The first tunnel they found was very wide, large enough to allow two carts to pass side by side.
The walls alternated between smooth surfaces—polished like mirrors beneath the patina of time, shaped by countless pickaxe blows—and others marked by the brutal signs of structural support: main beams planted every ten meters, some still solid, others rotten to the core, and still others snapped clean through, with wooden fibers hanging like torn tendons.
Every 15–20 meters, rusted iron brackets jutted out from the rock at about two meters in height: some still held broken torch stubs or ones burned down to the handle, but almost none provided enough light to illuminate an entire section of tunnel.
From the low vaulted ceiling hung swollen, reddish-rust stalactites, heavy and pregnant with moisture.
Every so often, a drop would detach and fall:
Plic… Plic… Plic…
A slow, hypnotic beat that wove itself into the team's held breath.
The floor was a carpet of rusted iron splinters and coal dust that muffled their footsteps, turning them into an almost shameful rustle, while the rusted rails beneath their feet snaked along the tunnel.
For the first 100 meters, the Carameo Team found nothing.
No one.
Only silence, dampness, the smell of dead iron and something more acrid, almost metallic, that stung the nostrils and settled at the back of the throat.
Then the tunnel began to narrow, almost imperceptibly. The gentle, insidious slope was so subtle that no one truly noticed, yet each step carried them a little deeper, toward the heart of the mountain.
As the passage grew tighter, the team was forced to advance in single file, in a less scattered but more compact and elongated formation: Alvern at the front, Blake right behind his right shoulder, Ananya covering the left flank one step back, and everyone else following in pairs.
While they advanced, Mirac—thanks to "Instant Knowledge of Age"—was able to read the history of the rock beneath his feet and the walls around him.
That ability, in fact, did not only analyze living beings: when it came to inanimate objects, it measured the time elapsed since their creation or last significant modification.
The same principle applied to structures, both natural and artificial, wherever human hands had left their mark on matter.
In the case of the mine, "Instant Knowledge of Age" allowed him to read the age of the surface layer of the tunnels carved by human intervention.
Every pickaxe strike, every chip, every smoothing left a "birth date" on the open wound in the stone.
The rock of the main tunnel spoke of decades spent under the mountain's weight, but the deeper they went, the more recent the pickaxe marks became.
'So far, everything is normal…' Mirac thought, mentally recording the temporal imprint of every corner of the tunnel.
* * *
More minutes passed in that cautious advance, between the silence of the rock and the rustle of soles on the stony ground.
Alvern proceeded with his double-headed axe still resting on his shoulder, but his fingers had never loosened their grip on the handle.
Blake held his map carefully, keeping it low, consulting it with quick, precise glances at every minor fork. He mentally noted every curve of the tunnel, every change in slope, orienting himself as though he had a compass built into his chest.
The others followed in silence, footsteps muffled by ancient dust. No one spoke.
After another 100 meters along the main tunnel, the Carameo Team finally reached the first milestone of their exploration:
"Here we are…" Blake announced in a low voice, folding the map with a precise motion. "This is the Main Depot."
Before them rose a vast, cavernous chamber with ceilings at least seven meters high, supported by rough stone pillars interspersed with darkened oak beams. The main rails ran through the center like steel arteries, disappearing beyond the opposite arch.
In the middle and along the walls stood rows of enormous wooden crates, some stacked two high. All were sealed, secured with iron bars and light chains, and bore the branded mark of the Raerno Merchants' Company.
Scattered among the rails, a handful of cargo wagons stood motionless, their open beds revealing layers of raw ore: dark iron flakes that glinted faintly under the Shaman's spell.
For a few seconds, no one said anything.
Then Seren—who until that moment had been among the quietest in the rearguard—slowly opened her mouth:
"Wait a second…"
Her voice was flat, almost uncertain, like someone who had just done a calculation and didn't trust the result.
She approached the nearest crate, examined it closely—the chains, the seal, the wood—then turned toward the rest of the team with an expression caught between astonishment and mounting tension.
"Is this… the shipment of raw iron?! The one that was supposed to arrive in the city the day before yesterday? The same one Mr. Voss reported missing?!"
Dorran's jaw dropped. "What? Really?! We already found it?!"
"Yeah, it would seem so…" Darick confirmed, a note of puzzlement in his voice.
They all looked around—almost simultaneously—as though the depot might reveal something their eyes had missed at first glance.
But there was nothing hidden: the crates were there, the wagons were there, the cargo was there. Intact, orderly, ready for a shipment that had never happened.
