yet.
And in this place, that was almost a gesture of kindness.
For two days, Kael had been observing from a distance. Not the Dungeon this time... but the city suspended between the wild and the human: Rivira.
He had watched it from the shadows. The comings and goings of adventurers. Merchants shouting with enthusiasm. The wounded entering, others leaving without looking back. Everything flowed with an odd normalcy in the middle of the underground chaos.
It was a refuge. A mirage.
But he never got too close.Until today.
Today, he found an old cloak, hanging from a crooked branch in a forgotten part of the tunnels. It wasn't pretty. Patched, with improvised stitching. But intact. And more importantly: ordinary. Unlucky adventurers wore them everywhere.
So today, at last, he walked toward the village entrance.
Each step was a drum in his chest.
When he passed between the two guards, he thought he had made it. That he was in.
—"Hey. You. Hold on a second."
He froze.
The guard who stopped him was a burly man with a thick beard and a face weathered by eternal shifts on the edge of the impossible. Kael lowered his hood a bit more, ready to run. To fight. To vanish.
But then, the man handed him something.
—"Looks like a rookie. Old cloak, no weapons..." —he said, letting out a tired sigh— "Bet you got robbed. Here, take these vials. Won't do you any good if you die at the exit."
Two basic healing potions. Small, yet precious.
Kael took them silently, nodding awkwardly.
The guard returned to his post, as if he'd already forgotten him.
And just like that, he had entered Rivira.
He walked its crooked streets like a ghost among the living. Makeshift weapon shops, food stalls, healers, barkers, conmen. All coexisted in a symphony of survival. No one looked at him more than they had to.
He found a small tavern. Dark, with worn tables. He ordered food. Hardened bread. Salty stew. A drink made from some unknown fruit.
He tasted it.
It tasted fine. The flavors were there. His body appreciated it.But it meant nothing to him. It didn't fill him.As if something inside had forgotten how to enjoy anything.
He paid silently and left.
Later, in a narrow alleyway, he found a second-rate forge. The swords hanging on the wall were cheap, with thick blades and clumsy finishes. Forged to survive a few battles—not to become legends.
Perfect.
With the coins he had left, he bought a medium-sized sword. Not beautiful, but functional. It felt good to have a weapon at his side again. As if a part of him remembered what it was like to hold something with purpose.
The blacksmith didn't even look at him. No one asked anything.
In a place like Rivira, no one asked questions that didn't matter.
The blade of the new sword weighed more than it should, but somehow, it was a familiar weight. Kael resumed walking, hidden among the layers of noise, grime, and steam of the makeshift city. The feeling of being watched had faded since he crossed Rivira's gates, as if the presence watching him from the mist dared not enter.
Or perhaps... it was already inside.
Turning a corner with no real destination, he saw them.
A group of five. Young. Very young.
A mismatched bundle of ill-fitting armor, heavy backpacks, and voices louder than they should be. One carried a staff he didn't know how to use, another a spear far too big for his frame. They laughed. They shoved each other. Pretended to be strong.
But they weren't alone.
A man watched them from a nearby bench, pretending to be distracted. Cleaner clothes. Weathered skin, but calm eyes. Like someone who had spent years perfecting the art of seeming harmless. He spoke to the kids now and then, wearing a casual smile. Advice, maybe. Warnings, perhaps.
Kael stopped. Not for them. For him.
There was something in that man... in the way he sat. How he never truly took his eyes off them, even when staring at the ground. Subtle, but utterly focused. Like a predator.
Kael's instinct gave a dry, cold pulse.
That's no mentor. That's a shepherd. And they're sheep.
He leaned against a crumbling wall and closed his eyes for a moment, trying to smother the rising urge. The impulse to warn them. To interfere. To do something.
But what would he say?"Be careful?""Something feels off?""That a stranger with dead eyes and a patched cloak had a bad feeling?"
The kids wouldn't give him a second glance.But the man... he would.
He would open him up with a smile. One made entirely of teeth.
So he waited. Watched.
When the young ones walked away, laughing among themselves, the man stood.He didn't follow.He didn't need to.He already had them.
He sat again near another bench. Pulled out a notebook. Wrote something down.
Marked, Kael thought.
And that thought, cold and sharp, pierced his chest like a shard of ice.
He turned and walked away down the alley.
In the forge, the hammers kept pounding. In the tavern, the laughter kept echoing.But something inside Kael found no rest.
That night, in his hideout among rocks and mist, with the waterfall whispering like a constant lullaby, Kael didn't sleep.
The gaze was still there, as always. Watchful.
But this time, it wasn't what unsettled him.
What unsettled him was the silence that followed the memory of those kids.As if something beneath Rivira had started to tighten.
As if the very air was holding its breath.
Something was about to break.
And Kael, without knowing why, understood that this time...he wouldn't be able to stand aside.
Scene Change: Beneath Rivira
The stone walls oozed moisture. The chamber was narrow, cracked by time and the Dungeon's tremors, yet shielded from the noise above. Here, only the drip of water dared break the silence.
Ikelos paced with his hands behind his back. His robe—immaculate despite the filth—seemed detached from the world around him. He wore a smile with that calm that always hinted at the inhuman.
—"Is everything ready?" —he asked, without looking behind.
Dix, leaning against a fractured column, nodded slowly. His eyes—sunken and red from sleepless nights—did not blink. His voice was rough.
—"Ready. Took longer than we thought. Damn elf stayed longer than expected."
—"Riveria Ljos Alf…" —Ikelos murmured, with an almost amused grimace— "What a troublesome obstacle. And right now, bringing those... pups. Lefiya and her squad of novices."
—"That's why we had to scatter the bombs in multiple locations. False signals, mana flashes, a few simulated fissures in the lower floors. They'll make noise. Enough to draw her attention. To split them up."
Dix pulled out a small communication crystal, spinning it in his hand. He didn't activate it yet.
—"Once the distraction starts, we'll herd them toward Sector 18. We've already secured the route. That's where we think the creature usually hides."
—"'Creature'?" —Ikelos repeated, glancing at him— "You seem to enjoy calling it that. Don't forget that if I'm right… that thing was once human. Something changed it. And I want to know what."
Dix clicked his tongue.
—"Whatever it is, it's not normal. Doesn't follow any monster pattern, nor any adventurer's. Vanishes as fast as if it were part of the Dungeon itself. And the aura it leaves behind..."
He stopped. Not out of fear.But because even he, who had seen the impossible, didn't know how to put it into words.
Ikelos, on the other hand, smiled like he already knew the answer.
—"Phenomenon. That's what we'll call it, until we have something better. And this time..." —he looked toward a dark opening in the rock, where a heavy wind blew like an ancient breath— "this time, it won't escape us."
Dix activated the crystal.
A pale light ran through the tunnels. In the distance, the first tremors began.
The trap had been sprung.
Above, the chaos would soon follow.
And while all eyes turned elsewhere...they would go straight to the heart of the mystery.