Valm opened his eyes in the morning and saw a large wheel before him. He moved his gaze to take in the whole picture and realized that a gah stood in front of him. So, was the trek across the steppe canceled?

  “Master Valm, we’re waiting for you!” Malik called cheerfully.

  “Damn!” the alchemist blurted out and quickly jumped to his feet.

  The mages were already seated inside, and as soon as Valm took his place, Ladbor sharply set off. The warriors ran easily beside the vehicle, effortlessly keeping pace.

  “Master Valm,” Nonk asked, “what was that dish you prepared yesterday? I suddenly felt happy… and joyful… Was it because of that red mushroom?”

  “Exactly!” The alchemist laughed. “That mushroom, called Misatus Red, promotes the release of enormous doses of dopamine and oxytocin. I figured we could use some of that yesterday. The effect is better than alcohol, and there’s no hangover. If prepared correctly, of course.”

  At these words, the mages exchanged glances.

  “And… if it’s prepared incorrectly?” Kyra asked.

  “Well, do you remember how I asked you all to step thirty meters away yesterday so you wouldn’t get covered in ulcers?”

  “Yeah. Are you saying we would have been covered in ulcers?!”

  “Not exactly. Your brains would have turned into one giant, rotting ulcer. But relax, it wouldn’t have happened immediately—maybe in a few days, maybe a week. And then you’d die. Guaranteed.”

  Everyone except Valm jumped to their feet.

  “You could have poisoned us!” Turan shrieked.

  “Me?” The alchemist’s eyes widened. “Gentlemen, I didn’t force any of you to join me for dinner…”

  The warriors running beside the gah heard the entire conversation perfectly, and involuntarily, their backs broke out in cold sweat.

  “Besides,” Valm continued, “that was just second-class alchemy, and I’m confident in my skills. You don’t hesitate to gulp down that swill you call a restoration potion every morning, do you? And it was brewed by alchemists far less skilled than I am. And if you think there are no ingredients in it that could kill you, you’re mistaken—about a third of them can.”

  The mages had nothing to counter with, so they fell silent.

  “Alchemy is still alchemy, and cooking is cooking. They shouldn’t be mixed,” Turan grumbled.

  “Fine, cook for yourselves then!” Valm snorted.

  Suddenly, the gah came to an abrupt halt.

  “Junga, ahead!” Ladbor ordered.

  “Yes!”

  The alchemist peeked outside and caught only a glimpse of a shadow streaking through the tall grass like an arrow before vanishing far ahead.

  “There’s a bridge ahead,” the captain said, answering Valm’s unspoken question.

  “What kind of bridge?”

  “The dungeon has yet to recover; a rift nearly splits it in half. The Battle Ancestors constructed a bridge across it to reach the transition point to the next level. And so it is on every dungeon level where the Battle Ancestors managed to reach.”

  “So we’ll have to cross these bridges constantly?”

  “Not at all. It depends on which side of the level the transition throws us out. Sometimes we have to, sometimes we don’t…”

  Ladbor hadn’t finished speaking when Junga returned.

  “All clear, Captain. Just a small team of D-rank adventurers far beyond the bridge, heading toward the transition.”

  The gah moved forward again, and Valm considered that in this situation, caution was truly necessary. Narrow passageways like bridges were the best places for ambushes. As he already knew—they had no friends here.

  The bridge turned out to be a suspension bridge. Four massive drums with ratchet mechanisms on the sides held thick metal cables, upon which the bridge was built. Two lower cables supported a wooden plank walkway, while two upper ones, at shoulder height, acted as railings. Chains stretched frequently between the upper and lower cables, providing handholds.

  And the abyss. At least half a kilometer wide.

  Valm looked right, then left—as far as he could see, there was no end to it. The alchemist glanced at the opposite edge, where identical drums stood. A heavy feeling settled in his stomach.

  Ladbor stored the gah in his inventory.

  “Skrait and Junga, you go first,” he ordered. “Then the mages with Master Valm, then me, and Malik with Pram will bring up the rear. Understood?”

  After everyone nodded, Skrait drew a massive shield and stepped onto the bridge, with Junga following two steps behind. Pram stood by the bridge, an arrow nocked in his bow, attentively watching the opposite side of the chasm.

  Valm watched the bridge sway under the adventurers’ feet, and something inside him clenched. Soon, he would have to… Damn it, he had never liked heights.

  “Mages and Valm, forward!” Ladbor commanded.

