The first level was almost pleasant.

  The preservation enchantments still functioned here, keeping the air breathable and the bodies intact. Niches carved into the walls held the dessicated dead, arranged in neat rows with nameplates still legible. The magic hummed quietly, a steady pulse that kept decay at bay.

  John's footsteps echoed on stone that had been swept recently. Probably by the undertaker during his maintenance rounds. The lanterns mounted along the walls still glowed, though dimmer than those above.

  John paused at a junction, consulting the undertaker's map. The path ahead split three ways, but only one led down to level two. He traced the route with his finger, committing it to memory.

  He walked for a long time through level one. The mummified corpses began to unnerve him more than he expected. Not because they were dead, but because of how they'd been arranged. Posed. Some sat upright in their niches, hands folded in their laps. Some stood, propped against the back walls, dressed in their finest clothes now stiff with age. It felt wrong, like walking through a museum where the exhibits watched you back with empty eyes.

  John made a beeline for the second level.

  The transition hit him at the stairs. The air grew thinner, harder to breathe, like something was missing. Each breath took more effort than it should.

  The niches here were different than above. More crowded. Bodies stacked two or three deep in spaces meant for one, pressed together by necessity rather than design.

  Moonfang's glow helped push back the shadows. The lanterns on the walls were dim here, their enchantments weak.

  John moved down the center of the passage, keeping the niches in view on both sides. He checked the map again as he walked, getting a sense of just how massive this place was. The passages branched and reconnected, creating a maze of the dead that stretched in every direction. Thousands of bodies. Maybe tens of thousands. The city's history, stacked and stored beneath the earth.

  Moonfang's glow barely pushed back ten feet now. The darkness pressed in from all sides, thick and heavy. The sword's pale light caught movement along the walls, something small and segmented, clinging to the stone.

  A pupa. Just one, watching him pass with eyeless attention.

  Then another.

  John's hand tightened on Moonfang's hilt. They were small, and weren't attacking yet, just observing. The moonstone light kept them at bay, but he could see their webs now—thin strands stretched across the ceiling, glistening with moisture in the dim light.

  John paused before descending further. A thick cluster of webs blocked the path ahead, strands crisscrossing between the walls like a barricade. Old webs, judging by the way they sagged under their own weight.

  He raised Moonfang and cut through them methodically, one careful stroke at a time. The blade sliced easily through the silk, each strand hissing and smoking where the moonstone touched. The webs fell away in dissolving clumps that smoked as they hit the floor.

  Something glinted in the remnants, and John bent down to examine it.

  A sword. Rusted, half-dissolved by acid, but clearly quality work once. The kind a noble's guard would carry. It was stuck in the webbing, surrounded by corroded pieces of armor—a pauldron, part of a breastplate, metal eaten through in places where the acid had done its work.

  Someone had come down here before. They hadn't made it back.

  John looked around more carefully, taking his time to examine the passage. There were other signs too. Scorch marks on the walls where someone had used fire magic against the webs. Deep gouges in the stone where something had clawed desperately, trying to escape. And bones. Small pieces, scattered and half-dissolved, telling their own grim story.

  But the webs themselves were manageable. Not the thick, active nests he'd expected based on the undertaker's warnings. And the pupae he'd seen were small, newly hatched at most.

  The undertaker had been working down here. Keeping the worst of it clear, or at least trying to. John could see evidence of it now that he was looking. Webs cut away recently, pupae crushed against the walls, their bodies already dessicating in the dry air. And in a few places, he saw marks he recognized. Eight-legged tracks in the dust, and small puncture wounds in dead pupae.

  Beatrice had been down here too.

  John continued forward, moving with more confidence now. The undertaker might not be able to keep level four clear, but he'd at least been maintaining this section well enough to make it passable.

  Finally, the stairs to level three waited ahead. No light came from below.

  John descended and the temperature dropped immediately, sudden enough that his breath misted in the air, visible in Moonfang's pale glow. The preservation enchantments were still working here—he could see the faint glow of runes etched into the stone. But something was different about this level.

  John stopped at the first niche he came across. The corpse inside was still intact, still preserved by the magic, but its left hand was missing. A pale shape, segmented and bloated, was working on the corpse's wrist where flesh met bone.

  The pupae didn't flee from Moonfang's light, too focused on its meal.

  John drove Moonfang through it without hesitation. The blade punched through its bloated body and into the stone behind, pinning it in place. The pupa convulsed once, twice, clear fluid bursting from the wound. It kept moving even as it died, kept trying to feed, acid dripping from its circular maw.

  This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

  John pulled the blade free and kept walking, moving deeper into the level.

  He spotted another pupa in the next passage. This one was larger, bloated and nearly the size of John's head, its segmented body stretched and swollen with feeding. It had a smaller pupa pinned beneath it, already half-dissolved, its segments collapsing as acid ate through its body. The larger one didn't stop feeding even as John approached and stabbed it through the head.

  John pulled Moonfang free from the corpse of the larger pupa and kept moving forward. Silk strands stretched across the ceiling now in dense clusters, most were fresh and glistening with moisture, some were old and sagging under their own weight. John ducked under a particularly low section, careful not to let the strands touch his skin.

  He spotted movement in a thick web cluster ahead—three pupae suspended in the silk. They were large, approaching maturity. In the game, players who ignored the pupae always regretted it later.

