The entrance to the dungeon yawned before them, a jagged mouth in the hillside. Mist coiled out from the stone steps leading down, as though the world itself was exhaling a warning to turn back. Lokey adjusted the strap of his hammer, glanced at his siblings, and stepped forward first.

  The deeper they descended, the colder the air grew—damp, heavy, pressing against their skin like wet cloth. The walls were slick with moisture, veined with threads of glowing moss that pulsed like faint stars in a black sky. Pale blue fungi clung to corners, casting an otherworldly beauty over the stone, like walking through a dream that had twisted on itself.

  “Creepy,” Artemis muttered, hand resting on the hilt of his blade, the other already twitching with restrained magic.

  “Beautiful,” Hela corrected softly, her eyes lingering on the glow. “It feels… alive down here.”

  Lokey grunted. “Alive and waiting.”

  The first floors tested them, but nothing too dire. Packs of goblins and cave wolves lunged from the shadows, snarls echoing off damp stone. Lokey’s hammer crushed skulls with heavy, bone-snapping blows, each strike sending tremors through the floor. Artemis unleashed fire with reckless abandon, flames painting the moss violent orange as they devoured fur and flesh. Hela calmly called forth skeletons from the earth, her bony soldiers dragging the dead back into her ranks.

  It wasn’t until the fourth floor that the dungeon began to bite back.

  The ground shuddered as a massive cave troll forced its way through a crumbled wall, its bulk nearly scraping the ceiling. Red eyes glowed in the dark; breath steamed like forge smoke.

  Lokey braced his hammer, but the troll’s club slammed into the floor, the shockwave throwing him off balance. Artemis cursed and loosed a fireball; the troll’s thick hide barely smoldered.

  Hela’s voice cut sharp: “Distract it! I’ll weaken its legs!”

  Her undead swarmed forward, clawing at the monster’s knees, buying precious seconds.

  Lokey felt a strange tingling race through his hands. His eyes caught faint lines etched into the surrounding stones—runes, glowing just at the edge of his vision. Instinct took over. He pressed his thumb to the haft of his hammer and carved one in a single motion; the symbol flared faint blue.

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  When he swung next, the hammer struck like thunder. The troll’s knee shattered in a wet crunch, bone fragments spraying. The beast crashed down. Artemis didn’t hesitate—fire roared down its throat, burning it from the inside out. The troll thrashed, screamed, and finally went still.

  Lokey stared at the faint glow still burning on his hammer. “What… was that?”

  “Something new,” Hela said with a smirk. “And powerful. You’ve been holding out on us.”

  “I didn’t mean to,” Lokey muttered, but the flicker of pride in his chest betrayed him.

  Artemis scoffed. “Just don’t start showing off. That was my kill.”

  “Sure it was,” Lokey said with a grin.

  By the eighth floor, the dungeon had shed its beauty and bared its fangs. Webs clung to every surface, thick as rope. The air turned hot, stinking of sulfur. Shadows moved overhead; the skittering of countless legs echoed in the dark.

  “Spiders,” Hela warned.

  “Of course,” Artemis groaned, drawing his blades. “I hate spiders.”

  The swarm fell on them—giant arachnids with fangs like daggers. Lokey smashed one mid-leap, ichor splattering the wall in black ropes. Artemis spun and slashed through two more, but cried out as another sank fangs into his leg. Poison burned through his veins like liquid fire.

  “Artemis!” Hela rushed to him. Without thinking, she pressed her palm to the wound. A white glow spread, searing the venom away. The bite closed as though it had never existed.

  Artemis blinked, stunned. “Since when… can you heal?”

  Hela frowned at her hand like it belonged to someone else. “Since now, I suppose. After punishing the priest.”

  “Remind me never to get on your bad side,” Artemis muttered, before blasting a spider apart with a fireball.

  The floor boss waited deeper in the tunnels: a two-headed hellhound, its snarls rolling ahead like thunder. It lunged with both maws snapping, flames licking from its throats.

  Lokey planted himself between it and his siblings, hammer glowing faintly with rune-work. Hela unleashed her undead wolves; they snarled and clashed with the beast, keeping it pinned while her own hellhounds refused to leave her side. Artemis gathered power, fire swirling in his palms, but the magic threatened to spiral out of control.

  “Artemis!” Lokey barked. “Feel the mana, not just the fire! Guide it!”

  For once, Artemis listened. The flames tightened, focused. When he loosed them, the blast was clean, precise, devastating. One head vanished in a roar of fire. Lokey and Hela pressed the advantage, crushing the beast until it finally fell silent, smoldering in the dark.

  They made camp on the ninth floor, in a hollow where the moss glowed red instead of blue, casting the world in blood-light. The air felt heavier here, thick with centuries.

  Lokey sat with his hammer across his knees, tracing the faint rune still etched into it. “I felt it before it appeared,” he admitted quietly. “The hellhound. Its mana. Like the dungeon itself was warning me.”

  Artemis lay sprawled on his bedroll, arms behind his head. “Sounds like you’re changing too, big brother.”

  Hela looked at him over the glow of the campfire. “Not changing,” she said softly. “Becoming.”

  Lokey didn’t answer, but his grip on the hammer tightened.