Zack crawled down a familiar hole toward the gnomish tunnel. Or the dungeon, as he’d taken to calling it these days. He knew life wasn’t a game, but it certainly felt like one with Gia around.

Just like before, the entry tunnel was clean and well-lit, with orange crystals shining from recesses in the ceiling. Footsteps echoed down the corridor to his left, and Daudilus peaked his head through the archway.

“Hey,” Zack said. “Any hostiles?”

Daudilus shook his canine head, but his blue eyes were wide with concern.

“What’s up?” Camille asked as she emerged from the tunnel behind him. She’d come much better prepared than last time, with a proper jacket, pants, and sturdy military-style boots. She even wore a utility belt where she’d fastened the holster for Zack’s handgun.

The husky gestured back with his head, and his fur seemed to bristle with impatience.

“Guess he wants us to follow him.” Zack stepped down the hall, but kept his blade in its sheath for now. Daudilus would sense any danger long before he did.

They passed through the first chamber with the three stone archways and the gnomish control panel. He still didn’t know what to make of that thing, but he planned to test it at some point today. Worst case scenario, he could scrap the whole thing for parts.

Daudilus took a right and trotted straight down the stone staircase.

“Wait.” Camille froze in place “Doesn’t Mr. Troll live that way?”

“Miss Troll,” Zack corrected.

She blinked. “How can you even tell?”

“The males are way bigger. Plus they have manes and tusks.” He gestured to his own face for reference. “We covered this in second-year Biology. Didn’t you get an A in that class?”

“I had Drayton for Biology.” She clutched the straps of her backpack. “We didn’t cover creepy things like trolls.”

“Ah, that’s right. Zack had taken Voss’s class, because he had a whole unit on mana beasts and how to deal with them. Honestly, that should have been required for all high school graduates. What if a troll attacked town someday, and only half the people knew how to respond? But sure, why not dissect a dead fish instead?

Daudilus gave a low, insistent bark from the bottom of the stairs.

“Sorry,” Zack said. “We’re coming.” He turned back to Camille. “Daudilus will stand guard outside the library, then we’ll retreat if he hears the troll.”

Camille still didn’t budge.

“Come on,” he said with an outstretched hand. “The books are the real treasure down here. We always knew we’d come back this way.”

She took his hand with visible reluctance, and they passed through the first stone archway. They moved as a group after that, taking the stairs one at a time, and passing through the longer corridor with the high vaulted ceilings.

Then their path came to an abrupt end.

Zack felt his jaw drop as he stared at the sight. Less than a week ago, this hall had been three times longer, with the library door on their left, and a larger chamber at the far end. Now, a solid stone wall blocked their path, no different from the stone on either side.

His heart beat faster, and his right hand clutched the hilt of his blade. Had someone filled this in? Impossible. This stone looked as old as the surrounding tunnels, a far cry from freshly poured concrete.

But what else could it be? Stone walls didn’t just sprout up like weeds.

Unless it was a door. What if they’d stepped on a pressurized floor tile and triggered a trap? He checked the bottom and sides, but the stone flowed seamlessly from one surface to the next. Zack glanced at Daudilus, and the husky gave him a bored I-told-you-so face.

“Gia?” Zack asked.

[What? Why are you three staring at a stone wall?]

Right. Gia hadn’t seen this tunnel before. At least, not Zack’s version of Gia. Daudilus’s version might have seen it, but he couldn’t reiterate her words.

“This wall wasn’t here before,” he muttered. “The tunnel kept going. There was a library, and a troll . . .”

[Oh.] She sounded genuinely perplexed. [Are you sure? Because this wall looks decades old.]

“You seriously don’t know what happened? You’re always talking about the gnomes.”

[I’m a Gamified Intelligence Assistant,] she reminded him for the hundredth time that week. [Not a historian. I only know what my designers wanted me to know. But here, maybe this will help . . .]

New Quest: The Mysterious Stone Wall.

