The stone steps sloped sharply downward, surface slick with mud and damp moss. The sort of detail adventurers barely noticed but which dungeons seemed to insist upon. Phosphorescent mushrooms clung stubbornly to the walls, casting just enough light to see by and just enough shadow to make you doubt what you’d seen.

  Markus led the way, his shield strapped to his back, longsword tight in his grip. “Watch your footing,” he said over his shoulder. “Dungeons like this, new ones, always have loose stones and sinkholes. Twist an ankle in the wrong place—”

  “Ah, yes,” Raven said dryly, “because a twisted ankle is what kills people. Forget goblins, slimes, and traps. The real danger is poorly maintained flooring.”

  Markus didn’t miss a beat. “It’s the little things that get you.”

  Behind him, Devon snorted, not looking up from his logbook. “Thank the goddess we brought Markus,” he said, his quill scratching across the page. “Otherwise, who would keep us safe from the horrors of subpar masonry?”

  “Someone’s got to keep you alive,” Markus said, glancing briefly over his shoulder. “And it’s the idiots who underestimate first floors who never make it past them.”

  “I’d take my chances with the floor,” Talia said, tapping the butt of her staff against the stone to knock loose some muck. “At least it’s predictable. Goblins? Less so. But we do remember how to handle a first floor, don’t we?”

  “Clearly,” Raven muttered, slipping into the shadows ahead, her dark leather armor making her blend in with unnerving ease. “Let’s just hope we’re back in time for the Blue Ox’s lamb stew. It’s market day, and you know how Jorgan gets.”

  “You’re really hung up on that stew,” Talia said, adjusting her grip on her staff.

  “It’s the stew,” Raven replied. “The only thing worth eating after a dungeon dive. Don’t mock what you can’t understand.”

  Behind them, Devon and Gray had settled into one of their usual arguments, their voices an undertone of quiet bickering that the rest of the party ignored by unspoken agreement.

  “If we’re quick about the mapping, we can swing by the guild hall on the way back,” Gray said, his tone as serene as ever as he traced a corridor onto his parchment. “It’s not like filing paperwork takes that long.”

  “That’s what you said last time,” Devon shot back, scribbling furiously in his logbook without looking up. “And we ended up standing in line for two hours because you needed to discuss stamp variations with the clerk.”

  “Those stamps were important, Devon.”

  “Important to who?”

  “To everyone,” Gray said, with the serene certainty of someone who believed it entirely.

  Devon shook his head. “You know, for a beast tamer, Gray, you never act all woodsy and mysterious. Might as well be a guild representative.”

  Gray, who had been idly patting his wolf, gave the creature a final scratch behind the ears. “Mystery’s overrated.”

  The wolf huffed.

  Devon groaned and rolled his eyes. He had just begun his retort when the slime hit the ground ahead of them with an audible squelch. A translucent blob of pale green that might have been threatening if it had any real sense of presence.

  It quivered in place, vibrating with what could have been aggression or simple instability.

  “Careful,” Markus said, steady as ever, though his hand went to his sword. “That thing could—”

  Talia didn’t wait for him to finish. She flicked her staff forward, speaking a brief incantation. A streak of flame shot out, striking the slime squarely in what might have been its center. It let out a wet, almost offended hiss before dissolving into an acrid-smelling puddle.

  Devon barely glanced up from his logbook. “First-floor bingo,” he said cheerily, scratching a note onto the page. “Slime in the first corridor.”

  Talia nudged the remains with the toe of her boot, then wiped it against a patch of dry stone. “The guild manual says slimes in this region are supposed to be gray, not green,” she said. “Someone should log the variance.”

  “Maybe the slime didn’t read the manual?” Raven chuckled, stepping neatly around the mess.

  “Slime color matters,” Devon replied without looking up. “Dungeons follow patterns. It’s all about the details.”

  Markus gave a faint snort but didn’t take his eyes off the corridor ahead. “Patterns or not, it’s the predictable things that get you killed. People stop paying attention. That’s when mistakes happen.”

  “Right, right,” Devon said, waving him off. “We’ll be sure to treat every puddle of green goo like it’s the harbinger of our untimely demise.”

  Talia chuckled under her breath, but Markus didn’t waver. “Every veteran has a story about a first-floor slime taking someone out,” he said. “Routine makes people sloppy.”

