Cyril rubbed his chin as he looked down the precipice. He wasn’t sure what he had expected to be at the end of the tunnel, but the city of Beljeza itself hadn’t been his first guess.

During their conversation, the ifrit-woman had ignored his subtle attempts to determine the nature of the temple. She had insinuated that she had been banished below ground as a punishment but refused to elaborate. Finding the entire city here upended his previous assumptions about the Underdark.

Her history lesson had not covered the final days of the city and Anadei’s demise. Somehow, Beljeza had been relocated into the Underdark. Though the ancient city had fallen into ruin, it looked like the natural decay of time opposed to a catastrophic plummet into the depths. It fit into the massive cavern as if it had been built there. Maybe this wasn’t actually Beljeza, and he was leaping to conclusions?

Cyril had never seen a city before. It matched the descriptions he had read in books, stone edifices crammed together into layers of concentric rings. A few larger structures loomed above the rest, though their unfamiliar, blocky architecture made it difficult for him to determine their purpose. A stone wall, about ten paces high, encircled the outskirts of the city; it had collapsed at several points, creating false entrances.

Such a permanent settlement seemed unnatural to him, but he imagined it had some advantages. The river coursing through the city provided a stable water supply and easy transportation in one, breaking off into a series of canals that branched throughout the city like meridians.

In the center of the city stood a palace made of white marble. One of its four spires tilted at a precarious angle, as if a gentle breeze would be enough to topple it, but it was otherwise intact. Never having seen anything quite so luxurious before, he found his horizons broadening. Perhaps the city life wasn’t as foolish as the tribes pretended. In its heyday, Beljeza must have been a splendid sight, far grander than the hovels he’d seen in other desert settlements.

As far as he could tell, none of the creatures below reacted to Flicker’s illumination. Their shapes were difficult to make out from a distance. Sandwyrms aplenty burrowed through the ruins, turning most of the buildings into honeycombs. Beetles scurried and flew about. Those two species were the most numerous by far, but other forms navigated through the ruins as well. Four-legged animals shaped roughly like camels, lanky humanoids with no faces, and a variety of others. All the monsters maintained an uneasy tension, with occasional bursts of violence breaking out at the outskirts of their respective territories.

They all followed a single shared rule: none of them approached the vicinity of the palace.

Cyril stood transfixed for a long time, drinking in the panorama. Rationally, if this was the Great City of Beljeza, it didn’t compare to the sprawling megapolises he’d heard about on some of the more stable continents. The westerners probably would’ve mocked the grandiose title of ‘Great City’ and considered it more of a town. To Cyril, it was one of the most fascinating things he’d ever seen.

I need to get closer, he thought.

The marble of smoke seemed to agree. It hovered a few paces past the ledge, as if urging him to step forward.

For a moment, he felt the call of the void and almost threw himself the hundred paces down. It was possible his Reinforced body could handle the impact, though it was more likely all of his additional Mass would make him land harder than expected. The bigger concern was that every monster in the cavern would immediately swarm him after his descent left a small crater in their midst.

Cyril peered down into the abyss. No obvious handholds or other methods to get down. The stranger who made the tunnel really didn’t concern themself much with those who followed in their footsteps.

Constructing a contraption from earth qi seemed like the most obvious solution. He played with a few ideas in his head. Unfortunately, stone and dirt alone didn’t make for the most flexible of materials, limiting many of his options. His inability to rapidly shape the earth qi into anything more complicated than a block or pillar eliminated most of the others. He could have painted a staircase by hand one layer of stone at a time, but it would take forever.

He kept trying to mentally engineer some sort of ramp out of stone, covered in dirt, so that he could slide down it. Most of his projections ended with him tumbling down the ramp like a buffoon.

In the end, he settled for exercising his willshaping. He externalized a small stream of earth qi and tried to alter it into a rectangle. It would have been easy enough to create a stone block, but he wanted to form them from four minimal lines--one of the rungs of a ladder.

At first, it didn’t go very well. Earth qi was far more obstinate than most. Even Sun qi could be manipulated into specific forms, though it would revert back to flames or pure light unless its boundaries were tightly controlled. He had to coax and wheedle the energy into bending into the proper framework, like attempting to force a stubborn child to listen to reason.

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He lost track of how long it took to form the first rung. It couldn’t have been more than five minutes. Hopefully. The final result was a success, though far from perfect. He attempted to twist and break the ladder and it held strong despite its flaws.

After the first one was completed, the others came much easier. He secured the rectangular frame to the ledge with a generous application of energy. Then, he crouched, gripped it, and set about the next step: growing one identical rung after another out of the first one, earth qi coursing down the stone to form the next step.

