Chapter 4: Borrowed Light
Rei's claws settled against the beam.
The wood had drunk in moisture until it felt heavier than it should, swollen at the edges, splintered where stone had bitten into it. Rei set his feet on the driest patches of floor he could find and let Ember Circulation steady him—quiet warmth threaded through his arms, holding his hands firm without turning his blood into panic.
Tovin lay pinned at the shoulder and ribs, breath coming in short pulls. Their eyes tracked Rei's hands like the beam might shift simply from being looked at.
"On three," Rei said.
Tovin let out a rough laugh. "You say that like it helps."
"It gives the moment a shape," Rei replied. "Hold your breath on the lift."
Tovin's throat bobbed. "Sure. Totally. Easy."
Rei exhaled once, slow, then tightened his stance. The slick stone near the pool held the wrong kind of shine. It promised a foot slip and a bad ending. He put his weight where the texture felt grittier and stayed honest with himself about how little room he had.
"One."
Tovin's jaw clenched.
"Two."
Rei leaned in and pulled, using angle instead of brute force. The beam resisted as if the rubble had claimed it as part of the room.
"Three."
The beam rose a finger's width. Dust shook loose and drifted down. Tovin made a sound through their teeth, pain sharp enough that Rei's shoulders went tight on instinct.
"Talk," Rei said. "Keep your voice moving."
Tovin dragged in air. "Okay. Okay. So—since we're doing this—what's your plan after you get me free?"
Rei kept the beam steady. "Same as before. Keep breathing. Keep moving. Try not to die."
Tovin coughed something that tried to become another laugh. "Love the clarity."
Rei shifted his grip and raised the beam higher. The gap widened under the wood. Enough space for Tovin to slide an arm free.
Then the rubble answered.
A pebble rolled from somewhere inside the pile. A small crack ran through a supporting stone, quiet and ugly.
Rei froze with the beam half-lifted.
His body ran the math faster than his thoughts. If the beam slid, it would drop. If it dropped, it would land wrong.
Tovin saw it in his face. "Rei—"
Rei's gaze snapped to the debris field. A wedge-stone kept the beam from rolling flat. He could reach it. He could jam a claw under and hold the slide.
He could also lose fingers doing it.
Ember Circulation tightened, warmth pressing into his hands and wrists, urging control and patience instead of panic.
"Knife," Rei said. "Left pocket."
Tovin swallowed. "I can't reach."
"I can." Rei lowered the beam a fraction until its weight settled again. Dust puffed out. He shifted his balance, crouched, and reached toward Tovin's pocket.
His claws hovered a breath above the fabric.
A thought surfaced like an old bad reflex—inventory, loot, survival. A trapped player in a dungeon that had already proven it didn't care.
Rei pushed the thought aside and kept his voice even. "Tell me before you flinch."
"If I flinch, hit me," Tovin rasped.
Rei's mouth twitched. "Tempting."
He slid his hand into the pocket carefully, mindful of the claw tips, and found the knife by feel. Short. Worn. Practical. The kind of thing you carried because you expected the world to stay inconvenient.
Rei pulled it free, then hesitated when his fingers brushed something else in the pocket—harder, smoother, like a coin-sized charm with a raised edge.
Tovin's breath hitched. Their eyes flicked to Rei's hand.
A moment of quiet temptation settled over the two of them.
Rei withdrew the knife only.
He held it up where Tovin could see. "Borrowing this."
"Borrowing means I get it back," Tovin said, voice thin but stubborn.
"Stay alive and you can argue ownership," Rei replied.
He set the knife's spine under the beam where wood met stone. Not to cut—just to give the beam something to bite if it tried to slide. Then he rose and took the beam again.
"Same breath," Rei said. "Hold it on the lift."
Tovin nodded once.
Rei pulled.
The beam rose. The knife groaned under pressure, metal complaining, but it held. Rei kept his breathing measured—inhale, guide; exhale, hold—and the tremor stayed out of his hands even as the strain built.
Tovin dragged themself forward on their stomach, inch by inch. Their face twisted and their breath shook. Blood streaked their sleeve where stone had scraped skin. Not a river. Still bad.
Rei held the beam up while Tovin cleared the worst of the weight, then slid free and collapsed onto the cold floor like their bones had turned to wet rope.
Rei lowered the beam carefully until it settled without a crash.
The knife bent with a sharp complaint and went useless.
Rei stared at the warped metal for a beat, then set it down beside Tovin. "You've got bandage and water. Use them."
Tovin fumbled at their interface with shaking hands. "Right. Yeah. I—"
Their voice stalled.
Rei's attention sharpened. "Tovin?"
Tovin blinked, then blinked again, like they'd lost the next word on the tip of their tongue. "I… was going to say thank you."
"Say it after you've wrapped that," Rei replied, nodding toward their sleeve.
Tovin forced their hands to work. Cloth came out. Water. A small vial that looked like it had been refilled too many times. They moved with the clumsy urgency of someone trying to keep control of a body that wanted to give up.
Rei kept half his focus on the chamber.
The pool sat dark and still. Fungus glow painted it in faint streaks. The worked stone walls looked straighter here, as if tools had shaped them long before the dungeon decided it wanted to be cruel.
