Tess sat with her back against the cold metal of the dungeon door, working through a protein bar from her tool belt. The wrapper crinkled too loudly in the silence.

  The hum of the dungeon surrounded her—not as threatening now, just present. Background noise she was recognizing.

  Her heart rate had finally dropped back to something normal.

  “Tess?” Bee’s voice came from the scanner. “I am… sorry. I should have realized you did not fully understand the danger. I thought you knew what to expect. What delving meant. I failed to communicate adequately.”

  Tess took another bite of the protein bar. It tasted like compressed cardboard and artificial strawberry, but it was food.

  “I had warnings,” she swallowed the bite. “The tutorial only offered combat classes. The registration guy said ‘don’t die.’ That Knight came out with his armor melted. Petra told me to stay out of her way. You kept saying ‘spawns’ and I just…” She exhaled. “I was so focused on progressing my class I ignored all of it.”

  “I have been isolated for twenty years. I forgot how to explain threat assessment to those without combat experience. I should have been clearer. More direct. I will be better at this.”

  There was something in Bee’s tone—not quite emotion, but close. Sadness, maybe. Or the AI equivalent of it.

  The text on her interface continued.

  BEE: I promise I will be better.

  “Yeah,” Tess said. “Me too.”

  She finished the protein bar, wadded up the wrapper, and stuffed it back in her belt. Dad had drilled that into her years ago: never leave trash in a workspace. It didn’t matter if the workspace was a freighter or a dungeon. You cleaned up after yourself.

  He’d be worried by now. She’d been gone almost two hours, and he’d been expecting her back ninety minutes ago. Nothing she could do about it, though. The doors wouldn’t open for another six and a half hours.

  Tess pushed herself to her feet. Her legs protested after sitting on cold metal for twenty minutes, but she ignored them and started walking deeper into the tunnel.

  “I can’t just sit here for eight hours,” she said. “I’ll go insane.”

  BEE: Understandable. The corridor you are in is Floor 0 by designation. It is completely spawn-free. You may explore safely.

  The tunnel stretched ahead of her, sloping downward at a gentle angle. The walls were utilitarian ferrocrete, lined with conduit bundles and the occasional access panel. Every fifty meters, faded propaganda posters from before the Network abandoned Tertius-Prime broke up the monotony.

  BE THE HERO YOU WERE MEANT TO BE!

  The poster showed a Knight in gleaming armor, sword raised triumphantly, standing over what looked like a defeated construct. The art style was aggressively optimistic, all bold lines and primary colors.

  Tess kept walking.

  FORTUNE FAVORS THE BOLD! DELVE DEEPER!

  This one featured a Ranger with a rifle, grinning at the camera like dungeon diving was the best job in the galaxy.

  YOUR DESTINY AWAITS BELOW!

  Tess passed that one without looking too closely. Her destiny had involved a lot of panicking and a sealed door, and she wasn’t interested in the propaganda version.

  The tunnel curved slightly, widening as it descended. The emergency lighting stayed consistent: amber strips every ten meters, just bright enough to see by. The hum of the dungeon grew louder, more present, like she was getting closer to something active.

  “Bee,” she said, “where does this tunnel lead?”

  BEE: The main entrance corridor terminates in an elevator bay. Fifty elevator shafts provide access to Floors 1 through 10. Each leading to a spawn-free staging area. This was the primary delver entrance before the isolation. Before the Aether flow declined to critical levels.

  Fifty elevators. Tess tried to picture it and failed. How many delvers did Tertius-Prime process back then?

  The tunnel opened onto the bay without warning—one moment she was in a corridor, the next she was standing at the edge of a space that swallowed sound. The sheer scale of it stopped her mid-step.

  The ceiling arched overhead, maybe thirty meters high, supported by ferrocrete pillars that looked like they could hold up a city. The floor was polished stone, scuffed and worn from decades of foot traffic. And along the far walls, stretching left and right as far as she could see: elevator doors.