At first, even Mirac said nothing. The moment he laid eyes on the cargo, his "Instant Knowledge of Age" ability had revealed that the raw iron piled in the wagons had been extracted roughly 3 days earlier.
'Wow!' the masked boy exclaimed to himself. 'This is crucial, highly useful information for our investigation! But how can I share it with the team without revealing my Chaotic powers?!'
He thought for a second, mentally turning the problem over like a coin between his fingers. Then, in an instant, an idea came to him: simple, clean, completely believable.
In silence, he stepped away from the formation and began slowly circling the perimeter of the chamber, feigning the distracted air of someone merely looking around.
"Captain, did you notice?" Mirac asked in a deliberately vague tone.
Alvern turned to him, confused. "Notice what?"
The masked boy didn't answer immediately. He took a few more slow steps, as though still piecing together the final parts of his reasoning, then turned toward Alvern and the rest of the team.
"I'm referring to the number of crates…" Mirac said, gesturing slowly at the depot all around them. "There are 22. A load like this doesn't accumulate in a day or two: it's the result of days and days of continuous extraction."
No one replied.
It was one of those observations so simple, so obvious once pointed out, that silence became the only possible response.
After a brief pause, Mirac approached the nearest crate and ran a finger along the lid, theatrically inspecting what clung to his fingertip.
"Look at the dust too. There's hardly any on the surfaces. In an active mine, rock and coal dust is always in the air and settles on anything that stays still. Such a thin layer means these crates were sealed and stacked no more than two or three days ago."
Alvern followed the reasoning without interrupting, his eyes slowly scanning the orderly stacks.
"In other words…" the team leader concluded, now understanding exactly where the masked boy was heading, "…the mine was still operational just a few days ago…"
Mirac nodded without adding anything else.
Everyone seemed convinced by the masked boy's line of reasoning.
Afterward, Alvern stood motionless for a few seconds, staring at an undefined point while his mind worked:
'The original plan was to explore the first five Extraction Zones, but now things have changed: we have to account for finding the missing shipment. Mrs Rose's order was to prioritize it and bring it back to Mr. Voss if we recovered it. That means ending our exploration much earlier than planned, so we have enough time to transport all these crates to the surface and load them onto the abandoned carts at the entrance. And all of this before sunset: after all, the coachman has strict orders, and if we don't reach him in time, he'll return to the Association to report our apparent disappearance, triggering a false alarm and unnecessarily complicating everything…'
With all this in mind, Alvern turned to the team to explain the new plan:
"All right, change of plans: today we'll limit ourselves to the first three Extraction Zones. After that, we'll handle transporting and loading the raw iron crates onto the abandoned carts outside to return them to Mr. Voss."
He paused briefly, letting his gaze pass slowly from face to face with that calm authority that needed no verbal confirmation. "As for exploring the remaining Extraction Zones, we'll return tomorrow with another team to proceed faster and more safely. Is everything clear?"
A round of glances. A few silent nods. But no objections.
"Good."
With that, Alvern gave a nod to Blake.
The tall, thin boy started slightly. 'Oh right, yes!'
He reopened the map, quickly oriented it relative to the depot entrance, and pointed to the opposite arch—the one toward which the main rails continued to snake.
"The Rail Hall is at the end of that tunnel," he explained briefly.
Alvern nodded. "Okay. Let's go then."
No one spoke.
One by one, the members of the Carameo Team reformed their line, leaving behind the stacked crates, the loaded wagons, and the silent, abandoned work of people who had clearly never returned to collect it.
* * *
The journey from the Main Depot to the Rail Hall took just under ten minutes, but it was enough for the atmosphere around them to grow denser, more oppressive, as though the mountain itself were squeezing the breath from their lungs.
The main tunnel widened slowly, almost reluctantly, and then ceased to exist altogether.
The Rail Hall opened up before the Carameo Team.
Like the Main Depot, this chamber was enormous: at least twice the height of the access tunnel, with irregular vaults that Zoltan's spell illuminated down to the smallest crevice, revealing every crack, every mineral formation, every detail the natural darkness would otherwise have buried.
From the ceiling hung curtains of stalactites and mineral growths, icy and silent like the teeth of something ancient. The walls were streaked with dark veins—probably iron, or perhaps something else the mountain had clutched tight since the dawn of time.
But what truly struck them were the rails.
Dozens. Perhaps more.
