Chapter 4: The Sunfall Depths
The Sunfall Depths lived up to their name. The entrance was a jagged tear in the side of the Sunfall Ridge, as if a god had taken a bite out of the mountain. Inside, the world turned from green and blue to a spectrum of gloom and eerie, internal light. Stalactites and stalagmites of amethyst and citrine thrust from the darkness, glowing with a faint, absorbed radiance. The air was cool, damp, and carried the scent of wet stone, ozone from latent magic, and the faint, metallic tang of raw ore.
Kael stood at the mouth, his modified gear a stark contrast to the natural majesty. He wore his reinforced work clothes, now with crude plates of hardened leather and scavenged metal sewn in at vital points. Over his shoulder was the next iteration of his weapon: Cinder Mk. II. It was sleeker, with a proper stock and a magazine for three pre-charged kinetic slugs, courtesy of his new Expert-rank knowledge. A Personal Barrier Emitter—a disc the size of a large coin—was fastened over his heart, its mana draw linked to a smaller, more efficient reactor pack on his belt. His goggles were now Multi-Spectral Lenses, allowing him to see in near-total darkness and analyze mana flows.
He had come here for two reasons: to lose the scent in a labyrinth known for swallowing people whole, and to mine the rare Resonance Crystals that grew here. They were crucial for stabilizing higher-output reactors and for his next major project—a mobility solution.
He moved with cautious silence, his boots—fitted with Seismic Pads that muffled sound and could tap the ground to detect hollow spaces or movement—making no noise. His Glimmer-Lamp, now upgraded to a Variable-Beam Luminary, cast a sharp, adjustable cone of light. He'd been in the depths for three days, mapping, avoiding the native fauna (mostly giant, blind cave lizards and acidic slime molds), and harvesting crystals.
On the fourth day, he found the vein. A wall of the cavern glittered with embedded Resonance Crystals, pulsing softly in time with some deep, subterranean rhythm. This was a fortune in raw materials. He set to work with a sonic-chisel, careful not to shatter the fragile structures.
The cave-in began not with a rumble, but with a high-pitched crack from above, like a giant bone snapping. Kael's seismic pads vibrated a frantic warning a split-second before a shower of rock and dust cascaded down, blocking the passage he'd come from. Then, from a side tunnel he hadn't yet explored, he heard the sounds of combat: a bestial roar, the clash of metal, a man's shout of pain, and a woman's cry.
Not my problem, he thought immediately, his hands stilling on the crystal. Keep mining. Get out.
But the sounds continued. A desperate, scrabbling struggle. A healer's voice, strained with effort: "I can't hold the bleeding and shield us both!"
Kael closed his eyes. The memory of Captain Rel charging into a corridor to buy him time flashed, bright and painful. Of being utterly alone for ten years. With a curse muttered at his own softness, he grabbed Cinder Mk. II and moved toward the noise.
The side chamber opened into a larger cavern. The scene was one of trapped desperation. A hulking man with a wild red beard, wearing splint mail, was holding off a monster with a massive, two-handed axe. The creature was a Crystalback Bear, a dungeon mutation the size of a small wagon. Its hide was a living armor of jagged, protruding amethyst spikes. Each swipe of its paw sent crystalline shards flying like shrapnel.
Behind the axeman, a woman in ranger's leathers was pinned under a fallen stalactite, an arrow still clutched in her hand, her leg bent at a wrong angle. A younger man in blue robes knelt beside her, one hand glowing with water-magic pressed to her wound, the other maintaining a shimmering, trembling dome of water around them, deflecting the crystalline shrapnel. The dome was flickering.
The axeman—Bron, as Kael would learn—was a powerhouse, but his blows were just chipping the bear's armor, enraging it further. The healer—Silas—was pale, his mana clearly draining fast. The archer—Elara—was conscious, her face white with pain, but her eyes were sharp, assessing the bear's movements.
They were going to die. In minutes.
Kael didn't announce himself. He analyzed. The Crystalback's armor was formidable, but it was natural crystal—brittle, with stress points. Its roaring maw was unprotected. And it was focused entirely on Bron.
He acted. From a pouch, he pulled a Flash-Cracker—a modified light crystal fused with a thunder-rune pellet. He hurled it in a high arc to land between the bear and Bron.
