It was time to move. Oh, how I wish that was a metaphor.

As the hawk carefully lifted me in its beak waves of dizziness wracked my being. The very concept of moving made me feel sick, violated every instinct I had as a Dungeon Core. Worse, the effects spread outwards, created warps and whirlpools in my field of Mana, causing havoc within my Dungeon. Within the gardens, mushrooms collapsed into masses of uncontrolled growth; a viper caught in a warp grew lean and twisted, its vertebrae tearing through its flesh as its spine swelled.

I drew the field of ethereal Mana back into me, restraining the worst of the damage, but there was no denying it. I was a barely-contained singularity of Mana, not a living creature. Moving wasn’t in a Dungeon’s vocabulary, and for good reason.

But I had no choice.

The hawk spread its wings, taking off, and I wished I had arms so I could at least cling on to something. Or a mouth to scream for dear life.

Olin Frampt hated waiting. His fingers drummed an impatient tune atop the serpent’s glass cage. The creature within stared at him- was always staring at him. Olin couldn’t help but imagine he sensed an intelligence behind those amber eyes, a patient and almost human kind of malice, always waiting for the chance to strike. The snake lifted its head to meet his gaze.

Olin flinched away.

The feeling of being watched, constantly, everywhere within his laboratory, was beginning to wear at him. To make him feel a creeping paranoia. More than once he’d felt the sudden need to make sure the snake was still safely contained-

And when he did he found that golden gaze staring into him.

Olin was spared from his own paranoid thoughts as the iron doors of the laboratory swung open. His servant, Anferd, had returned, limping heavily and with a pair of hired toughs behind him carrying the crate of packaged skygrist.

“Late!” Olin barked.

“Sorry, m’lord. There were…” The man gestured at the thick bandages covering his leg, the limb trembling so badly he needed to use a cane. “Delays.”

The servant’s wound garnered no sympathy. The two men earned nothing more than a wave of dismissal as they set the crate on his workbench. “Careful!” Olin winced as he heard the jars knock together like glass bells. His long hours of anticipation had him on a nearly-manic edge, waiting expectantly for something to go wrong, for Fate to try and deny him the glory he so rightly deserved.

Because finally, everything was assembled. Everything he needed for his grand endeavor. Tonight, Olin felt, would be different than the failures. Tonight he was going down in the history books; Olin Frampt, genius of alchemy.

He patted the cage, smirking at the defiant serpent within. “You and I.”

Olin swept towards the door, needing to freshen up before his big moment. A bath, his best robes, a little jewelry, and of course, his audience. He lifted a key on a chain from around his neck and touched it to the doors. A diagrammed web of spellwork spread over them as he passed through, the runic circles rotating like the tumblers of a lock.

Silence, as the clicking of his slippers descended down the hallways.

Silence in the lab.

And then a rattle of glass.

We soared above the city. It felt like I’d left the stomach I didn’t have back on the ground. Every moment of wind-blasted, careening, wild motion was an agony, an eternity.

We shot towards the Institute. It was late, the sky dimmed to orange as a distant ember of sun clung to the horizon. The rows of arched windows were darkened. No light escaped through the doors as the servant and his porters pushed them open.

We landed in the gardens, on the branches of a lemon tree, and waited until the toughs came back out. In the moment the doors were open we hopped down and were through like a flash.

The men spotted us. For a minute they held the door open, considering us on the other side. A little hawk with a ring in its mouth. The bird was somebody else’s problem but the ring- their eyes settled on me with obvious greed.

I was too sea-sick to think of any last second plans. Run! I commanded.

The hawk took flight. We shot down hallways lined in teak and mahogany, blurring past classrooms, libraries, laboratories…

And then suddenly everything went dark. Each door, one by one, flickered out. Absolute darkness replaced whatever was beyond, the doorway becoming a portal into complete black. We sailed forward but the hallway was endless now, stretched out to infinity.

The Eyeblight had caught us.

A hand reached out of the darkness to grip the edges of the doorframe, its yellowed and claw-like nails scraping the timbers. It was pale as death, covered in blackened wounds that exposed the bone beneath the pallid, corpse-grey flash.

Then another hand reached out. And another. They poured from the darkened doors, clusters of bone-thin, claw-tipped hands spilling into the hallway, attached to something unseen in the darkness beyond...

