The freight elevator was not designed for passengers. It was designed for hauling crates of ore, loot, and the occasional dismembered adventurer.

Consequently, it was loud, rattling, and entirely devoid of comfort.

Reed stood in the corner of the metal cage as it shuddered downward into the earth. The air inside was getting hotter by the second, shifting from the cool, damp air of the entrance hall to a dry, stifling heat that tasted of copper and ash.

It was also extremely crowded.

High Inquisitor Kaelen stood in the center, her Silverite armor taking up a significant amount of square footage. She held her helmet under one arm, her other hand resting on the pommel of her sword. She stared straight ahead at the rusted grate of the door, her posture rigid, radiating a palpable field of judgment.

Pressed into the corners were the "assets" she had just commandeered.

Seraphine, still wearing her heavy Magma Dreadnought armor, looked like a tank squeezed into a phone booth. Her tail was coiled tight to avoid brushing against the Inquisitor's pristine white cloak.

Luma, in her liquid-solid form, had simply dripped herself into a bucket Grika was holding to save space.

And Grika… Grika was vibrating. The goblin engineer was staring at the back of Kaelen's armor, specifically at the complex articulation of the knee joints.

"Silverite alloy," Grika whispered, almost drooling. "Seamless plating. Hydraulic assist in the Greaves? No… magical assist. Runes engraved inside the metal. Gorgeous."

Kaelen didn't turn around. "If you touch my armor, Goblin, you will lose a hand."

"I'm just looking!" Grika defended, clutching Luma's bucket. "The thermal venting is inefficient! You're going to cook in that thing on Floor 3!"

"A Paladin's faith keeps them cool," Kaelen stated icily.

"Physics doesn't care about faith," Grika muttered. "Thermodynamics is a cruel mistress."

"APPROACHING FLOOR 3," a deep, booming voice echoed from the elevator shaft walls. It sounded like boulders grinding together. "PLEASE KEEP ARMS AND LEGS INSIDE THE VEHICLE AT ALL TIMES. THANK YOU."

Kaelen flinched, her hand twitching toward her sword. She looked up at the ceiling of the cage.

"There it is again," she said, her eyes narrowing. "That voice. It resonates through the stone itself. It sounds… colossal."

Reed sweated. "I told you. The janitor uses a… really loud speaking trumpet. Old magic. Very echoey."

"Janitors do not typically possess the vocal timbre of an Earth Elemental," Kaelen noted suspiciously.

"She's a big girl," Reed deflected. "Lots of lung capacity."

"She?" Kaelen mused.

CLUNK.

The elevator hit the bottom bumpers with a bone-jarring thud. The gears ground to a halt. Steam hissed from the release valves.

"Open the gate," Kaelen ordered.

Reed pulled the lever. The heavy iron grate screamed open.

If Floor 1 was a performance, and Floor 2 was a luxury resort, Floor 3 was a revelation.

A wall of heat hit them instantly, rolling over them like a physical wave. It was dry, intense, and smelled of sulfur and industry.

Kaelen stepped out onto the metal catwalk and stopped dead. Her eyes, trained to spot dark altars and hidden crypts, widened as they took in the scale of The Foundry.

It was a cavern of immense proportions, lit not by mana lamps, but by the jagged, bleeding veins of magma that ran through channels cut into the obsidian floor. Massive iron pipes snaked along the walls, carrying steam and pressurized water.

In the center of the room, the Meat Grinder sat silent and menacing, a long conveyor belt flanked by rusted pistons the size of tree trunks.

To the left, a series of automated hammers were pounding out sheets of metal. CLANG. CLANG. CLANG.

To the right, a forge that looked large enough to smelt a dragon was glowing with white-hot intensity.

"By the Flame…" Kaelen whispered. She walked to the railing, looking down at the industrial nightmare. "This is not a dungeon. Dungeons are organic. They grow rooms like tumors. They spawn monsters to hunt."

She turned to Reed, her expression severe.

"This… this is a factory. You are manufacturing warfare."

"We call it 'proactive defense'," Reed said, stepping up beside her. "We don't just spawn monsters, Inquisitor. We equip them. We armor them. And we build walls that skeletons can't scratch."