The detonation was blinding and deafening in the enclosed space. A burst of actinic white light and a concussive BANG that echoed through the caverns. The bear recoiled with a confused, pained roar, shaking its head. Bron staggered back, momentarily blinded but protected by his helmet.
"What in the seven hells?!" Bron bellowed.
Kael was already moving. He dropped to a stable stance, Cinder Mk. II coming to his shoulder. He didn't aim for the body. Through his multi-spectral lenses, he saw the mana flows within the creature, concentrated at the joints and at a central core behind its breastbone. But there was a flaw—a hairline fracture in the crystal armor over its shoulder, glowing with stress-heat from Bron's last axe blow.
He exhaled and fired.
THUMP.
The kinetic slug hit the fracture dead-center. The crystalline plate didn't just crack; it exploded inward, a million razor shards driven into the bear's flesh. The creature's roar turned into a piercing shriek of agony. It stumbled, its front leg giving way.
"Now!" Kael shouted, his voice rough from disuse.
Bron didn't need telling twice. He surged forward, his great axe singing through the air. With the bear off-balance and wounded, he cleaved deep into the side of its neck, where the crystal armor was thinnest. The beast collapsed with a final, ground-shaking thud.
Silence, broken only by the drip of water and the ragged breathing of the adventurers.
All three sets of eyes were now on Kael, a mixture of shock, gratitude, and deep wariness. He stood in the shadows, smoke curling from Cinder's barrel, his goggles making him look insectoid and alien.
"Who… what are you?" Elara managed, her voice tight with pain.
"A traveler," Kael said, lowering his weapon. "You're trapped."
He approached, ignoring Bron's cautious grip on his axe. He examined the stalactite pinning Elara's leg. It was huge. "Healer, can you numb the area and reinforce the bone when I lift this?"
Silas, looking stunned, nodded. "Y-yes. But it's too heavy for one man, even Bron."
Kael didn't answer. He unstrapped a compact device from his thigh—a Portable Winch and Pulley System made of lightweight, hardened alloy. He quickly anchored it to two sturdy natural columns, hooked cables around the stalactite, and began cranking. Servos whined. The massive stone pillar lifted an inch, then two. Bron rushed in to pull Elara free as Silas's blue healing glow enveloped her leg.
Ten minutes later, Elara was sitting up, her leg splinted and magically stabilized, though she wouldn't be walking without help. The group had introduced themselves.
"We owe you our lives," Bron said, his voice booming but genuine. He offered a hand the size of a ham. "That was some trick with the light-bang and that… thunder-rod of yours."
"It's a kinetic projector," Kael said shortly, but shook the hand. The human contact was startling.
"You're an artificer?" Silas asked, fascinated, eyeing Kael's gear. "But your designs… I've never seen anything like them. They're not standard enchantments."
"I make what I need," Kael deflected.
Elara's gaze was the most piercing. She was studying him, not his tools. "You move like a soldier. But your hands are a craftsman's. You're hiding." It wasn't an accusation, just an observation.
"Aren't we all, down here?" Kael replied, meeting her eyes. Her gaze was a deep green, like forest moss, and held a cynicism that mirrored his own.
To his own surprise, he ended up traveling with them. They needed his help to get Elara out. He… he needed something else. The sound of another human voice that wasn't trying to kill or capture him. The simple camaraderie around a small, magical campfire that night, sharing hardtack and stories. Bron's loud laughter at his own jokes, Silas's quiet curiosity about crystal formations, Elara's sharp, witty observations about the dungeon's ecology.
For two weeks, they explored together. Kael found himself talking more than he had in years. He explained the principles behind his seismic pads to Silas. He helped Bron reforged a dented greave using a directed heat-beam from his stylus. And with Elara… there were long stretches of silence as they kept watch, but they were comfortable silences. Once, when a swarm of crystal bats attacked, he'd automatically moved to cover her injured side, and she'd given him a small, grateful nod that felt like a victory.
He began to let his guard down, millimeter by millimeter. He caught himself smiling at Bron's antics. He offered opinions on their route. He even, one night, almost told them his real name. The loneliness of a decade was a deep, cold well, and their companionship was a faint, warm sun. He started to hope, foolishly, that perhaps not every human connection ended in betrayal.