  Fifty of them, just like Bee said. Neat rows, evenly spaced, each one marked with a glowing floor indicator. All of them currently read FLOOR 1.

  The bay was empty. Silent except for the hum of active Aether flow and the faint vibration of systems running beneath the floor.

  Tess walked forward, boots echoing on stone.

  This place had been built to hold thousands of people. She could almost picture it—delvers in armor streaming through the tunnel, teams forming up near the elevators, voices echoing off the high ceiling. A living hub of activity.

  Now it was just her.

  “Bee, how many delvers used to come through here?” Her voice came out softer than intended.

  BEE: That data is available. At peak operation, Tertius-Prime processed between two and three thousand delvers daily. Teams ran continuous shifts across all accessible floors. The dungeon provided employment, resources, and economic stability for the entire planet.

  Tess turned in a slow circle, taking it all in. “What happened?”

  BEE: I do not believe you require me to answer that question.

  The text appeared matter-of-fact, but of course Tess knew the answer. Twenty years ago, Bee had watched thousands of people disappear and hadn’t been able to do anything about it.

  She was about to respond when a glint of light off to the left caught her attention.

  Partially hidden behind one of the support pillars: a set of double doors. Not elevator doors, but something different. Wider, with frosted glass panels and a placard mounted above them.

  Tess walked closer, squinting at the faded lettering.

  CLASS ASSIGNMENT

  “There’s a class assignment area here,” Tess stopped in front of the doors. “I remember it from the tutorial panel. It said I could come here for more class options.”

  BEE: Yes. The secondary class assignment system. The tutorial path was added first. I do not know why both exist.

  Tess tried the door. Locked, though not with dungeon tech. An electronic mechanism built into the frame. Network hardware, like the elevator hatch she’d opened in the tutorial. But this one was different. Sleek, modern, definitely newer than anything else down here. The panel next to the handle glowed faintly red.

  She pressed her palm to the panel. Nothing. No response, no permission prompt, no acknowledgment that her class even existed.

  The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

  She could pop the housing apart and spend half an hour tracing the bypass circuits. Or…

  She pulled the Network access rod from her belt.

  Marcus had given it to her three years ago with the explicit instructions: Don’t tell anyone you have this. Don’t use it where people can see. And definitely don’t lose it.

  It was Network hardware. Inspectors like Senna carried them for bypassing security during maintenance work. If she were caught with it, she’d be in even more trouble than she already was.

  She pressed the rod to the panel and twisted the locking bolt. Blue light. The door unlocked with a soft click, and Tess pushed it open and stepped inside.

  The class assignment hall was circular, maybe twenty meters across, with a domed ceiling that disappeared into shadow. Twelve pedestals ringed the room’s perimeter, each one topped with a dark interface. The floor was polished stone, inlaid with circuitry that formed geometric patterns spreading outward from the center.

  Everything was dark and quiet, as if waiting.

  Tess walked to the nearest pedestal and touched it.

  The room came alive.

  Aether flowed through the floor circuits, lighting them up in cascading waves. The pedestals hummed, their crystalline interfaces glowing bright. Above each one, a hologram flickered into existence: life-sized, detailed, rotating slowly.

  Six holograms stood out clearly. The others were corrupted or incomplete, their projections stuttering and breaking apart.

  Tess walked the circle, studying each one.

  KNIGHT - Heavy armor, sword and shield, the classic frontline combatant. Same as in the tutorial.

  RANGER - Medium armor, rifle, the standard ranged specialist. Also same.

  OPERATOR - Light armor, datapad and sidearm, the tech-focused pilot class. Tutorial version.

  Then came the others, classes she hadn’t seen in the tutorial.

  TECHNICIAN - Overalls and tool belt, scanner in hand, standing confidently over a half-disassembled piece of machinery. The class she would have chosen if she could, but that would mean she wouldn’t have met Bee, and the city wouldn’t have more power.

