Nineteen structures. Eighteen active signatures.
Etzel read the numbers again. They did not improve. The forest around them had gone dark enough that the regional map cast pale light across his face.
DK stood beside him. Saeva hovered slightly above his shoulder, still facing the distant convergence zone.
Etzel tapped the second number. “Eighteen.”
“Yes,” DK said.
“There are still nineteen dungeons.”
“Yes.”
“One of them didn't collapse.”
“No reported collapse.”
“Didn't disappear.”
“No.”
Etzel lowered the device. “So what exactly stopped?”
DK looked toward the distant trees. “That is the question.”
Etzel frowned. “I preferred you when you answered things.”
“I answer things I know.”
“Terrible habit.”
Saeva's wings twitched. Etzel looked at her. She had described the change with one concept: Less. Not gone. Not safe. Less.
Etzel opened the map again. “Let's try something.”
DK looked at him.
Etzel pointed at Saeva. “She noticed the change.”
“She noticed something.”
“Exactly.”
“That is not the same statement.”
Etzel paused. “Maerin has done permanent damage to you.”
DK ignored him.
They moved away from the exposed ridge before doing anything else. Etzel had no intention of walking toward the silent dungeon—that surprised him slightly. A few weeks ago, something strange appearing on a map would probably have resulted in him getting closer to it, usually while injured, usually with insufficient information, occasionally both.
This time, the calculation was simple: the Authority was already watching the convergence zone; Etzel was unregistered; his description was circulating; DK was difficult to hide; Saeva made the situation worse; and a dungeon that had somehow lost its active signature without physically disappearing was not something a Level Eleven Hunter should investigate because he was curious.
Etzel stared at the map. Growth was deeply inconvenient. It made stupid decisions harder to justify.
He found a sheltered location between several large trees and crouched. Saeva landed on a root beside him.
Etzel enlarged the regional map—nineteen dungeon locations, one central convergence region. He pointed toward the first dungeon, then toward the corresponding direction in the real world: “Here.”
Saeva looked. Nothing.
Etzel moved to another: “Here.”
She looked again. Nothing.
DK watched silently.
Etzel moved to the third. Saeva looked at him, then the map, then him again.
“What?”
She said something in her language. The Soul Link carried confusion.
Etzel pointed at the map, then the horizon, then another point. “We're doing science.”
DK looked at the tiny Wispkin. “You are showing a map to a creature that cannot read it.”
Etzel nodded. “Science sometimes looks bad.”
“That is not a defense.”
“It has been historically.”
Saeva made a sound. Etzel ignored both of them and continued: direction, pause, reaction. Direction, pause, reaction. Most produced nothing meaningful.
When he indicated the convergence center, Saeva immediately became uncomfortable—Wrong. Contained. That had not changed.
Then Etzel moved his finger toward the dungeon whose signature had disappeared. Saeva froze.
Etzel noticed immediately. “There.”
Her wings slowed. He pointed again: “That direction.”
Saeva stared. Something passed through the Soul Link—not fear, not the heavy wrongness she associated with the center, but something quieter. Absence.
Etzel concentrated. “Gone?”
She shook her head. The feeling changed. She tried again. Etzel received another concept: Empty.
His expression changed. “Empty?”
Saeva hesitated, then nodded.
DK stepped closer. Etzel pointed at the map. “The dungeon is still there.”
“Yes.”
“But she doesn't feel whatever she felt before.”
“Apparently.”
Etzel looked at Saeva. “Not dead?”
She shook her head.
“Not destroyed?”
Confusion. Too complex. Etzel simplified through the bond: Broken. Gone. Empty.
Saeva chose the last one again: Empty.
Etzel slowly sat back. “That is worse.”
DK said nothing.
Etzel looked at the silent dungeon. “Maybe it didn't close.” He zoomed out. “Maybe something inside it was removed.”
DK's gaze remained on the map. “Or consumed.”
Etzel looked up. “That was unnecessarily darker.”
“It was another possibility.”
“Yes. I liked mine more.”
He looked at the map again. Neither possibility was good.
The next morning, Etzel made a decision. Yesterday, DK had killed thirty-one creatures, and Etzel had killed one; the result had been Level Eleven—useful, efficient, and unsatisfying in a way Etzel had not expected.
He tightened the strap around his spear. DK watched. “Today you watch.”
DK was silent for a moment. “Yesterday you watched.”
“Division of labor.”
“Convenient.”
“Efficient.”
“That was your argument yesterday.”
“And I learned from it.”
DK looked at his spear. “Apparently.”
Etzel smiled. Saeva was already sitting on DK's shoulder. Etzel pointed at her. “You're working.”
She looked offended.
“You're support.”
More offense.
“Not a healer.”
That improved things slightly. Etzel nodded. “Excellent. We've established the employment structure.”
DK started walking, and Etzel followed. He had a target for the day—not a number displayed by the System, not exactly. Level Twelve was close; he could feel that much. But he did not want DK delivering it while Etzel sat on another rock. If Level Twelve came—Etzel intended to be standing.
The tracks appeared less than an hour later: two creatures, heavy, fast, moving together.
DK crouched beside one print. “Recent.”
Etzel studied the marks: four forward claws, deep heel impression, with the second set running almost parallel. “What?”
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“Gravehorns.”
Etzel looked at him. “You know them?”
“I have seen similar tracks.”
That answer carried more weight than it should have. DK's memories still came in fragments—instinct without context, knowledge without history. Etzel did not push.
The System solved the immediate problem several minutes later: movement between the trees, two bodies, long hind legs, heavy shoulders, dark horn structures curled backward from narrow skulls. One moved left; the other right.
SURVEY RECORD: SPECIMENS IDENTIFIED
Target
Gravehorn Runner (Level: 12)
Target
Gravehorn Runner (Level: 12)