The Obsidian Blades pushed forward.

  Though their moods were shaken, their resolve did not falter. Through the Molten Forge, they dodged fireballs and hammer strikes, their reflexes keeping them alive. In the Clockwork Chaos Cavern, they navigated spinning cogs and shifting conveyor belts, keeping their speed just enough to avoid disaster.

  The Arcane Aetherium tested their precision, its anti-magic fields forcing Elias to adapt without spells, while spectral enemies haunted their path. The Magnetic Mayhem Arena threw them into unpredictable chaos, with Calron’s manipulations making every turn a struggle to control.

  And at the end of it all, The Cosmic Convergence awaited.

  They endured Zyrris’ warped battlefield, avoiding distorted gravity wells and spatial anomalies that threatened to rip them from the track entirely. Even with the dungeon throwing everything at them, they finished the race.

  And when they crossed the final checkpoint, the victory felt hollow.

  There was no celebration. No cheers.

  Because the team wasn’t whole.

  Garrick should have been there.

  Instead, there was only silence.

  The gates of Golem’s Gambit rumbled open, releasing the Obsidian Blades back into the cool evening air of Marshalldale.

  Normally, a victorious team would have emerged triumphant, basking in the cheers of the gathered crowd.

  Tonight, however, something was off.

  The spectators had been waiting eagerly, their voices rising in excited anticipation. Many had heard the tales of the Obsidian Blades—their legendary skill, their unshakable confidence.

  The moment the team rolled onto the stone path outside the dungeon, the crowd erupted into cheers and applause.

  But the celebration didn’t last.

  Because something was wrong.

  It took only a few moments for the onlookers to realize what was missing.

  The cheering faded, replaced by an uneasy murmur. Eyes darted over the returning racers, counting.

  One short.

  No one immediately spoke it aloud, but the atmosphere shifted.

  Someone whispered near the back, too low to catch the words.

  Another voice picked up, uncertain, hesitant.

  The excitement drained from the air as the adventurers climbed out of their karts.

  Leon walked ahead with his usual strong posture, but his expression was grim, tired. Elias was silent, his usual frustration replaced with something tightly restrained. Mira looked as though she were listening to the murmurs, but said nothing in return. Lucian kept his head low, his fingers twitching as if resisting the urge to flip a dagger between them just to break the tension.

  None of them addressed the crowd.

  None of them explained.

  They simply walked away.

  The whispers grew louder.

  “Where’s the fifth?”

  “Did someone not finish?”

  “No way… they didn’t—”

  “They lost one.”

  The final statement cut through the rest.

  The truth settled in like a slow, creeping shadow. The crowd didn’t need confirmation. They knew what it meant.

  The Obsidian Blades had gone in as five.

  They had come back as four.

  And even in a world of dungeons and death, there was something deeply unsettling about seeing legends return incomplete.

  The murmurs continued to swell as the adventurers disappeared down the street, leaving only questions behind.

  Deep within the core chamber, Brent felt the shift in the dungeon’s atmosphere. Not a magical shift, but an unspoken weight pressing against his awareness.

  Something had changed.

  The race was over, but the dungeon wasn’t celebrating.

  There was no victorious energy, no post-run adjustments for the next challenge. Instead, there was only silence, heavy and uneasy.

  Emil stood near the control interface, watching the energy fluctuations ripple across the recorded race archives. His brow was furrowed, his usual sharp, analytical gaze even more focused than normal.

  Brent pulsed once. "They finished."

  Emil nodded. "They did."

  Neither spoke for a long moment.

  Finally, Brent shifted his focus toward the recording of The Shifting Spires. The moment where Garrick fell. He had replayed it several times now, watching the malfunction, analyzing the mechanical sequence.

  And yet—nothing.

  The dungeon’s logs registered no failure. No interference. No indication that anything had been wrong.

  And that was the most disturbing part.

  Brent flickered with irritation. “The logs say the system performed as expected.”

  Emil exhaled. “We both know that’s not true.”

