The shield's edge shimmered like heat distortion as Luca and Zoe passed through it. The temperature dropped immediately, the corrosive atmosphere hitting them like a wall. Warning lights flickered across Luca's HUD, his scout armor's seals protesting the toxic air.

Behind them, Emily and Ryan were already working. Their medium armor gave them better protection as they approached the first cluster of Acid-Wax Plants. Ryan's plasma cutter ignited, slicing through the thick stalks. The plants oozed their protective coating, thick and viscous.

"Stay safe," Luca said over comms.

"You too," Emily replied. "And Luca? Don't do anything stupid."

He almost laughed. Too late for that.

The wind hit them as soon as they moved beyond the Centurion's immediate shelter. A battering force that made every step a fight. Luca leaned into it, his scout armor's lighter weight both an advantage and a liability. Zoe moved beside him.

"System notification came through," Zoe said over their private channel, her voice tight. "You see it?"

"Yeah." Luca pulled it up on his HUD as they walked.

[Unique Mission Completion Reward] System-Issue Vanguard Bundles - TL9 Choose Configuration:

Armory Upgrade Package

Ground Superiority Package

Space Superiority Package

Nanite Forge Package

Bio-Recovery Suite

Forward Operations Package

Colonization Package

Astronavigation Package

"Unique mission completion," Zoe answered. "We've never gotten that before."

"No." Luca triggered [Ghost Protocol], his armor shimmering as camouflage activated. Beside him, Zoe did the same. "Delves usually give us items. Skills. Mods. Not... this."

"Eight mystery packages," Ryan muttered. "Great. That's not mysterious at all."

"System-Issue Vanguard Bundles." Zoe stumbled as a gust nearly knocked her sideways. Luca grabbed her arm, steadied her. "That sounds big."

"It is big." Luca's mind was racing through the implications. They'd done hard delves before and pushed themselves to the limit. But this one had been different. The fortress that wouldn't stop spawning enemies. The reinforcements that kept coming even as the portal opened.

And Danny, lying in a medical coma because Luca had pushed them to go.

Your fault. You made them enter that portal.

"The delve was rated higher than anything we've done," Zoe said, reading his silence. "Way higher. We were level 67 going into a level 72 scenario."

"I know."

"And it just kept escalating. Even after the generators were down, even after the portal opened, it didn't stop."

The wind screamed around them, toxic rain beginning to fall. It hissed against their armor, eating at the seals. Luca's HUD showed corrosion warnings increasing.

Luca's hands clenched inside his gloves. The Varnathi ruins were visible ahead now, dark shapes rising from the toxic landscape. They were maybe ten minutes out. Ten minutes of walking through hell while his best friend's brother lay dying in a medical pod.

His fault. All his fault.

"Luca?" Emily's voice crackled through comms, cutting through his spiraling thoughts. "Luca? Are you there?"

"Yes, Em. I copy you."

"Are you spiraling?" she asked.

"What? No, I—"

It wasn't worth lying. "Luca, it wasn't your fault."

Luca stumbled and caught himself before he hit a jagged rock with his visor.

"Luca," Zoe's voice cut in, raw and angry. "Don't you fucking dare."

He looked at her. Through the chemical rain and wind, through their shimmering camouflage, he could see her face. She was angry and hurt.

"It was your fault as much as all of us," Zoe continued, her voice tight. "Delves are supposed to stop when the portal opens. That fucking scenario just kept on going. That's not normal. That's not how it works."

"I know," Luca said, his voice small.

"Danny's my boyfriend," Zoe said, and there was pain in every word. "You think I'm not terrified right now? You think I'm not scared he's going to die while we're out here playing Indiana Jones in alien ruins?"

"Zoe—"

"We made that choice together. We all walked through that portal. We all fought those battles. And yeah, Danny got hurt, and that fucking sucks, but it's not on you."

The rain was coming down harder now, visibility dropping to almost nothing. Luca could barely see the ruins ahead, just dark shapes in the storm.

"We're going to get through this," Emily said over comms. "All of us. Danny's going to be fine. Joey's going to patch him up. And we're going to figure out what the hell that reward means."

Luca took a breath. Let it out. The guilt was still there, coiled in his chest, but Zoe was right. They'd all chosen to go in with him.

"Yeah," he agreed.

They pushed forward through the storm. The ruins loomed larger, but these weren't like the pristine structures they'd found on New Dawn. The ancient Varnathi architecture was being devoured by Midnight Veil's toxic atmosphere, stone pitted and scarred where the corrosive air had eaten away at it. What had once been sharp geometric patterns were now smooth, rounded, the details eroded into abstract shapes.