They started from the arch through which the team had entered and radiated in every direction like the veins of a leaf, crossing, forking, merging, disappearing into the numerous side tunnels that opened all along the perimeter of the hall.
After all, the Rail Hall was the neural heart of the mine: the central node from which all paths to the deeper Extraction Zones branched out, linking them together through a network of rails that funneled the extracted ore back to the Main Depot.
Scattered across the hall, rusted iron switches lay bent in bizarre positions, some frozen halfway through their throw, as though someone had dropped everything in the middle of an ordinary motion.
Here and there, between pairs of rails, more cargo wagons stood motionless: open beds still half-full of raw ore, wheels crusted with blood-red oxide. Some of these wagons had flipped completely upside down, wheels pointing skyward.
The apparent normalcy of it all—broken here and there by those jarring details—was perhaps the most unsettling thing of all.
It was the picture of a place that had stopped breathing in the middle of a breath.
"Look, up there!" Braan exclaimed, his voice barely audible, almost ashamed to disturb the silence.
Everyone raised their heads.
Above them, hanging from the irregular vaults like clusters of rotten grapes, were bats. Hundreds of those nocturnal mammals dotted the ceiling.
Dark, compact shapes, wrapped in their own wings like tiny shrouds. None of them moved. None opened their eyes. They dangled there, mute and still, in that unnatural silence that almost seemed deliberate—as though they were holding their breath along with the team.
Perhaps it wasn't coincidence that they had chosen exactly this spot to roost. The Rail Hall was, in fact, the first section of the mine where true, undisputed darkness reigned: a detail the group would have noticed immediately if not for the "Shadow-Digging Eye" spell.
Unlike the tunnels and the Main Depot, where at least a few torches still burned, here the iron brackets along the walls held torches that were all extinguished: no flames, no leftover stubs, not even the black soot of spent burners.
Total darkness, in other words—and for those nocturnal creatures, the perfect place to sleep.
"Captain, I strongly suggest we be very careful not to disturb them," Blake whispered, instinctively dropping his voice to an almost subsonic level. "Bats are disease vectors. If we wake them and one bites us in the chaos, we risk contracting rabies."
The team listened in silence, committing the warning firmly to memory.
Afterward, Blake opened the map, oriented it relative to the entrance, and approached Alvern with cautious steps. He pointed with one finger at the nearest side tunnel along the left wall: a low, dark opening framed by older support beams than the rest, with rails running straight into it until they vanished beyond the curved horizon.
Next to it, a sign hung on the wall bearing the words "Gallery 1."
"That gallery leads directly to Extraction Zone 1," Blake explained in a low voice. "From there we can also reach Zones 2, 3, 4, and 5."
Alvern nodded, then turned to Zoltan. "How are your Mana reserves holding up?"
The Shaman didn't answer right away.
He closed his eyes for a second, as though listening to something inside himself, then opened them again.
"Enough for a few more hours. After that, I'll need rest."
Zoltan could have drawn on Mana Crystals or any other object imbued with Magical Energy as an external reserve, but to sustain "Shadow-Digging Eye"—classified as a "Continuous-Commitment Spell"—that energy first had to be channeled and filtered through his own Mana Core, then directed along the spine to the prefrontal cortex.
Maintaining the concentration required to manage such a constant Mana flow in the middle of a descent, however, would be far from easy, with a real risk of producing an unstable result—or worse, a degraded one.
"Understood. But warn me when you're nearing your limit," Alvern ordered, eyes fixed on the hooded figure.
Zoltan nodded without a word.
"All right then," the team leader continued. "No more wasting time… Let's go!"
Without delay, the team set off toward the tunnel Blake had indicated.
Gallery 1, however, was much narrower than any of the passages they had crossed so far, forcing the team to change formation once again and adopt a less spread-out, more compact and elongated sequence—with the caution of people walking across ice of unknown thickness.
Now Alvern and Blake led the way, Ananya and Brann covered the left and right flanks respectively one step behind, while the others followed in single file—some alone, some in pairs, some in trios—but still respecting the group order Alvern had established earlier: vanguard, center, and rearguard.
Mirac, for example, found himself paired with Zoltan.
The hooded man advanced in silence, his expression—as much as could be glimpsed beneath the hood—cold and detached, yet focused. The feathered staff tapped the rocky floor at regular intervals, like a metronome marking their steps.
It was precisely then, observing him from such close range, that Mirac noticed something that had escaped him until now—and probably the others hadn't noticed either.
