“Featherfall!!” Jennifer heard Livian scream and she felt her descent slow, a force pushing up on them. She closed her eyes, curling up onto herself as the spell continued to kill her fall, eventually bringing it to a gentle descent.

The two of them slowly fell through the layers of the dungeon, eventually reaching the ground. Jennifer sat on the ground, her knees huddled against her chest as she took deep breaths, trying to calm herself down. She gathered herself in a few minutes, finally looking up to check her surroundings.

A dark expansive area stood in front of them, with enormous trees of green and blue, and strange magical plants as far as the eye could see. The walls of the dungeons were distant, the roof being high enough to not be visible if not for the hole spreading light from the upper layer.

Jennifer turned to look at Livian, and found the boy fiddling with his cube as his new spirit sat on his shoulder. Jennifer got up, walking over to Livian as she silently observed him working, a stream of incomprehensible words pouring from his mouth as he continued.

“Livian,” she called out, yet the boy did not respond. “Livian!” she said louder and he jumped, turning to look at her.

“Oh... Jennifer I- the message spell isn’t working. The scrolls, the devices, none of them are working. The mana circuits are all gone from the blast. I’m trying but I don’t know what to do-”

“Just stop,” Jennifer said in a sharp note and the boy paused. “Take a breath Livian. Calm down,” Jennifer instructed and he nodded, taking a few breaths.

“We need to find a way out. This is the Second layer, we can’t stay here alone,” Livian stammered out.

“I know… we’ll make our way back. But first, we should see to the lizard. It should be dead, or dying. Leaving it here might attract even bigger monsters.” Jennifer said, and Livian nodded.

A brief search found the lizard monster lying on the ground nearby, partially covered in rubble as blood covered the floor underneath it. The monster twitched, its chest rising slightly when Jennifer approached.

Jennifer watched the monster’s leg kicking at the ground as it tried to stand on its broken and bent legs, the rubble shifting. Lightning crackled for a brief second across its back but it soon died down as a painful yelp came out of its mouth.

“Are you going to…” Livian trailed off, leaving the words unsaid.

“It’d be cruel to leave it like this. Even if it did try to kill us,” Jennifer said as she turned towards the beast. She conjured a blood-glass dagger, the length of the shard now almost the size of a short sword. An application of her budding aura provided a sharp edge to her blade as she walked to the beast. It snapped it’s jaws at Jennifer as she moved closer, followed by a painful keening noise as the beast shuddered in pain.

Jennifer silently walked to it’s exposed bleeding body and then cut through the beast's chest, forcing her blade deep into its heart. A gurgling noise came out of the monster’s mouth as its body tensed one last time before death took its claim.

Jennifer heard a sizzling noise come from her blood-glass shard as she pulled it out, some of the blood of the monster had absorbed by her glass. She didn’t pay it any mind, as she moved to the beast’s back, butting into the crystals as she chipped off a few pieces.

“Can you help with the body?” Jennifer asked and Livian returned a tense nod. She wove her glass spike spells, dozens of spikes of glass rising through the ground as they tore into the monster’s hide. A large beam of light shot at the beast, reflecting off her glass spikes until they'd burned away the monster.

The dungeon had already started it’s reclamation process on the corpse, quickly drinking away the beast’s blood, and now the remnants of its body were gone as well.

“Let’s head to the tree before we try to find a way out,” Jennifer suggested.

The pair made their way towards the glowing crystal tree nearby. The light of the tree had faded, the crystalline branches no longer glowing with their serene blue light.

“What a mess…” Jennifer muttered as she walked through the remains of the tree. A faded glow caught her attention. Jennifer walked up to what looked like a hollow gap in the trunk of the tree. Inside it, glowing with a blue aura was a small gem.

She carefully picked up the gem, feeling it’s mana course through her when she did. A strong affinity resided in the gem, resembling Livian’s light affinity, yet slightly different. Jennifer sent a small pulse of mana into the gem, and found something flowing back in with her mana. A strange blue light shifted to her body, moving through her mana circuits before it settled near her core.

“I think that’s an affinity core. Can you show it to me?” Livian asked and Jennifer handed the gem to the boy.

A few moments of inspection later, Livian nodded to himself as the gem began to grow brightly in his hand. “Yeah, this is the affinity core of the biome. The tree was probably the source of the light and crystal affinity up above.”

“Will the biome survive without this then?” Jennifer asked.

“Probably. It’ll be weaker but the affinity should be maintained. I assume in a few months a new core will be formed at the center of the area. It’ll take a good few years to get this big though. An affinity core of this size can go for up to 50 gold coins,” Livian said, putting the gem away.

Jennifer stared at the boy with wide eyes. That amount would be enough to last well over a decade for a frugal city dweller. Or enough to feed a family for a lifetime in the countryside.

“Do you have a plan?” Livian asked as he looked at Jennifer. The panic from before wasn't on his face anymore, but she could tell the boy was tense and relying on her to get them out.

Jennifer returned a smile, faking confidence she didn't feel as she replied. “I have a divination spell I used a while back. I can vaguely sense the direction it showed me earlier. We can use that as a guide to work our way up the dungeon.”

“I’ll keep trying to reach out with my message spell,” Livian replied as he got up, Jennifer helping the boy as he did.

“Let’s make our way out of this place Jennifer. Alive.” Livian said with a resolute expression, and Jennifer returned a nod. The two walked ahead, leaving the little circle of light that shone on them from above, exchanging it for the dark and murky lands of the second layer.