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The entrance was barely recognizable, a dark opening carved into the rock face that looked more like a wound than a doorway. The edges had melted, the stone having flowed and hardened again into twisted formations.

His [Combat Predictive Modeling] pinged. Movement ahead.

"Contact," he whispered. "Three o'clock."

A shape materialized from the toxic rain. [Vexillari Swarmer - Level 74]. The insectoid scuttled across the black rock, its chitinous armor blending perfectly with the terrain. It hadn't seen them yet. [Ghost Protocol] was holding.

Luca and Zoe froze. The Swarmer moved past, its mandibles clicking as it hunted. Ten meters away. Five.

It passed without detecting them.

Luca exhaled slowly. They kept moving.

More contacts appeared on his sensors. [Vexillari Skirmisher - Level 76]. [Vexillari Ravager - Level 80]. These were System constructs, mobs from another portal somewhere nearby.

"Emily," Luca tried over comms. "We've got Vexillari patrols out here. There's another portal in the area."

Static. Nothing but white noise and the howl of the storm.

"Ryan, you copy?"

More static.

The storm was too strong, interfering with everything. They were on their own.

Luca and Zoe moved in near-total silence, their camouflage holding. Twelve minutes of invisibility. That's all they had before Ghost Protocol needed to recharge.

The terrain steepened as they approached the ruins. A rock face rose ahead of them, slick with rain and corrosive residue. Twenty meters of vertical climbing.

"Boost me," Zoe said.

Luca interlaced his fingers, and Zoe stepped up, her weight pressing down as she reached for the first handhold. He lifted as her fingers found purchase in a crack, and she pulled herself up.

The wind tried to rip her off the wall.

She held on.

Luca watched her climb, his heart in his throat. She reached a ledge, turned, and lowered her hand. "I got you."

Luca reached up, his fingers finding hers. She pulled, and he scrambled up using her grip as an anchor.

His scout armor's lighter weight made the climb easier, but the wind was relentless. It buffeted him, tried to swing him sideways, pushed him against the rock face hard enough to crack his visor.

They kept climbing.

Halfway up, his [Pulse Scanner] detected movement below. A Vexillari Ravager, tracking their path. It couldn't see them, but it could smell blood. Danny's blood, still on their armor.

"Company," Luca warned.

"Keep climbing."

Ten meters. The Ravager was getting closer, its massive form moving with terrifying speed.

Five meters.

"Zoe, pull me up!"

She grabbed his hand and pulled. Luca scrambled up the last few meters, his boots finding purchase on the ledge just as the Ravager lunged. Its mandibles snapped shut on empty air where his foot had been a second before.

They collapsed on the ledge, breathing hard. Below them, the Ravager circled, frustrated.

"Ghost Protocol's down to four minutes," Zoe said, checking her readout.

Luca looked at the ruins' entrance. Fifty meters away. Across exposed ground, in full view of anything hunting in the storm.

"Then we move fast."

They ran. A flat-out sprint across toxic ground while the storm tried to kill them, and every Vexillari on Midnight Veil sensed prey.

A Skirmisher materialized from the rain. Luca triggered [Reflex Shot], his blaster firing a suppressed bolt. The creature's head exploded. They kept running.

A Swarmer rose from behind a rock. Zoe slashed with her plasma dagger, the blade catching it in the throat. It collapsed, ichor spraying.

[+13,237 XP] [+7,875 credits]

The entrance was right there.

They dove through, rolling into the darkness beyond. Behind them, the storm raged. Ahead, the Varnathi ruins waited.

"Ghost Protocol recharged," Luca said, activating it again.

Zoe did the same. "Let's find out what the hell is so important it almost got us killed."

The entrance passage was narrow, the walls pressing close on either side. Luca's helmet lights cut through the darkness, revealing stone that was pitted and scarred on the exterior edges but grew smoother as they moved deeper. As if the corrosion couldn't quite reach inside.

Zoe turned sideways through the entrance passage, her voice coming through their comms. "This is weird, outside looks like it's been dissolving for centuries. In here, it's almost pristine."

She was right. The deeper they went, the more intact everything became. But not natural. The walls were uniform and precise. Metal panels showed beneath eroded stone in places, revealing the structure beneath.