  The bridge wasn’t actually that narrow—about a meter and a half wide—but at such a length…

  Valm’s foot stepped onto the time-blackened planks of the walkway, and his hand instinctively grabbed a vertical chain. After fifty steps, he made the mistake he absolutely shouldn’t have—he glanced sideways and down.

  And froze in place.

  There was nothing.

  Or rather, there was something…

  Below him, several kilometers down, glowed part of a violet magical seal. The same kind as the one above him in the sky. And far below it, another one. And another beyond that…

  This rift split the dungeon across all levels!

  “Valm! Keep moving!” he heard Ladbor’s shout, snapping him out of his trance.

  The alchemist shut his eyes and shook his head. Damn it, don’t look at that! He moved, almost ran forward, quickly grabbing vertical chains as he went, nearly knocking over Kyra, who was walking ahead of him. Only then did he regain control of himself.

  What the hell was that?!

  Sure, he didn’t like heights, even feared them, but to freeze up entirely just from one look?!

  Valm’s slit pupils narrowed.

  Something down there, damn it, was capable of influencing his mind!

  The realization even made him angry.

  No matter how long those five hundred meters felt to Valm, they still came to an end, and soon, Ladbor caught up to him, followed by Malik and Pram.

  The captain of the Silver Dragons pulled out the gah once more, and they quickly set off again.

  The transition point turned out to be a low hill in the middle of the flat steppe, with a small cave on its slope. There were no human-made pillars or torches like at the dungeon’s entrance—just a short tunnel-like cave with a smooth stone floor. And an exit thirty meters ahead.

  High in the mountains once again.

  “The second level!” Valm said for no apparent reason when they stood on a large natural terrace beside the cave. “And which side are we on now? Will we have to cross that rift again?”

  Malik, standing next to him, shrugged.

  “Unknown, Master Valm. We can’t see from here yet.”

  “To hell with it! Malik, let’s go gather ingredients! I can already smell them from here!”

  The second level indeed resembled the first, only slightly larger, with a higher quality of ingredients. The alchemist collected them, ignoring Ladbor’s mild displeasure. By the way, all the other team members forgave Valm’s antics for the sake of his delicious dinners. Even after his confession about the properties of that red mushroom, no one refused to eat the meals he prepared.

  But the alchemist noticed another problem. His food supplies, which he had calculated for himself alone for several months, were quickly dwindling—shrinking by about thirty percent in less than a week. That evening, after they had passed through the woodland steppe on the second level, he couldn’t hold back any longer.

  “Alright, folks, I understand everything,” he began, standing next to three empty cauldrons, “but my storage has enough food for no more than a week! So what were you all thinking? Any ideas? Lay out whatever food you have in your storages, and I’ll pick what’s suitable for cooking!”

  The adventurers exchanged glances.

  “We didn’t think about it…”

  “Sorry, Master Valm…”

  “Yeah, what were we even…”

  They started piling up barrels of salted meat, dried meat and fish, cheeses, barrels of beer and wine, bread… That was pretty much it. The standard adventurer’s diet in a dungeon. Not a single ready-made dish, no fresh vegetables, and no raw meat.

  “That’s all?!” Valm grabbed his head. “Are you kidding me?! How am I supposed to cook with this?!”

  “So… we’re doomed?” Malik asked quietly. “No more delicacies?”

  Valm shot him an irritated glare.

  “Did I say that?!”

  The alchemist picked out some cheese, wine, and a barrel of beer, waving dismissively at the rest.

  “Get this horror out of my sight.”

  A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

  The adventurers looked embarrassed. He hadn’t actually solved the problem…

  “We’ll hunt!” Valm declared.

  The warriors glanced at each other.

  “Hunt what?”

  “Monsters, of course! What else can we hunt in a dungeon?”

  “But Master Valm, monster meat isn’t edible because of the mana inside it!” Malik immediately protested.

  “Well, Malik, logic tells me that the solution is simply to make inedible meat edible. Don’t you think so?”

  The warrior had no response to that.

  “We’re on the second level… And since that’s the case… I need twenty pamlak carcasses, fifteen vistol carcasses, thirty dragunt carcasses, and five narmos carcasses! Leave the innards, hooves, horns, and hides where you kill them—I need clean carcasses, understood?”

  Everyone froze in hesitation.

  “What are you waiting for?” Ladbor barked, alarmed by the potential food crisis. “Do as he says!”

  And he was the first to vanish from sight, leading by example.

  “Hey, who’s going to guard the camp?” Valm asked in confusion as all the warriors disappeared.

