Varun’s mind reeled, as did that of his three companions, as their escape orbs shattered and whisked them upwards. Teleportation was always intensely disorienting to most mortals, and the red dragonkin was hardly an exception. Worse still, the orbs were hardly delicate in their ministrations, unlike Marrus’ earlier spell it was designed only to drag them upwards, through as much rock, sand, soil, and everything else until nothing except the open sky was above them, even if they were still underwater.

The problem with being underwater, though, was that Varun’s breath-piece was still in that dungeon, and he was twenty meters below the surface of the water, still suffering from the mouthful of shockingly cold water that was forced down his throat. While his companions were all shaking off various levels of confusion, but otherwise still getting air just fine, he was in a much worse state.

Almost immediately his insides had started burning from the frigid liquid, made all the worse thanks to his nature as a fiery dragonkin, and he immediately began struggling to make his way up. The boots he wore, mundane and weighted, made that fight even worse, if not outright impossible. He was trying, desperately, to kick off the ground and start swimming, only to get pulled down, and what little air was in his lungs was being burned through rapidly.

With every second being precious, he did succeed in getting one boot off, just enough to let him make actual progress off the seabed. His party members had noticed him by then, but were scattered far enough to be of little help as his clawed hands cut through the water, hardly dragging him anywhere. It was getting bad by then, with water on all sides he needed any advantage, any chance of getting to the surface sooner, and tried to send mana to his lungs to draw out his breath even the slightest bit. And in doing so, he was unable to stop himself from drawing mana in to replenish his supply.

If he were closer to the dungeon entrance, that wouldn’t have been a huge issue, hardly an issue at all even, but as far out as he was, the mana swirling around him was hardly calm. The waters were thick with energy of all elements, conflicting and mixing, battling and rioting, and when he pulled some into his body, they continued their fight, inside of him. Varun had been warned multiple times not to do exactly that, his struggle to the surface, for even a single breath, had forced him to contract the Burn.

The name was accurate in many ways; the uncontrolled mana inside him, rushing to fill his own mana pool and shredding the tiny pathways they flowed through to do it felt exceedingly similar to having his veins carry liquid fire towards his head, and in his pain and confusion, he only made things worse, drawing in even more mana, and further charring his abused abused body.

From there, everything that happened was outside of his awareness, his party members doing their best to race over to him, the fact that the nearby dungeon gate had spotted them and were also rushing over, the rising sun peaking through the waves, all he saw was the hazy black before he lost consciousness.

As his body began to sink back down, the first of the group finally made it over. Not knowing what to do, the jaguar beastkin shredded his own boots, kicking off the bottom to catch his teammate and then use that momentum to carry them up. Despite that, the swim was long, too long, and the beastkin could see the scales on the dragonkin start to get show signs of the Burn as his body drew in mana unconsciously.

His boisterously red scales burned black, charred lines tracing up and down his body, no doubt mirroring ruined flesh underneath. Finally, the man broke the surface of the water, having to fight himself every second not to use his own mana to force his body to speed up, dealing with the Burn was not something he could afford, especially while seeing Varun being cooked alive in his arms. He spat his breather out, not caring as it dropped through the water, then focused on what he could do for the man in his arms.

The other two that had escaped with him surfaced next, his brother and their healer both finding their directions before fighting against the water to reach him. The healer, Maio, immediately set to work on Varun, but hardly managed to start forming a spell before her own body started stinging.

Realizing that she was powerless as well, she withdrew a concoction, the best she had, and tried to force it down the dragonkin’s throat, spilling much of it and probably getting half of what was left into his windpipe. Predictably, this did little to help, and even less to ease the mounting anguish of the group. This wasn’t how this was supposed to go, they might have been prepared for the possibility of falling to a monster, they absolutely weren’t prepared to watch one of their own kill himself slowly and unconsciously by roasting himself from within.

Whether thankfully or not, the first stationed guard arrived shortly after the last of the red liquid had left the bottle, a mermaid much more suited to moving through the choppy surf than they.

“You four, what’s going on?” She quickly noticed that one of those four was in fact dying, and as she did, her entire posture changed. She had been as authoritative and imposing as she could have been, but that was quickly replaced by an urgency almost on par with the group’s, and she wasted no more words before she grabbed Varun by the back of his neck, hoisting him over her shoulder enough that most of him was out of the water, and then taking off towards the entrance hall before the other three could so much as protest.

She was shortly replaced by two more guards, these two appearing much sterner after watching their companion race by with a near-corpse on her shoulder, and both had spears at the ready as they approached the floating trio.

“Explain yourselves, who are you, what were you doing out here, why are you injured, why didn’t we see you on our patrol earlier.” Spoke a man, and the three were at a loss. They’d expected to just slip on their cloaks once more and leave, but Varun’s scramble caught the attention of the rest of the Divers and Guilds. Escape and fighting both weren’t possible any longer, nor would lying get them any further than the truth would. Even more unfortunately, the two guards were in no mood to wait, and their silence wouldn’t be allowed to drag on for too much longer.

But they weren’t the ones to break it, seconds later. Neither were the guards. Instead, a voice came from between the two groups, booming and small, and blatantly furious. A man had just appeared, simply arriving in the middle of the two groups with hardly a ripple, stunning both groups.

“Those three came from the Dungeon, as did that red one your friend over there is rushing to save. I’ll save you all the effort of taking them to the gate yourselves.” The tiny beastkin stated, and while Varun’s party were lost, the two guards seemed to almost venerate the man who stood atop the waves.

