There was a hole that had been dug into the rock, easily identified by the dark spot in the glowing patches of moss. The hole was three meters tall and three meters wide, a perfectly circular entrance into the tunnel complex. It had to have been carved by earth magic.

Though it opened up into a cavern, it was tiny compared to the vast pit behind them. It looked more like an air pocket in the stone, and the light of bioluminescent mosses and fungi sparsely lit the space. Josh could see hints of more cracks and tunnels along the edges, the maze that they had been promised.

“All right,” he said after a moment. “If no one has any better ideas, I'll turn on my aura.”

“It seems the best idea,” Darius agreed.

Ruth grinned. “What's the worst that could happen?”

Mary snorted. “Okay, thanks for that.” She pulled out her guns. “I'm ready, give it a go.”

He gave her a look. “We're not gonna be attacked by monsters just because Ruth said we wouldn't.”

She clicked her guns.

He sighed, then took out his talisman. He had enough spares that he wasn't worried about losing one. He focused on the stone and crushed it. He confirmed that the buff was working and breathed in a meditative trance, topping off his mana.

Then he turned on his Stonesense Aura.

It wasn't as overwhelming this time, as he was prepared for it. Still, suddenly feeling everything within thirty meters in every direction took a moment to get used to. He could feel the huge open pit behind him, and he could feel the winding tunnels through the stone in front of him. It felt like a maze, with dozens of dead-ends and random turns. He assumed that the miners had been following the richest ore veins, and hadn't been worried about efficiency.

They had still missed more than a little, though. Josh couldn't get anything like a specific mass out of his Stonesense, but he could feel thin veins between the tunnel walls, hidden behind the rock. He thought he could sense the strength of the stone, the ripples and striations of centuries, but he wasn't that precise with the metal. He felt the absence of stone, more than anything.

Though the metal did feel different from, say, the open air. That was interesting. Perhaps because metal was conceptually related to stone on a relatively close level? Magic could be like that sometimes, more worried about meaning than physical effects.

He knew it wasn't actually physical, because if it was physical, he would be able to sense the people around him. Their wooden armor, even their very bones, would show up if this sense was like an x-ray. He'd encountered techniques like that, rarely, enhancing physical traits until they seemed magical. But they always had a different feel than actual magic.

Josh opened his eyes. “There's an open pocket above us.” He pointed. “There are no bloodstones there, but it's a hollow in the stone. It might be what we're looking for in general. Something that fell from above and was buried in the battle.”

Darius followed his pointing finger and frowned at the solid stone ceiling. “Is the stone loose there?”

“On the sides, yeah,” Josh said, not lowering his finger. “But it's all relative. We can't dig through with our hands, if that's what you're after.”

Darius heaved a great sigh. “I had hoped that this would be simpler. Still, we came prepared.” He turned to Ruth. “Is it a problem that it's on the ceiling?”

She grinned. “Nope!” She pulled her large fanny pack off, put it on the ground, and started pulling items out.

Josh lowered his hand, then stepped forward to look at what she was doing. She had a few small wooden tablets charged with various runes, glowing almost imperceptibly. He knew that meant she had deactivated them, and she could activate them again from a distance. That was the advantage her Rune Warrior class gave her.

“How thick is the rock ceiling?” she asked.

“It's thin enough for your hammer,” he said. “Too thick for your fists. What are you thinking?”

She looked up at the ceiling again. “I can't hit it with my hammer from this angle. Even if we built a scaffold or a stair or something to get me up there.”

Josh nodded. They had more than enough blueprints in their libraries to do that.

She bit her lip and glanced at him sideways. “I... have an idea. I'm not sure it will work.”

He pointed. “Does it have to do with using that thermite paste?”

She jumped. “You know what that is?”

He chuckled. “Lady, I'm a reclaimer. They call that a hot lockpick.” It wasn't even hard to make, and any magic-type with a fire spell could activate it from a distance.

He wondered if he would eventually be able to make it himself using one of his Crafting classes. Being able to use [Instant Crafting] to create a bunch of thermite out of nowhere would certainly be a trick.

