“Shit,” Fane groaned. Everything hurt.

Blinking, blurry shapes formed jagged edges, and the torn earth around him started to make sense.

“I survived... that's something.”

Grabbing the edge of a nearby boulder, Fane eased himself to his feet, stumbling several steps as his weakened legs found their footing.

To his left, a canyon disappeared into darkness, to his right the cliff-face climbed a hundred meters or so. Ahead, the ledge he had found himself stranded atop snaked precariously against the wall of rock; it wasn’t quite a path, but with care, he could use it as such.

“I guess I’m going that way,” he murmured.

The incline wouldn’t have been so bad in his normal state, but after being thrown around, Fane’s legs were anything but steady.

“Okay,” he reassured himself as he balanced against his shaky steps, his hands low to disperse his weight. “Only a few hundred steps to go.”

Loose rocks slipped beneath his feet, sending Fane grasping for foot and hand holds on several occasions as he struggled up the hazardous path, and within an hour, he had reached the top.

Wiping beads of sweat from his brow, Fane leaned against an outcropping rock that stood above the land and drained the last few sips of water from his canteen.

Dark clouds covered the skies, crackling with thunder, and bolts of purple lightning shot down far across the flat horizon. Chasms tore the land apart in all directions and remnants of battle were strewn across them – creating a hellish picture.

“Hope you two are doing better than me,” Fane sighed as he forced himself back to his feet.

However, there was one glimmer of hope, he realized as he surveyed the land. Corpses. Countless corpses still lay across the broken battlefield. He wouldn’t be able to reach many of them since cuts in the earth now split the land into hundreds of rocky islands.

“One, two, ten, twenty,” Fane counted. “If I survive this, at least I’ll be rich.” He grinned as he waddled over to some nearby bodies.

Ears were the first to enter his sack, since relative to their weight, they would be the most valuable. But Fane made sure to check any adventurers he came across for items, particularly magical ones.

It was a grueling and gruesome task, but it wasn’t above Fane. He knew the reality of surviving this world, having grown up in the slums of Ome.

Occasionally he came across those who clung to life - the redcaps and skull captains were easy enough to put down, but even Fane struggled with fellow adventurers. He wasn’t even sure how he intended to survive this, and there was no way he could carry barely living adventurers along with him; a knife to the heart was mercy.

An entire day went by as Fane followed the isles of rock, forced to take the only direction available to him as he looted everything he could carry. He had hundreds of ears by now, and even a few magical items, though he hadn’t a chance to figure out what they did yet.

Forced to rest under the stars, Fane ate some rations and drank water he had looted from a dead warrior. It was far from a pleasant place to rest, but it appeared relatively safe all things considered. There likely were ways to get to him without flying, but it would require a decent trek up a narrow cliff face.

The next day Fane set out early, with the hope of finding a way across his isolated, rocky isle. The hunt should still have a couple of weeks left. However, a lot had happened with the world event, and who knew how many participants had even survived? He couldn’t rely on its conditions continuing unchanged. And if it were to be ended before his return, his oversized sack of ears would be worthless.

He had almost given up hope when he finally stumbled across a giant boulder cramped between cliff faces. It sat about two meters down from the edge of where Fane stood, with a similar height on the other side.

Fane tilted his head. It was a harrowing sight, and he gritted his teeth as he studied the obstacle. Jumping down there wasn’t a good idea. Even if he didn’t lose his footing in the process, what if he managed to dislodge the rock? If it had sat there a thousand years then he wouldn’t even consider that a prospect, but it hadn’t. It had been there barely a couple of days. Who's to say it wasn't barely hanging on as it is? Ready to fall to the depths with the slightest push.

Fane took a deep breath. He hadn’t seen another way across all day, and he wasn’t sure where else to search, at least not without going down. And he really didn’t want to go down.

Balance, it’s all about balance.

Poised, Fane leaped down, arms extended. His feet clambered on the rock as he landed, and his heart sunk a second later as weightlessness gripped him. The rock slid, then stopped. A sudden jolt shook him, and his arms shot out again, ebbing from side to side, and he fought against his weight to bring balance to his stance. He weaved and his feet shifted to readjust as sweat cascaded down his brow.

Fane exhaled. He was steady.

“I’m still alive,” Fane reminded himself as he gingerly stepped forward. One step, then another, then he burst across the last couple of meters in a flurry, sending himself against the far wall and gripping onto rocky handholds for his life.

Seconds went by as Fane breathed heavily with closed eyes.

He looked up. It was a couple of meters, but the cliff wall was littered with narrow ledges, making for a relatively easy climb up the other side, at least compared to what he had been through so far.

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Rolling over the edge upon reaching the top, Fane took a moment to catch his breath as he looked up at the dark, thunderous sky.

“Are the barrens now cursed to endless storms now, too?” He wondered, though his thoughts didn’t linger long as he pulled himself upright.

More corpses, Fane shrugged.

Fane’s brows bounced excitedly as he noticed a particularly large mound of corpses and bounded over to them.

It was the drained bodies of the cyclops and the minotaur, surrounded by both redcaps and adventurers alike.

Fane wasted no time gathering ears and checking for magical items. His eyes lit up as he spotted a rather ornate-looking silver dagger sheathed at the waist of one adventurer. As soon as he held it, a shimmer of blue ran across it. Clearly magical, not that he needed the blue shimmer to know that, as the mana seeping from it was obvious even to one as completely void of the arcane as Fane. But this dagger wasn’t just any old magical dagger, he knew. This was something special.

“What a beauty you are,” Fane murmured as he ran his fingers along the delicately designed pommel depicting a serpent's head.