  Brent stretched his awareness further, searching for anything out of place. “There has to be something. Some trace of a forced malfunction. The platform dropped early—that doesn’t happen without a cause.”

  Emil folded his arms. “Unless the cause wasn’t registered.”

  Brent hesitated.

  That implication made his core pulse unevenly. The dungeon registers everything. Every shift in stone, every movement in a mechanism—nothing happens without leaving a trace.

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  So if something had happened, and left no record…

  Brent dimmed slightly in thought. “…If it was deliberate, it was subtle.”

  Emil nodded. “Or done by something the dungeon doesn’t register as foreign.”

  Brent’s glow flickered. The words hung in the air.

  Something the dungeon wouldn’t recognize as an outside force.

  Brent didn't say who he was thinking of.

  He didn’t have to.

  Emil’s gaze turned slightly, watching as Brent’s light pulsed with silent realization.

  The dungeon warden finally spoke. “What’s our next step?”

  Brent’s glow brightened, resolute now. “We investigate.”

  His presence spread through the internal archives, his will pressing into every part of the dungeon’s infrastructure.

  If someone tampered with Golem’s Gambit, he would find out.

  No matter what it took.

  Brent pulsed with conviction, his awareness stretching across the dungeon as he sent out the summons.

  One by one, his minions made their way to the designated meeting place—Ignarok’s chamber. It was the only room large enough to accommodate every major construct and servant under his command, especially Ignarok himself, whose massive, molten form couldn’t navigate the narrower corridors of Golem’s Gambit.

  The forge’s red-hot glow bathed the gathering in flickering light. The air was thick with the scent of heated metal, and the rhythmic hammering of distant forge constructs served as an ever-present background noise. The assembled minions—Ferron, Kagejin, Caldron, Zyrris, Shadow, Vulcanis, Mechard, and several lesser dungeon entities—stood in a semi-circle around Ignarok’s towering, lava-wreathed form.

  Brent’s presence manifested above them, his core projection casting a dim blue glow in contrast to the chamber’s fiery light. The usual mechanical hum of the dungeon felt subdued, as if the very walls were waiting to hear what their creator had to say.

  Ferron, ever the first to step up in moments of importance, crossed his arms and looked up at Brent’s projection. “Boss, what’s this about?”

  Brent pulsed before speaking. “One of the adventurers in the last race died.”

  A murmur spread through the gathering. Not from shock, but from confusion. Death was not unheard of in dungeons.

  Brent continued, his voice firm. “It happened in The Shifting Spires. A platform dropped earlier than it should have, and one of the racers fell to their death.”

  Caldron, the construct in charge of Magnetic Mayhem Arena, tilted his heavy iron head. “That shouldn’t be possible. The dungeon’s fail-safes should’ve compensated for a mistimed activation.”

  Kagejin’s silver eyes gleamed as he spoke for the first time. “Unless it wasn’t mistimed.”

  A silence settled over the group.

  Brent pulsed once. “That’s why I’ve called you all here. The logs show no recorded malfunction. The system registers the platform’s movement as normal—as if nothing went wrong.”

  Ignarok rumbled from his perch at the back, his molten form shifting. “A ghost error, then? Something beyond the system’s detection?” His voice was like rolling thunder, slow and powerful.

  Zyrris, the Starbound Arcanist, floated just above the floor, arcane energy pulsing faintly from his starry form. “Or something deliberately hidden from it.”

  Brent dimmed slightly before reaffirming his words. “I don’t have answers yet. But until we know the truth, I am opening an investigation.”

  Another ripple of unease ran through the gathered minions. They were used to clear objectives, to knowing their roles in the dungeon’s hierarchy. But an investigation? That was uncharted territory.

  Ferron’s eyes narrowed. “So, what are we looking for? Sabotage?”

  Brent hesitated for a fraction of a second before answering. “I don’t know yet.”

  It wasn’t entirely a lie, but he couldn’t bring himself to directly accuse anyone. Not yet.

