In the lowest quarter of Rios, where the river split into a dozen choking canals before crawling toward the sea, there lived a boy who owned nothing but his name and the stubbornness to keep it.
His name was Almair.
Rios had once been called the City of Silver Currents. Merchants from distant kingdoms sailed upriver with holds full of silk, spices, and bright metals. The upper districts still glittered with tiled roofs and arched bridges carved from pale stone. Lanterns burned all night above the plazas, and music drifted from balconies trimmed in gold.
But below the bridges, beneath the elegant facades, another Rios endured.
There, the canals stagnated into black veins of filth. Rotting wood leaned against leaning wood. Nets hung in tatters between buildings like abandoned spider webs. The river that fed the city also swallowed it, bringing silt and sickness in equal measure. In that lower quarter, children learned to swim before they learned to read, and hunger was not an interruption but a condition.
Almair woke before dawn, as he always did.
The air in his rented room tasted of damp plaster and cold ash. A crack ran from one corner of the ceiling to the other like a lightning scar, and sometimes fine dust drifted down from it at night, settling in his hair and on his thin blanket. He lay still for a moment, listening to the distant slap of water against stone.
A barge chain clanked somewhere in the canal below. A gull shrieked. Someone was arguing in the alley—low, tired voices, not angry enough to fight but not gentle enough to forgive.
Almair turned onto his side and stared at the single window.
The glass had long since shattered. He had nailed a piece of waxed cloth over the opening to keep out the rain. The cloth fluttered faintly in the predawn breeze, letting in a faint gray light.
He counted his breaths.
Five in. Five out.
He had learned to count like that to quiet the hunger.
On the floor beside his cot lay everything he owned.
A short, iron-edged knife with a wrapped leather grip. The blade had been filed down so many times it was barely longer than his palm. A patched tunic reinforced at the shoulders with mismatched scraps. A pair of boots one size too large, stuffed with cloth at the toes. And a canvas satchel with two loops for tying rope.
Inside the satchel: fifteen meters of coarse hemp rope. A small flask. Three iron pitons scavenged from a collapsed warehouse. A chipped whetstone. And a folded scrap of parchment bearing a single mark—the seal of a minor exploration broker.
He stared at that parchment longer than the others.
Because that scrap of paper was not something he owned.
It was something he owed.
Rios had changed in recent years.
Beyond the eastern gates, past the marshes and the fields of reed and salt grass, the earth had opened.
At first it had been a sinkhole. Farmers lost two goats and a cart before anyone paid attention. Then the ground around it collapsed further, revealing a stairway carved from black stone descending into the earth. The steps were too smooth to have been made by water. Symbols lined the walls—curved, unfamiliar script that glimmered faintly at night.
Word spread faster than river fire.
A dungeon.
A true one.
Not an abandoned cellar or a bandit tunnel. Not a cave. A structure from an age no one remembered, filled—so the rumors claimed—with relics, enchanted ore, and sealed chambers heavy with gold.
The city council tried to restrict access. The Merchant Guild demanded exclusive rights. Priests declared it a cursed pit. None of that mattered.
Adventurers came.
Then soldiers.
Then desperate men and women who had never held a sword before but held debt like a chain around their throats.
Some returned richer than they had ever dreamed.
Many did not return at all.
Almair had watched the processions from the bridge near the lower market. Wagons bearing strange crystals that pulsed with inner light. Armor dented and smeared with dried blood. Bodies covered in canvas.
He had watched men he once saw begging beside him walk upright days later, new cloaks on their backs.
He had also watched a neighbor's son—older, broader, confident—leave with a borrowed spear and never come back.
But hunger is persuasive.
And poverty, when it lingers long enough, becomes humiliation.
Almair sat up slowly and ran a hand through his dark hair. He was seventeen, though the sharp angles of his face and the hollowness beneath his eyes made him look older. His shoulders were narrow but defined from hauling nets and crates along the docks. A thin scar cut across his left eyebrow, a memory from a dockside brawl he had lost.
He stood and crossed the room barefoot, the floorboards cool and slightly damp.
He knelt beside the satchel and untied it carefully.
The parchment crackled as he unfolded it again.
The mark upon it—a stylized spiral within a square—belonged to Broker Teyran, one of the smaller figures managing dungeon claims. Teyran did not have the backing of the Guild, but he had coin and ambition. He financed "independent retrieval teams," as he called them.
In truth, he loaned equipment at ruinous interest and claimed a percentage of anything retrieved.
Almair had signed his name with shaking fingers.
He would receive basic clearance to enter the dungeon's outer levels. No escort. No team required. But he would owe Teyran half of anything of value he returned with—until the debt of the equipment was paid. After that, thirty percent.
If he died, the debt would pass to his guarantor.
He had no guarantor.
Teyran had laughed when he realized that.
"If you die," the broker had said, adjusting the rings on his fingers, "then I suppose I lose an investment. Try not to."
Almair folded the parchment carefully and slid it back into the satchel.
He did not intend to die.
He had already survived Rios.
By the time the bells rang, Almair was dressed.
He tied the rope around his torso diagonally so it would not snag easily. The pitons slid into loops he had sewn into the satchel himself. He strapped the knife to his thigh. He checked the boots twice.
Then he left the room.
The alley smelled of brine and sour grain. A thin mist clung to the canal. He locked the door with a small iron latch and slipped the key into his pocket.
He did not look back.
The streets grew wider as he climbed toward the eastern district. Cobblestones replaced mud. Market stalls were being set up; crates opened; voices called out prices. No one paid him attention.
He preferred it that way.
