Kai looked at Elara. She gave a small, slow nod. She knew the man was right. The silver-armed guards at the gate weren't going to let a Marked man and a merchant pass just for some gold. They needed an excuse.
"What's the job? Kai asked. He gripped his bowl of thin stew, his knuckles white.
"Level four," the man said. "The main salt vein is choked with Shadow Creepers. They are eating the wall and turning the tunnels into a Void nest. Clear the nest, get your pass, simple."
Kai stood up. He was a head taller than the recruiter. The weight of The Scourge on his back made the floorboards groan.
"Nothing is simple in the world. Where do I sign?"
"The name is Kark," the man said, pointing to a desk in the back of the tavern. "Sign the paper. If you die, the church keeps your gear. If you live, you get the pass and a bag of salt."
Kai walked to the desk and scrawled his name on a piece of dirty parchment. He didn't look back at Miri, as he didn't want to see the fear in her eyes.
He was going into the dark so she could flee to the light.
"I am coming with you," Elara said, standing up. "I have two guards left. They can hold the tunnel entrance while you work. I am not letting my investment go down a hole alone."
Kai looked at her. "It's going to be very hard. Your two guards might not be enough for you."
"I have a lantern to keep them away and a reason to leave this town," Elara snapped. "That's enough."
They left the tavern and walked toward the center of the fortress. There, a massive iron crane sat over a hole in the ground.
The air coming out of the hole in the ground was freezing. It smelled like salt and something rotten.
The workers at the top of the mine were shaking. They were lowering a wooden cage into the dark.
Kai stepped into the cage, followed by Elara and her two nervous guards.
"Wait!" Miri ran toward the cage. She grabbed the iron bars, her small hands red from the cold.
Kai looked down at her. He reached into his waist bag and pulled out his second-to-last glowing stone.
He didn't light it. He just put it in her hand.
"If I am not back by the time the lamps turn on, give that to Elara's guards. They will take you to the gate."
The cage jerked and began to drop. Miri's face grew smaller and smaller as they sank into the earth.
Kai pulled The Scourge from his back. The Fire Mark on his shoulder began to glow, sensing the deep, heavy dark waiting for them below.
The iron cage hit the bottom of the shaft with a bone-jarring rattle. Here, the air was dead; it didn't move.
The only sound was the drip of mineral water hitting the floor and the faint, high-pitched scratching of thousands of tiny legs behind the walls.
Elara's guards stepped out first, their spears shaking. They held up small lanterns fueled by oil.
The light was weak and flickered every time a draft of Void chill blew past.
"The White Halo is everywhere," one guard whispered, pointing his light at the walls.
Huge veins of raw Salt or the White Halo shot through the black rock like frozen lightning.
But the crystals weren't clear. A thick purple slime covered them, dulling the natural shine.
The Void Beasts were digesting the stone, turning the world's shield into food.
Kai stepped out of the cage. He didn't use a lantern. The Fire Mark on his shoulder was already reacting to the Void beasts.
It glowed a low, angry orange through his thick leather cloak, casting long, distorted shadows against the salt veins.
"Listen," Kai said. He held up a hand.
The scratching sound was getting louder. It wasn't coming from the tunnel ahead. It was coming from the ceiling.
He looked up. The ceiling wasn't stone anymore. It was a scarlet of Shadow Creepers.
They were the size of a man's hand, shaped like flat, eyeless crabs made of obsidian. They don't have mouths; they have needle-like proboscises that they push into the salt to suck out the mineral's purity.
"Get back to the cage!" Kai yelled. He didn't have time to be polite.
He grabbed Elara by the collar of her fine coat and shoved her toward the iron bars just as the first wave of Creepers detached from the ceiling like black rain.
The creepers hit the guards' shields with the sound of hailstones. They didn't bite: they began to vibrate.
The high-frequency hum set Kai's teeth on edge and made his ears bleed. They were trying to shatter the armor and the Salt crystals with sound.
Kai drew The Scourge; he didn't swing for a kill yet. He struck the pommel of his sword against his own Fire Mark.
The impact caused a shockwave of Red heat to explode outward. The Creepers near him turned to ash instantly, the smell of burnt hair filling the tunnel.
"They are a swarm!" Elara shouted, firing her crossbow into the black mass.
"You can't kill them all with a sword!"
"I don't need to kill them all," Kai grunted. He felt the hunger in his stomach clawing at him again.
He needed a big fire.
"I just need to burn the Queen. Find the center of the slime."
He charged forward into the black tide. Every time his boots hit ground, Creepers crushed under his weight, leaking a cold, blue fluid that turned the floor into a slippery mess.
The Mark on his shoulder was screaming now, a hot needle of pain that told him the Queen was close and she was hungrily staring at the Spark.
The tunnel opened into a wide cavern. The walls here were thick with the White Halo, but the crystals were cracked.
In the center of the room sat a mound of purple flesh the size of an ox. It pulsed like a real heart.
This was the Queen.