  The minions exchanged uncertain glances. Kagejin looked thoughtful, Caldron’s gears turned in quiet contemplation, and Zyrris radiated an air of curiosity. Ferron, though visibly troubled, remained his usual pragmatic self.

  But through it all, one figure remained completely unshaken.

  Shadow stood near the back of the group, arms crossed, his usual smirk firmly in place. Unlike the others, he wasn’t confused or concerned. He looked bored.

  Then, as Brent finished speaking, Shadow sighed dramatically and took a single step forward.

  “I’ll save you the time,” he said, his tone mockingly casual. “It was me.”

  The entire room froze.

  Brent pulsed sharply. “What?”

  Shadow grinned. “Oh, don’t act so surprised.” He spread his arms. “You knew it was me. You were just too soft to say it.”

  Ferron’s head turned sharply toward him, the weight of his iron frame making the motion sound like shifting plates of armor. “Shadow,” he rumbled. “Tell me you’re joking.”

  Shadow rolled his eyes. “Oh, come on, Ferron. You know me better than that.” He folded his arms, his silver eyes gleaming with defiance. “I did it. I made the race what it should have been.”

  Brent’s glow sharpened. “You killed an adventurer.”

  Shadow let out a mocking laugh. “ Killed? ” He tilted his head. “I didn’t kill him. I simply made the dungeon a real challenge. If he wasn’t good enough to survive, that’s on him. ”

  Mechard’s voice, barely above a whisper, carried a dangerous edge. “You tampered with the dungeon’s safety protocols.”

  Shadow grinned wider. “Oh, please. You call them ‘safety protocols.’ I call them hand-holding. This isn’t some playground, Brent. It’s supposed to be a trial. A test. But instead, you’ve turned it into a festival ride.” He stepped forward, eyes narrowing. “I did what needed to be done.”

  Brent pulsed hot with anger. “You betrayed the dungeon’s purpose.”

  Shadow let out a sharp laugh. “No, I brought it back to what it was supposed to be!” He motioned around at the others. “All of you—you’ve been blind to it. This place isn’t what a dungeon should be! It’s a spectacle. A farce. Adventurers come here to race and laugh and enjoy themselves. They don’t fear it. They don’t respect it.” His silver eyes burned. “But they will now.”

  Silence followed.

  For the first time, Brent didn’t know what to say.

  Shadow’s words stung, not because they were right, but because some part of them felt like they should be.

  Brent had wanted adventurers to respect the challenge of Golem’s Gambit. He had wanted them to feel the rush, the excitement, the stakes.

  But not like this.

  Never like this.

  Shadow smirked, arms still crossed. “Go ahead. Do what you’re going to do. But don’t pretend this wasn’t always going to happen.”

  Brent pulsed once—sharp, forceful.

  “The investigation continues,” he said, voice steady. “And we will deal with you accordingly.”

  Shadow shrugged. “I'm not too worried about it. You never even took the invasion seriously. We could have been completely overrun and destroyed in an instant, and we laughed it off like some kind of joke. The Verdant Depths wouldn't have just let that slide."

  "The who?" Brent asked, a pit forming in the depth's of his metaphorical stomach.

  "The Verdant Depths. A rival dungeon. Someone you should be seriously concerned about. They're an old entity. One that's been here for ages. That incursion was likely just a test to probe out our capabilities. And we didn't even try to retaliate. We just went on our merry way, setting up more races for fun." Shadow seethed as he stared directly at where Brent's dungeon vision hovered in the room.

  "What would you have us do? Attack them back? We're still a new dungeon!" Brent shot back.

  "And now we're one that can be walked on because we just pretend like being attacked never happened. I think it may be time we part ways, Brent," Shadow replied.

  Shock ran through the room yet again. No one saw this coming at all.

  "Can he do that?" Brent asked, turning his vision to Emil.

  "If you allow it. It's not unheard of. But it's very unusual," Emil replied.

  "We need to talk, Shadow."