Chapter 5: First Descent

“Finally here. I’m dead tired.” Lilith stood before the Grand Mausoleum’s gates, breath fogging like a pale cloud. “This place is huge.”

The Little White Dragon tipped her head back at the dark‑violet palace ahead, a Gothic giant with spires like spears stabbing the sky. The doors were so broad she couldn’t take them in at a glance. Lilith had to step back several paces, like retreating from a cliff face, just to see the mausoleum’s full silhouette.

The dark‑violet doors stood open. Mist hung like gauze, and the lighting sulked like twilight after rain. It should’ve felt haunted, a chill hand on the neck. Yet Lilith sensed no real dread around the Grand Mausoleum. If there was a reason, it was scattered all around her like lanterns in fog—the adventurers.

“I thought there’d be no one here.” Lilith glanced at what she’d imagined as a tide of people, then deadpanned to Nidhogg.

In truth, calling it a tide was generous. Only a few scattered teams were gearing up at the gate, maybe twenty people all told. The scale of the Grand Mausoleum dwarfed them like ants on a temple stair, leaving the place oddly quiet. Lilith had pictured an empty forecourt, all gloom and goosebumps. She’d braced to be jump‑scared by the atmosphere, and instead got this. Disappointment pricked, like a dull thorn.

“Whatever. Let’s get moving.” The Little White Dragon shook her head and strode toward the shadowed interior, a pale flame slipping into a cavern.

Nidhogg chuckled, low as rolling thunder, and led Abaddon and Litt after Lilith.

“Whoa, so that’s what it looks like inside!” Lilith passed beneath the door that rose like a cliff wall—twenty meters at least—and the awe just slipped out of her. It wasn’t her fault. The palace interior wasn’t the gilt-and-velvet of royal halls, no painted screens, no pleasure courts for pampered nobles. Instead, a vast elevator hung in the center like an iron heart, slung from a hub as thick as an ancient tree—seven or eight meters across by her guess. Teams of adventurers rode the platform down like leaves falling into a shaft. More came up bandaged and bloodstained, like shipwrecked sailors surfacing from a black sea.

“Why an elevator?” Lilith blurted, the word echoing like a pebble dropped into a well.

“Because elevators are convenient.” Nidhogg spoke up, the Black Dragon pinching the Monster Bestiary Ed had given Lilith. For a “bestiary,” the first pages were all notes on the mausoleum and the Adventurers’ Guild Alliance facilities. She flipped to page one and read, voice steady as a bell toll. “The walk from the Grand Mausoleum to the first floor of the Tomb‑Fortress dungeon is long. Making adventurers hoof it would waste time. So the Guild installed this massive elevator to ease access.”

“In principle, you should ride with other adventurers. If no one’s around, you can ride alone.” Nidhogg kept reading. Before Lilith could ask whether they should wait, the Black Dragon popped the elevator door, snagged the Little White Dragon and the two little ones one‑handedly, and hauled them in. Her tailtip flicked, neat as a calligrapher’s stroke, and hit the down button.

“Shouldn’t we wait?” The move was so fluid Lilith didn’t process it until the platform shuddered and began to sink. Metal muttered a clank‑clank, like chains in a well. Worry pricked first, then words. “The book says we should ride with others, right?”

“We’re not adventurers.” Nidhogg shrugged, casual as a cat in sunlight. “Those folks upstairs can wait a bit.”

“You’re terrible!” Lilith punched her in the belly. The little dragon’s fist was soft as a bun, and she didn’t put much force behind it. She puffed her cheeks, a small storm cloud. “Don’t do that next time. At least wait till they’re here.”

“Got it.” Nidhogg answered airily. The Little White Dragon couldn’t tell if she meant it. Lilith shot her one more glare, but the stone had already been cast. No point fuming; the river was flowing.

Better to think about what’s waiting below.

“The book says we’ll enter the first layer of the Tomb‑Fortress dungeon.” The Black Dragon handed the little booklet back. The Little White Dragon took it and read, voice steady as a lamp flame. “The Undead who dwell here are mostly zombies, skeletons, and ghosts. Even if they’re infected by the Moonswallow Mist and controlled by the Reaper Fragment, turning them into attackers, they’re not a big threat.”

Relief came first, then caution. Lilith kept reading. “Once the Moonswallow Mist fades, the Undead return to normal. So you’re not allowed to wreck Undead towns, unless you can’t avoid it in a fight. But there’s no explicit ban on killing infected Undead. Maybe because… you can’t kill them?”

“They’re Undead.” Nidhogg spoke as if noting the weather. “Break them into pieces, and give it time, they stitch themselves back together.”

“It sounds so wrong.” Frustration rose, like heat off sun‑baked stone. It felt like spitting in the face of conservation of energy. Then Lilith remembered: dragons like them could grow or shrink at will. If dragons could, maybe Undead could cheat the ledger too.

“And if you scatter an Undead and carry a piece out of the Grand Mausoleum, the rest of its body will chase you out.” Nidhogg leaned in, eyes skimming the page like swallows over water. “In that state, the Moonswallow Mist can’t infect them. The Adventurers’ Guild has rescued a lot of Undead that way. You get thanked by the Undead, then claim a bounty at the Guild. It pays well.”

“Ugh, that’s gross.” Revulsion hit first, then the image: half a zombie or a hopping skeleton scrambling along the ground. Lilith’s face pinched like she’d bitten into bitter melon.

“Still, saving those the Moonswallow Mist twists would be nice.” Warm resolve stirred, like a lantern relit. “But I’ve got a better way. No idea if it’ll work.”

Lilith opened her right hand. A tiny clot of flesh and blood swelled up in her pale palm, like a seed heart pulsing in snow.

She had a bold idea.