My brain stopped working today.
Completely.
I believe this should be documented.
If only as evidence.
We finally reached the fifth floor.
The destination Ryn had been planning around since arriving in Vaultreach.
The reason we crossed four floors of monsters, tunnels, roots, crystals, and increasingly questionable life choices.
And after seeing it—
I am reasonably certain neither Spathian nor I were prepared.
The transition happened suddenly.
One moment we were descending a steep stone stairway through the Memory Abyss.
The next—
the world ended.
Or perhaps changed its mind.
The tunnel opened.
The darkness vanished.
And beyond it stretched a desert.
An actual desert.
Underground.
A vast red expanse extending farther than I could see.
I stopped walking.
Spathian stopped walking.
Several veteran hunters continued walking without concern.
Which somehow made everything worse.
Because clearly this was normal.
For them.
Not for me.
Certainly not for Spathian.
For several minutes he kept muttering calculations under his breath.
Distances.
Angles.
Estimated depths.
Geological impossibilities.
Portal theory.
Spatial distortion theory.
Portal theory again.
Then he asked whether anyone had accidentally entered another dimension.
Nobody answered.
Ryn kept walking.
Which I have learned usually means she already expected this.
The Crimson Expanse.
Also called The False Sky.
I understand both names.
The desert itself was impossible enough.
Red dunes stretched beneath an underground horizon.
Strange rock formations rose from the sands like broken bones.
Wind moved across the landscape.
Real wind.
No one seemed capable of explaining where it came from.
Then there was the sky.
The false sky.
The thing that truly damaged my ability to think.
Above us stretched an enormous canopy of bioluminescent fungi.
Miles of it.
Perhaps more.
Blue.
Purple.
Pale crimson.
Soft waves of light drifted through the fungal layers like clouds crossing a night sky.
Tiny luminous clusters resembled stars.
Others moved slowly enough to imitate distant constellations.
It looked beautiful.
Wrong.
Comforting.
Unsettling.
Like someone had attempted to recreate a sky from memory.
And gotten almost everything correct.
Almost.
The result felt less natural than the real thing.
The entire ceiling seemed too deliberate.
Too perfect.
I stared at it for so long that I nearly walked into a merchant wagon.
The merchant appeared accustomed to this.
Apparently I was not the first.
At the center of the desert sat a large oasis.
Hundreds of tents surrounded it.
Markets.
Workshops.
Supply stalls.
Artifact traders.
Hunters.
Porters.
Excavation teams.
The entire place looked less like a dungeon floor and more like a frontier town.
A frontier town hidden beneath reality.
And then I noticed what everyone was doing.
Digging.
Just digging.
Everywhere.
People with shovels.
People with picks.
People with bare hands.
People arguing over excavation rights.
People celebrating.
People crying.
People digging.
Thousands of holes.
Thousands more being created.
At first I assumed they were mining something.
Then I saw it happen.
A hunter struck the sand with a shovel.
Again.
Again.
Again.
Then a crystal emerged.
Not buried.
Not uncovered.
Emerged.
As though it had simply decided to exist.
A minute later someone nearby unearthed a rusted sword.
Then a bronze statue.
Then a glowing stone sphere.
No pattern.
No logic.
No visible cause.
Artifacts simply appeared.
The phenomenon apparently cannot be explained.
Even scholars disagree.
The prevailing theory is that the floor itself acts as a sink for excess arcane energy.
Artifacts condense from the accumulation.
Or grow.
Or manifest.
Or are born.
Depending on which scholar is attempting to sound important.
Nobody actually knows.
What fascinated me most was that nobody seemed concerned.
Not even slightly.
Artifacts spontaneously appearing from underground sand should feel significant.
A violation of reality.
A mystery worthy of study.
Instead people treated it like weather.
Find artifact.
Sell artifact.
Buy shovel.
Continue digging.
Civilization adapts remarkably quickly.
Especially when profit is involved.
Speaking of profit.
Ryn was right.
Again.
Unfortunately.
The folding shovels sold.
All of them.
Every single one.
Not only sold.
Sold immediately.
At horrifying prices.
Apparently the closer people get to treasure, the more rational thought evaporates.
One hunter paid nearly twenty times the original value.
Another traded an artifact he had literally just found.
A third attempted to buy three at once while shouting that he was "one excavation away from becoming rich."
I suspect he was not.
But optimism appears contagious here.
By midday the cart was nearly empty.
Ryn retained only two shovels.
One for me.
One for Spathian.
Which created a new problem.
Spathian began digging.
Initially he complained.
Then he found something.
A spoon.
An artifact spoon.
I do not know what it does.
I am afraid to ask.
The important detail is that he has not stopped digging since.
At one point I saw him running between excavation sites carrying his shovel like a holy weapon.
I chose not to interfere.
Meanwhile several raid alerts interrupted the day.
The first involved a Sand Devourer.
Someone screamed.
The ground exploded.
A gigantic worm erupted from beneath the dunes.
Its circular mouth was lined with rotating rings of teeth.
Hunters dropped tools immediately.
Half charged toward it.
The other half ran away.
Both groups seemed equally experienced.
The battle lasted perhaps fifteen minutes.
The worm died.
Everyone resumed digging.
Later a Crystal Colossus appeared in the distance.
The thing towered over nearby tents.
Red crystal plates covered its body.
Each step shook the sand.
An entire hunting party mobilized.
Merchants calmly moved their stalls ten meters to the left.
The monster eventually collapsed.
A cheer erupted.
Then everyone resumed digging.
A Swarm Reaver passed overhead shortly afterward.
Thousands of crystal insects forming temporary shapes in the air.
Faces.
Hands.
Things I would rather not describe.
People hid.
Waited.
Then resumed digging.
This floor possesses a very specific relationship with danger.
Namely:
acknowledge it.
Survive it.
Continue excavating.
As though death itself is merely another workplace inconvenience.
At the moment I am resting beside a dune.
My shovel lies nearby.
Unused.
Mostly.
I attempted digging earlier.
Nothing happened.
I found sand.
Then more sand.
Then slightly deeper sand.
My contribution to archaeology has been limited.
Spathian remains somewhere beyond the market.
Still digging.
Still searching.
Still muttering about spoons.
Ryn disappeared several hours ago.
According to her she was "handling business."
This phrase worries me.
Because every time Ryn says she is handling business, she returns wealthier.
Or with more leverage.
Occasionally both.
For now I am content watching.
The False Sky glows above.
The oasis reflects impossible colors.
Hundreds of people gamble their futures one shovel strike at a time.
And somewhere beneath all this sand—
artifacts continue appearing for reasons nobody understands.
Perhaps the strangest part is that after everything I have seen during this journey—
I am already beginning to accept it.
That realization concerns me far more than the underground desert.
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