The knight's claymore descended like a guillotine, shattering the wooden stool in the dark corner where he had seen a shadow flicker. The wood splintered into a thousand jagged pieces, the sound exploding in the cramped guard station.
But the blade met only air and rotting timber.
————— *** —————
DungeonRat: Phew! That was so close!
V_Gamer: Hang in there, Elara!!!! Btw, almost 50k viewers, let's go!!!
LoreChaser: And you tell me this just the beginning?
Newbie_Watcher: I was the first viewer, remember that guys.
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"Where—!" the knight roared, his visor swinging wildly toward the wreckage.
He had fallen for a diversion. While the knight had been focused on the movement in the far-left corner, Elara had never been there. She was pressed into the shallow alcove of the opposite corner, right behind the door he had just stormed through.
She had used the knight's own massive build to mask her move. As he lunged forward, she had simply stepped into the space he had vacated.
Elara didn't wait to strike. She didn't have to. The moment the knight's gaze swept the room, his eyes didn't land on her — they landed on the empty iron peg on the wall.
The master keys were gone.
The knight's breathing hitched. He realized that if she reached the gate and escaped, the Duke would execute him for his failure.
The knight roared a frantic, wordless curse and bolted.
He threw himself toward the doorway, his armored boots thundering against the stone as he left his heavy claymore buried in the wood. He was charging towards the spiral staircase, desperate to reach the iron gate at the top and sound the alarm before she could even escape.
Each loud, panicked strike of the knight's boots against the spiral stone steps echoed through the tower. Elara stood in the center of the small, airless room, her chest still heaving from the adrenaline. The knight's thundering footsteps grew fainter, echoing further and further up the staircase and the silence flooded back into the guard station.
"Go," she whispered, her voice a fragile thread in the dark.
She looked down at her right hand. Her knuckles were trembling with an electric tension as they gripped the heavy iron ring. "Now, what should I do with this?"
The knight, meanwhile, ignored the searing heat in his leg. He reached the upper landing in a desperate surge, his gauntlet slamming against the iron bars of the gate. He threw his weight against the stone frame, his breath coming in ragged gasps as he scanned the corridor ahead.
The hallway was empty.
The flickering torches illuminated nothing but cold stone and silent shadows. There was no sign of the girl and no sound of fleeing footsteps.
The knight let out a harsh, rasping growl. He didn't turn back. Instead, he waited firmly on the upper landing, his back against the iron bars of the gate. He drew his secondary dagger, the steel gleaming in the torchlight as his visor locked onto the staircase.
"Run all you want, little bird," he hissed into the stairwell, his voice dripping with a grim confidence. "You can have all the keys in the world, but there is only one way out of this dungeon. How will you entertain me this time, little bird?"
————— *** —————
Noob_Gamer88888: He's camping the gate!! That's dirty! Come on!
No.1ElaraFanStartingToday: Hey! That's cheating!!!
DungeonRat: Why is there already an Elara simp account?
Mysticccczx: Just leave him be @DungeonRat.
————— *** —————
Down in the silence of the guard station, Elara leaned her head against the cool wood of the locked door. She heard his declaration echo down the stone shaft, but she didn't flinch.
"You think this is the only way out," she whispered to the shadows, her eyes reflecting the silver glint of the master key.
Moments later, Elara composed herself and didn't look toward the stairs. She knew that the knight was there waiting for her. She turned her back on the main exit, her gaze shifting toward the heavy, reinforced wooden door at the far right end of the guard station — the one that smelled of roasted fat and woodsmoke.
The kitchens.
If she could reach the servants' quarters, she could blend in with the hundred of maids in the mansion.
She knelt before the lock, the master keys rattling in her trembling hand. One by one, she tried them. The silver key. The black-ribboned key. The heavy brass one.
Click. Scrape. Thud.
None of them turned. The lock was stubborn and likely keyed to a specific ring held by the Head Chef or the House Steward.
"Not this one," she whispered, her heart sinking as the final key failed to turn.
She stood up and looked at the door. It was old oak, thick enough to stop a battering ram, but the hinges were rusted and the center panel was slightly warped from the kitchen's heat. A heavy blade could splinter it.
Her eyes traveled to the guard station. The knight's claymore was still there, buried deep in the wooden floorboards. It was a massive slab of steel, the hilt wrapped in worn leather.
Elara stepped toward it. She gripped the hilt with both hands, her small, pale fingers barely meeting around the grip. She planted her feet, gritting her teeth against the throb in her jaw, and pulled.
The sword didn't budge.
She tried again, throwing her entire weight backward with her thin arms shaking. The steel remained wedged in the floor, mockingly still. She was too small, her body too drained of strength.
She let go, falling back onto the floor with a sharp, frustrated gasp.
————— *** —————
DungeonRat: She's doomed. She can't even lift the sword.
ILoveSongJinWoo: Is this the end???
LoreChaser: This is painful to watch...
ASTRO88: Let's just battle the knight, I think??
PrettyPrincess1111: Don't give up, Elara! There has to be another way!
