When Shadar stepped out of the portal, he expected many things to happen. A trap perhaps, or a show of force from his unruly subordinates. The creatures of this Dungeon had always been fiercely violent, a trait which he believed stemmed from the varied races which lived within it. It was an old place, one with a tradition of battle and rule by force--that was what had allowed Shadar to conquer it. When adventurers were not challenging the Dungeon’s inhabitants, they challenged each other, and grew stronger for it. Such was Massahn’s way.

What Shadar didn’t expect was a blast of purple magic flying at his face.

Shadar ducked, and sunk into his battle-mind. Instantly, he felt his Strength, Agility, Dexterity, and Constitution all...drop. Damn. His armor suddenly felt heavy, and as he rose, his movements were noticeably more sluggish. Still, as he surveyed the scene before him, it took him only moments to comprehend what was happening.The ceiling was high above Shadar’s head, even from his position in a balcony above the arena, and overhead there were huge holes where windows had once let in light. He knew that the place was a massive dome, a structure unrivaled in the modern age in size or durability. The raised stage of stone which had once hosted the fights of human slaves and captive monsters was the centerpiece of the room, and it was surrounded on all sides by tiered stands rising almost to Shadar’s height. Shadar imagined that once the arena had looked breathtaking; at the moment it was a wasteland of dust and debris, swathes of the rocky ground smoking, others soaked, and huge parts of the floor in ruins.

Even as Shadar watched, the dust swirled and a hissing monstrosity of multicolored scales and writhing limbs leapt forward, shaking the arena with its landing and cracking the floor. A spout of fire issued forth from the end of one of the limbs, aimed at a spot completely obscured by clouds of dust, and it became easier to see that the scaly things were in fact heads attached to long, undulating necks. Nine of them, in fact.

Shadar had never understood the point of having so many heads, especially since only four of them had any magical abilities. Those heads, one green, one blue, one red, and one white, were forces to be reckoned with, but the rest of the normal black appendages seemed superfluous. However, as the gout of flame dissipated Shadar supposed that the Hydra had proven its anatomy useful after all. It certainly helped to have spares, when your opponent blasted one to dust.

The purple energy streaked forth from the smoke of the Hydra’s flame, and left a hole where one of the Hydra’s black heads had been twisting about. The other heads roared in fury, and the green one let forth a stream of green liquid as the creature advanced. Wherever the liquid hit, the ground of the arena turned black and began to smoke. The stuff was incredibly effective, Shadar knew. But out of all the four skills of the Hydra he had learned, it was the one Shadar used the least. It wreaked havoc on the floors of his Dungeons, and he firmly believed that rebuilding after every fight destroyed a room’s character.

But though he winced at the gouges the Hydra’s acid carved in the rock of the arena, he was more interested in seeing the source of all of the devastation. The dust cleared, revealing a single skeletal woman in black robes, a wide smile on her face. She was bone white, indicating that she was from one of the northeastern nations, or perhaps the Ulterion Empire to the west. A purple energy surrounded her form, and wisps of power floated up from her open, laughing mouth.

“Everything turns to dust, pretty snake! Even you, even you!” The woman cackled, standing in place as the acid reached her. The stream turned instantly to vapor as it hit the field of purple energy surrounding the woman. Shadar quickly switched to his arcane sight, lighting up the room in various colors of orange, blue, and green, all barely visible in the powerful red aura of the Dungeon itself. Around the woman was an equally strong aura of purple, just as there was in the physical world. Shadar manage to catch a glimpse of the green jet of magically-infused liquid touch the aura. The purple mana flared, and the magic in the liquid… degraded. It looked like a spell that had simply gone too long without finding a target, the mana escaping and homogenizing with the aura in the air. The remaining mundane liquid dissipated violently, instantly vaporizing and spreading.

Shadar blinked. That was rather strange. The woman hurled another bolt of mana towards the hydra, but this one went wide and missed all of the monster’s heads. That was quite a lot of mana she was simply tossing away, though if Shadar’s own intelligence was any indication, she certainly had the magic to spare. This bolt hit the rock of the floor, and dissipated harmlessly into the Dungeon’s aura. Odd. He would have expected the spell to disintegrate the rock as easily as it had the Hydra’s head.

“Just stay still, won’t you pretty snake?”

The woman looked frustrated as she gathered more energy into her hands. Shadar had to intervene. The Hydra would not appreciate him stepping in on its fight, but Shadar didn’t think it could succeed against… whatever this was. And he had no time for the thing to die. But how to fight her? She had abysmal physical attributes, that much Shadar could tell from his present weakness and clumsiness. His ordinary fighting style would be seriously hampered by the lack of speed and power, and he did not want to be the target of one of the purple bolts without being able to dodge. However, the woman did have very high Intelligence and Wisdom attributes: Shadar’s mana felt like an ocean at the base of his skull. He had another defense he could employ against her magic.

Shadar shed his armor, and cast Form of the Black Dragon, transforming in a flash, wings ripping out from his back as he jumped. Flexing his claws and pulling back his lips to reveal his fangs, he glided down from the portal’s balcony in his draconic form, adjusting to the new form. He felt just as clumsy, but a good portion of his mana was going to improving the Strength of his new form, so he had a few advantages, at least. The monster and mage below were so focused on their own struggle that neither noticed him. That was, until he himself slammed to the ground between the combatants, facing the black-robed mage with his teeth bared.

