In the airy cavern that miners used as a common mess, Samy lounged on a rough-hewn stone bench, chewing on a stick of sugarroot, one booted foot propped up on the seat like she owned it. Snuffly napped next to her, his belly slowly rising and falling in time with his tongue flicking in and out.

"Well, well," she drawled, the sugarroot bobbing across her teeth with each word. "Miss bookworm finally grew some legs! You ditching ink stains for dirt stains, surface girl?"

Menna dropped her satchel onto the bench. "I need your help."

"Hmmm…" the fire-runner gave her a slow once-over. "You're not limping. You look like you've been eating enough. This sounds less like a cry for help and more like you're pretty desperate?"

"I'm looking for a way into some really old, forgotten tunnels," Menna said. "Following ancient cargo routes. Maybe even pre-Deepway era."

Samy scoffed. "You do realize that's a job for the Deepguard, yeah? Sounds more like crypt-delver suicide bait."

"Well, we've got a Deepguard. Remember Commander Vazko?"

Vazko stepped out of the shadows, Samy didn't seem too surprised to see him.

"A pleasure as always, your Commandership," she nodded, chomping down on the stick even more vigorously.

Menna pulled out a folded sheet of parchment. It was a crude map patched together from the records Auren had handed her, dotted with placenames that hadn't been used in centuries.

"This junction," she said, tapping symbols for 'connection' and 'transfer' at a point between Obsidara and the Silverthread. "I think if we veer off from the regular Deepways here… then we can connect from there to another abandoned tunnel line leading towards the river—"

"—Woah there, let's not get ahead of ourselves!" Samy butted in. "You want a fire-runner to guide you to… water!? Snuffly don't swim, y'know!"

The lizard's big round eyes popped even wider in alarm.

"I need someone who can navigate underground, beyond the cities. Someone who won't balk when the ceiling drips or the air gets stuffy. Last I checked, it's not like you've got 'water-runners' down here."

Samy leaned forward, eyes scanning the map. Her smirk faded.

"You're dead serious."

"I wouldn't be here if I wasn't."

Snuffly raised his head, tongue flicking toward the parchment. A low, rolling purr vibrated from the lizard's throat.

Samy gaze softened as she looked at her mount, then back at Menna. "You're lucky he's taken a shine to ya."

Vazko stepped up behind them. "We just need to get to the last access point. No deeper. Only to the switch... assuming it's still there."

Samy gave him a look, unimpressed as ever.

"You'll be hauling this stuck-up stalagmite with you?"

"Well, he grows on you… over time. Like a stalagmite!" Menna quipped, grinning as Vazko's eyebrow arched higher.

Samy snorted a laugh, nearly dislodging the sugarroot stick from her teeth. "Alright, surface girl. Good thing I like you too. Here's the deal. I'll guide you up to where the tunnels fork, but once we hit the sealed tracks, I'm turning back. If you two want to go nosing around where even the roots don't reach, that's your kind of crazy."

"Deal," Menna cut in before Samy could add more conditions.

"No whining about the dust, the heat or the smells," Samy added. "Basically, no whining."

Menna snuck a glance at Vazko, his expression unchanged. "Works for me… and the stalagmite,"

Samy stood, stretching her back with a crack. She tugged at Snuffly's reins, and the lizard reluctantly rose from the floor and puffed up, like bread baking in an oven.

"Snuffly can walk us through the worst of the gas pockets and steam vents," she muttered. "But if he wants to turn back, we don't push further."

"Understood," Vazko said. "We've been allotted appropriate spelunking equipment. I requested three sets."

"Deepguard issued gear!? Now, that'll be an upgrade for me!" Samy cheered. "Fine, I'll keep you two crazies company until we find this totally easy-to-locate and fun-to-travel-to ancient waypod junction that is definitely still up-and-running. Snuffly and I can be ready to go after breakfast. Your treat. And I'm not asking."

Samy rolled up the parchment and tucked it into her coat. Menna exchanged a look with Vazko, the realization settling in that they really were embarking on this adventure.

Their guide stood up and started heading back to the miners' quarters. "Y'know, I've got the feeling that you two are either chasing ghosts…" she mulled over, "or digging up something too dodgy for even the Deepguard to poke into. Either way, hope you got your goodbyes in."

After a hearty breakfast-more-like-brunch that Samy enthusiastically devoured, then fitting themselves out with the equipment that Samy enthusiastically inspected, they began their descent.

As they delved beyond the regular Deepway tunnels, the air seemed to grow staler with each of Snuffly's steps. Gone were the polished passages and glowing walkways of Obsidara. This was raw Deep—primordial stone scarred by roots, tools and geologic time. Abandoned rails and tracks lay half-buried by rubble, crushed rock, and the occasional dried out mole pie. Each breath puffed dust from their breathing masks, the filtered air tasting of minerals and decay.

Tongue flicking, Snuffly prowled ahead, hissing at any curious scent or trace of arclith.

"He's sensing old shard veins," Samy muttered, running one hand along the tunnel wall. "I bet those haven't been tapped in ages."