Creating a ladder a hundred paces long didn’t drain much of his core, but it did exhaust him mentally. His mind felt as if he had spent all day reading dry scholarly works. Still, there was something about completing a difficult task that felt even more satisfying than more ostentatious displays of power.

The thump from the ladder hitting the ground attracted several monsters in the vicinity. Four of the lanky humanoids gathered at the base of the cliff to investigate. They were grotesque creatures; their skeletal arms dangled well past their knees, and their faces bore no features besides an oversized mouth. They chattered their jaws at one another in some profane language.

One of them began ascending the ladder hesitantly, unsure what to make of the sudden alteration to the landscape. The construct held the monster’s weight without any apparent strain. Now that he had a better look at one of the humanoids up close, he could tell they were about twice the size of a grown man. Despite its emaciated appearance, it had to weigh more than he did. Still, he wasn’t quite sure what infusing so much Mass into his body had done besides make him feel more dense.

After it managed to clamber halfway up, Cyril shrugged and released a Pressure. The column of concentrated gravity struck the humanoid and flung it back down the ladder. It landed with a heavy thump.

One of its brethren scrambled over, chattering in concern. The follow-up Pressure flattened both of them. Annoyingly, neither of them released death energy until a third Cantrip crushed their bones into dust.

The others fled. They had survived the gauntlet of the Underdark long enough to realize when a true monster was in their midst.

Between the two of them, he would acquire enough death energy to bring the Dominion of Gravity to 81/100. And they were loping away at an astonishing speed. He thought about chasing after them, then thought better of it. Plenty of other monsters inhabited the ruins.

The ladder had no difficulty supporting his weight as he tested the first rung. Half-certain it was going to break, he began his descent. The ladder held, and his confidence in his engineering grew. It didn't stop him from continuously reinforcing it with earth qi. Just in case.

After reaching the bottom without incident, he sighed in relief. The base of the cliffs touched down some distance from the city’s entrance. The gateway was a massive arch, unfamiliar runes etched into the frieze. Cyril’s mind instinctively shied away from them after his previous experience, though he was rather curious what ancient motto the city had chosen to display.

Nothing bothered him as he passed through into the city. The earthen ground turned to a road of flagstones. He headed toward the closest large building, an imposing edifice with a colonnade of broken pillars.

As he moved through the street, he noticed a curious sight. The architecture was more varied than he expected. Most of the city looked like it had been dragged down from a normal settlement up on the surface. But here and there, parts of it looked to have fused with the earth--new additions after the city descending into the Underdark? A stone house emerged from the ground like a natural outcropping opposed to a constructed building. Interesting.

Perhaps the humanoids or even the Half-Ascended Wyrm had constructed them in an attempt to mimic the original inhabitants. The alternative was that some of the citizens had continued to survive and build in the city even after it had been banished to the darkness. He wasn’t sure which he found more disturbing.

The marble of smoke wanted to diverge slightly from his path, directing him toward the center of the city. Once he wandered off course, it hovered in place, waiting for him to return to the objective.

The large building turned out to be some sort of combination of an inn and an information center. Its hearth and furniture lay in complete ruins, unsurprisingly. Cyril could have imagined it had once been a bustling hub of activity, now a shadow of a shadow.

A stele in the center of the room grabbed his attention. It was more intact than anything else he had encountered underground. Traces of ancient energy lingered within, though he expected it would not last another hundred years.

The stele turned out to be a map. The rune markings told him nothing, but the creators had included small symbols next to the important buildings. A small bed next to his current building confirmed his suspicions. Next to the palace in the middle of the city was a crown. Another point of interest caught his eye: a nearby building represented by a book. He copied the entire map onto a blank page of Mind Scroll.

Thanking the long-dead creator of the stele for having some hospitality, he left the building and started following the marble of smoke once more. Was it leading him to the palace? Once more, it occurred to him that the ifrit-woman may have misled him.

Not like I have much of a choice either way, he thought. Where else am I supposed to go in this place?

He continued down the street, resisting the urge to investigate the building that looked like it had naturally grown out of the stone. The mystery of the city could wait until he took out the Wyrm.

Just as he was beginning to think about how lucky he was to pass through the city, a half-dozen shadows slipped out from gaps in the buildings around him. The squad of lanky humanoids spread out in a ring, jaws chattering with what looked suspiciously close to laughter. Their level of intelligence was concerningly high--monsters rarely used any sort of tactics, while these ones were as coordinated as bandits.

It looked like the ones from before had brought their friends.