The ruins swallowed them whole.
One moment they were standing at the edge of the broken arches under the open sky. The next, the stone closed over their heads and the world went dim and echoing. The Glassroot Labyrinth wasn't a dungeon in the way the Echoing Depths had been — it was a grave of commerce, a buried highway that had once carried merchants, guards, families, and hope beneath the dangerous surface world.
Vesna's boots echoed on cracked flagstones. The air was cool and still, heavy with the smell of old dust, dried herbs long turned to powder, and the faint metallic tang of ancient wards that had finally begun to fail. Dead checkpoints lined the wide corridor — stone booths where guards had once collected tolls, their wooden counters now rotted to splinters. Collapsed stalls leaned against the walls like skeletons of old market days, shattered trade sigils still faintly glowing with the remnants of Consensus Weave magic.
Old route markers were baked into the walls — golden threads of light that had once guided caravans safely through the dark. Many were broken now, flickering weakly like dying fireflies. Emergency alcoves had been carved at regular intervals, small fortified rooms built for caravans to shelter in during attacks. Some still held the remains of old supply crates, splintered and empty.
It felt like civilization buried under monster time.
Zzyzx's tendrils were partially extended along Vesna's arms, glowing faintly in the low light. Her voice came soft inside Vesna's head.
This place is sad. It used to be alive. Now it's just… waiting.
Leshwai rode on Vesna's shoulder, ears perked, tiny antlers glowing as he sniffed the air. He made a low, uneasy chirp.
Vesna's hand stayed near her father's dagger. She moved with the quiet efficiency of someone who had once helped run an entire caravan. Her eyes scanned every shadow, every collapsed stall. The guild job had been simple on paper. Investigate the reopened subterranean trade route. Find survivors. Bring back records and a safe route map if possible.
But for Vesna it had become something else the moment she saw her family crest on the parchment.
They explored the upper sections in careful silence. The corridor widened into what must have once been a major trading plaza. Broken lanterns hung from chains. Dust-coated shrines to travel gods stood in niches, their offerings long rotted away. A skeleton wagon lay on its side, wheels still attached but spokes splintered.
Vesna stopped at a collapsed stall that had once sold route tokens. She knelt and brushed dust from a small metal disk half-buried in debris.
Her breath caught.
The token bore her family's merchant crest — the same one stamped on the guild job.
Beside it lay a partial ledger page, the parchment brittle but the ink still legible. A splinter caravan — the one that had broken off during the attack years ago — had passed through Glassroot after the disaster. The entry was dated only weeks after the griffin had taken her.
They had survived.
They had kept moving.
Vesna's hand shook as she traced the faded lines. Her past was no longer myth. It was real. It had direction.
Zzyzx's tendrils tightened gently around her wrist.
Vesna…
Leshwai nuzzled her cheek, soft and worried.
Vesna folded the token and ledger carefully, tucking them inside her cloak with the guild parchment. Her voice was quiet but steady.
"They went east."
She stood up, eyes brighter than they had been in years.
"We're going after them."
The labyrinth stretched deeper ahead, dark and waiting.
But for the first time in a very long time, Vesna wasn't walking into the dark alone.