He shook himself out of his thoughts. That was something for later. “Not sure how well it will work on stone, though. I've never tried it.”

She shook her head hurriedly. “No, no! I'm not...” She scrambled to stuff the small tin of paste back in her pack. Josh thought maybe she should be more careful with it. She was literally keeping it right next to her arse. What happened if she sat on it too hard? “It's a rune-chain I've been working on.”

She unrolled a sheaf of paper. It wasn't a true rune-chain, because the power would burn through the paper and render it useless. Still, it worked for taking notes or demonstrating an idea to someone else.

Josh hadn't memorized the runes yet, but he could at least recognize some key features. He tapped the largest rune at the top. “That's the main rune, that dictates most of the rest of the rune-chain.”

She nodded. “That's Vareo—the gravity rune.” She traced the smaller runes that created the circle, like links in a chain. “The rest are the connector runes, like words in a sentence.” She bit her lip. “If I did it right, it should flip the gravity of anyone who uses it.”

“Huh,” he said, for lack of anything better. “So you could walk on the ceiling?”

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“Yeah.” She paused. “In theory. Sometimes things get... weird.”

Mary hadn't put her guns away, but she looked over her shoulder. “Wot you mean by weird?”

Ruth clicked her tongue. “I put it on a box. Thought it would fly up into the air, you know? It flipped over and stuck to the nearest wall.” She flailed her hands in a vague motion. “Other than that, it worked how I thought it should. It changed the direction of down for it. I dropped it again, and it flew off into the Jungle until it ran out of power.” She shrugged. “I haven't had much of a chance to test it more, but I wasn't able to get it to orient sideways again. Now it just inverts, or fails.”

“So you're worried that it might take you in a random direction,” Darius said. He nodded. “That is surprisingly forward-thinking of you.”

Ruth pouted. “What do you mean, surprisingly?”

Josh ignored the byplay. “You have anything to mark the stone?”

She blinked at the sudden change of subject. “Huh? Yeah, sure.” She dug in the pack again, then pulled out an extending rod. She affixed a piece of chalk to the end of it. “Here.”

Josh nodded and used it to mark the ceiling of the tunnel, where he sensed the gap was. It wasn't far to reach. Josh could have put Ruth on his shoulders and she would have been able to do it. But it remained just too far to use a hammer.

At least normally.

“Give me the rune-chain,” he said. “Let me flip.” He collapsed the rod again and handed it to Ruth. “I'm turning off my Aura.” He did so, and a headache he hadn't even noticed started to fade. That could be dangerous. “I have that Break Stone technique, remember.” And he had plans for the extra mana.

Ruth hesitated for a moment, then stepped forward. “All right, hold still.” She carved the rune-chain onto his wooden chest piece quickly. He couldn't tell if she used techniques, but she didn't use [Instant Crafting]. When she was done, she pushed mana into each rune one by one, taking a break a few times to recover her mana.

“All right,” she said finally. “I haven't activated it yet.” The glow had faded to the point that Josh could only see it if he was looking for it. There was just enough mana in the runes to keep them primed, but she would have to put more in when she used her spell. “Tell me when you're ready.”

“Wait, hold on,” Mary said. “You can do that?”

Ruth blinked. “Do what? Activate the rune-chain at a distance?”

“Yeah, that.” Mary crossed her arms over her chest and frowned down at her. “Wot, you can just muck up runes at a distance? Turn them on and off for chuckles?”

Ruth looked at her, confused.

It took Josh a moment to realize what Mary was saying. “She can only do it with runes she infused herself,” he explained. “She has a sympathetic link to them. She can't just activate any runes she sees.”

Mary nodded slowly, while Ruth bit her lip.

“I suspect that can still be used against enemies, however,” Darius mused. “How long will the runes remain 'hers,' so to speak?”

Josh leaned back on his hands. “I dunno. I'm not an expert on runes.” He raised an eyebrow at Ruth. “Oi, maybe you can make some more enchanted gear for us, we can figure it out.” They were coming to the point where they needed enchanted weapons. Monsters were getting stronger.

