The crypt became completely dark as soon as we crossed the threshold. I was about to cast a light spell when two torches lit up the moment I stepped onto the hall’s dusty marble floor. The two light sources were nailed onto thick gray marble pillars that spread out in arcs to hold up the low ceiling. With each subsequent step, additional torches lit up, revealing more pillars and a larger part of the crypts.

The humid atmosphere of the underground was complemented by the very familiar scent of a place that hadn’t been aired for a long time. The corridor in front of us was somewhat narrow and the whole hall consisted of small room-like squares, each side of pillars dividing the sepulcher section from the corridor. On both sides of each room, three cabinets, one on top of the other, were built into the walls.

I didn’t want to open any of them, but it was fairly obvious without checking that these recesses served as the final resting place for the bodies of the deceased monk-priests. We walked between them, trying to cause as few disturbances as possible, knowing that even though I silenced the sound of the explosion I had caused moments ago, the vibrations between the walls might have alerted the sleeping monk-priests.

We carefully made our way through the mausoleum, watching as new pairs of torches lit up in front of us and while those some distance behind us turned off. The corridor turned right, then continued straight for some time before turning left again.

The deeper we progressed, the lower the temperature became, until we started seeing our breath every time we exhaled. And yet we delved even deeper into the long marble halls. At some point during our trek, we noticed that the cabinets designed to hold the dead were open and empty.

“I guess they still have space left for people down here,” I said.

“Either that,” Kai replied as he followed me, “or the dead went for a walk.”

“Don’t be ridiculous, Kai,” I said, but the mere thought of it upset me.

Kai was very fond of stories with necromancers, lording over legions of reanimated corpses but I never liked those gruesome tales. I despised anything related to spells that involved raising the dead, and that included even stories about this type of sorcery.

Quite a few turns and an equal number of stretches later, we reached the end of the long corridors serving as the monastery’s crypts. By my estimations, we were already quite a long away further south than the monastery itself and I wondered what could be above. What stood before us was equally interesting, even though it looked very mundane.

A door-sized opening stood at the end of the crypts, a stone staircase behind it. The ascending stairs led south and even though there were no torches, I could tell the few steps we could see from our position were only the beginning. Without even looking at each other, we put our foot on the first of the many steps.

Seeing that no illuminating spell was activated, Kai took out a magical torch from his bag and activated it with a click of his fingers. The light did not travel too far ahead, but was enough for us to not lose our step.

Every score or so of steps, a larger landing served as a place for us to rest. The first few of them did not strike us as resting stops since we were not really tired yet, but we stopped all the same because of the murals on the walls.

The sculpted art looked like it depicted moments in the lives of spellcasters. Some of them showed them performing miracles, such as splitting the seas, raising the dead, or walking on the sun. But all of them had a strong connection to spellcasters.

Walking further up the stairs, I realized we now couldn’t see our breath anymore. It actually seemed like it was getting warmer by the minute. We welcomed this unexpected change in climate as we were both fed up with trying to move through blizzards and thick snow.

“By The Divine!” Kai protested as we were resting on one of the broader landings of the stairs. “How many more can there be? It feels like we’ve ascended higher than the clouds by now. How can we still be inside the mountain?”

“I don’t think we are still in the mountain,” I replied, making a rough estimation of our relative position on the map. “I think this is a magical staircase, and space must be heavily distorted in it.”

“Do you mean we’re lost?” Kai asked, surprised.

“No, not lost. We are exactly where we need to be,” I answered confidently. “I just think it doesn’t seem to relate our current position and route on ordinary maps.”

“I see,” Kai concluded. “Kind of like our chest? The space expands because of magic?”

“Maybe,” I replied. “It may also be that our world is connecting with another here. There’s no way to tell really.”

“Either way, there’s only one path to follow,” Kai said, and stood on his feet again.

“Exactly,” I said, and I pushed myself up to resume our ascent.

Several hundred steps later, we reached a tall wooden double door. I was about to blast it open when Kai simply pushed it and both of its wings spread wide open.

“If you hadn’t pushed the door, I would have—” I started saying but stopped as we crossed the doorstep.

You have entered the Mana Tree Dungeon.

This is a level 61 dungeon.

“Did you see this?” I asked and Kai nodded in agreement.

Dungeons were places parallel to our own world, manifested by powerful spellcasters or deities, having their own unique set of rules and physics. I had never expected to find a dungeon at the end of the world.

“This place is very weird, Myriam,” Kai said looking around.

I had no idea how it had happened but we were now standing at the beginning of a very thick and dark forest. I looked at the sky above and was even more confused by the complete absence of light. Even during cloudy nights, a star could be seen here and there, and the moonlight would paint some of the clouds in a dark gray hue.

And in any case, the southern lands were living in perpetual daylight at this time of the year, which meant some light should be able to seep through. However, everywhere I looked in the sky there was darkness, and if there were clouds hiding the stars and the sun, they were so thick that they blocked light out completely. Had it not been for a gentle breeze blowing through my hair, and the general acoustics of where we were standing, I would have thought we were still inside a large hall instead of standing in the open.

I moved our torch around and saw that the door we’d just exited from stood on the side of a towering mountain wall. The side of the mountain was too steep and smooth to climb, while its extreme height made it feel like a fence, enclosing us as if we were farm animals. We took some time to examine the length of the mountain walls, but concluded that they circled around behind us and reached into the forest standing in front of us.

“It looks like we only have one path,” Kai said.

“Yes, so it seems,” I replied. “I’d like to know the reason this void exists above us. Is it very thick clouds or is it something else? A very high ceiling, perhaps?”

“Why don’t you throw a flare upward?” Kai asked.

“I thought about it, but we don’t know where we are,” I said in a quiet voice. “Neither do we know what else lurks in the darkness.”

“You’re right,” Kai agreed. “Then I guess we have to cross the forest with just this torch.”

I nodded.

The forest was extremely thick, and the only sounds I could hear as we traveled through it were our footsteps and the occasional cracking of small branches or dried leaves under our feet. Even though the wind could be felt on our faces, it made no sound while blowing through the leaves and grass.

Not five minutes after beginning our walk among the trees, on a path clearly marked by the absence of plant life, I noticed a stream of lights approaching us fast.

“Quick, hide,” I told Kai, and jumped behind a broad tree trunk on the side of the path while putting out the magical torch which illuminated our way.