On every palm was a single, red-lined eye.

The sad thing was, this was all according to plan. This was things going well.

One jar among many shivered. It shook. And finally it broke open, black soil spilling out. There were no crystals of skygrist inside. Only a single, emerald jewel.

The dirt took on the shape of a man as Adamant reformed himself.

Only a small amount of him had fit in the jar, leaving him reduced to about to a foot tall. He would have to make do. Dusting himself off, the little golem climbed over the edge of the crate, waving to Aurum in his glass cage.

The snake rose up, pressing his head to the edge of the glass. His tongue flickered out.

The laboratory was a sumptuous space. Every tool was made of gold or polished brass, and expensive glasswork caught the light across gleaming curves. Arcane instruments and bottles full of exotic ingredients lined the shelves. Nothing but the best would do.

In the center of the room sat an enormous bronze vessel shaped like a bell, with a single door and porthole at the center. It sat in the center of a great pentagram. Every inch of it was etched with spellwork, runes as small as fingernails interlocking across the surface, forming an incantation that made the Mana in the air twist and pulse as if it was alive.

Adamant actually shivered.

The workbench was cluttered with tools, with the skulls of foreign animals marked on their brow with arcane signets and with miniature flowers glowing in glass containment. Adamant selected a silver knife, hoisted it like a lance, and charged at Aurum’s cage.

He bounced off with barely a mark.

The little Adamant scratched his head. Moving around the cage, he planted himself firmly and began to push, shoving it towards the table’s edge. Catching on, Aurum began to throw himself against the far wall. Slowly, scraping along the table, the cage began to move, wobbling slightly each time Aurum threw his weight forward. Inch by inch they fought towards freedom.

One corner was even slightly over the edge when the door swung open, and Olin returned. Adamant froze, Aurum quickly covering him by slithering to the back of the cage and coiling himself over the wall.

“My my. Trying to escape?” The mage’s shadow loomed over Aurum as the serpent hissed in defiance. “Nice try, but you see...”

With a sweep of his arm, Olin knocked the cage to the ground. Aurum was knocked about and rattled like a fallen coin, tossed against the walls with bruising force as the glass simply failed to shatter, the cage going rolling across the ground.

From his hiding place behind a nearby skull, Adamant peered out.

“You’re going nowhere.”

More people were coming into the laboratory. Men in heavy crimson robes lined with protective runes, and beaked masks of bronze with smoked glass over the eyes. They each held a staff of gold. They took up positions around the glass bell, while Olin took center stage. A crowd of assistants shuffled in, wearing cheap, padded clothes and simple wooden masks. They carried jugs of foul smelling chymicals that bubbled and spat gusts of yellow smoke.

Using a set of runed silver tongs, one carefully opened the jars of skygrist and lifted out a single, sparkling crystal of purest blue, setting it into a clay bowl at one point of the vast and complicated pentagram that surrounded the bell. Another used a long taper to light candles. The disturbance of the Mana around them increased with each step of the ritual, a swirling storm starting to rotate around the bell and the circle of mages with their staffs raised high.

“Somebody get the snake.” Olin hissed.

Adamant could only watch as the assistants crowded around the cage, unlocking the latches and reaching inside. Aurum snapped at them with the speed of a flying arrow, sinking his jaws into the first man to reach inside, but as the unfortunate toadie let out a scream of pain his comrades seized the snake behind the head, by the thrashing tail, pulling him off their brother and carrying him towards the bell.

Adamant scrambled out of his hiding place. The crate of skygrist was heavy, but he pushed his back against it. He thought big thoughts, of earthquakes, boulders rolling downhill, avalanches. Every grain and stone of his being strained to slowly shove the crate towards the table’s edge.

And at the same time, they were placing Aurum inside the bell, shoving him in with tongs and holding him back as they pushed the door closed. Olin nodded to the assistants standing by. They moved forward, pouring their alchemical mixtures into the small pipes in the bell’s sides. Slowly, a tide of swirling amber liquids rose behind the porthole, filling the bronze vessel to full.

“Tonight!” Olin cast his arms wide. “We commit the grandest sin of pride man has yet to envision! Red Alchemy! Tomorrow, we will be hailed as heroes for it. The only sin is failure! In success, we will rival the gods.”

“Now, to your places. We begin at once.”