  They moved deeper, the glow of the mushrooms casting shifting shadows along the stone. The air cooled as they descended, damp and thick, carrying the stale scent of something that had settled before it had fully formed.

  Gray tapped a quill against his map. “Anyone else noticing something off about these mushrooms?”

  “They’re forming a pattern,” Devon murmured, already jotting something down. He traced a spiral in his notes, brow furrowing slightly. “That’s... new.”

  “New isn’t bad,” Raven said, though her fingers rested on the hilt of her dagger as she moved. “Just means the dungeon has personality.”

  “Personality is fine,” Markus said, resting his hand lightly on his sword. “As long as it’s not the kind that tries to kill us.”

  They rounded the next bend, and the passage widened.

  The air shifted.

  Then, from the edge of the gloom, something moved.

  Talia was the first to react. Her staff flared, a quick pulse of fire streaking outward. The creature barely had time to register the attack before it burst apart, scattering fibrous remains across the stone. A faint, rotting scent followed in its wake.

  She exhaled and shook out her sleeve. “Write that one down,” she said, glancing at Devon. “Mobile mushrooms aren’t unusual, but that one was faster than it should’ve been.”

  Devon didn’t hesitate, already flipping to a fresh page. “Aggressive behavior near the entrance,” he muttered. “That’s not standard. Could mean something deeper is—”

  “Less logging, more moving,” Raven interrupted. She wasn’t quite tense, but there was a new edge to her focus. “Whatever’s ahead, I’d rather get back to town, the ste–”

  Markus cut her off. “Yes, yes, Raven. The stew. We'll make sure you eat well tonight. All we need to do is map the first floor, clear the boss–”

  Raven interrupted him right back. “And loot the place, of course.”

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  “Of course.”

  They pressed forward. The deeper they went, the heavier the air became. Not the oppressive weight of something lurking, but the kind of stillness that suggested the dungeon had decided to be still.

  Gray, normally indifferent to minor shifts in atmosphere, kept glancing toward the walls, his mouth pressed into a thin line.

  Then, from the back of the group, Marielle murmured, “Something’s wrong.”

  Markus didn’t break stride. “Wrong how?”

  She hesitated, fingers brushing against the holy symbol at her waist. “Not dangerous,” she admitted. “Not yet. Just... off.”

  Markus’s expression hardened slightly, but he only nodded. “Keep moving. Stay sharp.”

  They moved in careful silence.

  Then the first signs of goblins appeared.

  Scratches on the walls. Debris scattered along the edges of the path. The lingering scent of smoke.

  It should have been routine.

  And yet.

  Raven was the first to notice them.

  Not attacking. Not hiding.

  Watching.

  A goblin stood at the edge of a side passage, eyes locked on them, its posture unreadable.

  Raven barely had time to process it before it slipped back into the shadows.

  Then another appeared.

  Then another.

  No war cries. No rushing feet. Just the quiet, deliberate weight of unseen eyes.

  “This isn’t normal,” Raven muttered. Her grip on her dagger was light, but her fingers had curled just a little tighter. “Goblins don’t just watch.”

  The deeper they went, the more the usual signs of goblin infestation surfaced. Crude carvings scratched into the walls, scattered refuse, the lingering scent of old smoke.

  And then there was the mud.

  It had started as an inconvenience. A little extra effort with each step, the occasional squelch that announced their presence far too clearly. But as they pressed forward, the mud deepened. It clung, thick and heavy, dragging at their boots like a thing with opinions.

  Talia frowned, tapping her quill against her map. “Is it just me, or is there… more mud than usual?”

  Devon lifted a foot experimentally. A stubborn strand of sludge stretched between his boot and the ground, fighting separation like an old lover unwilling to let go. He made a face. “I hate mud. It’s sticky.”

  “That’s mud for you,” Talia said, rapping her staff against the stone to shake some of it loose. “It’s not supposed to be convenient.”

  “And it’s slippery too,” he added, his frustration mounting as he tried to scrape it off against the edge of a rock. “Why is there so much of it?”

  “Maybe it’s a trap,” Raven said. Her voice had settled into something lower, something measured. Her eyes scanned the corridor ahead, watching the places where the torchlight didn’t quite reach. “Could be they’re trying to slow us down.”

  “If they wanted to slow us down,” Markus said, as steady as ever, “they’d need more than mud.”

