The ascent from the Garden wasn't a triumphant march; it was a desperate claw out of a biological grave.
There was no elevator shaft connecting the Heart Tree to the Iron Works. There was only the jagged, obsidian rift Reed had carved with the Weed Whacker. The team had to climb, hauling their battered bodies up the slick, sap-covered rock face while the jungle below whispered promises of eternal sleep.
Reed hauled himself over the lip of the breach, his boots slamming onto the cold concrete of Floor 3. The transition was violent. The air shifted instantly from the humid, cloying sweetness of the Garden to the dry, metallic taste of sulfur and ozone.
He rolled onto his back, gasping for air. The exo-harness weighed a ton. The Void Engine on his back sputtered and died, the last of its fuel spent on the climb.
"Clear," Seraphine hissed, slithering up behind him.
