Water sloshed as Briggs waded past the last dead harpooner, boots kicking up lazy ripples that caught in the torchlight. His axe stayed low, just above the surface, blade dragging through what was left of the brine like he didn’t fully trust the silence yet. The drowned didn’t float. They just sank, twitching now and then, dragging swirls of black with them like silt disturbed in a forgotten pond.

  Kade stood in the center of the chamber, cutlass still drawn, her free hand clenching and unclenching with a tight ache that hadn’t yet drained from her limbs. The lightning strike had left a buzz under her skin, not quite pain, but close enough to wear its face.

  Briggs muttered something under his breath and moved on, checking teammates first, bodies second. Milo leaned against the far wall, helmet off and hanging by the strap, steam rolling up from the soaked collar of his armor. His face looked pale under the grime, but he nodded when Briggs paused. Lance hunched beside him, spreading his knees wide and resting his back against the wall for support. Colt had set Myers down near the crates, propping him up like a sack of potatoes with a head wound. Myers blinked, one eye squinted tighter than the other, jaw slack as if still catching up with his body.

  "Your hair’s smoking," Briggs deadpanned.

  "Can’t all use your shampoo," Myers replied. His voice was hoarse and slow, like his thoughts were jogging behind traffic.

  "Stay put," Stone said gently, already kneeling beside him with a hand glowing faintly at his shoulder. "You took a nasty hit."

  "I’ve had worse," he said, then winced. "...maybe."

  Robin had cracked open the first crate, her fingers moving through soggy straw and mold-streaked cloth. Her rapier was sheathed, revolver reloaded and holstered, but the set of her jaw said she was more than ready to use either again if something so much as twitched wrong. Mercer ghosted along the far edge of the room, slipping between the alcoves with the ease of someone who didn’t enjoy being seen until she had something to say.

  Kade didn’t look at any of them.

  She cut a steady line through the shallow water as she moved, each step deliberate, each breath measured. She stopped a few feet from Levi, who still crouched beside a crate, fingers white against the wood as if it might anchor him to something stable. His eyes snapped to hers the moment she grabbed his collar and yanked him to his feet.

  "Walk," she said.

  He stumbled a step before catching up to his own weight, wet shoes slapping stone as she steered him away from the others, around the corner of the half-sunk crate stack and into one of the alcoves where the drowned had emerged.

  Levi turned, spine stiffening, some half-formed complaint on the tip of his tongue.

  "Don’t," she said before he could open his mouth.

  He swallowed it, standing rigid in his too-thin coat, wet to the knees and useless in the cold. His glasses were gone, lost somewhere in the chaos, and his expression had the jittery sharpness of a man trying to pretend he wasn’t still shaking.

  "You activated the pressure plate," she said flatly. "After I said stay put. After we’d cleared nothing."

  "I didn’t know…"

  "Didn’t know what it was?" she cut in. "Or didn’t care? Because there’s a difference, and one of them came close to getting Myers killed."

  "I’m not here to…" he started.

  "You’re not here to what?" she stepped forward, voice rising now. "To lead? To help? To listen when I give an order that could mean the difference between walking out of here and getting dragged under by whatever rotted thing calls this place home?"

  "I’m here to secure the Restoration Council’s interests," he snapped. "To observe. That is all."

  From the far side of the room, Colt’s grunt of disgust cut through the quiet like a thrown brick. Just loud enough for everyone to hear it.

  "You want to observe?" she asked. "Great. Observe this. We’re not in a policy meeting. We’re not behind glass in some think tank conference room. This is a dungeon. A real one. Where a single mistake doesn’t get noted in the margin, it gets written in blood across the walls."

  "I…"

  "You what? Forgot? Thought you’d be fine because you weren’t holding a weapon? Thought that meant you didn’t need to think like someone who could die down here?"

  Kade took another step forward, voice low and cold now so that only he could hear.

  "You don’t get to hide behind ‘just observing.’ You’re in the middle of this with the rest of us. When you make a mistake, it's not only you who pays. It's any of us who has to cover your idiocy while fighting for our lives."

  His mouth opened again.

  "Don’t," she said, steel in her tone. "Unless you want to be walking back to the Talon alone. I’ll give the order. Don’t test the theory."

  For a long moment, Levi stood frozen. Then finally he looked away.

  Kade turned her back on him and didn’t wait to see what he did. Instead, she moved past the crate stack and scanned the room.

  Myers was sitting up now, rubbing the side of his neck with a wince.

  "You good?" she asked.

  "Define good," he muttered. "Skin’s got that itchy, burned-hair feel. But yeah, not dead. Give me a minute."

