THE NEXT MORNING
MICHAEL
I checked the list again, not because I forgot it. Because I was hoping stupidly that it would change. It didn't.
Ignis Stone - secured.
Lightroot Vines - secured (and Vesta noticed, gods help me).
Heaven's Mortar Dust - missing.
White powder, living statues, mid floors. I closed my eyes and rested my forehead against the wooden table.
"I am dead."I sighed.
The restaurant was quiet. Vesta was in the back, humming softly while kneading dough. That sounds warm, steady hit harder than any monster ever had. I straightened instantly. No hesitation, If I hesitated, I would stay. I folded the list and tucked it into my jacket, right over my heart. Then I stepped into the doorway like I was doing absolutely nothing suspicious.
"Vesta?" I called.
"Yes?" Her voice came back immediately.
I cleared my throat.
"I am, uh… going to check something. Just a quick thing. Guild related, very boring. You would hate it."I said.
Silence.
"Michael." She began.
I froze.
"Yes?"I asked.
"Do not come back bleeding."She said.
That was it, no lecture, no suspicion, just that. My chest tightened painfully.
"I won't." I lied, gently, and slipped out before she could look at me.
The Dungeon swallowed me whole. The air changed the second I crossed the threshold, cooler, heavier, like stone pressing against my lungs. Torches flickered. Footsteps echoed wrong. I adjusted my gloves.
"Okay." I muttered. "Living Statues. Don't provoke, don't get cornered, don't blink."
Easier said than done. By the time I reached the stone corridors, the walls weren't walls anymore. They were shapes. Faces half formed. Limbs frozen mid-motion. Some looked like warriors. Some like priests. Some like they were screaming. I slowed. Heaven's Mortar Dust didn't drop from killing them. It dropped when they broke. I swallowed and stepped forward.
The floor trembled, stone scraped stone and a statue behind me moved. Slow, silent and too close.
"Shit."I whispered.
I spun just as its arm came down. Impact rang through my bones. I rolled, barely, stone fingers smashing where my head had been. Cracks spiderwebbed across its arm.
White dust drifted down. My breath caught.
"There you are."I grinned.
The statue turned fully now, hollow eyes glowing faintly. Another one shifted. Then another. I backed up, heart hammering.
"Easy." I whispered. "Easy. I just need a little."
They advanced, stone against stone. And all I could think was: Vesta's hearth needs this. Her temple won't stand without it. I tightened my grip on my blade.
"Alright." I breathed. "Let's make some dust."
The first statue lunged, not fast, never fast. That was the lie they didn't rush you. They advanced, patient as gravity, certain the end would come. I ducked under a stone arm that would have taken my head off and slammed my shoulder into its torso. Pain shot through me like lightning, stone doesn't give, stone doesn't flinch, but I did. I rolled, came up on one knee, and hacked at the crack I had seen before. My blade rang, sparks flew. The statue staggered half a step. White dust sifted down. My breath hitched. Heaven's Mortar Dust.
"Okay." I whispered. "Okay, okay, don't get greedy."
That's when the others moved. Three, no four. They peeled themselves out of the walls like bad memories. One lost half a face. Another had a broken leg that still worked. Every step they took sounded like a cathedral collapsing. I ran. Not away, through. I slid between two pillars as stone fists smashed together where my chest had been. The impact cracked the floor. Dust exploded into the air, choking and white. I coughed, eyes burning. I slammed my sword into the knee joint of the nearest statue. The crack widened. I kicked it hard—and the leg shattered. The statue fell. When it hit the ground, it broke, the sound wasn't loud. It was final. White powder bloomed outward like ash after a fire.
"Yes-!" I dropped to my knees and scraped the dust into a vial with shaking fingers.
My hands burned, not glowing, just raw and shaking and human. A tremor ran through the Dungeon, I looked up just in time to see a stone foot descending. The foot smashed down where my ribs had been. Stone exploded. Pain screamed up my leg, I bit back a shout and crawled, dragging myself behind a fallen pillar. Blood soaked into my boot.
"Don't pass out." I muttered. "Don't you dare pass out."
One reached out, fingers cracking as it closed its hand around the pillar I was hiding behind. I had one vial of dust.
"Sorry." I whispered, not sure to whom.
I hurled the vial at its face. Glass shattered, white dust burst outward. The statue froze, then its head fractured clean, sharp lines racing through stone like lightning through glass. I limped forward, every step screaming, and harvested what I could quickly, sloppily, hands shaking so badly I nearly spilled half of it.
"Right." I gasped. "Time to go."
I turned and ran. I didn't stop running until the Dungeon spat me back out into daylight. I collapsed against the wall, gasping, shaking, filthy, bleeding, but alive. I pulled the pouch from my jacket and stared at it.
"I got it." I whispered.
My hands trembled, not with power. With exhaustion and with relief, and for the first time since I entered the Dungeon, I was terrified not of dying, but of facing my goddess after surviving.