He pointed to the far end of the cavern.

There, blocking a massive, spiraling tunnel mouth that descended from the ceiling, stood the Main Blast Doors.

They were ugly. They were made of scrap metal, melted-down adventurer armor, and raw iron, welded together into a slab three feet thick. They were reinforced with glowing orange runes that pulsed with the heartbeat of the dungeon.

THOOM.

Something hit the doors from the other side. The metal groaned.

"Explain," Kaelen demanded, pointing at the doors. "You collapsed the main entrance on Floor 1. How are they knocking on the basement door?"

"The Great Spiral," Reed explained, gesturing to the massive pipe-like tunnel behind the doors. "It's a service ramp. It corkscrews down from the surface, bypassing the upper floors entirely. We use it to haul heavy machinery down without wrecking the lobby."

"And the Necromancer found it?"

"He didn't find it. He breached it," Grika chimed in, pointing to a schematic on her wrist-computer (a slate with gears). "The army outside dug straight down and hit the spiral shaft about fifty feet below the surface. They're pouring down the ramp right now like water down a drain."

Reed nodded. "Those doors are the only thing stopping them from flooding the Foundry. If they breach, they bypass the Core Room and hit us right here, where we keep the explosive ordinance."

Kaelen stared at the blast doors. She looked at the Meat Grinder positioned directly in front of them. She looked at the vents in the ceiling designed to dump magma.

She was a soldier. She knew a kill box when she saw one.

"It is… grotesque," Kaelen judged. "It violates the natural order of dungeoneering. It is mechanical and soulless."

She drew her sword, the white light struggling against the overwhelming orange glow of the lava.

"But it is a defensible position," she conceded. "And right now, I require cover more than I require tradition."

"Status on the trap array?" Reed shouted to Grika.

Grika scrambled down the ladder to her control console—a mess of levers, dials, and a few loose wires sparking ominously. She dumped Luma into a nearby cooling vent (the slime let out a happy gurgle as she hit the warm water).

"Primed!" Grika yelled, flipping switches. "The Grinder is in standby mode to save mana! Steam pressure is at ninety percent! I've got the automated turrets tracking the door!"

"Good."

Reed turned to Seraphine.

"Seraphine, you're on point. If anything gets past the Grinder, you stick it with the pointy end."

"With pleasure, my Lord," Seraphine hissed. She moved to the side of the kill box, her magma armor blending perfectly with the environment. She looked like a demon born of the fire, terrifying and majestic.

Kaelen watched the monsters taking their positions. They moved with military precision. No squabbling. No wild screeching. They were a unit.

"Your minions," Kaelen said quietly to Reed. "They are disciplined. Unusual for Unbound."

"They're family, unbound and unfiltered" Reed corrected. "And they don't want to die."

THOOM.

The sound came from the other side of the blast doors. It was a heavy, dull impact. Like a battering ram hitting a mountain.

Dust shook from the ceiling. A few loose screws rattled on the catwalk.

THOOM.

"They're knocking," Reed muttered. His interface flashed red.

[THREAT ALERT]

Location: Floor 3 Entrance (The Great Spiral).

Enemy: Undead Siegebreakers (x3).

Status: Breaching.

"Get ready!" Reed shouted, his voice echoing over the machinery.

Kaelen stepped forward. She didn't hide behind the traps. She walked right up to the edge of the conveyor belt, placing herself front and center.

She raised her sword high. The holy light flared, cutting through the gloom, a beacon of order in the chaos of industry.

"Let them come," Kaelen said, her voice calm and deadly. "Let them break themselves against your iron. And I will burn whatever is left."

CREAAAK.

The center of the blast doors began to bulge inward. Metal groaned in protest. A hairline fracture appeared in the welding seam, leaking a sickly green light.

Reed checked his mana.

[MANA RESERVE: 38.5 / 150]

Warning: Critical Scarcity.

"Grika," Reed whispered. "Don't miss."

"I never miss, Boss," Grika grinned, her hand hovering over the 'ON' button for the Grinder.

The descent was over. The siege of the Foundry had begun.

If you find any errors ( broken links, non-standard content, etc.. ), Please let us know < report chapter > so we can fix it as soon as possible.