Chapter 194 — Ninth Floor

Chapter 194: Chapter 194 — Ninth Floor

The rest of Floor Eight passed in a steadier rhythm than the two days before it, no fresh discovery pressing at him, just the plain, unglamorous work of finishing what he’d started.

He crossed a wide stretch of collapsed tunnel on his third day, forced into a lengthy detour around a section the guild’s maps hadn’t flagged as unstable, and found himself grateful for the extra caution once he saw the fine, hairline cracks threading through the ceiling above the more direct route. He gave it a wide berth and lost the better part of an afternoon to the workaround, though he didn’t much mind. There was nothing waiting on the other side that couldn’t wait a little longer for him.

A pair of Ironjaw Beetles contested a narrow stretch of passage not long after, armored and stubborn, and Arlen dispatched them with the same economical strikes he’d been refining for weeks — nothing dramatic, nothing worth dwelling on, simply the confirmation that his ordinary technique had grown considerably more reliable than it used to be, even without reaching for anything beyond a blade.

He passed a Fungal Bear’s territory late that same day, the creature itself nowhere in sight, only the telltale spore-heavy musk and a scattering of disturbed undergrowth marking where it had recently passed. He didn’t go looking for it. Some ground was worth leaving undisturbed, and he’d learned, across enough solo dives now, that not every creature crossing his path needed to become a fight.

By the fourth day, the terrain had begun, gradually, to change — the cavern ceiling climbing higher overhead, the passages widening in a way that suggested he was finally nearing whatever boundary separated Floor Eight from Nine.

He found the descent late that evening, a broad, natural ramp worn smooth by generations of traffic he had no way of properly counting, and made camp at its edge rather than push into unfamiliar terrain with his energy already flagging.

He wrote a short entry in his journal before sleep took him, more out of habit than any real need to record much.

Floor Eight, finished properly this time. Two abilities gained, considerable ground covered, nothing else worth remarking on beyond the ordinary business of getting from one end of a very large cave to the other. Floor Nine tomorrow.

He woke early, and descended the ramp as the last of his rationed light settled into the cavern’s ambient glow, the transition to Floor Nine considerably less dramatic than he’d half expected after everything Floor Eight had thrown at him.

The terrain here carried a different character almost immediately — the stone paler, veined with mineral deposits that caught the dim light in faint, scattered glints, the air carrying a drier, cooler quality than the damp, root-tangled stretches he’d grown used to further up.

Different region within the same rough band, maybe. Worth noting properly for anyone who comes through here after me.

He moved carefully through the opening stretch, senses stretched wide the way months of solo work had trained him to keep them, and found the wildlife here notably sparser than Floor Eight’s crowded tunnels — long stretches passing with nothing more than the occasional distant scuttle of something small and unbothered by his presence.

He crossed a wide, dry riverbed sometime past midday, the cracked stone floor suggesting water had run through here once, long enough ago that whatever had carved the channel had since moved or dried up entirely. He followed it a while out of simple curiosity, cataloguing the terrain the way he catalogued everything worth remembering, before it eventually narrowed back into ordinary tunnel and he let the thread go.

A cluster of Hollow Ants crossed his path near evening, harmless and easily avoided, and a solitary Cave Wolf watched him from a distance for the better part of an hour before apparently deciding he wasn’t worth the trouble, vanishing back into a side passage without ever closing the distance.

He made camp that second night within Floor Nine’s borders, the region’s drier air making for a considerably more comfortable rest than some of the damper stretches further up, and found himself, working through a modest meal, genuinely appreciating the quieter pace the day had offered.

Not every day needs to end in a fight worth writing home about, he thought, banking the fire low. Some days just need covering, same as any road above ground.

He spent his third day on Floor Nine pushing deeper along a passage that gradually widened into something closer to a proper cavern system, the ceiling climbing high enough overhead that even Nightsight’s passive clarity struggled to properly resolve it in full. He paused more than once simply to take the scale of it in, the same old, humbled wonder settling into his chest that every truly vast stretch of the Depths seemed to stir in him regardless of how many times he’d already felt it.

He crossed paths with a modest colony of Cave Kobolds late that afternoon, watching from a careful distance rather than engaging — small, quick, clearly organized enough that a solo fight against the full group would have cost him more than it was worth for creatures this far below his current capability. They noticed him eventually, scattering deeper into their warren rather than testing him, and he let them go without much further thought.

By the time evening settled properly over his fourth day on Floor Nine, he’d covered considerable ground without anything demanding the kind of deliberate, careful pursuit Floor Eight’s salamander and boar had asked of him. It didn’t trouble him. He understood, by now, that some stretches of the Depths simply asked patience of a person rather than danger, and he’d rather spend a few quiet days properly mapping unfamiliar ground in his own head than rush toward whatever came next before he was ready for it.

He made camp at the edge of another wide, open cavern that night, the terrain ahead promising, from what little he could make out in the gloom, something considerably larger still waiting beyond it.

Tomorrow, he thought, settling in against his bedroll, the cavern’s vast, patient dark stretching out around him. Whatever’s actually worth hunting on this floor, I suspect I haven’t found it yet.

He closed his eyes, unbothered by the day’s quiet lack of incident, and let sleep take him slowly, Floor Nine’s considerable scale still largely unexplored ahead of him, waiting, as it always did, for whatever patience and curiosity he brought to it next.