Chương 17: The Audience in the Crack

The side tunnel narrowed until Meno had to turn his shoulders to keep moving. Black glass scraped his left arm. Red crystals grew from the right wall in brittle fans, bright enough to show every bad angle and useless enough to make the darkness feel intentional. Behind him, the main cavern clicked with alert signals. Morgra voices passed through stone in broken fragments, sharp z sounds, heat pulses, and old words that sounded like they had been forged instead of spoken.

"Okay… this is bad. The dog's gonna find me." Viewers: 31, 608. all enemies??? btw expansion content in starter gear respect the crack Meno lowered chat opacity until the words became less aggressive. He tapped one red crystal with the Tail Spike. The sound came back sharp and empty. The crystal cracked at the tip, shed a few glowing flakes, and gave him nothing. The little noise immediately felt too loud. Outside the tunnel, claws clicked on stone.

A Cinder Hound moved past the entrance, its coal ribs flaring through the crack. The creature lowered its narrow, eyeless head and breathed toward the gap. [Hostile: Cinder Hound | Type: Elemental Beast | Threat:??? | Trait: Scent-Flare] Heat slid through the tunnel. Meno pressed himself flat against the inner wall and held the spike across his chest. His health ticked down from the edge of the flare without the creature even entering the passage. One sniff. Half a health bar.

"That's stupid," he whispered. The hound stayed there, ribs pulsing brighter. Farther down the road, a Morgra clicked twice. The hound lifted its head, answered with a low ember growl, and moved on. Meno waited another ten seconds before breathing normally. Progress in this place came in inches and insults. He crawled deeper. The tunnel bent away from the road and dropped into a sloped shelf of old cooled flow. His boots slid. He caught himself with one hand, and the palm came away hot.

The stone looked solid, but heat pulsed beneath it in slow waves. Every third pulse made his HP flicker. He retreated two steps, waited, counted the glow in the floor seam, and crossed after the pulse dimmed. The tunnel ended at a slit overlooking the main spiral road. Below, a Morgra patrol had stopped at the broken section where his explosion had taken the path out of the wall. Three Glasswalkers stood near the gap, their black-glass limbs angled unnaturally as they studied the damage.

A larger Morgra with a horned mask held one hand over the broken stone. Heat moved from its palm into the fracture and made the shattered edge glow. Meno inspected it. [Hostile: Morgra Rift-Speaker | Type: Elemental Humanoid | Threat:??? | Trait: Glasswake Command]"Bigger one," Meno said.

"Cool. They come in sizes." officer do not sneeze repairing road use spike The Rift-Speaker turned its masked face toward his slit. Meno ducked back. A thin line of molten light cut through the opening and sliced the back wall. The stone hissed where it hit. Heat punched across his cheek. His HP fell to critical without direct contact. He scrambled backward. Too fast. His heel slipped on glassy stone. The Tail Spike clanged against the wall. The tunnel answered with a bright ringing note. The hound outside barked.

Meno ran deeper without knowing where deeper went. The floor dropped. He hit a lower ledge hard, rolled, and slammed shoulder-first into a crystal cluster. The cluster shattered. Heat burst from the broken fans. [Death | Awakened Crystal Heatburst] [Respawn: Ashen Crown Shrine] [Dropped: Broken Loom Peg x1] He woke on shrine stone with his teeth clenched. The dragon's molten eye was open. It watched him from across the cavern with the patience of a volcano seeing a match burn out.

"Exploring," Meno said. The dragon said nothing. died to rock dragon judging go again Getting back to the stairs took longer now. The dragon's eye was still open, the Morgras below hadn't reset, and there was the next bad detail. This story has been taken without authorization. Report any sightings. The destroyed road still smoked. Patrols had shifted. Cinder Hounds moved in pairs now, sniffing side cracks.

Glasswalkers stood at intervals along the road, and the Rift-Speaker remained near the collapsed section, one hand hovering over the broken edge. The whole city had learned. Meno crouched behind a black pillar near the upper road and watched for a full minute. Viewers: 34, 229. At least the views were up. The nearest side passage was too exposed. The old one had been destroyed.

A lower crack sat across the road, three patrol lengths away, behind a line of torch brackets and a heat vent that flared every few seconds. Reaching it meant crossing open stone while??? enemies faced the alert zone. He waited for the hounds to move, but they didn't go far enough. Then the Glasswalkers turned, gave him maybe half a second, and turned back too quickly. The Rift-Speaker lifted its hand, and the broken road brightened. Heat spread through the stone under Meno's boots, not damage yet, just warning.

The mountain itself had routines now. He moved during a torch flare. Five steps. Pause behind a bracket. Three steps. Heat vent pulse. Back foot almost caught the bright seam. He pulled it away before the burn registered. A hound's head snapped up. Meno dropped flat. The hound's ribs flared. Scent-Flare washed across the road, a low wave of heat that painted the stone orange. It passed over him. His HP dropped to a sliver.

He crawled the last two steps into the crack and shoved a bandage against his side as soon as the wall hid him. The bandage worked slowly. Too slowly. He was alive, which counted.

"Burn cone is low," he whispered.

"Can crawl under edge if already prone. Terrible tech." crawl meta bandage at 1 hp this is painful no ore in this hole either I bet The passage behind the crack rose instead of dropping. Meno followed it, one hand on the wall, Tail Spike angled backward to keep it from scraping. The air cooled by maybe two degrees, enough for his HP to stop complaining every breath. The tunnel opened into a small chamber full of old black shelves carved from the stone. Empty shelves.