The darkness that enveloped the Shaman's figure—that unnatural shroud of shadow that seemed to nest beneath his robes and inside the hood—was still perfectly visible. Yet the "Shadow-Digging Eye" spell should have banished every form of darkness from their sight, including that one.
'Two possibilities,' the masked boy thought, intrigued by the anomaly. 'First: he may have modified the spell's nature, reworking it so that this specific patch of darkness is excluded from our view. But I find that highly unlikely—not because I want to underestimate his skill, but redesigning a spell to reformulate its effect is far easier said than done. And above all, I can't think of any plausible reason that would drive him to such a drastic measure. Therefore, the more likely option is the second: the darkness wrapping him isn't a natural shadow cast on his body, but the visible manifestation of one of his own magical powers… After all, very little is actually known about Syntony with Darkness…'
This scant knowledge about Syntony with Darkness wasn't the result of superficial study on Mirac's part; rather, it stemmed from a Divine Binding imposed by Nyra, Goddess of Darkness and Secrets.
According to the sacred texts of the Seven Gospels, Nyra had placed that Binding as punishment for betrayal: after all, receiving Syntony with Darkness was a sacred gift, granted by the Goddess exclusively and in strict confidence. Revealing its abilities to outsiders amounted to betraying that trust—and Nyra did not forgive traitors. Anyone who broke the pact would be permanently stripped of the Syntony, and every memory tied to that knowledge erased from their mind, as though it had never existed.
Such a radical deterrent had, over time, reduced that branch of magic to little more than a—paradoxically—shadow-wrapped mystery…
Mirac gave an almost imperceptible shake of his head, as if to dispel those thoughts. This was neither the time nor the place to lose himself in such reflections.
He refocused on his steps, on the rhythmic tapping of Zoltan's staff, on the muffled rustle of soles against the rocky floor.
In just a few paces, the team reached the mouth of Gallery 1.
A few more meters and they would cross the true threshold—when suddenly, to Mirac's eyes, the world stopped…
It wasn't a metaphor.
It wasn't his imagination.
It was something concrete, real, unmistakable: everything around Mirac seemed to slow, as though time itself had lost its thread.
His companions' footsteps became muffled, sounds receded, movements stretched like in a dream.
It felt like being caught between one heartbeat and the next, suspended in a space that belonged neither to before nor after.
Even though years had passed since that episode, Mirac recognized the sensation instantly…
It was the same one that had flooded him a moment before Klark—disguised as Professor Shirkenn—struck him from behind in the royal garden, severing his left arm clean through.
That same silent alienation, that unnatural suspension that precedes chaos the way silence precedes thunder.
His body knew before his mind could process why.
And in that suspended instant, his mind echoed a single command:
'GET DOWN!'
Mirac didn't hesitate for a second.
His knees buckled sharply, his torso pitched forward, and his body hurled itself instinctively downward with every ounce of speed he could muster.
And in the very instant he crouched to the ground, a sudden sound tore through the silence.
Wet. Dry. Brutal.
The noise of something metallic slicing through flesh and bone with the speed and indifference of a gesture performed thousands of times before.
There wasn't even time to turn and locate the source of that sound before everything went black before the team's eyes…
The darkness fell instantly, absolute, as though someone had ripped the sun away with bare hands.
Alvern's mind reacted immediately:
"TORCHES! LIGHT THE TORCHES!"
His voice exploded, echoing through the hall.
And up there, in the darkness of the vaults, that shout was enough to wake the bats.
First a thin, almost imperceptible rustle. Then another, closer. Then a dull, swelling crackle, like an avalanche slowly taking shape before it crashes down.
And then, all at once, the ceiling erupted.
The bats burst free en masse—dozens, perhaps hundreds—in a chaotic, frenzied wave that filled the hall from wall to wall.
They didn't fly in any particular direction: they scattered in erratic, unpredictable paths, brushing against everything they encountered—helmets, faces, shoulders, still-unlit torches gripped in trembling fingers—in a deafening flutter that drowned out every other sound.
And in that total darkness, amid the whirlwind of wings and wind, the team desperately tried to light their torches.
Hands shook. Flint strikers slipped from their fingers. Some struggled to concentrate and channel their Mana flow into the Fire Runes etched on the torches.
Someone cursed under their breath, someone else shouted a name, but voices were swallowed by the roar of wings before they could reach anyone else.
In two, three seconds—an eternity in that blinding dark—the first flames began to appear.
