The journey back to the Traveler’s room proved twice as hard for a mere party of five.

We conserved our potions, using [Meditation] instead to recover our renewables. The arduous tactic caused us to spend multiple hours crossing a distance of about two kilometers.

We eventually made it to the Traveler’s Room with about six hours to spare before the exit portals opened. Two, if we counted the four hours needed to meditate again.

The endless grinding thankfully hadn’t been for naught. Each of us had gained levels for our struggles. I now sat at a healthy level 23, two up from my fight with the rogues. Nalum had reached level 26, solidifying him within the silver rank. Aman and his brother had risen to levels 22 and 24 respectively.

And, Nicola? She had also cracked level 24. One more, and like Nalum, she would join the hallowed group of silver rankers. She already wrought havoc on the battlefield with [Eldritch Beam] and [Bloom of Crimson Desire]. I couldn’t begin to imagine how another ability would improve her arsenal.

“What is this place?” Aman the Beast Rider asked. He studied the Traveler’s map with a look of wonder on his face.

The grueling hours of fighting as one unit had softened me to his excesses. He was almost amiable now.

“Doesn’t matter,” I said, refreshed and ready to continue. “All that matters is that it can get us to the final chamber.”

“And, you just so happened,” Nalum said, “to find this room lying around, favored one?”

It was standing around, I wanted to say. But—“Someone else found it. I was simply fortunate to run into them.”

Nicola wrinkled her features at my explanation, but I averted her gaze. Circumstances had pushed me into revealing my hand to more people than intended, but I still intended to leave this city without drawing attention to my status.

“Then, it is true what they say about the elves,” Nalum replied with a short bow of his head. “Greatness finds your kind wherever you walk.”

The Dark Elves in Dreadwood didn’t have a lot of greatness going for them, what with their crude huts and lack of water closets. Still, Nalum’s reverence was much better than the scorn I received at the hands of others in the city.

“Why do you do that?” I asked, referring to his mannerisms. “I had assumed that humans in general do not take kindly to elves.”

“Many in the Kingdom do not know better,” Nalum said with a shrug. “They look with disdain on those who are different”—he gestured at himself—“and hide ingrained biases behind long-standing grievances. In Unkulunki, we teach our little ones to recognize the good and evil inherent in each person, regardless of appearance."

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"Including yourself?"

Nalum smiled. “I do not consider myself to be flawless, favored one. And, neither are you. I simply respect your heritage as one of the firstborn sons of Vizhima. It won't stop me from drawing my blade if you wrong me. But, I have no reason to show hostility simply because you exist.”

I mulled over his words, then leaned toward Nicola. “Are you sure you won’t reconsider your decision to abandon the marriage?”

The elbow she subjected me to was not entirely undeserved.

“How do you activate this?” Nicola asked, tracing her fingers across the etched lines of the map.

“I hook it up to mine,” I said. “Watch.”

The Traveler's Map did its thing.

Expanding the Traveler’s Map.

Please, select a destination.

I focused on the dungeon heart.

Destination selected.

Preparing transfer . . .

Transfer completed.

Welcome to the dungeon heart, Traveler. Best of luck.

Don’t say it. Don’t you dare fucking say it!

You’ll need it.

Ugh.

“That’s it?” Nicola asked dubiously.

“Anticlimactic, I know. But, we are now outside the final chamber.”

Nicola glanced at the door. An eerie silence emanated from the area from beyond it. The corridors we’d left earlier had sported a hellish hue, but the lighting here looked even more insidious.

Aman’s next words shattered the silence. “We’re late.”

“Late?” I asked with my eyebrows raised. “How so?”

“Byron’s here.”

Without another word, Nalum strode forward and kicked open the door.

The breath stopped in my throat.

A sheen of fine mist bathed the hallway, stopping just a few inches above the ankle. It helped hide the blood, but not its stench, and that was without accounting for the gore that lined the walls.

Corpses filled the hallway, brutally torn apart by the foes they had been battling. Many of them—rankers . . . no, not rankers . . . people—had died with horrified expressions on their faces.

A horde of Mist Enenra turned to face us as we walked through the door. Most of them dissipated or were in the process of doing so, having accomplished their purpose.

A short distance away from the massacre, at one end of the corridor, a magic barrier changed in real-time from green to blue. And, arrayed in front of it, the members of Red Wyrm waited.

Byron stood in the lead, his horned helmet back on his head. He pulled his axe from out of the chest of the raven-haired woman with a squelch that resounded around the hallway.

The meter above the receptacle dinged.

Loading completed.

Progress until the chamber unlocks: 22/20.

The progress counter ticked upward in real time, changing to 23. The huge double door swung open.

The cold, calculative part of me noted that the three extra deaths had been unnecessary, their sacrifice superfluous. The humane part yelled that none of these people had needed to die just so one man could sate his greed.

Byron’s eyes widened as we entered the hallway from an exit that had formerly been hidden from his vision. Our gazes locked from across the corridor, through the evaporating bodies of the enenras.

A nasty smile curved across his face. The smile of a man who had achieved his desire. The smile of victory.

I didn’t bother with words. I grabbed The Blackreach Dagger and let it do the talking.