  Mercer’s voice floated in from an alcove, interrupting Kade's response. "We’ve got two exits. Both dry. East side curves out past the wall breach, south side heads down again."

  "Alright, we'll move out as soon as Stone says we're good to go," Kade said before taking a moment to look over her Simulation notifications.

  + 2 Sword Combat | Improved performance noted. Technique shows signs of adaptation.

  +2 Light Armor | Taking hits seems to be your preferred learning method. Noted.

  +2 Leadership | Yelling at subordinates continues to yield results. Carry on.

  +1 Amphibious Combat | Technically, knee-deep water is still amphibious. Technically, what you did was combat. Congratulations.

  +1 Amphibious Movement | Wading awkwardly through knee-high brine now counts as progress. Try not to trip.

  She blinked once at the notification, frowning in thought. The gains felt faster in here, like the Simulation was greasing the wheels. Maybe it wanted them moving quicker. Maybe it was just her imagination. Hard to say.

  She could ask Robin. But that wasn’t happening. The deeper they got into the faction struggle, the more it felt like a race no one had officially started. Every faction had skin in the game. Everyone of them had a reason to pull the trigger on a double cross once the artifact was whole.

  It wasn’t a question of whether someone made a move. It was when, and how bloody it got when they did. Kade meant to keep her cards close until the time came.

  Letting the thought go, she flipped over to her character menu instead.

  Name: Sarah Kade

  Class: Corsair

  Level: 9

  Health: 340/340

  Mana: 220/220

  Stats

  Strength: 10

  Dexterity: 7

  Intelligence: 11

  Constitution: 7

  Charisma: 8 (9)

  Abilities

  Against the Tide

  Blade Whirl

  Command Presence

  Deck Fighter

  Riposte of the Kraken

  Stormwall Stance

  Skills

  Amphibious Combat: 2

  Amphibious Movement: 2

  Dirty Fighting: 16

  Grenadier: 2

  Leadership: 19 (24)

  Light Armor: 9

  Ocean Craft: 10

  Ocean Navigation: 8

  Pistol Combat: 10

  Sailing: 8

  Ship Combat: 9

  Stealth: 1

  Sword Combat: 22

  Tactical Negotiation: 2

  No level-up yet, but the sense of momentum was there. She hated that it didn’t show an experience bar. Some kind of visual. Something to measure. But no. The thing worked in riddles and half-buried mechanics. Like it wanted them guessing.

  Robin stepped forward from the nearest crate, holding something wrapped in old cloth and salt-stained leather.

  "Loot," she said simply. "Gold, mostly. Couple of gems. And this."

  She held up a book. Hardbound, heavy, the kind that looked like it belonged behind glass in a museum or chained to a lectern, not pulled from a crate in a half-submerged tomb.

  Kade stepped closer, eyeing the worn leather and the faint shimmer of glyphs along the spine.

  Lines of Fire and Force: Field Notes on Combat Devices

  Quality: Uncommon

  Enchantments: +5 Warfare Engineering

  Description: An annotated manual bound in oilskin and reinforced leather, its pages water-resistant and scarred with field notes, schematics, and burn marks. Originally written for siege captains and forward engineers, this edition has been updated with marginalia from an unnamed tactician. Diagrams range from modular trap arrays to pressure-detonated mine rigs, with a particular focus on adaptable deployment in hostile terrain.

  "Skill book?" she asked.

  Robin nodded. "First one I’ve seen since Boston. Whoever reads it gets a onetime boost to whatever skill it’s tied to. The quality is uncommon on this one, but as an item, these are pretty rare."

  Kade took it, flipping it once in her hand, then slipped it into her officer’s satchel without comment.

  "We'll deal with it later. I don't want to lose focus on the dungeon."

  Robin gave a slight nod and stepped back, expression unreadable. She didn’t argue. But she watched where Kade put the book.

  The team had already started forming up loosely again, the edge of battle wearing off, replaced by that tired quiet only professionals could hold.

  "No strong feelings about direction?" Kade asked. Directing the comment toward Mercer.

  Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

  Mercer shook her head. "Nothing obvious. No light, no air, no noise. Pick your poison."

  "East, then," Kade said. "We’ve seen enough down for now."

  She waved them forward.

  Lance and Milo took point without a word. Milo paused just long enough to retrieve his sword from where it had fallen. Colt followed, quiet now. Mercer checked the alcoves once more, then fell in behind them.

