Edge awoke sometime later, surrounded by black walls that were slick with moisture and the ever-present musk of mushrooms filling the air.

  After making sure nothing nasty was lurking nearby, he dropped Conceal, made himself breakfast, and rose to his feet. He checked in with Gauge Depth to reassure himself that he was making progress, then resumed his journey. He did his best not to ruminate as he continued crossing the Deep-Gill Grottos, although he was worried about Trapper’s team and the missing members of his crew.

  He tried not to think about it, but being trapped underground for hours on end was starting to get to him. As he walked through cavern after cavern, Edge imagined that he could feel the weight of the bedrock pressing in from all sides.

  All it would take is one little tremor for everything to come crashing down on top of me. He shook his head to dispel the morbid image, reminding himself that these caves had been here for centuries or more and would probably endure long after he was dead.

  Over the next few hours, he followed a winding series of tunnels across the subterranean biome. It was impossible to tell how close he was to the exit—or what time it was, for that matter. It already felt like he’d been stuck here forever, and he suspected that he had only crossed through a slim fraction of the grottos. He did his best to lighten his spirits by fantasizing about all the delicious skills that were certain to be down here, just waiting for him to come along and take a bite.

  Sometime later, he saw light shining from ahead.

  When Edge stepped out of the passage he was following, his eyes widened with surprise. The walls and ceiling opened into a spacious cavern that was home to the densest concentration of fungi he had seen yet. Thousands of mushrooms covered the brown stone walls, filling the cavern with a riot of color. The light was coming from gigantic purple shrooms that were hanging from the ceiling—bright enough that he could make out his surroundings in detail.

  Certain that the grotto was filled with hungry critters, he climbed to the top of a mound of clear crystal, Concealed his presence, then pulled out his spyglass and took a long look around. This must be another sub-biome. One with more competing species than anywhere else I’ve seen. Unlike the other regions he’d passed through, he didn’t spot any beasts other than the salamanders that were the most prolific scavenger in these fungal depths and hundreds of humanoid mushrooms.

  It turned out that the mycanoids were the dominant predator in this sub-biome, which wasn’t a surprise given the sheer volume of shrooms filling the enclosure. What was surprising was how many species were sharing the same space. The cavern featured dozens of branching passageways, through which a constant stream of walking mushrooms emerged. Some of them were fighting, but most were collecting the region’s resources and carrying them out of the cave.

  It reminds me of the watering holes on the Ivory Plains—places where countless beasts converge to harvest what they need to survive. It turned out there were several new species of mycanoids in the cavern, in addition to the two that he had encountered so far. Edge decided that he needed to come up with a more nuanced way of referencing the strange creatures, so he named each type by their prominent features.

  The chainsaw-wielding variants came first, since their crimson tops naturally brought the name redcaps to mind. Next came the shrooms that fired crystal shards from their arms like shotguns, which he decided to call blasters.

  There was a third species with dark brown stalks covered in patches of solid rock. They didn’t seem to have any skill-based attacks, but when he watched them get into a tussle with the blasters, their layers of minerals thickened, which made him hopeful they were using Harden. I think I’ll call them rockies.

  The last variant of mycanoid had white caps, long limbs, and thin stalks the color of ancient ivory. When he observed them battling a group of redcaps for the right to harvest a patch of blue mold, he learned more about their combat style.

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  Their arms split apart into dozens of strands of mycelium, which flew through the air in the blink of an eye. Along the way, they formed razored edges that sliced the redcaps to ribbons within a matter of seconds, although several of them were shredded by chainsaws in the process. After a moment of consideration, he decided to name them slicers.

  That was when he felt something signaling him from inside his core. Foebinder was trying to get his attention, and if what Edge was sensing was correct, Manifest Chain had identified a skill it wanted to devour. The prospect filled him with a surge of excitement, dispelling his lingering unease. In addition to ranking up Harden, I might be able to advance Manifest Chain to rank two while I’m down here.

  Now that he had a better idea of what he was dealing with, all that was left was to pick out a path, cross the cavern, and look for an opportunity to steal some skills along the way. As he got ready to hop down from his perch, he saw something that made his blood run cold.

  A muscular arm was sticking out from a massive mound of mushrooms, along with a lock of bright red hair. Adrenaline surged into his veins as Edge battled the urge to panic, struggling to keep a level head as he crept toward his fallen friend. If I attract the attention of the predators filling this cave, I’ll be swarmed before I can get her out of there.

  Forcing himself to tiptoe between the towering stalks while evading the attention of the warring beasts was one of the hardest things he’d ever done. He was deeply worried that Mel—the guardswoman who had become his friend and maybe more—had been seriously injured or worse. When he spotted an opening, he Shadow Stepped across the chamber while praying the mycanoids wouldn’t notice the mana infusing his skill with all the other magic filling the air.

  When Edge arrived at the fungal grove, he resolidified, then reached out and touched her hand. When he felt her cold, clammy fingers, he thought that Melenia was dead. But after he pulled her out of the mass, she was weak but still breathing. Mushrooms were growing out of her skin, and from the waxen pallor of her cheeks, it was obvious that she had been dosed with at least one type of spore—maybe more.

  He ignited his core, activating Purge Fungal Toxin as he gently touched her face. Mana went streaming out of his reactor, through his hand, and into Mel’s body.

  Edge was forced to cover the woman’s mouth when she started screaming, convulsing as the parasitic growth was consumed by his skill. At the same time, a dark liquid began seeping out from her skin before evaporating beneath Purge’s onslaught.

  An overwhelming tide of relief broke over him when she stopped struggling and the color returned to her cheeks. He picked Mel up and carried her in his arms as he retreated through the tunnel he had explored on the way here—not stopping until he had left the territories of the warring mycanoids.

  Along the way, she opened her eyes—disoriented as her mind processed the fact that she wasn’t alone or in danger anymore. “Relax.” Edge looked down and grinned. “I’m here and you’re safe. Or a great deal safer at any rate. Let’s get the hell out of this cavern, and then you can rest until you feel up to walking on your own.”

  “That was fucking awful,” she replied, smiling although she was still shaking. “Let’s never do it again.” He laughed, fighting back tears as he returned his attention to the terrain ahead.

  A few minutes later, he decided that it was safe enough to take a break. Edge pulled Mel in for a hug, took a bedroll out of his vault and spread it across the floor, then gave her some space to recover. Eventually, she sat up and took a long drink from her canteen. Then she looked at him and asked, “What happened?”

  He explained how he had found her, then Mel told him her story. She had been following someone’s arrows across the tunnels when she was ambushed by a pack of rockies that were using some manner of stealth skill. Instead of killing her outright, they had dosed her with sedative spores and buried her in a mound of fungus—at which point she had blacked out.

  “How did you cure me? I thought you used all your medicinal consumables while you were trapped in the Savage Garden.”

  “I did. I picked up a skill that can counter the shroom’s pathogens from one of the scavengers that live down here. Otherwise, I would have wound up in a similar situation.”

  “That core of yours is really something else. I’m glad you’re on my side.” She rose to her feet, wrapped her arms around him, then kissed him on the lips. “Thanks for the save. It’s nice to have someone I can rely on in a pinch.”

  The gesture caught him by surprise, leaving him momentarily speechless. Melenia laughed at the expression on Edge’s face, then started stretching out to recover from her ordeal. Once she was back in fighting shape, they crept back into the cavern—ready to brave the dangers of the Deep-Gill Depths with a friend at their side.