Dust had gathered in the corners, and three old hooks hung from the ceiling with nothing on them. Meno stared at the room.

"You're kidding." He checked the shelves because pride had already taken worse losses. Nothing. The hooks were hot and useless. The back wall had carved marks, but the Ashen Crown Tail Spike produced no reaction when he held it near them. He pressed, scraped, tapped. Nothing moved. The route had cost a bandage and nearly killed him for an empty closet. A whisper opened at the edge of his vision. [Whisper: Aurelia] You declined my party invite twice, then ignored my email. Seriously? Meno went still.

Chat saw the name before he answered. gf boss rich wife mad girlfriend aggro pvp wife arc Meno's jaw tightened.

"Do not start." He typed back with one hand. [To: Aurelia] Busy. [Whisper: Aurelia] Right. Looking for your next ban, got it. WIFE ROAST gf boss confirmed marry her for gear access she'd buy him a sword A second whisper came before Meno could decide whether blocking her would feel too much like losing. [Whisper: Aurelia] Also, your chat is revolting. Tell them I don't date brokies. Meno's face heated as something clicked in the corridor outside, and he ignored both. [To: Aurelia] Tell yourself whatever helps.

You've been begging me to carry your no-hands whale party nonstop. How much gold did you buy? [Whisper: Aurelia] What?! How dare you! I don't buy gold. I took pity on your useless class, emailed to trade, and your negative karma's literally all you've got. Pathetic. WIFE MAD GF hates us toxic couple stream someone buys gold 4 her 4sure whale cope sewer key hype Meno said aloud, "Stop saying wife." [Whisper: Aurelia] Please do. If I wanted a charity case, my dad owns foundations.

she said dad DAD FLEX cringe alert That one landed clean. Meno's fingers moved before the better part of him got a vote. [To: Aurelia] You're shallow. I wouldn't date you for a steak dinner, and I haven't had steak in months. Your emails go straight to trash. [Whisper: Aurelia] Oh, so you wouldn't date me. Good to know. That really hurts… not. The clicks outside grew louder. Chat spammed harder. STEAK DIFF bro said steak she got rejected by ramen man DIVORCE ARC focus PATROL Meno looked up too late.

A Morgra Glasswalker stood at the chamber entrance. [Hostile: Morgra Glasswalker | Type: Elemental Humanoid | Threat:??? | Trait: Molten Reach] Its arm extended, uncoiling like glowing glass wire across the chamber faster than Meno could lift the Tail Spike, molten fingers brushing his chest.

[Death | Morgra Glasswalker — Molten Reach] [Respawn: Ashen Crown Shrine] [Dropped: Cracked Prayer Bead x1] Meno respawned staring at the shrine ceiling, gave himself three full seconds to hate everything, and then the whisper panel blinked again. [Whisper: Aurelia] Already dead? Impressive. Maybe you can walk my dog on weekends. You'd make more than you do streaming. Chat was already gone. WIFE KILL ASSIST gf boss DPS Aurelia 1 Meno 0 he died typing clipped Meno sat up slowly.

"This is chat's fault." OUR FAULT??? we said patrol He closed Aurelia's whisper panel. Then he closed whispers entirely. [Whispers: Muted]"Chat loses whisper privileges," he said. He lowered chat opacity again until the words became harmless static, which lasted only because he refused to read them. The dragon's eye watched him cross the cavern again.

"Do not," Meno said to it, "start." The dragon exhaled through its nose, and the shrine alcove warmed. The next descent was slower. He avoided the storage closet route. The Glasswalker that killed him had likely joined the search pattern there, and going back for revenge with a non-weapon spike and starter clothes would turn pride into a dropped item. He waited near the upper pillar until the hounds split, then moved along the inside wall, using torch brackets as partial cover. Every enemy remained unreadable.

His level-ups from the explosion had not made him safe. They had made the numbers on his character sheet larger while the world continued using a scale he had no access to. A stray scent pulse still nearly killed him. A reach attack still deleted him. The floor, the crystals, the heat vents, even the road repair ritual was deadly. There was no obvious second ore deposit. The chat had acted like one explosion meant a route. Meno had wanted that too.

A repeatable loop: find ore, hit ore, kill patrol, gain levels, harvest chaos. The mountain refused to arrange itself into content. Most of the walls were plain basalt or glassy flow. Some crystals shattered without value. The veins that glowed brightly enough to matter sat exposed on routes covered by patrols, and Meno had no idea which ones were ore, which were traps, and which were scenery with murder opinions.

He found a low drainage channel behind a collapsed torch line after twenty minutes of waiting and two near-detections. It was barely shoulder-wide. Warm air breathed out of it in slow pulses, carrying the smell of ash and metal. The opening angled downward toward the lower city, away from the main road and away from the storage closet that had just hosted his public divorce. Meno crouched beside it. Viewers: 38, 774. The number made his stomach tighten.

He could feel attention like pressure against the back of his neck, and for once, he refused to look at chat to see what shape it had taken. He entered the drainage channel. The space forced him onto hands and knees. The Tail Spike scraped once; he stopped, angled it flat, and moved slower. Heat pulsed through the floor under his palms, but the rhythm was regular enough to crawl between the worst waves. Behind him, distant Morgra clicks echoed down the main cavern.

The channel bent left into dark red light, so Meno crawled after it, armed with a spike and a level gap large enough to have its own weather.

"New rule," he whispered.

"I only argue with rich people after checking the doorway." The channel tightened around him. A click sounded far ahead, and Meno went still.