  Well, at least the mages had stayed with him. Sighing, the alchemist began preparing dinner.

  Junga was the first to return. As expected—the fastest. One by one, the others followed. Valm ordered long poles to be chopped and tripods made, upon which the monster carcasses were hung.

  After dinner, the alchemist sat down beside them and popped a detoxification pill he had made back in the Citadel. He turned his palm upward and curled his fingers as if holding a large apple. A white, semi-transparent fire instantly flared above his claws.

  “And now,” the alchemist said, “if you don’t want to suffer from mana poisoning, I suggest you move at least a hundred meters away!”

  The fire above his palm split into seventy parts, each one flying toward a carcass.

  Monster mana couldn’t be burned, but it could be evaporated! Though even that wasn’t simple.

  For the first few minutes, nothing happened. But then a faint yellowish smoke began to rise from the carcasses. It wavered uncertainly under the influence of a weak breeze, growing denser until it turned into thick, billowing clouds of yellow monster mana floating up into the sky.

  As the smaller creatures’ carcasses were cleansed first, Valm withdrew their portions of celestial fire and added them to the larger ones.

  The purification process took a full two hours.

  When it was finally done, Valm opened his eyes and stood up. He walked to each carcass in turn, sniffed it, then cut a thin strip of meat from the center, roasted it over celestial fire, and popped it into his mouth while it was still hot.

  Not bad.

  Now he had plenty of almost pork, almost beef, almost lamb, and even something resembling rabbit meat… The alchemist waved to the adventurers to return.

  Malik was the first to step forward and sniff the meat.

  “The monster mana… It’s really gone!”

  “Master Valm!” The mages swarmed the alchemist all at once. “That’s celestial fire, isn’t it?!”

  This time, they got lucky—there was no need to cross that damned rift again, and the Silver Dragons, along with Valm, proceeded calmly to the third level.

  They lingered there for a while. Upon reaching the forest, Valm handed out sketches of edible mushrooms, berries, and fruits to the warriors and asked them to gather as much as possible. Vegetables in the diet still needed some kind of substitute.

  Because of this, the third level took them a day longer to traverse than the previous one. Though the significantly increased distance from the entrance to the next transition also played a role.

  Standing on the terrace at the entrance to the fourth level, Ladbor hesitated to give the command to move forward—something unusual for him. Valm immediately noticed how attentively the adventurer was studying the path ahead, as if listening for something. Eventually, however, he pressed onward.

  As he gathered ingredients alongside Malik, the alchemist couldn’t stop thinking about what was troubling the captain of the Silver Dragons.

  “Malik, don’t you think Ladbor has seemed… worried lately? Any idea what’s wrong?”

  “Well, we all are, Master Valm—something strange is going on.”

  “Explain?”

  “We’ve been descending for quite a while now, but there’s been no sign of strong teams making their way back up…”

  “And that means something?”

  “No one knows for sure. Maybe it’s just a coincidence. We rarely come to Tiktak, so we don’t really know its usual rhythms. If we were in a dungeon we were more familiar with, I’d immediately assume that something happened down below. Something bad.”

  Mentally, Valm immediately agreed with the adventurer.

  “So maybe we shouldn’t go any further?”

  “Well, that’s up to the captain. But whatever’s down there, our team has enough strength to get out safely without any losses.”

  Valm mentally agreed with the adventurer immediately.

  “Then maybe we shouldn’t go any further?”

  “Well, let the captain decide, but whatever is down there, our team has enough strength to get out without suffering any losses.”

  Valm smirked wryly. One God of War—no, even a high-level Battle Ancestor—was enough to wipe them all out in a second. But he didn’t say that out loud. Even in the evening, while preparing dinner and watching the warriors whispering among themselves in a separate group, he still kept his thoughts to himself.

  This time, they were lucky—passing through the forest zone without any trouble, then the forest-steppe, their gah rolled smoothly across a grassland as flat as a tabletop, covered in tall grasses and flowers. That’s when Ladbor spoke:

  “We’re back on the right side of the dungeon.”

  Looking out from the gah, Valm saw a hill far ahead with the passage leading to the fifth level. But they wouldn’t always be this lucky, the alchemist thought.

  The fifth level contained far more valuable ingredients than the previous four combined. Since third-class monsters roamed this area, few were willing to descend here. One such monster alone wasn’t much of a threat, but a pack of them could spell trouble even for a high-level Battle Master. Valm, who had studied and researched them all in detail, understood this better than anyone. That’s why he didn’t dare to stray far from the group, even with Malik as his escort.