  Robin was just behind her, revolver holstered but hand still resting near the grip. Stone checked her satchel and fell in beside the marines, eyes scanning the floor more than the darkness ahead. Briggs took rear guard with a grunt, dragging the axe across his shoulder like he wasn’t quite ready to be done swinging it.

  Myers drifted toward the left flank, still moving a little slow, jaw tight, but not complaining. Levi trailed behind, boots dragging through the water like it had personally wronged him.

  The alcove narrowed before spilling out into a hallway that climbed a shallow grade, the waterline stopping just short of the threshold. Beyond the corridor was wide and dry, lit unnaturally by torches. The stone underfoot was smooth, the air cold but not wet.

  Lance grunted behind her. "No water. Thank God."

  Milo chuckled quietly. "Feels like a vacation."

  The hallway opened into a round chamber, its stone floor carved to resemble an old sailor’s map. Swirling currents and compass points ringed the center, broken by jagged coastlines and crumbling archipelagos. Stylized sea creatures swam through the stone. Serpents with too many eyes. Kraken coiled around shattered ships. Other things that didn’t have names. The message wasn’t subtle. Here be monsters. The room was well lit, with more of those magical torches burning clean in evenly spaced wall brackets.

  Kade gave the order with a low hand gesture, and the team spread out in a loose semicircle. As with the previous room, there were no exits, just the one they’d come through. Six narrow pillars ringed a raised stone platform at the center of the room. Each pillar was topped with a glass pane angled inward, reflecting light that wasn’t there.

  "Levi," she said, not looking at the man. "Don’t touch anything."

  Behind her, fabric rustled, and the soft thump of boots shifted awkwardly in place.

  "I wasn’t going to," he snapped. "I’m not a child."

  "Then keep your hands in your pockets and we won’t have to find out," she said.

  Briggs let out a quiet grunt. Not quite laughter but close enough.

  Levi shoved his hands into his coat like he was being punished by the Simulation itself.

  The center platform rose waist high and wide, carved from the same pale stone as the rest of the floor. Its surface was smooth except for a circular disc at the top, roughly the size of a dinner plate, with a small square button set in the center. Just in front of it, words had been etched into the stone.

  "There’s an inscription," Myers called out as he leaned over to look at the inscription. "Says… ‘Seek the guiding light, yet know it hides among companions.’"

  "Helpful," Mercer muttered.

  Kade’s eyes drifted upward.

  The ceiling looked like a night sky. Not painted, but built that way. The rough surface above had been inlaid with hundreds of tiny stones, each arranged in star-like patterns. But some weren’t stars. Scattered among them were seven small, gleaming gems. They were colored, polished, and clearly meant to be seen.

  Her gaze dropped to the pillars. Everyone had etchings on the surface, symbols and curves that looked like constellations to Kade.

  "Puzzle room," Robin said from the far side. "No one touch anything."

  Everyone turned to look at Levi. His eyes narrowed, but he didn’t say a word as the scowl deepened on his face.

  Myers scratched the back of his neck. "We pushing the button or what?"

  "Robin?" she asked. "Room looks like a giant sea chart to me."

  The Conclave agent shook her head. "Doesn’t make sense yet. I’ve seen rooms like this, but not with this setup."

  "So, what do we do?" Stone asked.

  Colt stepped forward. "Push the button. See what it does. Might give us something to work from."

  Robin gave him a look. "Every puzzle room I’ve seen down here comes with consequences for wrong guesses. I think Colt might be right, but we need to be prepared."

  "Agreed, form up," Kade said.

  The team moved in, finding their positions around the central platform. They left one line open. The direction the clamshell seemed to face.

  Kade met Stone’s eye. "Do it."

  Stone reached out and pressed the button.

  The clamshell opened with a grinding hum, stone scraping on stone as the top half slowly hinged upward. Inside, a polished, mirrored surface caught the light illuminating from the bottom half of the shell and turned it bright gold. A thin beam of light pulsed forward, bouncing from the shell’s reflective interior to the nearest standing pillar. From there, it split, caught by another mirror angled across the chamber. Then another. The golden light arced from one pillar to the next, cutting the room with shafts of focused, heatless glow.

  Kade’s eyes followed it upward as the beam struck a gem in the ceiling. When it hit, the light turned red.

  The clamshell slammed shut.

  Stone staggered back from the pedestal just as a grinding sound started near the wall. The far side of the room shifted, one of the stone panels retracting with slow, deliberate weight.

  Something pulled itself into view. It looked like a crab similar to the one they had fought in warehouse 17 but smaller.