Gnome commandos have many talents, and they can even play detective when the need arises. Find out what happened to the missing corridor, along with Miss Troll and the lucrative library.

Reward: +0.25 Cognition.

Accept Quest?

Yes / No

Strangely enough, it helped to see the problem written down. Especially with that shiny reward at the bottom—he’d been trying to earn his first cognition points all week.

This book is hosted on another platform. Read the official version and support the author's work.

Zack accepted the quest and turned to the expert. “Any ideas?”

Camille kept staring at the wall, then she ran a confused hand through her auburn hair. “This is literally impossible. Are you sure we didn’t take a wrong turn back there?”

Daudilus shook his head, and Zack grunted his agreement. This tunnel wasn’t that large, or that complicated. Even if they had taken a wrong turn, what was the point of this solid wall? Zack was no architect, but didn’t hallways usually connect multiple rooms?

They stood there for several more seconds, then Zack stepped forward. What if this was a trick or an illusion? He’d never heard of such a thing, but that wasn’t saying much. He’d also never heard of Gia until this week.

He reached out a hand and grazed the stone surface with his fingertips. Then he pressed both palms against the wall and pushed with all his might. It felt as solid as it looked.

Zack closed his fist and knocked on the wall with his knuckles.

“Wait.” Camille stepped forward. “Do that again.” Zack did so, and Camille tapped the wall to her right. “They sound the same.”

“So?”

“They both sound solid,” she clarified. “A hollow wall would sound more resonant, with a higher pitch.”

“Or it’s a really thick wall.” Zack had briefly considered getting a pickaxe or sledgehammer, but that idea sounded less appealing by the second. Breaking through an ordinary wall was bad enough, and this might go more than twelve inches deep.

They backtracked through the corridor, exploring the other tunnels that branched off from the control room. Each one led to an abrupt end.

“This sucks,” Zack muttered as they walked. This place had been a veritable goldmine a few days before, with more books than they could carry out in a single day. Now, they could only access that old control panel, and he’d be lucky to get fifty lorins for that.

Camille cleared her throat as they returned to the main chamber. “I’ve been thinking. Well, Gia’s been thinking, actually—what if no one filled in that tunnel? What if it happened by itself?”

“Gia said that? She told me she didn’t know.”

“That was your Gia. But I’ve been studying gnomish history all week, and my version saw everything I read. That gives her more material to work with.”

Zack really needed to start reading more books. Maybe if he tried, Gia would give him a quest to improve his focus. Speaking of focus . . . he shook his head and forced himself back to the present moment. “That wall looks man-made. How would it sprout up by itself?”

“I’m not sure. But the gnomes weren’t fond of manual labor.”

“I remember. They made friends with the dwarves, and the dwarves helped them build their tunnels.”

“Only at first,” she said with a raised finger. They went their separate ways in the Twilight Era. The dwarves allied with Silvercrest in the war, and the gnomes dug deeper underground.”

“Okay.” Zack furrowed his brow. “How’d they do that?”

She gave a helpless shrug. “Like I said, no one knows. But I’ve read a few rumors. Some people thought they harnessed mana to move stone.”

That sounded more like magic than gnomish engineering. Then again, the gnomes were always blurring the lines between magic and technology. They’d also invented Gia, and she felt like a real mana spirit.

Camille stepped over to the three stone archways by the control panel. Each one lead to a blank stone wall, not unlike the walls that terminated the tunnels. “Looks like the same thing happened over here.”

“No,” Zack said after a short pause. “Those look like doorways, but they can’t be. The mines are beyond that wall. There isn’t room for three more tunnels.”

“Why else would they be here?” she asked. “Decoration?”

“Maybe the gnomes meant to build something, but they never finished it?” Zack stepped over to the control panel and took a closer look. It had a copper-plated surface, with three main sections. The left side housed a series of levers and buttons, with Gnomish labels. A smooth blue circle dominated the center, and the right section had a rotating knob. He pressed a few buttons at random, but nothing happened. He got the same result when he played with the levers and knob.