Eyeing the heads of the cyclops and minotaur, then the dagger, Fane shrugged. May as well try it out now. Whilst they were dead, and drained by whatever those chains were, Fane was still surprised at how the dagger cut through the tough, leathery skin like butter.

“Yeah, I think I like you.” His smile reflected from the shimmering silver blade as he glared upon it.

Soon Fane found himself ignoring items he would have once begged for. His pack was full, and he had taken two additional ones from the dead and filled them too. Now he hobbled along the broken ground like a pack horse, but if he got back to Caedstad, it would all be worth it.

At night he greedily hugged his packs, waking at the slightest of noises and struggling to fall back to sleep. At first dawn, he was up again, marching in the direction he believed was right.

Maps weren’t hard to come by, as many were held amongst the dead. But he wasn’t particularly good at reading them. Dordan had led them within the Clain, and Iliana did everywhere outside of it. Whilst Fane had been purely combat-orientated.

“Gods don’t be cruel to me now,” Fane muttered as he exhaustively trudged on. His feet were calloused and blistered, and every step burnt with agony. His throat was dry, regardless of how many waterskins he drained. His muscles had long stiffened past the point of feeling. And now he carried on in an almost dreamlike state, staring ahead with little thought.

Hours went by but Fane no longer kept track of how long it had been. However, he did realize that the dry, hard ground had been replaced by a moist, spongy surface.

It took a moment for his eyes to focus, but he realized he stood in some kind of empty lakebed; though it must’ve either lost its water recently or have a source of water.

His eyes narrowed as he searched for water, but the sludgy surface appeared the same in all directions. He had to hope there was more to it and continued marching forward.

A hazy fog crept across the land, but it would take far more than that to scare Fane off. Not after he had snatched life from the jaws of death back in the Clain.

Water.

It was shallow, barely enough to wet the edges of Fane’s boots, despite his thin soles, but it meant he was going in the right direction.

Within minutes he found its source, a passageway, or rather a brick tunnel piercing through the ground with a shallow stream of water flowing from it.

There was no civilization out here in the Clain, everybody knew that. So what was this structure doing here, and why was water flowing from it?

Just about anything was better than remaining where he was, though, and so Fane entered. The passage continued in a straight line for several minutes, before opening up into a larger cavern. From there, several sources of water trickled down into a small reservoir. His surroundings were half cave, half brick as if someone had built around the natural architecture of the cavern to make it fit their purposes.

Smooth rocks provided a path to the upper level, from where the water flowed down, and since there didn’t appear to be any further passages on the lower level, Fane ascended. The climb hardly compared to those he managed at the battle sight, but with his stuffed packs it proved plenty difficult, and in the end, he was forced to make several trips up, carrying one pack at a time.

Beyond the cavern, a bitter, stale scent filled the air. And soon, the clear water was replaced by murky, green sludge.

“This smell,” Fane gasped as he brought a hand up to cover his face. “Why is it familiar? Don’t tell me…”

Fane’s pace quickened, shifting from a walk into a jog.

This was good, very good.

Fane almost had to stop himself from inhaling the putrid fumes as excitement gripped him, he had really made it, there could be no mistaking it. He was in the sewers beneath Caedstad. He had no idea how. There weren’t supposed to be entrances outside of the city, least of all within the Clain itself.

A lot of good those big walls would do if an army of monsters found this, Fane mused. Then again, he hadn’t actually found an entrance to the city. Even if this was a section of sewer, what if it didn’t actually connect to those beneath the city?

As Fane continued to walk, the last remnants of natural cave formations gradually disappeared, replaced only by gloomy, brick walls. The passages seemed endless, and every couple of minutes Fane came across another intersecting tunnel. He had veered off into these new tunnels on multiple occasions, to no discernable change. They too, continued on, with new tunnels cutting through and leading off into the darkness.

Luckily, he had found a glowing sword amongst the dead back in the Clain. It was a cutlass that shone with a bright golden hue, and it had become Fane’s torch in the dark. But light or not, there was no easy way to navigate the sewers, at least not the section he found himself in.

Hours went by as Fane aimlessly marched through the rancid tunnels. Fatigue gnawed at him, but he forced himself on. He was so close, and the Caedstad sewers were hardly the kind of place he wanted to rest.

As he walked, Fane noted a rather short, narrow corridor. Curiously, he strolled down it and found that it came to a halt shortly after. There wasn’t anything particularly special about it, save that the red star of Caedstad had been marked on the brick, just by its entrance.

“This will do nicely,” Fane nodded as he scanned his surroundings. It might not have been special, but it was easily noted. All he had to do was remember which turns he took from now. Which he would write down. Then, when he was ready, he could return for his things.

Nooks ran along the walls, and Fane managed to squeeze his packs into a few of the larger ones.

It had been days of lugging the overfilled packs, and Fane felt immediately refreshed once he was free of them, bouncing on his heels.

“That’s better,” He smirked, pirouetting back towards the entrance.

Hours later, Fane emerged in a familiar section of the tunnel, glowing cutlass in hand. It was actually set at a higher level than the separated labyrinthian where he hid his loot. Only a thin section of crumbled wall had provided him with the means to escape it. From this side, it would be nearly impossible to find, but in the lower section, when passing it, he had seen something above him, illuminated by the light of his cutlass. Unless you were walking with your torch at your feet, there was no way you would have any reason to suspect that the crack possessed anything at all, let alone an entrance into another section of sewer, one several times the size of what was known to Caedstad.

Fane’s thoughts flickered back to the battlefield. Vultures from across the land would descend on it soon, but if he were quick, perhaps he could go back again. With his unique knowledge of this passage, who knew how much loot he might be able to haul?

Fane strummed his fingers against themselves. Images of wealth and power flicked through his imagination. The gods had finally come through for him.