Ruth didn't seem to notice the jab. “People put their mana into their gear naturally,” she said, mostly to herself. “That's why enchantments fade over time. Without a human refreshing the runes with their own mana, it all leaks out.” She looked up at Darius. “Enchantments fade after a year if they're not touched. So it would take a year at absolute most.”

“No way that it takes a full year,” Josh said with a snort. He'd be surprised if it took eight days.

“Well, we can figure it out.” Ruth smacked his chest, then put her carving tools away. “You're good to go!”

“All right.” Wasting no more time, Josh positioned himself under the spot on the ceiling. “Hit it.”

Ruth snapped her fingers, and the world lurched.

It wasn't as simple as the world flipping. That would imply a sense of motion. Instead, what had been up suddenly became down, with nothing in between. If he did nothing, he would fall straight up into the ceiling, land on his head, and maybe break his neck.

Thankfully, Josh had done something like this before. He had chosen his spot carefully. The second Ruth raised her fingers, he jumped into the air and flipped like a gymnast. It was disorienting, but when the gravity effect took hold, he was able to get his feet under him. He landed solidly on the ceiling, now the floor. He looked up to the floor, now the ceiling, with his friends hanging down like strange bats. They stared at him, surprised by his maneuver.

The tunnel was only about three meters tall, so the others could reach out and touch him if they so chose. He knew this for sure because Mary grinned and reached out to ruffle his hair. He scowled and brushed her away.

“Nice moves!” she said with a laugh. She reached down, looking for something among their equipment. “One sec, lemme toss a hammer up.”

That wouldn't work. At least, Josh didn't think it would. It might depend on exactly what Ruth had written into the rune-chain. Most likely, anything he wasn't wearing would still be subject to normal gravity. It wouldn't be effective breaking the ceiling.

“I have another idea,” he said. He walked over to the chalk marking he had left. He knelt down and placed his hand on the part that he knew was the thinnest bit of the stone. He focused on his [Break Stone] technique from back in Gilroy Crossing. It was a hammer tech, one of a few he had. Obviously, that meant that normally he would need a hammer to use it. The technique showed his arms how to move in the most powerful and effective manner possible.

It was moments like this that he loved magic.

Instead, he said “Hands-Free Crafting.”

A burst of kinetic energy with no source slammed into the stone, leaving a large crack in it. His stamina and mana both went down by a point each. He had plenty more to get this done. As long as the rune-chain didn't run out of Ruth's mana, he could even pause to regenerate his resources.

As it turned out, it only took two more uses of the technique. The stone shattered, and dust and debris fell out, sending his friends down below into a coughing fit. Nothing else happened, which was a disappointment.

He had been hoping for another combat art combing the technique and the spell, like his [Empty Chop] art. Maybe that had to be practiced in real combat before he could earn it. Or not real combat, but some form of combat. Combat classes could learn new abilities in training after all. He made a mental note to talk to Mary about it. They could find rock golems for him to pound on or something.

Once he got Ruth's attention—which took a bit, because of all the dust in the air—he flipped off the ceiling at just the right moment again. He brushed off his clothes and smiled at his friends. “Well, that worked. Anything good?”

As a proof of concept, the whole affair had been a great success. Josh had found a hidden pocket in the stone, some sort of fold or bubble from when the great battle had been rearranging the landscape like mud and clay.

As a treasure hunt, it was... less of a success. It seemed to be a load of trash and junk. Ancient bags of crisps and a dead squirrel. There were some keys and cans, but that wouldn't be worth much as scrap metal. There weren't any electronics, which were the big-ticket items. There weren't even any artifacts of historical significance, which could have been a decent find. The pocket of stone would have preserved clothing, personal items, and those sorts of things that museums in the City liked.

There were no bloodstones either, but they had expected that. Mary still managed to be disappointed.

“All right,” Josh said, clapping his hands together. That stirred up the dust again, and everyone coughed. “We've confirmed that this spell can find pockets in the stone. Now we just have to get down to work!”

Mary wrinkled her nose at him. “What's that supposed to mean?”

He chuckled. “It means digging.”