They took one more slow circuit through the surface before leaving.
First the Vogels.
Then Hà Nội Corner.
There, between warm bread, coffee, and the kind of comfort that only came from people who already felt like home, Phong and Alex finally told them.
They were getting engaged.
Not someday.
Not vaguely.
For real.
The reaction hit in waves.
Mama Vogel went still for half a second, then covered her mouth, then immediately started crying in the happy, offended way only mothers could when joy arrived without enough warning.
Papa Vogel stood very straight, like he had to gather himself before the emotion made him too soft to speak. Then he clapped Phong hard on the shoulder and muttered something in German that sounded suspiciously like approval pretending to be complaint.
Long only raised a brow.
Then he nodded once, slow and certain, like he had expected this all along and saw no reason to make a dramatic show of it.
"When," he asked.
"New Year's Eve," Alex said.
"Small ceremony," Phong added. "Only the closest friends."
Mama Vogel, still emotional, pointed at both of them. "Good. No nonsense. No giant crowd. No strangers."
Emma, who had joined them for the second stop too, smirked lightly over her drink. "I like that I still count as close enough for this."
"You invited yourself into the team," Jake said.
Emma sipped her coffee. "And was clearly correct to do so."
Long set down another cup with a quiet clink. "Then you should both survive until New Year's Eve."
"That is the plan," Phong said.
"Good," Long replied. "Try not to complicate it."
Nobody made any promises.
After that, there was nothing left to delay for.
They had the gas for the generators. They had made the necessary visit. They had seen the Vogels, seen Long, acted normal in public, and let the city see them doing ordinary things. As much as people like them could still count as ordinary, anyway.
Selena stayed behind on the surface.
She still had university research to continue, and Vanessa remained with her as always. That part no longer surprised anyone. It simply fit the shape of their lives now.
This time, Emma returned with Team Nemean.
That still felt strange to think about.
The trip back down went quickly, helped by how familiar the route had become. In about an hour, they reached Camp Stymphalian.
And found that reality had broken again while they were gone.
The elves had hatched. And not just hatched, but they had moved.
They were no longer in the scorched land.
They were in camp.
Phong stopped dead the moment he saw them.
So did everyone else.
A cluster of small figures stood near one of the central paths, looking around with bright, curious eyes and the sort of eerie beauty that even childhood had not softened into anything fully human. Their ears were still sharply pointed. Their features still ethereal. Their hair fell in pale and dark shades that caught the light strangely. Compared to the adult forms they had seen inside the pods, these bodies were smaller, younger, clearly reduced.
Likely because the level one hundred and twenty privilege from Horns of the Earth had been stripped away.
They looked like children now.
Children with impossible origin stories and a direct line into Phong's already complicated life.
The moment they saw him, all of them lit up.
Then they ran.
Straight at him.
"Dad!"
"Dad!"
"Dad, food!"
Phong took the impact of several newly hatched elf children colliding with his legs all at once and nearly forgot how to stand.
The camp froze.
Rico, who had seen many absurd things by now, still put both paws on his head. "No. No. This is too strong."
Alex made a choking sound that was half laugh, half disbelief.
Dominic just stared. "You left for one surface trip."
Emma looked at Phong with the awe of someone watching a man lose a war he never knew had begun.
The elves tugged at his clothes, speaking over each other.
"Dad, hungry."
"Need food."
"Sunlight bad by itself."
"We came home."
Phong stared down at them.
Then up at the camp.
Then back down again.
"…home," he repeated weakly.
One of the little elves nodded with complete confidence. "Home."
That was when his status menu pinged.
Phong opened it with the numb reflex of a man whose life had become too strange for surprise to function properly.
A message from Horns of the Earth sat there.
The writing looked almost lazy, as if it had been sent by someone barely awake after a nap.
[The children found their way. They can photosynthesize, but sunlight alone will leave them malnourished.]
Phong read it once.
Then again.
Of course.
Of course the ancient progenitor of elves would hand over the problem like that and phrase it with the lazy sleepy tone of someone who lived on the couch.
He closed the menu and looked down at the children still attached to him.
"Alright," he said, because practicality was all he had left. "Alright. Let's feed you first."
That, at least, he knew how to do.
He headed for the cooking area with a train of elf children following him close enough to count as a moving crisis. Rico came too, partly because he never missed food and partly because this had become too unbelievable to watch from far away.
The others trailed after for a while, but once it became clear this was turning into a real meal instead of an emergency battle, the mood softened into stunned fascination.
Phong worked fast.
For the elves, he made a vegan phở broth. Mushroom, jicama, daikon, carrots, layered carefully until the stock carried enough body and sweetness to count as real broth that belong in a bowl of phở.
For everyone else, he used the same base and built it further into tái lăn, stir-fried beef with extra onions, the rendered fat running back into the broth and deepening it into something rich and fragrant enough to make the whole camp smell like tallow heaven.
The elves crowded near him while he cooked, watching with complete trust and no sense of personal space. Every time he moved, one or two of them shifted with him like ducklings who had imprinted on the wrong species.