  The thing was shaped like one, roughly the size of a small horse, but where there should have been shell and carapace, there was rotted flesh and exposed bone. One claw twitched unnaturally, joint held together with rusted wire and seaweed like surgical stitching gone feral. A barnacle-covered eye socket dripped seawater thick with black rot, and its legs clacked across the stone with uneven weight, dragging what sounded like broken armor behind it.

  [Analyze] Undead Shellbound Tyrant | Level: 8 | Status: Hostile | Class: Beast

  The crab reared, clicking its oversized claw once before slamming it into the ground hard enough to send a tremor through the floor.

  "Mile, Briggs, Mercer, take care of that thing. Everyone else keep an open eye." Kade said, looking back at the center pedestal, "I think I get the puzzle here."

  The undead crab came in low and fast, the stink of brine and rot cutting through the chamber before its legs even cleared the wall. Armor clacked as it skittered forward, skidding to a stop on the sailor’s map etched into the stone.

  Briggs met it first. His axe caught the swipe of the oversized claw and redirected it wide, letting the creature’s weight work against itself. Myers ducked in next, quick and close, sliding past the thing’s snapping mandibles and driving his long knife into the soft hinge behind the left pincer. The crab shrieked. Not from pain, but from something older and more broken. It twisted hard to the side, just in time for Milo’s shield to slam into its face and throw it off balance.

  Mercer didn’t wait. One step back, crossbow up. The bolt punched straight through the exposed thorax, embedding with a wet crunch that pinned part of the shell to its own shoulder.

  The fight didn’t last long.

  It flailed. Reared once. Tried to snap at Briggs again, but the sergeant ducked left and buried the axe under the lip of its mouth. Shell split, and the creature collapsed in on itself, legs twitching as the glow of undeath flickered out behind its barnacle-covered eyes.

  Stone stayed back near the pedestal, watching the fight in case it turned worse, but the healing spell she’d primed never left her hands.

  Robin stood beside Kade, eyes still on the sealed clamshell.

  "Not much of a punishment," she said.

  "Maybe that was just a warning?" Kade replied.

  Robin didn’t argue, but she hadn't looked convinced either.

  Kade turned her focus back to the room and studied the ceiling. The jewels were brighter than the rest of the stonework, catching torchlight and reflecting it in a way that almost looked like they glowed on their own. Each one sat in place of a star, set into the larger patterns carved across the surface like some forgotten planetarium. Seven in total. But only two of them matched anything that looked familiar.

  Her mind moved to the constellations on the surrounding pillars. Some of the etchings had a clearer shape now that she was looking for them. A curved W. Two looked like crooked ladles of different sizes. One she was fairly sure was the Southern Cross.

  She narrowed her eyes and took a few steps toward the edge of the room, where the mirrored pillars stood just outside the light of the pedestal. Three on the left, three on the right, each one etched with lines and stars arranged in constellations she recognized now that her brain had caught up.

  She crouched beside one and ran a gloved hand along the groove of the design. It was a sailor’s map! Guiding stars. She was sure of it. This wasn’t just a puzzle. It was a navigation challenge.

  Robin stepped beside her.

  "Anything?"

  Kade stood and nodded toward the ceiling. "That’s a star chart. Sort of. And these pillars are key navigational constellations. Look like key formations used in maritime navigation. Three per hemisphere."

  "Which means we're supposed to take the center light to the guiding star," Robin said, already following the thought.

  "That's my guess."

  Kade stepped back to the pedestal and looked again at the inscription. Seek the guiding light, yet know it hides among companions. She didn’t speak the words out loud. Just read them once more and let them turn over in her head.

  "Four of the ceiling gems are false. Two are real. Polaris and Acrux. North and South stars," she said finally.

  Robin nodded slowly. "You’re sure?"

  "As sure as I can be. As a naval officer, I had basic training in celestial navigation. We used constellations like Ursa Major and Cassiopeia to find Polaris. The Southern Hemisphere used the Southern Cross to find Acrux."

  Robin crossed her arms. "So which do we choose?"

  "The inscription says it hides among companions. I would read that as the constellation that holds the star in question."

  "Maybe. But the light bounced three times last time before hitting the ceiling," Robin replied. "That might not be random."

  Kade didn’t respond right away. Her eyes returned to the clamshell, then the path it had traced with its light. Three reflections, then a hit. Each pillar angled to the next, guiding the line of fire upward. Like triangulation. The idea had begun to take shape in her mind.

  "Two constellations help you find the third, and the third holds the star. It’s not just which star. It’s how you find it. So we don’t activate just one pillar. We find the path, I think."

  Robin raised an eyebrow. "So we need three pillars. Like last time."