  “Speak for yourself,” Devon muttered, still trying to free his boot from what was now definitely an enemy combatant. “This stuff is practically glue.”

  “Stay sharp,” Markus cut in. He gestured forward, where the corridor widened. “The boss chamber should be close.”

  The mud only got worse. It pooled in uneven patches, streaked the walls where hands, or claws, had smeared it, thickened until it was impossible to step without feeling held.

  Then the goblins started appearing.

  Not rushing. Not attacking.

  Watching.

  The first one barely registered. Just a shadow at the edge of Raven’s vision, a squat figure lingering at the corridor’s edge.

  She raised a hand, signaling the others. “Goblin,” she murmured.

  Markus lifted his shield, gaze locking ahead. “Where?”

  “Gone now.” Raven’s eyes scanned the gloom, sharp and searching. “It was just… standing there. Watching.”

  Talia glanced around, shifting her grip on her staff. “Goblins don’t do that. They scream. Or charge. Or run. They don’t stare.”

  They pressed forward. Another goblin appeared. This one directly in the center of the corridor. It locked eyes with them, still and silent.

  Then it stepped backward into the shadows.

  Then another.

  And another.

  “They’re everywhere,” Talia whispered.

  “Why aren’t they attacking?” Devon asked and, for once, there was no humor in it.

  He exhaled, closing his logbook with an audible snap. His earlier confidence had dulled into something quieter. “Maybe they’re sizing us up. Or waiting.”

  Markus didn’t hesitate. “Stay together. No one moves unless I say.”

  The goblins didn’t attack.

  They didn’t run.

  They just… existed.

  Always just out of reach, slipping between patches of darkness, their presence a quiet, deliberate thing.

  The stillness settled, thick and pressing.

  Marielle, who rarely spoke without reason, tightened her grip on her holy symbol. “This isn’t right,” she murmured. “There’s something else here.”

  No one argued.

  The corridor ended abruptly, spilling into a wide chamber where the air felt wrong.

  Weapons came up.

  The space had all the usual hallmarks of a goblin lair. Uneven stone, damp furs clinging to the walls, barricades made from bones and scrap wood, the kind of crude ingenuity that only barely held itself together.

  And yet.

  Something was off.

  The air carried more than just the usual stink of mildew and rot. It pressed against their skin, a weight they couldn’t quite name. Not enough to choke. Just enough to make every step feel a little harder, a little more deliberate.

  Talia exhaled slowly, fingers flexing around her staff. “Then what is it?” she asked, quieter now.

  No one answered.

  The silence stretched.

  Then Raven’s voice, low and controlled:

  “Up ahead. There’s something.”

  At first, it barely registered. The faint blue glow of the mushrooms distorted its outline, bending the shadows around it.

  But as they moved closer, the shape came into focus.

  Near the far wall, standing motionless, was a figure.

  A skeletal form wrapped in pale, flickering light. The faint shimmer of its bones caught the glow from the chamber, and twin pinpricks of blue flame burned steadily in its sockets.

  It didn’t move. It didn’t speak.

  But the weight of it filled the room, the kind of presence that turned silence into something else.

  The adventurers stopped as one.

  Marielle’s fingers clenched around her holy symbol. “By all the gods… that’s a lich.”

  The words landed heavily, breaking something unspoken.

  Raven’s dagger was already in her hand, her knuckles white against the hilt. “That’s impossible,” she said quietly. “A lich on the first floor? That doesn’t happen.”

  “Well,” Devon muttered, his voice lower than before. “It’s happening now.”

  Markus adjusted his grip on his sword, his expression unreadable. “No one acts without my signal.”

  Talia’s fingers twitched where they hovered at her side, instinct already drawing on the shape of a spell. “It hasn’t attacked yet.”

  “Yet,” Raven echoed.

  Marielle’s holy symbol pulsed faintly in her grip, its light steady but dim. “We need to leave,” she said, her voice firmer now. “Whatever this is… we’re not prepared.”

  But even as she spoke, they all knew the truth.

  There was no way back.

  The polished stone behind them stretched long and empty, a corridor that had led them here and would not easily let them return. Not with a Lich casting spells at them.

  The lich tilted its head slightly, the motion slow, deliberate.

  Markus exhaled, voice low and measured. “It knows we’re trapped.”

  You.