————— *** —————
Elara's gaze drifted away from the claymore and the stubborn kitchen door. She looked past the flickering candle toward the far left end of the guard station, where the shadows seemed to pool like spilled ink.
There, behind the stack of empty ale barrels, was not a mere grate, but a gaping, vaulted tunnel.
It was a low, arched maw of slime-slicked stone that flowed straight into the dungeon's drainage system. A stream of black, turgid sewage water flowed sluggishly along the center of the floor, disappearing into the lightless depths and the stench of salt, rot, and stagnant waste wafted from the opening.
"The last option," she breathed.
————— *** —————
DungeonRat: THE SEWERS?!!
FreeTheDogs: I wouldn't dare to go there, just kill me.
V_Gamer: Everyone tune in, she's going into the literal gutter.
HiddenPiece_Hunter: Is this still the same game we play??
New_Account_02: Look at her face. She's actually going to step into that water.
————— *** —————
She crawled toward the edge of the tunnel, her knees scraping against the grit. She didn't want to go in there. The sewer were a labyrinth of filth and stench. But the knight was at the gate, the kitchen was barred, and her body was too frail to fight.
Elara paused at the lip of the dark tunnel. The black, turgid sewage water swallowed the light of the guard station after only a few feet. To enter without a light source would be to walk blindly into a grave.
She turned back to the wall, her gaze fixing on a solitary torch guttering in its iron bracket and reached for it. It was a thick wood soaked in animal fat, but it was her only hope against the absolute dark.
Holding the torch high, Elara stepped back to the edge of the vaulted opening.
The light revealed the true horror of the path ahead. The stone walls were slick with thick, black moss, and the sewage water rippled around her ankles like a cold, oily snake. She took a deep breath, the air thick with the smell of rot, and waded deeper into the tunnel.
————— *** —————
LoreChaser: Good move grabbing the torch. Navigating the sewers in the dark is how you trigger the "Drowned" ending.
V_Gamer: 55k viewers!
IHateFilthyBoys: Look at the water ripples. Something is moving down there.
HiddenPiece_Hunter: But I don't think that torch will last that long, no?
————— *** —————
The orange glow of the torch was a fragile bubble of safety as Elara waded deeper into the vaulted maw. The transition from the dry grit of the dungeon to the waist-deep sewage was a physical assault. The water was a freezing, oily sludge that clung to her skin like a living thing ancient decay.
Every step was a battle. Beneath the surface, the stone floor was uneven and coated in a layer of slick, prehistoric silt that threatened to pull her bare feet into jagged cracks. She moved with agonizing slowness, her thin limbs already weakened — trembling under the sheer weight of the current.
A couple of moments after, the torch sputtered a final time, the flame devouring the last of the animal fat with a desperate, dying hiss before everything turned into an absolute black. Elara stood frozen in the knee-deep sludge, the silence of the tunnels rushing in to fill the void left by the fire.
Each movement was a grueling calculation. Without the light, she had to rely on the tactile nightmare of the tunnel walls, her fingers grazing slick, weeping stones and patches of pulsating, rubbery fungus. The current tugged at her legs with predatory strength, trying to pull her into the jagged gaps of the drainage floor. Her breath came in short, visible plumes of white mist, and the sensation of the cold became a crushing weight that seemed to slow her very blood.
She forced her body through a narrow split, the jagged rock biting into her ribs. The stone scraped her skin raw, the salt-heavy water turning every scratch into a line of liquid fire, but she didn't cry out. She simply gritted her teeth until she tasted the familiar copper of blood.
Just as her lungs felt as though they were filled with wet sand and her heart began to falter, she saw it.
At the far end of a long, straight stretch of the vault, a pinprick of light appeared. It wasn't the warm gold of a candle or the orange of a torch. It was a bruised violet reflection of a stormy moon through the heavy smog of the city above.
She didn't run; she couldn't. She dragged her leaden limbs through the final stretch of sludge, her eyes locked on that growing circle of gray. The smell of rot began to thin, replaced by the sharp scent of rain and wet iron.
With a final, desperate scramble, she hauled herself out of the water and onto a slick, moss-covered stone ledge. She collapsed there, her chest heaving, her fingers clawing at the rough masonry. Above her, the tunnel opened into a massive, iron-grated outlet that looked out over the city's sprawling, low-tier slums. The rain fell through the grate, cool and clean against her feverish skin, washing away the grime of the sewers.
Across the digital void, sixty thousand people watched in a stunned, collective silence as the girl lay shivering under the open sky. On the other hand, the final digit of the emergency timer flickered out. The bruised violet sky didn't offer a golden window or a shower of light. Instead, a simple notification materialized in the center of Elara's vision, its white text sharp against the stormy clouds.
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[ ! EMERGENCY QUEST COMPLETED ! ]
Description: Your siblings have decided that thirteen is an unlucky number. An assassin has been sent to ensure you never leave this dungeon alive. In Drakenhof, the weak are culled, and you are the weakest of all.
Objective: Survive the first assassination attempt (00:00:00)
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