They passed a collapsed shaft, half-choked by roots and mounds of dirt dug up by passing wild moles and salamanders. Vazko dropped to one knee and began cutting through the obstructions without a word. At Samy's urging, Snuffly half-heartedly lent him a claw.

"Always nice traveling with a strong, silent type," Samy remarked, trying to sound encouraging.

They passed through two more half-collapsed sections, Vazko and Snuffly doing the bulk of the clearing work.

Then the air started to turn thicker, smoky with notes of rot, tinged with something acrid that sent prickles up their noses.

Snuffly paused mid-step. A deep, nasal whump rumbled from his chest as his frill flared in full for the first time on their journey. He stomped once, then twice.

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Samy shouted. "Back! Now!"

Vazko reacted immediately, unsheathing his blade. Menna stumbled to a halt behind him, clutching her satchel.

Samy knelt beside her mount, petting Snuffly as he scraped a foreclaw against the tunnel floor. A barely perceptible haze wafted in from a crack in the wall.

"Hollow zone," Samy said grimly. "Unsealed gas chamber. The kind they quit mapping before they started taming lizards."

Menna squinted at the wall. Cracked and inactive, the venting glyphs were clogged by years of soot and patina buildup.

"Poisonous?"

"Some. Most just make you light-headed, move slower."

"Aren't there ones that explode?" Vazko asked.

Samy gave him a look. "Those're the fun ones."

She unhooked a resin coil from her satchel, wrapping it tight around the end of her torch. The coil came to life with an arc-spark. It buzzed, flickering in shades of green and blue as the vaporizing resin reacted with the air.

"Stable, but only just. Stay low and follow Snuffly's lead."

The lizard pressed his bulk close to the floor, his frill folding into a protective hood around his head, tail sweeping side to side like a broom clearing away the dust and haze. The three Shy dropped to their knees, crawling forward in a slow crouch behind him.

The gas grew denser, wisps of milky gray steam hissed from the vents along their path. Halfway through the chamber, the air shifted again, the hissing growing louder.

A shadow moved amidst the haze, rippling against the stone. It stretched and slithered across the passage, revealing itself as a sinuous, segmented body, lined by scales and ridged plates. The blind basker paused, its maw a tangle of grasping tendrils and gnashing teeth. It swung in their direction, sensing their presence.

Menna gasped, then choked as the thickening air smothered her breath. The creature's head jerked toward the sound.

For one suspended moment, nothing moved.

Then the basker lunged, jaws fully unhinged. Vazko pushed Menna aside an instant before the creature slammed into the tunnel wall behind them, cracking stone. Snuffly hissed, barreling between them. His frill expanded to its most intimidating pose, his body aglow from the shard in his chest harness.

"Anyone wanna blow stuff up? Now's the time!" Samy yelled.

Vazko rolled to his feet, moving fluidly despite his armor. His blade slashed along the basker's side as it passed him. Sharp steel scraped against the creature's hardened plating, finding purchase under one fin, drawing a viscous fluid that stained the stones as it dripped.

Menna scrambled for her satchel. She pulled out a shard sliver, still holding a trace charge. Her eyes darted toward a broken-down glyph panel embedded in the wall beside the basker.

She hurled the shard at the panel. Light and heat flashed, igniting the gas. The creature reared back, roaring in a frequency too low for them to hear but enough to rattle their bones.

Samy saw their chance. "Drive it toward that side vent!"

Snuffly swept around the creature's flank, swiping at the sides of the basker's belly with his claws. Vazko slashed low, forcing the beast to stumble back into a narrow split in the wall.

Menna pointed out another panel by the gap. "Vazko, there's a vent glyph! Use your shard to set it off!"

He pressed his shard to the glyph, then leaped back and rolled away.

The glyph flared—pent-up gas bursting into a bright, focused flame. Trapped in the vent, the basker thrashed and screamed. The floor beneath it cracked—then collapsed inward with a booming crash.

They were stunned into silence as they watched the basker plunge into the newly formed chasm at their feet.

Menna coughed, then doubled over in a fit of hacking laughs.

"That wasn't… a typical research hazard. Let me just note down how blind baskers respond to exploding arclith gas."

Samy clapped her arm around Menna's shoulders.

"Beats hitting the books, eh?"

The further they travelled, the more the tunnels narrowed, their edges crumbling where support beams had long since given way. Dust hung like soup in the air, stirred by their footsteps and Snuffly's snorts.

Samy paused at a partially collapsed tunnel that veered sharply downward, the path ahead plunging into darkness. "We're not getting through without light—or a bit of help," she muttered, reaching into her belt pouch.

Menna stepped forward, already rummaging through her satchel. "I've got it." She pulled out a shard, passing it over an etched plate set into a crumpled wall overlooking the tunnel. With a low hum, the etchings flared to life, bathing the space in a muted glimmer.

Vazko moved forward, checking for threats. "At least we can see where we're going now. But we still need to shift the rubble." He squared his shoulders, getting ready to haul rocks.

Menna held him back. "No need to shift anything. We can just wake it up."