A prickling ran over Rei's skin—subtle, the kind that made him want to turn his head without knowing why.
In the pool's surface, a pale outline formed for a heartbeat. Fox-shaped. Translucent enough that the reflection of stone lines showed through it.
It held still.
Then the outline thinned and the pool went dark again.
Rei didn't speak. He watched without staring.
Tovin finished tying the bandage with a hiss. "Okay," they breathed. "Okay. That helps."
Rei crouched near the beam's edge and picked up the bent knife. He turned it once in his hand, then looked back to Tovin. "That charm in your pocket."
Tovin's eyes flicked down, then back up. Wariness flashed through the pain. "You felt it."
"I did."
Tovin swallowed. "It's a stabilizer token. One use. It helps you pass seams without getting chewed up by whatever the dungeon's doing." Their gaze slid away for a beat, then returned with a strained honesty. "I kept it because it was the only thing I had that felt like insurance."
Rei's fingers tightened around the ruined knife, then loosened. "Keep it."
Tovin stared like they expected an argument. "You… you sure?"
Rei nodded once. "You're hurt. I'm standing."
Tovin's expression shifted—relief trying to exist beside suspicion, gratitude trying to exist beside fear. "You're a problem," they muttered.
Rei's mouth quirked. "I get that a lot."
A soft scrape sounded from the far corner of the chamber.
Rei stood.
The corner held rubble shadow and broken supports, places the fungus glow didn't reach cleanly. The scrape came again, and a darker shape separated itself from the blackness like it had always been there and was only now choosing to be seen.
Fox-shaped. Sleek. Light refused to cling to it. Two eyes flickered in the dark, glitch-bright and amused.
Rei kept his hands low and open. He didn't advance. He didn't retreat. His posture stayed honest: ready, wary, and unwilling to swing first at something that hadn't attacked.
Tovin saw it and went pale. "That's—"
Their voice cut off.
Rei glanced sideways in time to see Tovin's outline blur at the edges, like heat shimmer rising off stone. The bandage in their hands lost definition. Their sleeves frayed into pale motes.
Tovin's eyes widened. Real fear, sudden and sharp. "Wait—no—"
The word broke into static.
Then Tovin was gone.
No body. No blood. No warmth.
Only dust settling where they had been, and the bent knife in Rei's hand, heavy as proof.
Rei didn't move for a full breath.
His mind reached for an explanation and found only air.
The shadow fox's eyes narrowed, almost pleased, like it had watched a performance land clean.
Rei swallowed, forced his lungs to work again, and let Ember Circulation keep his hands from shaking.
He looked at the empty stone where Tovin had been, then at the shadow fox. "So that's what this is."
The fox tilted its head.
A sound drifted through the chamber—half laugh, half yip, warped at the edges like the dungeon couldn't decide which one it preferred.
Rei's breath left through his nose. He didn't have a clean name for what he felt. Anger sat close. So did relief. So did something colder: the knowledge that the dungeon could use a person-shaped thing to pull on him, and it had done it on purpose.
The shadow fox hopped down from its slab and padded toward the far side of the chamber, where the worked stone narrowed into a passage cut too straight to be natural. It paused once and looked back at Rei, eyes bright with mischief, then turned and moved on.
Rei crouched at the spot where Tovin had vanished.
Something lay there that hadn't been there before: the coin-sized charm he'd felt in the pocket earlier, now resting on the stone like it had been set down carefully. A small leather pouch sat beside it, heavy enough to sag.
Rei picked up the pouch first and opened it just enough to see the dull gleam inside.
Coins.
Not a fortune. Enough to matter.
The charm came next—smooth, etched at the edge with tight little marks that didn't match the dungeon's fungus glow. Rei didn't try to read it. He just held it, feeling the weight of it, and the fact that it existed at all after Tovin didn't.
He slipped both into his inventory.
Then he rose and followed the shadow.
The passage narrowed, then tightened into a crawlspace that forced Rei to duck and squeeze through sharp-edged stone. His gloves scraped rock. His breath stayed steady. He kept moving.
The tunnel spat him into a larger cavern.
This one was different.
The ceiling rose high enough that darkness swallowed the fungus glow above. The walls were smoother, almost polished, and faint lines ran through the stone like veins—thin threads of pale light that pulsed in a rhythm that didn't match Rei's heartbeat.
The air tasted metallic, like pennies held under the tongue.
Rei slowed.
His HUD flickered, then a warning assembled at the edge of his vision.
[WARNING: Anomaly Detected]
A nameplate tried to form beneath it. Letters scrambled as if they couldn't decide what language to be.
Rei's eyes found the movement at the edge of the rubble ahead.
A sleek fox shape, blacker than the surrounding dark, watched him without rushing. Its presence pulled the cavern's attention in a way the stone didn't.
Rei kept his stance measured and his hands ready.
Somewhere deeper in the cavern, stone shifted again—slow, heavy, like something had started moving closer.
Rei held his breath for half a second, then let it out on purpose.
He didn't know what the dungeon wanted from him.
He knew what he would do anyway.
He stayed standing.