At the eastern gate, a small crowd had gathered.
Some wore proper armor—chain shirts, polished helms, shields bearing family crests. Others, like Almair, wore mismatched gear and hope. A wooden board stood near the gate listing official notices:
OUTER LEVEL CLEARANCE REQUIRED.
TEAMS OF THREE OR MORE ADVISED.
NO GUARANTEE OF RECOVERY.
A city guard leaned against the wall, bored expression half-hidden beneath his helmet.
"Clearance?" the guard asked without enthusiasm when Almair approached.
Almair handed over the parchment.
The guard scanned it briefly, then pressed a wax stamp over Teyran's seal.
"Outer levels only," he said. "If you make it back."
Almair nodded.
Then he stepped beyond the gate.
The road east wound through low marshland. The air smelled cleaner away from the city, though the ground squelched underfoot. Reeds whispered in the breeze. He walked alone.
Others traveled ahead and behind him—some in groups, laughing too loudly. Others silent.
After an hour, the earth changed.
The ground dipped.
And there it was.
The dungeon entrance yawned from a collapsed basin of earth and stone. The black stairway descended into shadow, framed by carved pillars half-buried in soil. Strange symbols glowed faintly along the walls, like embers beneath ash.
The air around the entrance felt cooler.
Still.
As if even the wind refused to descend.
A few bodies lay on stretchers near the perimeter, covered in cloth. Two men argued over salvage rights beside a broken spear. A woman with a bandaged arm limped up the stairs, eyes unfocused, clutching a small leather pouch to her chest like a newborn child.
Almair swallowed.
He adjusted the rope across his shoulder and stepped toward the stairs.
No trumpet announced his descent.
No mentor guided him.
He placed one boot on the first black stone step.
It was smooth. Unnaturally so.
He descended.
The light faded quickly. Torches had been mounted at intervals by previous explorers, their flames flickering in iron brackets. The walls curved slightly inward, carved with repeating patterns—spirals and interlocking lines that hurt his eyes if he stared too long.
His footsteps echoed.
Each step down felt like a choice narrowing.
After several minutes, the staircase opened into a wide chamber.
The ceiling arched high above, disappearing into shadow. The floor was etched with circular designs, dusted with fine gray powder. Three corridors extended from the chamber's far side.
Two groups stood near the center, arguing quietly over which path to take.
Almair did not join them.
He moved to the edge of the chamber, crouched, and touched the dust.
It was undisturbed near the rightmost corridor.
Less traffic.
That could mean danger.
Or opportunity.
His heart pounded.
He tightened his grip on the knife.
"I didn't come this far to turn back," he murmured to himself.
The words felt small in the vast chamber.
He stepped into the rightmost corridor.
The air grew colder.
The torches here were fewer, their flames dimmer. The corridor sloped gently downward. After twenty paces, he noticed the floor changed texture—stone tiles instead of solid slab.
He paused.
He crouched again and ran his fingers along the seam between tiles.
A faint indentation.
Pressure plates.
He exhaled slowly.
He untied the rope and secured one end to a torch bracket behind him. Testing his weight carefully, he stepped forward and distributed pressure slowly across the tile, feeling for give.
One tile dipped slightly.
He froze.
A click echoed faintly.
Then—from the wall to his left—a dart shot out, striking the opposite wall with a sharp metallic sound.
His breath caught in his throat.
He stared at the dart embedded in stone.
Poison, most likely.
He shifted his weight back carefully.
His pulse thundered in his ears.
He laughed once—short, disbelieving.
"Welcome," he whispered, "to your new life."
He adjusted his approach.
Using the pitons and rope, he began to test each tile ahead before stepping. Slow. Methodical. His hands shook, but he forced them steady.
Progress was agonizing.
But he moved forward.
Because behind him lay Rios.
And in Rios, he would remain poor forever.
Ahead lay death.
And perhaps—just perhaps—something else.
The corridor opened suddenly into a smaller chamber.
In its center stood a pedestal.
Upon it rested a small object—no larger than his palm.
A crystal shard.
It glowed faintly blue, casting ripples of light across the walls.
No one else was there.
No bodies.
No blood.
Almair's breath came shallow and fast.
He scanned the room for traps—ceiling, walls, floor.
Nothing obvious.
He approached carefully.
Each step deliberate.
When he reached the pedestal, he hesitated.
This could change everything.
Or end everything.
He thought of the cracked ceiling in his room.
The coughing woman in the alley.
The humiliation of counting coins and coming up short.
He reached out.
His fingers closed around the crystal.
For a moment, nothing happened.
Then the light flared.
A pulse of cold surged through his arm and into his chest.
Symbols on the walls ignited, blazing white.
The chamber trembled.
Almair staggered back, clutching the crystal.
From somewhere deeper within the dungeon came a sound.
Low.
Resonant.
Awakening.
He stared toward the darkness beyond the chamber's far wall, where a narrow passage descended further into shadow.
The dungeon was alive.
And it had noticed him.
Almair tightened his grip on the glowing shard.
He could run now.
Return with this alone.
Pay part of his debt.
Live another day.
Or he could descend.
Go deeper.
Risk everything.
The rumbling echoed again, closer this time.
His heart hammered not with fear alone—
But with something sharper.
Hunger.
Not for food.
For more.
He looked back toward the corridor he had navigated.
Then forward into the unknown.
And for the first time in his life, Almair smiled.
"Let's see," he said softly, "how rich I can become."
Then he stepped toward the deeper passage, the blue light of the crystal flickering against the ancient stone as the darkness swallowed him whole.