❖❖❖

The stench of dead animals and plants filled Jennifer’s nose. Green and blue sludge coming halfway to her knees, bubbling with trapped heat and poisonous fumes as she trudged through the swamp-like area.

Monsters and insects of all kinds chittered and whistled in the increasingly dense forest around them. Wide leaves with hidden thorns — and oftentimes teeth as the marks on Jennifer’s elbows informed her — rustled in an unseen breeze, hiding lurking monsters within their shadows.

A sharp whistling noise came, as Livian’s new spirit soared through the area, carrying a particularly large insect in its beak. The bird gobbled the struggling bug in one large gulp as it perched on Livian’s hand.

“Found anything?” Livian asked the bird, who chirped once, before it returned to pruning its feathers, making sure their pristine glow was free of the murk it found itself surrounded by.

“He says there’s a forest up ahead, and two large treants carrying cursed wooden staffs. We should probably avoid that direction. Monsters capable of casting are extremely troublesome to deal with,” Livian said and Jennifer refocused, trying to feel which direction she’d felt Xar in.

She hadn’t been completely dishonest with her proclamation of being able to sense which direction the way outside was. Her divination spell had been suppressed instantly after use, but the link to Xar from their bond was still present, and there were traces of the divination spell that still clung to it, vaguely informing her of the direction of things outside.

Jennifer turned to her left, making her way towards the direction the spell threads seem to be flowing in. “This direction, I think,” she said to Livian who followed behind, his spirit soaring off again as it went ahead to scout the area.

Jennifer walked through the swampy area, stopping when a sudden pulse of magic flared through her arm. She looked down at her wrist, finding her mark glowing with a light blue hue.

“What’s that?” Livian asked, looking at her mark.

“Umm, nothing. Just one of those magical tattoos you can get,” Jennifer shrugged it off, trying to turn her mark invisible but the mark kept pulsing, glowing with a faint light.

What’s going on?

Jennifer focused on her mark, trying to sense what was going on. The mark thrummed in a rhythmic pulse, as something seemed to pull it ahead. Walking a step further in the direction of the pull, she sensed the magic in the Mark grow stronger.

There’s something out there that’s attracting my Mark… I’ve never had it act like this before.

She continued on, vaguely following the direction from the divination spell threads, as she felt the pull on her mark grow stronger and stronger. A few minutes later, the swamp began to retreat, the murky paths turning into dirt caked moss covered paths. Blackened walls with large cracks that ran over engravings stood up ahead, as a ruin slowly started to come into sight.

A glowing light spot circled above the ruins, turning around mid flight as it swooped down and sat on Livian’s shoulder. The boy affectionately pet his new spirit, digging out a small mana core that he fed to the bird.

“Do you really think we should go in that direction?” Livian asked, turning to look behind them. “The ruins… I haven’t heard of any ruins in the second layer. And I don’t like how it’s so quiet here,” he added, as he continued to pat the bird.

“I… am not sure,” Jennifer replied honestly as she took another look at the ruins. The murals were different, the lighting much darker, making them difficult to read. Her memory of what the ruins looked like from when she gained her mark was faint. Not nearly accurate enough to correctly match the runes and letters. But the similarity was obvious.

“I want to check this out if I can. It’s important to me… It feels important, at least,” Jennifer replied, clenching her fist.

“Alright. Let’s go then.”

The two stepped ahead, onto the paved path that slowly began to take them clear of the swampy muck behind. Similar murals from where she'd gained her mark covered the walls, Jennifer’s mark pulsing harder the further they explored. When they passed an invisible line, the vegetation seemed to retreat, as if hesitant to breach the boundaries of this place, the mossy overgrowths completely gone within moments, leaving only dry and cracked walls.

“What even is this place,” Livian muttered as he walked behind her. The bird on his shoulder now their primary source of light as the walls started to extend into a broken overhead roof.

“Another trial,” Jennifer muttered to herself.

Soon the two reached a door. A massive door of stone and metal, with strange characters that shifted and shone with their own inner light. Jennifer approached the door, touching the large structure. There was no magic in this one, the stone cracked and dead.

A light push on the door created a grinding noise as the structure began to sink into the floor. Dust filled the air as a tremor shook the area. Jennifer felt her mark burn with magic, glowing with a bright flashing light as the runes on the door lit up.

With a flash, she felt her Mark engrave itself onto the door, glowing brightly as the runes circled around it in a frenzy. A force pulled Jennifer in, as the doors began to open, a dark arena filled with overgrown trees and the corpses of monsters much taller than Jennifer lay in front of her. At its centre sat a majestic beast of glowing blue scales. It’s nine heads swiveled around as they all stared in her direction, large fins growing from their bases as the beast opened all it’s nine mouths, and let out a roar.

A presence unlike anything she’d felt before swept over Jennifer. The Hydra’s aura spread out, as water started filling the area, turning into a whirlpool. She vaguely heard Livian screaming something, but her mind wasn't there. She stood frozen under the weight of the presence in her mind as a massive wave washed her away.

The world spun around Jennifer, as she coughed. Water filled her throat, clogging the pathways to her lungs. She looked horrified as beams of light shot at the Hydra, bouncing off at its scales. Livian stood in the distance, charging his attack when, with a casual swipe, the Hydra pinned him down, severing him in two with one of it’s nine jaws.

Jennifer's stomach sank as she watched the beast turn towards her, with a disoriented thought, she sent a mana pulse to the spell at her neck. The searing burning sensation came through as she let the spell activate.

A moment later darkness took over.