By the time the last crate disappeared into the Item Box, the sun had already begun its slow descent behind the hills. Amy didn't linger. She drove the Midnight Lynx — her grandmother's old Terra X8 — down the winding rural roads with practiced ease, following muscle memory more than navigation. The house stood just as she'd left it: quiet, untouched, shrouded in the scent of pine and time. She parked beneath the carport, transferred the last few items with care, then opened the garage with a worn palm-swipe. The Lilac Ghost waited inside — clean, charged, and exactly where she'd stored it days ago. Sleeker, smaller, and far less conspicuous than the Lynx. Perfect for city driving. She slipped into the driver's seat, tapped the ignition, and the familiar hum of graphene coils whispered to life.
An hour later, she was back at her apartment.
She didn't bother unpacking — just set the security, darkened the windows, and let herself fall into a shallow sleep. Tomorrow, she'd move onto the next phase. The urban district. The one everyone had forgotten. The one where it all began.
…
The moment Amy stepped out of her car; she felt the silence.
It wasn't just the absence of people or the hush of wind rolling down gutted alleyways — it was deeper than that. The kind of silence that settled into the bones of a place and never left. It never got a name. Just plans, promises, and polished stone — a district built for wonder, where tourists would stroll through sunlit courtyards, sip drinks beneath glass canopies, and lose themselves in nightly performances under open skies. It was meant to shine. But now?
Now it was just a skeleton of a borough, bones stripped of flesh, and something far worse waiting beneath.
Amy tightened her coat, eyes sweeping the fractured sidewalks, half-toppled signs, and buildings that leaned just slightly too far to one side — like they were trying to whisper a warning. She had reviewed the deed a dozen times. Nyxara had left it to her, buried within the will, almost like an afterthought. On paper, it was useless: a condemned block of urban sprawl no developer had ever managed to touch.
"Too volatile to touch," her grandmother had scribbled on the margin of the zoning survey. "Let someone else take the credit."
But Amy knew the truth — not of what it was, but of what it would become. Because she remembered a future no one else had lived yet.
This was the first urban dungeon — the moment the apocalypse stopped being a creeping shadow in the wilderness and punched a hole through civilization's spine.
In her original life, no one noticed the moment it changed. The district had already fallen by then — a failed project, abandoned before its grand opening, its foundations buckling in slow, silent protest. People assumed it was just another casualty of poor planning and shifting ground. But sometime later — long after the government had fractured and help stopped coming — a dungeon had taken root here. Not all at once. It didn't erupt or announce itself. It bled in, quietly. By the time anyone discovered it, the dungeon had already fused with the ruins, anchored to something deep beneath — a broken leyline or worse. No one could say when the breach happened. Only that it had, and that this place was no longer just dead concrete. It was feeding. Growing. Waiting.
A tragedy, yes — but not just that.
It had become something else. Something buried deep beneath the concrete and rebar, beneath the silence and the dust. She had walked these streets before — not as they were now, but as they would be. She remembered the weight of days spent fighting to survive in its shadow. The scars it left. The strength it gave her.
And it would return. She could feel it — rising, unseen, just beneath the surface.
That's why she was here.
Amy turned down one of the narrower streets and stepped into what had once been a pedestrian marketplace. The cobblestone beneath her cracked slightly, and she paused, crouching. The geological reports matched. The foundation of this entire borough had been slowly sinking since the day it was built. Fault lines had shifted beneath, and when combined with negligent zoning codes and underground tunnel systems abandoned since the Civil Era, it was only a matter of time before something gave.
In her future, the dungeon that appeared here hadn't caused the collapse. It had claimed it. Healed it.
3The core itself had latched onto the leyline rupture at the very center of the ward and began stabilizing it outward like roots clinging to a dying tree.
If she sealed this entire district now — before the awakening — she could own it. Not just the buildings. The dungeon itself. She wouldn't need to fight for control like the mercenary guilds had the first time. Wouldn't need to compete in a bloodbath against scavengers and warlords. She could keep it secret. Tame it quietly.
Use it.
She stopped in front of a half-fallen statue — one of the old district markers. Burned paint still clung to it. "Theater District," it read, though the last few letters had been vandalized into unreadable shapes.
'Theater... fitting,' she thought. 'This entire city is a stage. Everyone playing parts they don't know they were given.'
Amy stepped back, pulled out her tablet, and opened the architectural blueprints. Then the geological report. Then Nyxara's old zoning overlay — a tool tucked deep in her archives, probably meant for some long-forgotten development pitch.
A note flickered in the corner. Just an old annotation:
"Always assume someone's watching. Design accordingly."
Amy exhaled a short breath, something between amusement and ache.
She doubted her grandmother ever imagined what this place would become — but somehow, the words still fit.
She activated the holo-call and tapped Lumi's name.
"Hey," Lumi answered, a bit breathless. "I thought you were off-grid today. Everything okay?"
Amy hesitated just long enough for concern to bloom. "Yeah. Sorry. I just… need a favor."
"Okay," Lumi said without missing a beat. "What do you need?"
"A contractor. Someone fast. Discreet. Someone who won't ask too many questions and can reinforce perimeter walls with seismic stabilization."
Lumi let out a low whistle. "That's not a favor, Amy — that's a classified project. Planning a fortress or something?"
Amy gave a soft huff of a laugh. "Call it a long-term investment." She turned to glance at the skyline — the abandoned towers jagged against the afternoon haze. "The ground's unstable. I want the whole area sealed off before anyone else pokes around."
Lumi went quiet for a second. "…You're serious?"
"It's an entire district," Amy admitted. "I'll send you the zoning ID. Think you can find someone who won't leak the specs to whatever's left of the government?"
"Give me an hour," Lumi said, no hesitation this time.
"Thanks, Lumi."
"Anytime, Ames."
Amy ended the call, then opened the message Lumi had already forwarded. Zencore Structural Solutions. Mid-tier on paper — but Lumi had flagged them as family-trusted. Loyal. Quiet.
The negotiation didn't take long. Money talked. Especially when it came from an Elaris.
By sundown, she had a temporary team ready to move within 24 hours. She'd be on-site to oversee it herself. Her instructions were simple: build a perimeter wall, reinforce the foundations, and construct a vaulted steel gate at the center street — a gateway that would be locked by biometric access. Her biometrics.
Only she would open the gate.
Only she would enter when the dungeon awoke.
She stood there for a long time after the last call ended, tablet dimming in her hand. The wind blew through the empty street like a whisper of what was to come.
This was it — the first seed.
Not a building. Not a wall.
But a kingdom buried in time, being reclaimed one secret at a time.
Amy looked up toward the sky. For a moment, she imagined the dungeon core glowing beneath her feet, pulsing like a heartbeat, waiting for the right moment to wake.
Not this time.
This time, it would wake for her.