Gravity vanished.
The lift plummeted. The wind roared past them, tearing at their clothes.
"Too fast!" Galen screamed, clinging to the safety rail. "The brakes! They aren't engaging!"
"I am the brakes!" Narcissus roared.
He was on his knees in the center of the vibrating metal platform. He gripped the severed power cables in his fists. Blue lightning arced between his hands, feeding the motor mounted on the elevator's roof.
His face was a mask of agony. Veins of glowing plasma pulsed in his neck. He was fighting gravity with his own heart.
SCREEEEEE.
The descent slowed. Sparks showered down from the guide rails as the emergency clamps bit into the steel.
They weren't falling anymore. They were descending. Fast, but controlled.
Marcus stood up, fighting the vertigo. He looked up.
The shaft above them was a receding square of light.
Then the light changed.
Shadows.
Dozens of them. Spilling over the edge of the tunnel they had just left.
"They're following us!" Lucilla pointed up.
The Scavs were jumping.
They didn't care about the height. They leaped into the void, aiming for the roof of the elevator.
THUD.
The first body hit the wire mesh roof ten feet above their heads.
Then another.
THUD. THUD-CRUNCH.
The mesh groaned. Claws sparked against the steel.
"They're trying to cut the cables!" Marcus yelled.
Above them, a pale face pressed against the grate. Milky eyes stared down. A hand with black talons reached through the mesh, slashing at the air.
"Defend the battery!" Marcus ordered.
He pointed at Narcissus. The giant couldn't move. He was locked in a circuit, channeling power. If he let go to fight, they would fall to their deaths.
He was a sitting duck.
RIIIIIIP.
A section of the roof mesh tore open.
A Scav dropped through.
It landed on the platform, hissing. It scrambled toward Narcissus.
Marcus moved.
He intercepted the creature mid-lunge. He didn't use the Vibro-Knife yet—too close to the live wires.
He used his shield—the ceramic chest plate.
He shoulder-checked the mutant.
The Scav flew backward, skidding across the metal grate. It scrabbled for purchase near the edge.
Marcus didn't give it time. He kicked it.
The Scav tumbled backward into the abyss. Its scream faded into the dark.
"More!" Galen shouted.
Two more dropped through the hole.
One went for Marcus. The other went for Galen.
"Galen! Grenade!" Marcus shouted.
The physician fumbled in his satchel. He pulled out a glass jar filled with green liquid—the scavenged acid from the Scourge unit.
He didn't throw it. The lift was too small; the splash would kill them all.
He smashed the jar on the floor in front of the advancing Scav.
HISS.
A cloud of toxic green vapor erupted.
The Scav ran into the cloud. It choked. Its skin blistered instantly. It fell to the floor, clawing at its own melting throat.
Marcus engaged the second one.
The Vibro-Knife hummed.
Slash.
He took the creature's arm off.
Stab.
He put the blade through its chest.
He shoved the corpse off the lift.
"Keep them off him!" Marcus roared, spinning to face the roof again.
Narcissus groaned. His light was dimming. The strain was killing him.
"Hurry..." the giant gasped. "Energy... low..."
Above them, the main cable began to fray. A Scav was gnawing on it.
"Lucilla!" Marcus pointed up. "Shoot it!"
Lucilla held the flare gun she had taken from the dead surveyor. Her hands were shaking violently.
"I... I've never fired a gun!"
"Point and squeeze!" Marcus yelled. "Or we splatter!"
Lucilla aimed at the shadow gnawing the cable.
She squeezed.
THUMP-WHOOSH.
A magnesium flare shot upward.
It hit the Scav in the chest.
The creature didn't just die. It ignited.
It shrieked, wreathed in blinding white fire. It let go of the cable and fell.
It dropped past them, a falling star in the endless shaft.
"Hold on!" Narcissus shouted.
The lift jerked.
They were nearing the bottom.
Red warning lights flashed on the shaft walls. LEVEL 10. LEVEL 11. LEVEL 12.
The air pressure changed. It grew hot.
"Brace!"
Narcissus slammed the polarity of the current.
SCREEEEEE-BANG.
The lift slammed to a halt.
The impact threw them all to the floor.
Sparks rained down like confetti.
Narcissus let go of the wires. He collapsed face-forward onto the grate. The blue light in his chest was a faint, dying ember.
Silence.
The Scavs above didn't follow. They stayed in the upper dark, chattering, but refusing to descend into the red light below.
"We made it," Galen gasped, crawling over to check Narcissus.
"Barely," Marcus said. He stood up, testing his limbs. Bruised, but unbroken.
The lift doors hissed.
They didn't open. They were jammed.
Marcus jammed the Vibro-Knife into the seam. He levered it open.
The doors parted with a grind of metal.
Heat blasted them. Dry, searing heat.
Marcus stepped out.
He stopped.
His breath caught in his throat.
They weren't in a mine.
They were standing on a catwalk overlooking a subterranean ocean of lava.
The cavern was colossal. Miles wide. The ceiling was lost in smoke.
Below them, a lake of magma bubbled and popped, casting a hellish red glow over everything.
But it wasn't nature that stopped Marcus.
It was the city.
Built on an island of obsidian in the center of the lava lake was a fortress.
It was sleek. White. Sterile.
Glass towers rose from the black rock. Drone pads buzzed with activity. Massive cooling pipes pumped liquid nitrogen into the magma to create land.
And in the center of the fortress, a machine dominated the view.
A drill.
But not like any drill Marcus had ever seen. It was a tower of chrome and light, pulsing with a rhythmic thrum that shook the bones. It was firing a concentrated beam of sound into the earth's mantle.
[LOCATION DISCOVERED: THE MAGMA FORGE]
[OWNER: THE BOARD]
[THREAT LEVEL: OMEGA]
"By the gods..." Galen whispered, stepping up beside Marcus. "They built a city in hell."
"Not a city," Lucilla said. Her voice was cold. "A refinery."
She pointed to the drone pads.
Automated ships—Sentinels—were lifting off, carrying containers of refined material up a separate, massive launch tube that punched through the cavern roof.
"They're harvesting the core," she said. "Faster than I thought."
Narcissus groaned behind them. He pushed himself up on shaky arms. He looked at the fortress.
"Do we fight that?" the giant asked.
Marcus looked at the gleaming white walls. The automated turrets sweeping the perimeter. The sheer scale of the enemy.
He looked at his knife. At his team.
"No," Marcus said. "We don't fight it."
He sheathed the blade.
"We hijack it."
He turned to the group.
"They have power down there. Infinite power. They have fabricators. Food. Weapons."
He grinned. A wolfish expression in the red light.
"We didn't find a dungeon," Marcus said. "We found our new castle."
He started walking down the catwalk toward the white city.
"Lucilla, get your keycard ready. We're going to knock on the front door."