"It's like the last however many thousand years never touched it," Luca ran his gloved hand along the wall. His [Systems Analysis Burst] pinged, detecting faint energy signatures embedded in the structure itself.

The passage opened into a larger space. Luca's lights swept across what had once been a landing pad. A massive space, stretching into the distance. Blast scoring marked the floor in geometric patterns, and mounting points for equipment jutted from the walls at regular intervals.

"Holy shit," Zoe breathed. "This is a hangar."

"Was a hangar." Luca moved forward, his boots echoing on the metal flooring. The ceiling stretched overhead. "There's no exit."

Luca triggered [Combat Predictive Modeling], scanning for threats. The chamber was clear, but his interface highlighted dozens of alcoves and maintenance tunnels branching off in every direction. Too many places for something to hide.

"Stay sharp," he said. "This place is huge. Anything could be nesting in here."

They moved deeper. The hangar connected to corridors wide enough for vehicles. Blast doors hung open, frozen in whatever position they'd been in when the power died. Luca could see more chambers beyond, each one massive.

"How big is this place?" Zoe asked, her voice carrying an edge of unease.

"Bigger than it should be." Luca pulled up his tactical display, trying to map what they'd seen so far. The structure extended in multiple directions, level upon level descending into the bedrock. "Way bigger."

They passed what looked like barracks. Rows of chambers, each one sized for Varnathi. Luca counted over a hundred before he stopped. And that was just one section.

"This wasn't just a military outpost," Zoe said. "This was a garrison. Maybe bigger."

The signal pulsed stronger now, deeper into the facility. Luca followed it, Zoe at his side, as they descended through corridors and chambers. Each level revealed more of the facility's scale. Fabrication bays. Armories. Storage depots that could have held supplies for thousands.

And traps. Lots of traps.

"Hold," Luca whispered, his hand raised. A faint line of light stretched across the corridor ahead, barely visible.

He stepped carefully over it. Zoe followed, her movements precise.

They kept moving. A clicking sound echoed from the walls ahead. Luca froze, his [Pulse Scanner] painting the corridor in wireframe. Pressure plates beneath loose floor tiles, connected to... something. Probably nothing good.

"Left side," Luca said, hugging the wall as he edged past. The tiles shifted slightly under Zoe's weight, but nothing triggered. They were through.

A corridor junction ahead. His interface pinged. Movement sensors, still active despite the dead power. Sweeping in overlapping patterns that would catch anyone moving through the intersection.

"Sensors," Luca said. "Wait for the pattern."

They watched. Twenty seconds. The sensors swept right, then left, then paused for three seconds before repeating.

"It just keeps going," Zoe said after they'd descended at least five levels, and the structure showed no signs of ending. "How deep does this go?"

Luca's [Systems Analysis Burst] was picking up readings that made no sense. The facility's energy grid was massive, far larger than anything he'd seen before.

"Luca?" Zoe had stopped at a viewport, one of the few transparent sections in the facility. She shone her light through it.

Beyond the window, more structures stretched into darkness. Buildings. Towers. Entire complexes connected by bridges and transit tubes. All of it encased in rock, like someone had buried a city and forgotten about it.

"This isn't a base," Luca said, his mind struggling to process the scale. "This is... I don't know what this is."

"A city," Zoe whispered. "They built a city underground."

But that didn't make sense. Why build a city underground on a planet's surface? Why not just build on top?

Luca pushed the thought away. They didn't have time for mysteries. They needed to find the signal source, grab whatever it was, and get out.

The Varnathi had built something enormous here. Something that had required serious resources, serious planning. Something important enough to survive whatever catastrophe had destroyed their civilization.

And then the power had gone out. Everything had stopped. The city had died in an instant, frozen in time.

"Signal's close," Luca said, checking his readout. "Next chamber."

They entered what looked like a central hub. Transit lines converged here from multiple directions. And at the center, a platform with equipment that still glowed faintly with residual power.

Danny's going to have a field day with this.

The thought hit Luca before he could stop it. Then reality crashed back down. Danny wasn't going to see this. Danny was in a medical coma, fighting for his life while Luca played archaeologist in ancient ruins.

"There," Luca said, moving forward.

Zoe followed, her rifle up. "This feels like a trap."

"Everything on this planet feels like a trap."

"Found it." He knelt, examining the panel's edge. "Looks like it opens manually. No power needed."

"Then let's see what's so important they buried it under a city, under a planet."

Luca pressed his fingers into the seam and pulled. The panel resisted at first, then slid aside with a grinding sound that echoed through the chamber.

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