Alex leaned in at one point and said under her breath, "You really are a dad now."
Phong gave her a dead look. "Don't start."
"I'm just observing."
"That's worse."
When the food was finally served, the elves accepted their bowls with the solemn intensity of very hungry children who had already decided Phong was the center of their world.
The first sip did it.
Their eyes widened.
Then the whole table was filled with small sounds of delight, quick eating, and the kind of chaotic focus only children ever brought to a meal.
Rico looked offended. "They are stealing raccoon's style."
"They're eating phở," Phong said.
"With messy commitment."
"That's not a style, that just them not knowing how to eat properly. You, on the other hand, is not a child."
The rest of Camp Stymphalian ate too. Veggie broth mixed with rendered fat, onions, warmth, the ordinary miracle of shared food settling over a camp that had once again become stranger than it had any right to be.
Even Emma, seated among them now as part of Nemean, watched the scene with that same careful look she always had when Phong's life did something no amount of privilege could have prepared her for.
"You came back with surface gas," she said. "And found elves calling you dad."
Phong drank from his bowl. "Yes."
"That sentence would kill normal people."
"I'm not sure I count anymore."
Nobody argued.
By the time the meal ended, plans had already started moving again.
Floor 2 still needed attention. The second camp still mattered. Nemean had training and work to do, and Dominic had no intention of letting the momentum they had built die just because Phong's home life had become even more impossible.
So the team got ready to move.
Dominic. Janet. Jake. Jack. Joanne. Alex. Emma. Séline. Camille. Alexei.
Team Nemean headed toward Floor 2.
Phong stayed behind.
Not because he wanted to.
Because someone had to.
Someone had to watch the newborn elves. Someone had to keep Camp Stymphalian stable. Someone had to make sure the children did not wander into a mushroom patch, a trap line, a troll argument, or any of the other things that counted as Tuesday around here.
That left him alone.
Well, not alone.
Alone with Rico.
And the new elf children.
And Little Fireball.
Well, the chickens too, if he really wanted to count them.
The team disappeared down the route toward the lower floor, voices fading with distance.
Then the camp quieted.
Phong looked around at the little elves now gathered near him, full-bellied and drowsy, and at Rico who was walking around with a small cup of coffee like he was bad examples and chaotic influence shoved into a raccoon shaped mold.
Rico glanced at the children.
Then at Phong.
Then back at the children.
"…farmer really speed ran parenthood."
Phong exhaled and sat down slowly.
One of the elves climbed right into his lap like it was the most natural thing in the world.
Another leaned against his side.
A third looked up at him and asked, "Dad, story?"
Phong stared into the distance for a moment.
Then groaned softly.
For the first time in a very long while, Phong's battlefield was not a camp, a lake, or a war.
It was childcare.
After handing over the normal soil, the surface seeds, and the fertilizer to the Greencap bunny workers at Camp Harpy, Team Nemean continued toward Floor 2 as planned.
The trade went smoothly.
The Greencap knights accepted the delivery with the same stiff little professionalism they brought to everything. Their captain gave Dominic a short nod, clearly satisfied that the agreement had been honored without excuses or delay. Around them, the workers were already making plans for the expanded fields. Sacks were moved. Tools were gathered. A few of the bunnies were practically vibrating with purpose at the sight of good surface soil.
Rico would have called it agricultural ecstasy.
Unfortunately for Rico, he was not there.
So Dominic simply adjusted the pack on his shoulder and led the team onward.
The descent to Floor 2 was calm in a way the dungeon rarely allowed. No sudden shifting, no monster ambush, no strange weather rolling through the cavern air. Just the long route downward, weapons ready, senses sharp, everyone moving in the trained rhythm of coordination.
Emma noticed it too.
The way Dominic's group no longer moved like skilled people traveling together, but like a team beginning to understand where each piece naturally belonged.
By the time they reached the second camp near the shore of Lake Baratok, even she herself looked a little less like a guest and a little more like a cog in a well oiled machine.
Then they saw what Phong had left behind.
The second camp overlooking the lake had changed.
It had not merely held.
It had grown.
The defensive lines near the shore, between the lake and the dense forest, had spread into something much nastier than the group remembered. Chilies launchers were rooted deeper and in greater numbers, angled in overlapping lanes. Garlic mines had multiplied into hidden lanes that challenge all who took a wrong step. Bonktatoes sat in clusters, ready to punch anything that had the gut to come close. The moletato work beneath the land had become even clearer too. The ground was subtly wrong in that way only a territory claimed by Phong ever was, as if it had stopped being neutral earth and started waiting for instructions.
Even the tree line looked less welcoming.
Jack stared at the spread of defenses for a second, then gave a low whistle.
Joanne folded her arms. "That is more than when we left."
Jake crouched to inspect one of the hidden mine paths and decided against touching anything. "A lot more."
Emma looked from one plant line to the next, visibly recalculating again. "He was not even here."