  "Three per solution." Kade said. "But are they both valid or is only one the correct outcome?"

  Levi surprised everyone by speaking up. "We’re in the Northern Hemisphere. Polaris guides people in the north for navigation. Acrux could be a red herring in this case."

  Robin didn’t look thrilled, but agreed. "It fits."

  Kade moved back to the pedestal. She ran a finger along the ring at its base, noting the subtle grooves where it could be turned. A faint click accompanied each rotation, marking the angle between reflected pillars.

  It brought back a memory she hadn’t thought about in years.

  First year at the Naval Academy, sitting in a cramped metal classroom while an old marine instructor pointed at ceiling projectors and called them "God’s compass." Celestial navigation. Ancient and mostly obsolete, even before the world ended. But they’d still drilled it hard. Power fails, electronics crash, satellites go dark, you still need to know which way is north.

  She remembered thinking it was outdated. A formality. She hadn’t thought that after the first time a blackout left them dead in the water during a training patrol or more recently during the first night after the reboot.

  Kade exhaled slowly and turned the ring, aligning the platform toward the pillar etched with the curved W of Cassiopeia.

  "Cassiopeia to Ursa Major," she said aloud. "Then Ursa Minor. That should give us Polaris."

  Robin stepped closer. "Why that order?"

  "You use the Big Dipper to find Polaris, but Cassiopeia’s on the other side of the pole. Both help orient. I won't bore anyone with the overly technical, but Ursa Major is closer to Polaris than Cassiopeia."

  Kade placed her hand on the button.

  "Ready positions," she called out as she pressed the button.

  The light refracted from the center clamshell, bouncing from Cassiopeia to Ursa Major to Ursa Minor. Then upward. It struck the Polaris gem dead center, casting a bright white flare across the chamber. For a few brief moments, nothing happened.

  Kade’s hand lingered over the button, half-expecting something to snap shut or lash out. But the silence broke with a deep mechanical thunk. Two sections of wall shifted, one revealing a narrow doorway deeper into the dungeon. The other, a smaller alcove, was recessed just enough to be easily missed unless you were looking straight at it.

  Inside sat a chest. Strongbox-sized, old, and surprisingly well-maintained.

  "Clear?" Kade asked.

  "Give me a sec," Myers said, already halfway there. He crouched low, checked the seams, the lid, the floor underneath. Then, he gave a thumbs-up. "No traps or obvious teeth."

  He popped the latch a moment later, confirming that he had been correct. There were no explosions, poison gas, or angry baby mimics. Just the soft creak of hinges and a faint whiff of stagnant air.

  Myers lifted out something that gleamed faintly under the magical torchlight. A small disc of dark metal, maybe the size of a silver dollar. Etchings ran around the circumference in concentric circles, and in the center, a strange glyph none of them recognized.

  "Is that…?" Levi started, already rushing to grab the item from Myers.

  "No," Robin cut in. "It's not the other half of the artifact. We're barely past the front door."

  Levi scowled, but held his tongue.

  Myers turned it in his hand before flipping it to Kade like a coin. "Looks important."

  "Everything in a dungeon looks important," Kade said. "Until it kills you or turns out to be flavor text."

  Robin stepped in. "That’s not just decoration. Look at the outer ring. That’s a dungeon seal. Tiered access, probably. These things are keyed to deeper levels or restricted wings. The more tokens you find, the better reward you find at the end."

  "So… it’s a key?" Stone asked.

  "More like currency," Robin responded.

  Tidefall Archive Token

  Quality: Special

  Enchantments: None

  Description: A dense, dark-metal disc etched with tiered arcane patterns and sealed with the emblem of the Tidefall Archive. Tokens such as this are used within the Tidefall Archive to unlock restricted chambers, bypass magical seals, or influence the final reward chamber. The more you collect, the greater the reward. Assuming you live long enough to spend them.

  Note: Only valid within the Tidefall Archive. Cannot be used as legal tender, but you’ll probably wish it could.

  "What is the Tidefall Archive?" Mercer asked.

  Kade slipped it into her officer’s satchel. "Nothing we’ve seen yet. But I’m guessing we’ll know it when we find it."

  Robin nodded slowly. "Probably flavor text of some type. Still, it should be worthwhile, whatever its use."

  "Everything down here seems to be worthwhile. Whatever controls these dungeons seems to count on greed being someone's undoing almost as much as the monsters," Kade said. "Let’s move."

  The exit beckoned, still open, its hallway vanishing into shadow. The strongbox was empty now. The puzzle solved. But Kade felt the dungeon was just getting started.

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