He turned his gaze behind him, making eye contact with the three, and they couldn’t even react before he had done something to them, freezing them in place with a magic they couldn’t discern and whisking them towards the guild gate. Despite moving fast enough to cover the dozens of meters in a fraction of a second, none of them felt anything more than a mild motion sickness.

They were hauled rather unceremoniously onto the wooden platform that the terrestrials congregated, where the man quickly singled out Varun’s form being hoisted up onto the barge a short distance away. Despite most of the structure, both inside and out, being consistently crowded, whenever a healer or a medic was needed the people thinned out quickly.

The rest of the group were dragged along by some invisible tether behind the man as he marched up to the elf who’d started treating the red dragonkin, working on clearing his lungs of fluid before she could even start tackling his Burn. As he did, other uniformed medics were approaching, trying to push their way past the gawking crowd while she short man simply strolled through it all, his passengers in tow.

“Hello, my good lady. I am so terribly sorry to ask this of you, but I’m going to need to bring this man along with me indoors, and as I have no skill in the slightest with the healing arts I will need your talents instead.” The man spoke fast, simply encasing Varun in whatever spell the other three had been caught in before he’d even finished his greeting and taking him along towards the crude clinic which was erected on one portion of the gate hall.

Despite appearing flustered, the sea elf quickly followed after their abductor, still weaving together light and life in her hands to try and force into the dragonkin. Quickly finding an empty room, the six, now seven with the addition of an alchemist, all squeezed in, the four recent Divers finally being loosed from the man’s hold once they were.

Almost immediately, their captor was greeted with a barrage of exclamations, questions, and even threats by the three conscious members, but none of it was followed through.

“Now then, who any of us are doesn’t matter, nor does it matter why you’re working with the Fae Courts. All I care about, and all you need to say, is what you’re playing at here. Are we clear?” While he spoke, the two medics in the room set to work treating Varun, as well as quickly stabilizing Maio, once they realized she was steadily growing worse thanks to the snakes’ bites.

The bigger jaguar opened his mouth to retort, but it was clear that their interrogator was in no mood to hear it, loosing a bit of his aura to cow him into submission. It worked, too well, and his jaws slammed shut hard enough that the clack of his teeth was audible even through the walls once he realized what it was that he was about to speak to.

“Don’t play games with me, there will be no lies. Just like the rest of your entourage, you absolutely reek of Fae, and I could feel the Dungeon’s mana on you from leagues away.” The sound of Varun retching, coughing up water and letting out a gurgling groan punctuated his outburst.

Eventually, the smaller jaguar-kin began to speak. “Our Oaths were simple, and part of them involved not discussing our orders, nor where we got them.” Despite telling him no, there was no petulance or insult to be found in the statement, only a simple admission of facts that made their questioner more upset.

“Surely you don’t think I’ll settle for that. Fae don’t make Oaths on pain of death, necromancers could easily circumvent that, and soul magics are outside the realm of those soulless beasts. You were sworn on your own mana, almost your soul, sure, but not quite and not fatal, and you hardly need mana to answer me. One of you” He waved at the dragonkin, now starting to thrash as his mind slowly came back to him. “have already lost any hope for wielding magic again anyway. Tell me what I want, and you may yet have a chance.” His voice softened the slightest bit at his mention of Oaths.

“We were told to Dive as deep as we could, and if we were able to, to usurp the core.” Maio began, before she gasped, then started shaking, no doubt feeling the effect of her violated Oath. The mousekin turned to her, and there was obvious anger in his gaze, but for once, not specifically anger towards her.

“If we couldn’t, we were to try and provoke it as much as we could before people started entering, and with any luck, tip it over the edge. We made our route based on the guide published by the Mapper just days ago, but it was wrong, and even after a floor skip, we couldn’t make it through the frozen boss.” Her body was racked with pain now, feeling the mana in her flesh and her well be forcefully expelled was nearly as bad as the Burn was for Varun, but without any of the mortal danger.

“Explain.” Growled the man, realization and indignance both warping his features.

“We were given another core to use, to force a battle, and-” That was as far as she got before the Oath took its toll, and she collapsed in a mixture of pain and fear, as the room grew intensely still. Even the medics halted their movements, in equal parts shock and disbelief at the admission, as well as the sheer presence the small man was putting out now, utterly overwhelming them all.

“You did what.” The people in the room who were still awake took steps backward, pressing themselves to the wall. “Surely, I misheard. I realize now the Fae were always vile, but this… Not even them, right?” Pacing around the room, he seemed almost on the verge of tears now. “Surely making a weapon out of an infant, for what else would a coward use, and pointing it at a child in hopes of one of them tearing the other apart is a step too far.”

He took a deep breath in, trying to calm himself, before turning to the two medics. “These four, they aren’t to leave your sight. I don’t care what you need to do to them, get them back to the island. Let Rok know as soon as you’re able. I need to ensure that they don’t make a greater mess of things down there.” The two nodded, and the mousekin looked at the group of four with a mix of pity and disgust, something which only sparked the ire of the two brothers.

"I will speak to you all again, and you will speak, too, regardless of what you suffer for it. You may be nothing but pawns, but this cruelty is unacceptable." And with that, the brothers felt the all-encompassing embrace of the man's magic, locking them in their positions, indignance frozen on their faces. With no further ceremony, the man was gone.