“Hey, Daudilus?” Zack glanced at the husky over his shoulder. “Go back downstairs and let me know if anything changes.”

Daudilus nodded once before scampering down the stone staircase. Camille wore a skeptical frown, but Zack shrugged as he kept pressing buttons. This panel clearly had no power, but something must have closed those hallways. This was their best lead so far.

[Wait,] Gia said. [I recognize that blue material in the center.]

“Really?” Zack ran his fingers over the circle. Its surface was cold and metallic, but it didn’t respond to his touch.

[It’s all around town,] she continued. [I think it pulls ambient mana from the air.]

“You’re right,” he said after a closer look. “That’s leythium.” Most modern technology relied on mana power, and leythium was a key piece for conducting and converting mana into other forms of energy. But mechanists normally shaped the stuff into antennas or wires; he’d never seen it in a flat circle like this.

Camille leaned forward. “What are you doing?”

“Not sure yet.” He pressed his palm to the flat blue circle, hoping it would pull the mana from his body and power the panel. But once again, nothing happened.

“What if I shot mana from my hand?” he asked Gia. “Could this blow up in my face?”

“Um . . .” Camille took several steps back. “I don’t like the sound of this.”

[Unlikely,] Gia said in a calmer tone.. [You’re only level three. That’s about ninety-seven levels away from making an explosion.]

“Very funny.” Zack took another long look at the panel. The gnomes could have built an antenna to pull the ambient mana from the air, but they’d specifically chosen this shape.

What if it functioned more like a keyhole?

He turned back to Camille. “I’m gonna try the Share technique on the panel. Gia says it’s probably safe.” He’d unlocked the Share technique at level three, and it released a small burst of mana from his hands. The technique was meant to share floating images of his status screen, but it should work for this, too.

[Hold on,] Gia said. [There’s no need for a full technique. I can help you send a smaller burst of mana from your palm.]

“Seriously?” Zacked asked. “Why didn’t you say so before?”

[You didn’t ask.]

Camille groaned. “I can’t wait until we unlock squad chat. These one-sided conversations are getting old”

“Sorry.” Zack spent another minute catching her up on his plan. Camille expressed a few more warnings, but she couldn’t argue with Gia’s logic. The energy had to come from somewhere, and it probably wouldn’t explode unless someone had deliberately rigged a trap.

“Just a small burst,” Zack told Gia as he pressed his palm to the blue circle. “As small as you can make it.”

[Got it. One explosion coming up!]

The pressure built in his hand a second later, then the mana flowed from his body into the leythium circle. A faint glow appeared beneath his palm as the ancient device drank in his power.

Zack pulled his hand back on instinct, and the whole thing hummed with life. A side-panel slid open to reveal a leythium antenna, as thick as his forearm. Mana gathered around the metal like a whirlpool, and the panel glowed even brighter.

Camille grabbed his arm, but her lips curled up at the edges. Daudilus must have heard the commotion, too, because he ran back up the staircase behind them.

New Technique: Activate Device.

Zack blinked at the message in his mind’s eye. “Was that a real technique all along?”

[It is now,] Gia said in a smug tone. [We can always change the name if it becomes more versatile.]

Light flashed at the edge of Zack’s vision, and he glanced up at the three empty archways. He braced himself, expecting the stone to shift aside like a massive door.

Instead, the left wall vanished in midair, revealing a larger cavern beyond. Zack stared through the newly created opening, struggling to make out the details. Chills ran all over his body, from his forearms to the stubble on his chin. HIs heart threw itself against his ribs as he squinted through the silver light.

The light faded to mist around the opening, and green vegetation covered the rough stone walls. The ceiling extended more than a hundred feet in the far. Far too high to fit below the mines.

“That’s impossible,” Camille said in a breathless voice.

Zack couldn’t help but agree. But there it was—a whole underground ecosystem, close enough to touch.

These weren’t just doorways. These were portals.