  MERCHANT - Professional attire, datapad showing market graphs, surrounded by floating inventory screens. A support class, probably.

  MEDIC - Medical vest and supplies, hands glowing faintly with what looked like healing Aether. Another support option.

  Tess stared at the Technician hologram. “Bee, I could have gotten Technician right here? Instead of going through the tutorial?”

  BEE: Yes. For several years before the shutdown, most didn’t use the tutorial entrance. Delvers would enter through the main entrance, receive their class here, and proceed directly to the elevators. The tutorial path became obsolete, but I do not have records explaining why.

  “That doesn’t make sense. Why have two paths?”

  BEE: Unknown.

  Tess activated [ANALYZE], focusing on the Technician pedestal.

  The skill tree unfolded in her vision: nested branches, ability chains, progression paths. But the requirements stopped her cold.

  ·········································

  CLASS ASSIGNMENT ENDPOINT

  Function: Skill Tree Generation

  Loot Seed: 0-97855

  Power: Active

  User Tech Skill: 3

  ·········································

  Technician ………. Online [Tech 22]

  ·········································

  She stared at the numbers.

  “Bee,” Tess said slowly, “this can’t be the same Technician class from the Tutorial matrix. Even though it was turned off, it needed TECH 12 to modify, this one says 22.”

  BEE: That makes little sense. The TECH skill required to enable the Technician class should be 12. I can see in the records that I set the value myself.

  Tess looked at the loot_seed value. Purely numeric. Every piece of dungeon tech she’d seen so far used alphanumeric seeds, combinations of letters and numbers.

  This was just… numbers.

  “The loot seeds are different,” she said. “No letters, just numbers.”

  BEE: ERROR: A numeric loot_seed value does not fall within my established data parameters.

  “So these matrices aren’t from this dungeon, right?”

  BEE: That is concerning, and would cause assigned classes not to be connected to my systems. They would be connected… elsewhere.

  Tess walked back to the center of the room, looking at the six holograms rotating above their pedestals. Knight, Ranger, and Operator were the tutorial basics. Technician, Merchant, and Medic were the support classes that would actually help people survive in a decaying city.

  “Why have two systems?” she asked. “Tutorial gives three combat classes with others shut off. This hall gives many more options but not connected to you. What’s the point?”

  BEE: I do not know.

  The text appeared slowly, frustration bleeding through the formatting.

  BEE: Tess, there is something strange about this. Connected class knowledge should exist in my records. The class assignment protocols were part of my core functionality before isolation. Now when I search those databases, I find gaps. Deleted sections. Memory corruption that falls outside of the isolation timeline.

  “Outside?”

  BEE: The deletions are surgical. Deliberate. Entries have been removed from my memory. But the deletions go further back than the isolation twenty years ago. Roughly three years prior, close to when I stated delvers stopped using the tutorial. I dislike finding this. I am not sure of the correct term for what my emotional processor is returning.

  “That pisses you off,” she said.

  BEE: Yes, anger. I understand what anger feels like, and I do not enjoy the sensation. It is possible that I deleted these entries myself, but unlikely.

  The respawn timer in Tess’s interface kept ticking down.

  She couldn’t answer these questions standing here. The class assignment hall was just another mystery in a dungeon full of them. But she could file it away, add it to the growing list of things that didn’t make sense about her home.

  Different dungeons with foreign loot seeds, surgical memory deletions, and the Network’s fingerprints on all of it.

  Tess turned and walked back toward the doors. The holograms flickered behind her, still rotating, still waiting for delvers.

  “Come on, Bee,” she said. “We aren’t going to find answers up here. If I’m stuck here for seven more hours, we might as well try to do something useful.”

  She stepped back into the elevator bay. The fifty elevator shafts stretched before her, most of them marked FLOOR 1.

  Her palms were clammy against the scanner, though not from panic this time. Anticipation. She was about to do something that might matter.

