The darkness of the gate lasted half a second, then they were somewhere else entirely.

Lukas blinked, letting his eyes adjust.

They were standing on a street, which had stone paving beneath their boots, and buildings rising on either side.

The familiar geometry of a city block stretched out ahead of them in both directions. But nothing else about it was familiar.

The buildings climbed from the street level upwards without stopping, their walls rising until they met the roof of the cavern that housed the entire city.

There was no sky. The ceiling above them was raw stone, looking irregular to the eyes with jagged spikes pointing downwards, and the buildings simply grew into it the way trees grow into a canopy.

Everything in the Undercity was connected, and everything was enclosed.

The street was lit by lamps mounted at even intervals, their light filling the space with an amber glow that reached further than it should have.

And built into the buildings themselves, at every level, were gears.

They were enormous clockwork gears, fitted into the stone and metal of the structures as if they had been there since the city was first assembled.

Some ticked audibly, moving one notch per second with a sound that carried down the street with every click. While others moved so slowly that watching them gave no sense of motion at all, only the knowledge that if you stood there long enough, they would complete their rotation eventually.

"Off the street," Karrakas said sharply. "Now."

They ran.

Karrakas pulled the nearest door open and they piled inside, the door swinging shut behind them.

At that moment, a notification appeared before Lukas.

Ding!

[Quest: Dungeon Part Timer]

[Clear this dungeon within 3 days.]

[Reward: +300 Gacha Points]

He needed to get out of here within three days. He almost smiled. He definitely had to clear it.

Karrakas moved to the window of the building and looked out at the street, keeping himself to the side of the frame.

"The beasts here are called Automatons," he said, his voice low. "They’re made of flesh on the outside, and clockwork on the inside. You’ll hear them before you see them most of the time, because the gears inside them tick the same way the building gears do."

He glanced back at the group. "They patrol the streets in pairs and small groups. As long as you’re inside a building, you’re generally safe."

"Generally?" Melody said.

"If they see you enter a building, they’ll follow you in." He turned back to the window. "So you don’t let them see you enter."

"Noted," Akira said.

"The plan is straightforward," Karrakas continued. "We move street by street, while I look for landmarks while we go."

"The Undercity rearranges itself, but not completely. The shifts are significant enough to disorient, but certain structures tend to hold their relative position. Sometimes a tower here, a large gear assembly there. If I can find what I remember from my previous runs, I can get a sense of how close we are to the center."

"And the center is where?" Lukas asked.

"The main clock. A large chamber at the heart of the Undercity. That’s the objective." He looked at Lukas. "There’s one more thing worth knowing. The dungeon tracks how many times a group has entered. The more times you’ve run it, the harder it becomes."

"So this being our first run is actually an advantage," Melody said.

"Kinda, yes," Karrakas confirmed. "Even with me here, the dungeon should take it easy for you guys, so make it count."

He held up a hand and they fell silent.

Two shapes moved past the window.

The sound reached them first. It was a faint, rhythmic ticking that echoes loudly in the empty streets. The Automatons were large, moving in a slow patrol down the center of the street.

They both had D-rank auras.

Karrakas watched them pass, then watched them continue another twenty meters down the road.

"Now," he said.

They burst out of the building.

Lukas raised both hands and activated [Smite].

The golden pillars descended without warning, hammering into both Automatons before either one had even heard the sound of the door opening.

The impacts were loud, the clockwork bodies crumpling under the bolt.

[You have killed a D-rank Clockwork Automaton (x2)]

"Move," Karrakas said.

"Wait," Lukas immediately called out.

They stopped and he turned back to the two fallen Automatons, stretching his hand towards them as he activated [Resurrect]. 𝗳𝚛𝗲𝕖𝕨𝕖𝗯𝚗𝚘𝕧𝕖𝗹.𝗰𝗼𝕞

The bodies shuddered, clanking for a few seconds before going slack again.

The damage from the [Smite] had been too destructive, and whatever clockwork remained inside them wasn’t enough to animate under [Resurrect].

Lukas lowered his hand and looked at Akira.

She was already looking at him, the same thought clearly moving behind her eyes.

If they could kill an Automaton cleanly enough to preserve the body, [Resurrect] could work. And they’d have an Automaton fighting on their behalf.

He filed it away and with a nod at the rest of them, they resumed their run.

Inside, he thought about the loud impact of the [Smite]. Just like in the desert, the skill was too loud to be used, and would draw attention towards them instead.

So he reached into his spatial ring and retrieved his [Cursed Blade]. It appeared in his hand immediately.

Melody drew her own blade without being asked, while Akira had [Temptation] out already.

They ducked into the nearest building off the street and pressed themselves against the interior wall, watching the street outside.

Akira turned to Karrakas. "Is there a reliable way to kill an Automaton without destroying the body completely?"

Karrakas thought about it. "They have an actual heart inside their rib cage, and it’s what keeps them running." He tapped his own chest. "It’s protected by a metal plate, but if you can pierce it, then you can take them down like that."

"So we aim for the chest," Lukas said.

"If you can get through the plate, yes."

Lukas nodded.

Then Melody stiffened beside him. "Look."

Through the window, another patrol was moving down the road. There were five Automatons this time, their ticking filling the street.

Karrakas cursed softly under his breath.

Melody glanced at him. "Do we wait for them to pass?"

"It doesn’t work that way." He kept his eyes on the patrol. "As long as we’re on this street, they’ll keep moving up and down it. That’s one of the dungeon’s precautions."

"Waiting just means they’ll be joined by more patrols." He straightened. "So we have to kill them all before reinforcements join them."