The charge from her arclith seeped into the rune-plate, dormant shards lighting up one by one—until, with a crackle and a groan, a section of stone retracted. An access hatch slid open, just wide enough for Snuffly to squeeze through.

The lizard gave his closest approximation of a sigh and pushed his way forward.

Samy caught Menna's eye with a grin. "You fancy scholars and your fancy tricks. Never thought I'd be so glad to see a shard used right."

Menna smiled back, already pocketing the dimming crystal. "It's not just about the shard's power, but more knowing where to press."

Snuffly let out a satisfied wurr and stomped through the remaining rubble. His tongue flicked into the air a few times, then he started to trill.

"He's found something," Samy hurried to catch up with her mount.

Buried under the scorched vent-stone lay a metal access panel, its glyphs obscured.

Menna pushed through after them, noting the worn markings etched into the wall: Transfer Dock – Veilshaft – Rift Crossing.

"We're close," she whispered, her voice tight with anticipation.

As she touched her shard to the panel, the gate groaned open. The passage descended into a sunken junction chamber, its curved walls streaked with fungus and mineral deposits.

Docked along one track—draped with layers of dust and lichen—was a pod unlike any they'd seen.

It was roughly spherical, sealed tight, and lacked any external rail attachments or city symbols.

Samy whistled. "That's one funny looking pod."

Menna shook her head. "I don't think it's a Deepway pod. Must be something else entirely."

Snuffly let out a sharp trill, stamping a foot once. Samy nodded.

"He says the line's still warm. Not dead yet. You might just get a ride."

Menna looked to Vazko, then the pod, then back to Samy. "I guess…. This is where our deal ends…"

Samy stepped back to stand by Snuffly. When she spoke, her voice sounded a bit hoarse. "I'll give you three turns of the bell in case you change your mind. If you're not back by then, we won't stick around these tunnels any longer."

"We understand," Menna nodded. But then she found herself running up to the miner and lizard, trying to fit them both into a tight hug. "Thank you, miner girl. And your gallant mount. Here's an extra shard for your trouble."

Samy broke into a huge grin. "So… howzabout you just keep the adventures and shards coming?" she proposed, "This was almost worth all the scares… almost."

The miner winked at Vazko, who offered a small, hesitant wave from where he was standing beside the pod.

"Good luck, surface girl. Hope you catch up to whatever or whoever you're chasing. See you back in the city, or wherever. And tell Vaz-rock to loosen up that armor sometimes, will ya?"

Snuffly started shuffling into a long slow U-turn, gazing at and flicking his tongue out mournfully at Menna as Samy waved them off.

Menna exhausted another charge to revive the pod, or was it more of a transport sphere? Its door dilated open like an iris, the musty air from inside escaping with a soft sigh.

The interior was cramped and cold. No rails underfoot. No command runes, just an arclith socket and two recessed grips flanking a narrow slit of thick glass that likely served as a viewport.

Menna dug through her satchel for a suitable shard and slotted it into the socket.

The pod pulsed, its iris door contracted closed, then it began to roll out of the chamber. Once they moved past the junction switch lock, they could see only darkness out of the slit, but there was a strong feeling of lateral drift. Then came a subtle shift in pressure, like they were breaching a fluid.

The pod's arc-lights dimmed ever further, allowing them to discern a weak, diffuse glow seeping in from the viewport. Aside from that, there was a whole stretch of dense nothing. Then this gave way to layers of what looked like silt, with more and more illumination filtering through from the exterior.

Then one last band of silt and sand was suddenly broken by the warped radiance of refracted light. The pod's motion went smooth, frictionless, as though they were floating.

Beyond the glass of the viewport flowed clear water.

As they realized what they were looking at through the slit, a glint of silver darted into view.

A fish, double the pod's size, swam just outside the curved glass, peering suspiciously at the two wide-eyed Shy within.

"We're under the Silverthread," Menna whispered, awestruck.

"No, not under. We're in it," Vazko pressed his face into the slit, eyes narrowing. "This isn't a waypod…"

"It's more like a… waterpod?" Menna finished his thought. "Hard to tell if these were eventually converted into waypods or the other way around? But the arclith-powered mechanisms to move this through water seem similar enough to what's currently in the Deepways."

As she spoke, something caught her eye—a scrap of parchment, wedged in a seam beside the inner hatch. Curled, yellowed, and damp, it was still legible. She pulled it free.

Menna turned the parchment over. Along the edge was scrawled: Note to self or whoever finds this (hopefully myself or at least someone I know). Slot requires two carat shard, minimum 60 charge level to function, 80 to surface.

Vazko leaned in. "Wait… that's Veyran's handwriting."

The familiar style hit her—clear script, shorthand glyphs with a flourish.

"He made it here," she whispered. "He reached the junction, but did he take a pod from another dock?"

"Sounds a lot like him, alright. But looks like he didn't get to ride the pod up the river," Vazko said grimly. "He wouldn't have had enough charged arclith."

They both gazed out the viewport again. Fronds of gold and green river plants swayed around them like drowned, colorful clouds. The pod glided onward, carried by the river currents.

And the Deep—with its lights, lies, and locked doors—receded behind them.

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