They were navigating a beautiful, cavernous chamber filled with bioluminescent fungi when Elara, leaning on his shoulder for support, pointed to a side passage. "That's not on our map. Looks like it heads up. Might be a shortcut to the mid-levels."
It was a perfect, secluded spot. A natural choke point.
As they entered the smaller tunnel, Bron and Silas fell back slightly. Kael, helping Elara, was at the front. He didn't notice the subtle shift until it was too late.
Elara suddenly shrugged off his supporting arm, her movement swift and sure, her injured leg bearing weight without a flinch. In one smooth motion, she had an arrow nocked and drawn, the tip pointed at his heart. Her forest-green eyes were no longer warm. They were chips of frost.
Bron's friendly face was a stony mask, his axe held ready. Silas looked at the ground, his face pale with shame.
"Kael," Elara said, her voice the one she used to command in battle. Cold. Final. "Or should we use your proper title? Prince Kaelen Lionhelm."
The world dropped out from under him. The warmth of the last two weeks froze instantly, leaving him hollow and numb.
"The bounty," Elara continued, her aim unwavering. "It's life-changing. A lordship. Enough gold to retire on a continent. We're adventurers. We risk our lives for coin. This is the ultimate score."
"You… your leg," Kael stammered, the betrayal a physical sickness in his gut.
"A minor fracture. Silas had it healed three days ago. The act was necessary," she said, no apology in her voice. "You're a careful man. We needed you to feel secure. To feel like you belonged."
The words were more devastating than any weapon. To feel like you belonged. They had weaponized his loneliness.
"The King's men are waiting at the eastern exit," Bron rumbled. "Come quietly. The bounty specifies 'alive.'"
Kael's mind, trained for crisis, switched from hurt to calculation. His hand drifted towards his belt. Silas finally looked up, his hands moving in a casting gesture. "Don't. A binding spell is already active."
Kael felt it then—a subtle pull at his ankles. Thin, nearly invisible tendrils of water had seeped from the damp ground and coiled around his boots, tightening. A trap, laid as they walked.
He was caught.
He looked at Elara, at the stranger wearing the face of the woman he'd started to trust. "I thought you were different," he said, his voice quiet.
"So did I," she replied, and for a fraction of a second, something flickered in her eyes—regret? Then it was gone. "But a lordship is a lordship. Now, drop the thunder-rod."
Kael smiled then, a sad, tired smile that didn't reach his eyes. "You only saw the tools I wanted you to see."
He slammed his heel down on a hidden switch on his boot. The Kinetic Nullifier.
A localized gravity field, ten times normal, erupted in a five-foot radius around him. It lasted only two seconds, but the effect was instant and brutal. Everyone, including Kael, was slammed to the ground as if by a giant's hand. The water bindings snapped. Elara's bow was torn from her grip. Bron grunted in shock.
Two seconds. That was all the capacitor could handle. But it was enough.
Gasping against the crushing weight, Kael's hand found the device on his belt—his true escape tool, the one he'd built from scavenged parts and sheer paranoia. The Personal Slip-Drive. It was a one-use teleporter, powered by a cracked and unstable mana gem. The destination was random, the range short, and the side effects… severe.
As the gravity field vanished and Bron began to push himself up, Kael activated it.
There was no light, no sound. Space itself twisted around him. It felt like being pulled through a keyhole made of knives. Nausea, vertigo, and a tearing sensation in his very cells overwhelmed him.
He vanished from the tunnel.
He reappeared five miles away, in a frigid, fast-moving mountain stream. He stumbled onto a mossy bank, immediately vomiting up water and bile, his body convulsing with spatial sickness. Every nerve felt flayed. He lay there for an hour, shivering, as the cold water numbed his body and the betrayal numbed his soul.
When he could finally move, he checked his status. The ordeal, the narrow escape, the brutal lesson—it had forced growth.
Tecnomancer: Master (Rank 8, Level 3).
New Schematic Unlocked: Gravitic Manipulation Core (Prototype).
Attribute Increase: Mind +4, Arcane +2.
The knowledge was cold comfort. He had traded a sliver of his heart for a sliver of power. He built a small, hidden fire, his hands shaking. He was alone again. Truly, utterly alone. And this time, he vowed, he would never forget it. The warmth of a campfire was a lie. The only truth was the cold, hard logic of the machine, and the colder, harder purpose growing in his heart.