  But the alchemist worried in vain, as the rhythmic waves of aura emitted by the Silver Dragons’ warriors kept the creatures at a considerable distance. This left only the mages—and Valm himself—grumbling about the poor state of the paths on the fifth level. After all, far fewer people traveled here compared to the previous levels.

  “Now we’re out of luck,” Ladbor said, stopping the gah. “Junga, check it out.”

  Hearing this command, the alchemist realized that ahead lay a chasm with a bridge. This time, reconnaissance took much longer—perhaps an hour had passed before Junga returned.

  “There’s no one there. Just a few monsters near the passage.”

  “Strange. If there are monsters, it means no one’s been there in a while. Does no one in this damned dungeon venture to the sixth level? Well, whatever—those few monsters won’t stop us. Let’s move.”

  The bridge across the chasm was a copy of the previous one, except that it was about a hundred and fifty meters longer. Was the chasm growing along with the dungeon levels?

  “Skrayt, Junga—cross first.”

  The two adventurers immediately moved forward, using the same maneuver as before—Skrayt leading with a large shield, Junga two steps behind him. Pram stood at the edge of the chasm, keeping an arrow nocked.

  “Mages and Valm—go ahead,” Ladbor ordered.

  This time, the alchemist forced himself to look only straight ahead and under no circumstances glance down. He already knew what was down there and why he shouldn’t look. Valm and the mages had crossed halfway when Ladbor stepped onto the bridge, quickly catching up to them. Suddenly, Skrayt and Junga tensed and, in unison, shouted:

  “Back! It’s an ambush!”

  At that moment, Pram fired in the direction they had just come from.

  “Forward! Hurry! It’s an ambush!”

  At first, only the warriors understood, but soon Valm and the mages realized that their group had been expertly trapped on that cursed bridge. The alchemist couldn’t see the attackers, but the actions of Skrayt and Junga made it clear—they were in trouble. Slowly retreating, Skrayt covered both himself and Junga with his large shield. Ladbor, now alongside the mages, cursed foully.

  Valm glanced back and saw Malik retreating toward them, shielding himself and Pram with his shield. Within a minute, everyone had gathered in the middle of the bridge. As soon as they did, the mages simultaneously raised mana shields, covering the Silver Dragons from all sides.

  “Shit!” Ladbor barked.

  “Captain!” Junga shouted. “They weren’t here before!”

  “I know… I only sensed them after stepping onto the bridge… Pram, how many are behind us?”

  “At least three dozen B-rankers and many lower-ranked ones. There are mages too.”

  “Got it. Junga, what about ahead?”

  “About the same. But I can’t be sure if there are mages—I didn’t sense them.”

  “They don’t need them. That group is the lid to this trap. They prioritize speed over firepower. They only need mages on one side to mess with us. Damn it!”

  From this short exchange, Valm understood—they were in deep trouble. At least sixty B-rank adventurers against them, not counting mages and other small fry. It didn’t take a genius to see that their chances were slim. And before the alchemist could finish his thought, numerous figures emerged along the chasm’s edges, weapons drawn.

  They were a motley crew, dressed haphazardly—some wearing no armor at all. But what united them was their confidence that their prey had no escape. Well, they had every right to believe that. Valm quickly assessed the situation. Both groups had stopped a few dozen meters from the winch drums holding the cables, spreading out in a semicircle to completely block the bridge exits. This also allowed them to attack from the flanks with ranged weapons and magic. A solid strategy.

  One of the attackers stepped forward and mockingly bowed.

  “Greetings, gentlemen!” he shouted to the Silver Dragons. “I won’t waste your time—I’ll just say this: either you lay down your weapons, give us your storages, and leave on foot, or we’ll take them off your still-warm corpses. So, what’s your choice?”

  “They’ll kill us anyway. And unarmed, it’ll be much easier for them,” Malik whispered.

  Of course. That’s why they hadn’t sensed any strong teams descending here. There simply weren’t any left. These bastards controlled both the bridge and the passage between levels. Ladbor growled in fury.

  “And what guarantees do we have that you’ll let us leave?” he shouted.

  The enemy negotiator raised a finger.

  “Will my word suffice?”

  “Not really! But I need time to discuss with my team.”

  The negotiator shrugged.

  “Just be quick—no need for unnecessary drama!”

  While Ladbor spoke with the attacker, Valm frantically searched for a way out. He had plenty of the poison he used to wipe out the Gray Crows in his storage—but only two doses of the antidote. Using it at this distance would be the same as killing the Silver Dragons himself. Valm shook his head, dismissing the idea. Only as a last resort.