Dominic shrugged.
"Seems like something worked overtime."
That got a few grim little smiles.
Because that was exactly what it looked like.
Somewhere between Phong's preparations, the plants' own growth, and whatever strange ecosystem he had already started forcing into shape down here, the camp had continued fortifying itself like it knew its farmer would be back.
They did a full sweep anyway.
No shortcuts.
The lake edge was secure. The forest side held. The routes in and out were still usable. No lizardmen patrols pressed too close, which likely meant the old understanding still held. There were signs of movement in the wider area, but nothing immediate enough to force a fight.
Once they were satisfied, the group moved on toward Wraith Fort.
The fort still carried the shadow of everything that had happened there before. The Mushroompires invasion. The fight with Josh. The ice wolf. The strain. The fight. The retreat. But now Team Nemean came back stronger, sharper, and with a bigger goal in mind.
They would secure it properly this time.
Room by room.
Wall by wall.
Jack reinforced weak sections with stone until cracks and holes were gone, and the fortress turned into usable defense. Joanne marked lines of sight and started to learn the in and out of the watch towers. Jake and Camille checked entry points. Séline and Janet went over the interior for hidden threats or old fungal creep. Alexei hauled equipment like a man who considered heavy lifting a personal love language. Emma helped place the generator units with more practical patience than some of them had expected from her.
By the time the work was done, Wraith Fort had become something more than a ruin.
It was a real forward HQ on Floor 2.
The generators came online with a rough mechanical rumble that sounded strangely reassuring inside dungeon stone. Signal amplifiers were set up next, carefully placed and adjusted until the connection to the internet was stabilized.
Everyone was happy.
Once the fort was settled enough to hold, they pushed out again.
This time toward the direction where the Mushroompires had come from.
The same fungi monsters had attacked the fort before. Then Josh came, trying to make use of their exhaustion and nearly got his way had it not been for Phong ridiculous strawberries. That memory sat under the march like something sour, but nobody said much about it. They did not need to.
The land changed as they went.
The closer they moved, the more the cavern floor took on the ugly signs of fungal dominance. Pale growths spread across stone in layered fans. Thick stalks rose in clusters between broken walls and root lines. The air grew damp and stale, carrying the smell of spores and rot and the faint sweet note that always seemed worse for being sweet at all.
Emma wrinkled her nose. "I hate this already."
"Correct reaction," Joanne said.
Alex walked near the front with Dominic, eyes moving constantly. Emma stayed close enough to support but far enough not to get pinned in a bad lane if the Mushroompires came out in force. Jack kept one hand near the ground. Janet and Joanne stayed near the rear, protecting Emma from either sides. Jake, Séline, and Camille spread slightly apart, ready to form that three-point pressure line if needed.
But no attack came.
Not from the Mushroompires.
Not from anything.
Instead, the ruined fungal paths opened into a broad chamber they had not reached before.
And there, at the far end silently stood a massive golden gate.
The whole group slowed at once.
It was not natural dungeon stone. It was worked metal, old-looking in a way that did not feel human, set into a frame too smooth and exact for anything the fungi should have touched. Etched across the surface was the shape of a figure that made the eye want to slide away and then return despite itself.
Alien.
Tall.
Robed or layered in shapes that only looked like cloth from a distance. Its posture carried the same wrong kind of regality Phong had once described from the earlier gate. Something about it called up old dread even for those who did not have the words for it.
Emma stared. "A gate?"
Jake swallowed. "One that had not been discovered before."
Jack's voice came out low. "Or no other divers had lived to formally file a report on it."
Dominic gulped once.
The gate looked exactly like the entrance they had used before to go from Floor 1 to Floor 2. Same golden structure. Same carved figure with that eerie, king-in-yellow sort of presence, like something hiding in an eldritch kaleidoscope of nightmares.
Which meant only one thing.
This gate would open to an uncharted territory of floor 3.
The chamber stayed quiet around them.
No monsters rushed out.
No system alert sounded.
The gate simply stood there, waiting.
Alex walked a little closer, studying the etching more carefully. "If this really is the way down, then should we descend?"
"The captain should be the one calling the shot, no? Dominic?" Emma replied with a question.
Dominic looked over the whole group.
Responsibility weighed on his shoulders, reminding him of his boxer days. The pressure, the expectation, it rested on his shoulders with even more crushing weight than doing deadlift.
They had found what they came for and more: A second camp holding better than expected, a fortified HQ at Wraith Fort, and now a confirmed entrance to Floor 3 in the same region where an old threat still lingered.
This was not the sort of thing you charged into just because curiosity bit.
Dominic let out a slow breath.
"Alright," he said. "Take five."
Everyone turned toward him.
He stepped back from the gate and gestured for them to gather.
"We discuss before anyone does anything stupid."
Jake raised a hand. "That feels directed."
"It is," Dominic said.
If Rico was here, he would have bombarded them with bad ideas and reckless decision.
They were thankful that the racoon was left back at camp, for once.