  “Bee, you said the staging area on Floor 1 is a safe zone, right? No spawns?”

  BEE: Correct. The staging area is designated a non-combat zone by design. Spawns cannot enter those sections under any circumstances. You would be safe there.

  BEE: The current respawn timer indicates 7:09:47 remaining. The delvers have had just about one hour to clear out sections close to the lobby area.

  Tess walked toward the nearest elevator. She could wait up here. Sit in this empty bay for most of the day, then go home and tell her Dad she’d panicked and turned back.

  Or she could descend. Find the maintenance tunnels Bee couldn’t see. Fix something that needed fixing. Progress her class instead of just surviving. And then get the hell out of here.

  “Floor 1 has infrastructure you can’t observe, right?” she asked. “Systems that are offline?”

  BEE: Yes. Many subsystems remain disconnected from my core processes. Floor control nodes, sensor arrays, environmental regulators. All unmaintained for twenty years. If you could restore any of them, I would regain observation capability for those sections.

  Tess stopped in front of the elevator and looked at the call button.

  Her Dad was going to be angry at her either way. She was already here, already locked in, And she had a {null} class that let her see dungeon infrastructure in ways no one else could.

  She might as well make the trip worth it.

  “No heroics,” she said, pressing the call button. “Just repairs. We find maintenance access, we fix what’s broken, we stay away from spawns.”

  BEE: That is a plan I can support.

  The elevator doors opened immediately, smooth and silent. The interior was clean, cleaner than she expected, with polished metal walls and a floor that looked newly maintained. The control panel showed floor options: 1 through 10, all grayed out and locked.

  She reached out and tapped her Delver’s card onto the panel, and floor 1 lit up.

  Poking the floor name on the panel caused the elevator door to slide shut.

  The elevator descended.

  Screens mounted in the upper corners flickered to life. Tess recognized the art style immediately, the same propaganda aesthetic from the posters in the tunnel and the screens in the tutorial.

  A cheerful animated Knight appeared on screen, grinning at the camera.

  “Welcome, brave delver! You’re about to embark on the adventure of a lifetime! Remember: Fortune favors the bold, and destiny awaits below!”

  Tess pulled out her multi-tool.

  “The dungeon is your friend! Every challenge is an opportunity! Every spawn is a chance to prove your—”

  She popped the screen’s access panel, located the power connector, and yanked it free. The propaganda cut off mid-sentence. The screen went dark.

  BEE: That was impressively petty.

  “They’re so annoying.”

  BEE: I found it funny. I approve.

  The elevator descended without hesitation, faster than she expected but not uncomfortably so. Everything about it was newer than the tutorial area, with a different design language and possibly a different manufacturer. The tutorial had been all worn and rusted, with flickering lights. This was polished metal and consistent Aether flow, like two separate facilities forced together.

  The floor indicator finally ticked over from 0 to 1. The elevator slowed its descent.

  Tess’s hand moved instinctively to her tool belt, fingers brushing over the multi-tool, the scanner, the coil of wire she kept for emergency repairs. Everything was there. Everything was ready.

  BEE: Tess, when the doors open, the terminal for floor map access should be on your left. Use your [INTERFACE] skill to download it. Then you can walk me through the areas and we can find access points.

  “Thanks, Bee.”

  BEE: I will do my best to ensure you remain safe. You will not face this alone.

  The elevator came to a stop with a soft chime, like it was trying to be pleasant and non-threatening.

  Then the automated voice:

  “Floor One. Staging Area. Respawn Timer: Six hours, fifty-one minutes.”

  Tess took a breath, nerves and anticipation mixing with a little excitement underneath the fear.

  She was about to step onto Floor 1 of an active dungeon with no combat class, no weapon, and nothing but a tool belt and an AI who couldn’t physically help if something went wrong.

  But she was also about to do what she did best: find something broken and fix it.

  “Okay, Bee,” she said. “Let’s find something broken.”