  “How long can you hold mana shields against a concentrated attack?” Ladbor asked the mages.

  “Forty minutes. Maybe fifty. While we’re on the bridge, they won’t go all out, but once we step off…”

  “I know—we won’t get far…”

  “Won’t spells of the seventh circle help us?” Valm interrupted.

  “There are no seventh-circle mages here!” Turran hissed.

  “I can see that! But I have alchemical potions with effects comparable to the strongest seventh-circle spells!”

  Everyone turned to the alchemist in surprise.

  “If you have a plan, Mr. Valm, say it now—we’re running out of time!” Ladbor said.

  “Four vials of potion, each half a liter. Two of the fire element, two of the water element, which will freeze everything. Each has an effective radius of about a hundred meters. We need to throw them beside the drums with the cables—without hitting them, or at least making sure they’re not in the epicenter. The fire element vials go toward the passage to the lower level, the water element vials in the opposite direction, and then we run back immediately. To hell with this dungeon—we’ll organize another raid later. That’s my plan. Everyone clear?”

  “Yes, give me the vials!” Ladbor exhaled.

  The attackers couldn’t see what was happening in the tightly packed group of Silver Dragons, still believing they had full control of the situation. Valm quietly distributed the potions—Scrite and Junga got the vials with red liquid, while Malik and Pram received the blue ones.

  “Ladbor, can you distract them so the guys can throw? The red vials have about a minute delay; the blue ones activate instantly.”

  “Understood.” He turned to the attackers’ negotiator. “We agree, but we need additional guarantees!”

  “Say what you want!”

  At that moment, the mages briefly lowered their shields, and Scrite and Junga simultaneously threw the potions. The two vials instantly covered several hundred meters and shattered against the attackers’ instinctively raised shields. One of them curiously dipped a finger into the red liquid trickling down the shield and put it in his mouth.

  “Sweet!” he shouted a moment later. “Hahaha! Did they decide to treat us to syrup before we kill them?”

  “You’ll see what kind of syrup it is soon enough,” Valm thought grimly.

  “We need a corridor for our exit!” Ladbor continued as if nothing had happened.

  “What do you mean?”

  “You move several kilometers in different directions, we lay down our weapons and our supplies near the bridge, and then we leave peacefully…”

  Two thin red beams shot high into the sky and quickly began to fall back down. Valm nudged Malik, giving the signal, and at the same moment, the mages briefly lowered their shields again. Two blue vials streaked through the air. The negotiator, realizing something was wrong, instantly pulled out a dagger and threw it at one of the vials. In the end, it didn’t help much…

  The attackers blocking the bridge from the side of the passage to the sixth level likely didn’t even have time to understand what was happening—they were instantly reduced to dust, which then burned away in the next few seconds. The bandits on the opposite side of the chasm twitched in a futile attempt to escape, but the freezing frost bursting from the shattered blue vials turned them into breathtakingly detailed ice statues in an instant. They didn’t even have time to scream in terror at the last moment.

  Valm watched in panic as the frost from the vial shattered by the negotiator’s last-ditch dagger strike spread over the drums supporting the suspension bridge. Frozen steel is brittle. And steel frozen to the point of transparent glass is even more fragile. Even a small breeze swaying the bridge could be enough to turn those cables to dust.

  “Everyone get down and hold onto the planks!” the alchemist screamed. “Don’t touch the metal under any circumstances!”

  He was the first to drop onto his stomach, gripping a plank through a gap in the decking. The others were still mesmerized by the effects of the potion and didn’t immediately understand what he was demanding.

  “Now!” Valm shouted. “We’re falling!”

  As if responding to his words, one of the upper cables let out a high-pitched sound before disintegrating into tiny fragments at its connection to the drum. That worked better than any explanation. The Silver Dragons instantly dropped onto their stomachs, heads toward the abyss on the side of the passage to the sixth level, gripping the planks tightly.

  “And now what?” Malik asked quietly.

  “Shit! Don’t even breathe!” Valm hissed. “And pray to whatever god you can!”

  Valm was truly afraid. He was certain the bridge would collapse from the frozen drum side—it was only a matter of when. The only thing left was to hold onto the dark wooden plank beneath him and pray that the fire wouldn’t melt the cables on the other side.

  Almost simultaneously, the frozen cables crumbled, and for the first time in his life, Valm felt what true weightlessness was.