The Deep Pits of the Iron-Mines were a descent into a world of oppressive density. As the Ember Spark Company moved past the safety of the upper gantries, the temperature dropped, replaced by a heavy, metallic chill that seemed to sap the light from Elara's flickering mana-lantern. The walls here were no longer rough stone; they were sheets of raw magnetite and hematite, shimmering like oily silk in the dark.
"Stay close," Korg whispered, his iron ladle resting on his shoulder, his eyes darting toward every shadow. "The Crawlers don't like the light, but they love the heat. Down here, you're a walking furnace, kid."
Kaelen didn't answer. He was too busy managing the "Iron-Echo" that was vibrating through his very teeth. Every step felt like walking through thick molasses. His right arm, now a permanent gunmetal grey, was humming in sympathy with the walls. He practiced what Korg had taught him, shifting his weight with every stride, turning the drag of the iron-scales into a forward momentum that made him look like a slow-moving juggernaut.
"Look," Ria said, pointing her spear toward a massive excavation site at the bottom of the pit.
The site was a graveyard. A dozen Iron-Crawlers, creatures that had seemed invincible only a day ago, lay shattered across the floor. Their magnetite plates hadn't been cracked; they had been hollowed. It looked as if something had reached inside their armor and sucked the density right out of them, leaving behind nothing but brittle, grey husks.
"Something didn't just kill them," Elara whispered, kneeling to touch a husk that crumbled at her touch. "Something ate their Echo. All of it."
"CAREFUL, ECHO," Ignis hissed, his voice sharp and uncharacteristically alert. "THIS IS NOT THE HUNGER OF THE EARTH. THIS IS THE HUNGER OF THE VOID."
Before Kaelen could ask what that meant, a sound echoed through the pit. It wasn't a roar or a screech. It was a rhythmic, hollow thump-thump-thump, like a giant heart beating against a stone drum.
From the deepest shadows of the main vein, the "harasser" emerged. It wasn't an animal. It was a Shard-Stalker—a creature made of jagged, translucent obsidian and void-matter. It was spindly, with long, needle-like limbs and a head that was nothing more than a vertical slit of purple, sucking light.
"That's not a Crawler," Korg growled, stepping in front of Elara. He slammed his ladle against his heavy shield, the sound echoing through the cavern. "That's a Void-Leech. It shouldn't be this far from the Underdark."
The Stalker lunged. It didn't run; it flickered, moving in jagged bursts of speed that bypassed the eye. It appeared instantly in front of Korg, its needle-limb stabbing toward the half-orc's throat. Korg was fast, bringing his shield up just in time. The impact didn't spark; it sounded like a vacuum seal being broken.
Korg groaned, his knees buckling. "It's... it's draining the shield! Kaelen, hit it now!"
Kaelen roared, his iron-fist igniting with a dull, internal glow. He used the momentum Korg had taught him, pivoting on his left heel and swinging his entire body into a massive haymaker.
"Expansion!"
The heat hit the Stalker, but the creature didn't shatter. It absorbed the thermal wave. The purple slit in its head flared, and it lashed out with a second limb, catching Kaelen across the chest.
The dragon-brand flared in agony. Kaelen felt a cold, numbing sensation—the same "Void-chill" from the mine where he first found Ignis. It was trying to unbind the dragon from his heart.
"NO!" Ignis roared. "DO NOT IMITATE THE FIRE, ECHO! IMITATE THE VOID! BE THE NOTHINGNESS THAT CONSUMES THE NOTHINGNESS!"
Kaelen gasped, his vision blurring. He didn't understand how to be "nothing," but he knew the feeling of the hunger. He reached out with his iron hand and grabbed the Stalker's spindly arm. Instead of pushing heat into it, he did the opposite. He opened his heart to the cold. He imagined a world without light, without sound, without weight.
He became a Vacuum.
The Stalker froze. The purple light in its head flickered as Kaelen began to pull. This wasn't the "Iron-Echo" he was consuming; it was the raw, predatory energy of the Void itself. It felt like drinking liquid needles, but it worked. The Stalker's obsidian body began to cloud, turning from a deep black to a dull, translucent grey.
"Elara! Light!" Kaelen managed to choke out.
Elara realized what he needed. She didn't try to bind the creature. She put every ounce of her remaining mana into a single, blinding Sun-Burst. The flash of pure, holy light hit the Void-creature at the exact moment Kaelen was draining its core.
The contradiction of forces was too much. The Stalker imploded, vanishing into a swirl of violet dust that was instantly sucked into Kaelen's brand.
Silence returned to the Deep Pits. Kaelen fell to his knees, his right arm no longer just grey, but etched with faint, purple ley-lines that pulsed beneath the iron scales. He felt a terrifying sense of power, but his heart was cold—so cold he couldn't feel his own pulse for several seconds.
"Kaelen?" Ria approached cautiously, her spear still leveled at the spot where the creature had been. "Talk to me. Are you still in there?"
Kaelen looked up. His eyes weren't gold anymore; they were a deep, dark violet that slowly faded back to amber. He exhaled a breath of frost, even though the pit was sweltering.
"I'm here," he said, his voice a low vibration. "But the dragon... he just showed me something. That thing wasn't a stray. It was a scout."
Korg walked over, looking at his drained, pitted shield with a grimace. "A scout for what?"
"The Silent King," Kaelen whispered, the name tasting like ash in his mouth. He didn't know how he knew the name, but Ignis was screaming it in the back of his mind.
Korg looked at the husks of the Crawlers, then at the three young adventurers who had just saved his mine. He sighed, slinging his ladle over his shoulder. "Well. It looks like the 'Ember Spark' just got its first real enemy. And here I was hoping for a quiet life of making soup."
"We got the ore, Korg," Ria reminded him, pointing to the massive vein of high-purity iron the Stalker had been guarding. "The mine is safe. The Company gets paid."
"We get more than paid," Kaelen said, standing up. He looked at his arm—iron-tough and void-scarred. "We get a base. Korg, this mine... we're going to need it. If the Silent King is coming, we aren't just going to be a Company. We're going to need an army."
The Ember Spark had cleared its first dungeon. But as they climbed back toward the surface, Kaelen knew the "One-Week" clock had just been replaced by something much larger: the countdown to a war.