  John stabbed each one methodically, Moonfang punching through silk and soft flesh with equal ease. Clear fluid dripped from the web, hissing and smoking where it hit stone. Better to deal with them now than face what they'd become.

  The smell changed as he moved deeper. Under the acidic tang of pupa secretions, there was something else now. Rot. Not strong yet, but present and growing. The preservation magic was failing somewhere nearby.

  That's when he saw the figure standing in the passage ahead.

  It was a man. Or had been. Translucent, barely visible except where Moonfang's light caught him. He wore robes from decades past, and his hands were clenched into fists at his sides. His face was twisted with rage, his mouth open in a silent scream.

  He stared at one of the niches. Trembling with fury, screaming at something John couldn't see.

  John consulted the map again, checking his position. The path to level four went straight through this chamber. There was no way around.

  He stepped forward carefully, trying not to make any sound. The ghost didn't react to his presence. His attention was completely consumed by whatever he was seeing in that niche.

  John moved along the wall, trying to stay out of the ghost's direct line of sight. His footsteps were careful, measured, but his foot nudged a loose stone and it scraped along the floor, the sound echoing through the chamber like a bell.

  The ghost's head turned. Slowly. Deliberately.

  His eyes fixed on John, and the temperature dropped. His fists unclenched, fingers spreading like claws.

  Then he attacked.

  The ghost moved incredibly fast. His translucent form blurred as he lunged, spectral hands reaching for John's throat.

  John's unbalanced stats worked in his favor. His reflexes were far too fast for his level, letting him pivot and swing Moonfang before the ghost could connect.

  The blade passed straight through the ghost's torso. Through, not cutting, but the effect was immediate. Where Moonfang touched, the ghost's form rippled violently, like water disturbed by a stone. The spirit recoiled, his scream visible in the way his mouth stretched impossibly wide.

  The ghost glared at John with pure hatred, his face contorting as he screamed in silent rage. His mouth opened even further, the translucent features warping with fury. His form flickered, the details of his robes were blurring at the edges.

  The ghost attacked again, faster this time. Spectral claws raked toward John's face, fingers stretched into talons.

  John ducked, feeling cold wash over him as the attack passed overhead. He brought Moonfang up in a diagonal slash, the blade cutting through the ghost's arm.

  The limb destabilized immediately. The carefully maintained shape of fingers and hand collapsed into a formless blur, writhing and trying to reform.

  The ghost inverted itself, twisting in midair as it lunged at him. John leaned to the side and slashed upward through its stomach. The blade passed through and the ghost's entire form rippled massively, destabilizing. John didn't waste time watching.

  He slashed at it wildly. Again and again, Moonfang cutting through ectoplasm with each swing. Each pass of the blade tore away more definition, more coherence. The robes dissolved into formless mist. The face lost its features gradually, becoming a smooth oval with no eyes, no mouth, no identity. The arms melted back into the torso like wax in a flame.

  The ghost was just a shape now. Vaguely person-sized, but nothing more than that. A blob of cold, angry ectoplasm that couldn't remember what it had been, couldn't hold onto the memory of its own form.

  But the rage remained.

  It lunged one more time, mindless and desperate.

  John drove Moonfang straight through its center.

  The moonstone blade flared bright, and the ghost came apart. Dissolving like fog in sunlight. The temperature rose immediately. The oppressive presence vanished.

  John stood there for a moment, breathing hard. His hands were shaking slightly. From cold or adrenaline, he wasn't sure.

  He looked at the niche the ghost had been staring at. The one that had consumed all of its attention, all of its rage.

  John approached slowly, Moonfang raised and ready.

  Inside were two corpses. One against the back wall. A male, wearing the same robes as the ghost, still preserved by the magic here. The other lay near the front of the niche.

  It was an old woman. Her torso was mostly gone, just ribs and spine and a skull, the rest dissolved away.

  She'd died here. Been killed here.

  Then been eaten while the ghost watched. While he screamed. While he couldn't do anything but rage at the violation happening inches from his own preserved corpse.

  The woman's fingers were still extended toward the man's body. Still reaching. Even in death, even half-dissolved, still trying to touch him one last time.

  And feeding on what remained was the pupa.

  It was massive. Easily twice the size of any John had seen before, bloated beyond recognition. Its segmented body was stretched so tight the chitin looked ready to split. It was wrapped around the corpse, feeding with single-minded dedication.

  John drove Moonfang through it before it could move. The blade punched through its bloated body, and the pupa burst. Clear fluid mixed with partially dissolved flesh sprayed across the niche, hissing and smoking as it hit stone.

  As the pupa died, John noticed something he'd been watching for. Its skin had started to harden in places, darkening to a deep amber color. Chitin plates were forming beneath the soft exterior. The beginning of metamorphosis.

  He'd been killing every pupa he came across for exactly this reason. In the game, players who let them grow learned the hard way what came next.

  John looked at the woman's remains one more time, at her hand still reaching desperately across the gap. His throat tightened. She'd just wanted to visit. To sit with someone she'd loved.

  He moved her arm carefully, shifting what was left until her extended hand finally touched the man's preserved form.

  It wasn't much. Wouldn't change anything. But it felt right.

  He pulled Moonfang free and moved quickly toward the stairs to level four.