First one. Then three. Then six. Then all the rest.
Flickering, orange, beautiful but woefully inadequate to fully illuminate the vast Rail Hall.
In the unsteady glow of those flames, the bats were still everywhere—a chaotic river of dark shadows swirling in every direction.
Some shot into the side tunnels like bullets, vanishing into the blackness of the passages with a sharp, sudden flutter. Others poured back into the main tunnel the team had come from, dispersing toward the Depot and beyond.
Still others kept darting through unpredictable arcs across the hall, as though unable to find an exit, ricocheting from wall to wall in ever more frantic chaos.
Within seconds, the hall was almost completely emptied: only the flickering flames remained, silence settling back like dust after a collapse, and the orange light slowly revealing every corner of the chamber.
And what it revealed stole the breath from everyone…
Zoltan lay on the ground.
A black spear was driven through his skull with a precision that carried something almost professional in its horror: entering through the right side of his head and exiting through the left. His eyes were wide open, but empty—two motionless pools that reflected nothing anymore.
Around his head, a dark stain was slowly spreading across the rocky floor, expanding into a thick, dense puddle that the wavering torchlight tinted a near-black red.
The Shaman had died before his body even realized it had to fall.
And it was precisely because of this particular death that the darkness had descended with such sudden, total brutality.
Under normal circumstances, the death of a Caster would have gradually interrupted the Mana flow: the Magical Energy stored in the body would leak out slowly, dispersing into the air, and the spell would fade along with it.
But "Shadow-Digging Eye" was a Continuous-Commitment Spell, and as such its sustenance did not depend merely on accumulated Mana in the body, but on the prefrontal cortex—the region of the brain responsible for concentration and voluntary control of magical flow. It was there that the spell was fed and regulated at every instant.
And that region had been destroyed the very moment the spear pierced Zoltan's skull. As a result, "Shadow-Digging Eye" had no time to dissipate: it simply switched off, abruptly, like a lit torch plunged into water.
For a moment, no one said anything.
It wasn't the silence of people with nothing to say: it was the silence of those who have just witnessed something the mind refuses to accept.
Aisha was the first to break it—not with words, but with a choked sound, halfway between a scream and a sob, that died almost immediately like a candle in the wind.
Dorran whipped his head away, jaw clenched, fingers gripping his weapon's handle until his knuckles turned white. Morwen stood frozen, eyes locked on Zoltan's body, her hammer already in her fist without her even remembering having drawn it.
"W-What the-" Mirac stammered, voice cracking as he slowly rose to his feet.
If he hadn't followed his instinct a moment earlier and dropped down, right now he would be lying on the ground beside Zoltan…
"We're under attack!" Alvern shouted, cutting through the moment. "On guard, now!"
There was no time for grief. Not yet.
The captain spun on his heel, double-headed axe already lowered from his shoulder and gripped in both hands, eyes sweeping rapidly along the hall's perimeter.
The others followed suit in a disordered but immediate wave—blades drawn, shields raised, bodies instinctively assuming defensive stances.
"Where did it come from?!" Roric hissed, voice taut like a wire about to snap.
No one answered. No one knew.
And they didn't even have time to find out.
Because it was exactly then—while the team clutched their weapons and desperately tried to orient themselves in the chaos—that the flickering torches illuminated the arch they had come through.
From that same arch, from that very tunnel they had walked minute after minute believing they were in control, grotesque figures emerged.
Large. Imposing.
Skin red as flayed living flesh, swollen and veined muscles, stature well over two and a half meters. Mouths gaping wide, filled with irregular fangs—some broken, others filed to points. Orange eyes glowing with a ravenous, almost feverish light.
Each carried a different weapon: double-bladed axes, spiked maces, curved scythes, serrated swords, short heavy spears.
They wore tatters of human clothing: torn scraps of fabric, broken buckles, dangling belt fragments that swayed with the slow rhythm of their steps as they advanced with the calm silence of those in no hurry—because they already knew how this would end…
They fanned out as they came forward, occupying every corner of the entrance, sealing the escape route with the precise geometry of a trap that had been prepared long, long before.
The hall seemed to shrink.
Everyone was in shock.
And in the midst of it all—the lingering flutter of bats still in the air, the trembling torches, the advancing red figures, Zoltan on the ground with a spear through his skull—space remained in the masked boy's mind for only one thing…
One single revelation:
'N-No… it can't be!' he muttered to himself. 'Th-Those… are Rogthars?!'