“Oh, hello there!” The woman seemed completely unruffled as she sent a crescent-shaped wave of purple mana at him. Shadar did nothing, and as the energy reached him, his own aura flared and he felt a tug at his mana. That was a lot of magic. Shadar considered the human before him. She looked annoyed at Shadar’s survival of her spell.

“No fair!” she shouted.

She sounded like a petulant hatchling, but now she was eyeing Shadar’s massive black-scaled form with a wary look on her face. Shadar took a slow step forward, and she took one back. He opened his maw, and she flinched, then stood straight with an enraged look on her face.

“Everything is dust!” She shrieked, and hurled two more bolts of purple magic at him. The magic splashed over him harmlessly, but Shadar noticed that the air around him, which had been warm at his back from the Hydra’s huge body, was suddenly the same temperature everywhere. Very strange. Shadar decided that, perhaps, he could stand to keep this human alive for a time, if only to discover what exactly her title was and how it worked. Considering the huge pool of mana facing her gave had given him, it should be relatively easy.

Shadar did something he’d never tried before, and ran his mana just below the scales of his tail. He carefully felt out the composition of the energy, oddly muted by his own aura, and, in a flash, shifted the form of a small patch, without releasing his anti-magic aura. The mana drain caused by the improvised spell was absolutely enormous, and Shadar could feel his power dwindling by the second. Clumsily, he lurched at the now-screaming woman throwing magic at him, and stabbed her with the single manticore spine jutting from his tail. Almost instantly, the purple aura surrounding her vanished, and she fell silent.

Backtracking swiftly, he returned to his human form, as his mana became unable to sustain the draconic form. That was a useful trick, using the black dragon’s aura to cover another weapon, but the interference of the aura made sustaining the magic almost impossible. Even with thousands of mana points in his pool, he’d barely been able to hold one small spine for more than a few seconds. Shadar gave the mage a cursory glance, confirming that she was indeed paralyzed on the floor, her own magic making her unable to move or act. Powerful stuff, manticore venom. He quickly moved on to the more immediate threat, turning to greet the Hydra.

WHY HAVE YOU INTERRUPTED MY BATTLE, GOD-CHOSEN?

It was nice to hear the Hydra address him with a real title. Not quite ‘my King,’ but better than the ‘tyrant’ or ‘human scum,’ which seemed to be his most popular appellations these days. The creature's voice resounded in Shadar’s mind, nine separate tones speaking as one. As far as Shadar knew, there was only one mind controlling the creature, but it could be so mercurial that sometimes he wondered if each head took turns.

“Greetings. I must speak with you, great Hydra.” Shadar gave a nonchalant wave at the mage on the floor. “This human seems interesting. I have claimed her, as is my right.” Shadar dislike saying the words. He found the idea of treating other humans as objects rather… distasteful. But the original Hydra had been very old, living in this arena when it had been place of entertainment for humans. Shadar didn’t know much of that time--and he wasn’t sure how much of it the monster’s current incarnation actually remembered--but he had learned quickly that, unlike many of his subjects, the Hydra took Shadar’s status seriously. Shadar suspected it had seen more than one God-Chosen in its time, and perhaps a Celestial or two. If he claimed ownership of the mage by right of his rule, the Hydra would respect it.

Or it would challenge Shadar. He had never tested the creature like this before.

The creature’s white head bowed, though the rest continued to wave about, occasionally snapping at the air or growling.

VERY WELL, GOD-CHOSEN. OUT OF RESPECT FOR OUR LORD, I WILL NOT DEMAND SATISFACTION. WHY DID YOU WISH TO CONSULT ME?

Shadar considered. “Forgive me, but I must see your Name.” Even as Shadar said the words, he willed his own title and bonus titles to appear. The Hydra’s head waved about for a few moments, and Shadar thought he saw a wisp of fire from the red one, but then words appeared in the air above it. Tyringathil-Adept Hydra. Shadar showed no reaction, but internally he nodded. It was as he’d expected.

Dungeons were strange. Each was a temple of Massahn, with a shrine at its center guarded by a powerful monster. The creature’s essence became part of the Dungeon’s aura, melding in inscrutable ways that allowed it to gain power much faster than it could outside of the aura. Moreover, the Dungeon would take the energy of the things killed within it, and use that energy to repair itself, and--if necessary--recreate its monster. Over time, more and more of Massahn’s children would come to live in the Dungeon for the benefits it provided, and meld with the aura themselves, effectively becoming immortal. However, the Dungeon could only re-form creatures at the rank they had when they initially became part of its whole.

When the humans who built the arena died to invaders, and the invaders in turn fell prey to monster attacks, the Hydra had survived, hidden in the bowels of the ruined city. Over time, it became the strongest predator in the area, until a priest of Massahn had found its home, years later, and consecrated the ground as a new Dungeon. When that had happened, the old monster had been an Adept.

When Shadar killed the creature a decade ago, it had grown to Master, though Shadar suspected it had been even stronger in past lives.

MY DOMAIN HAS BEEN… POPULAR WITH THE HUMANS OF LATE. YOUR NEW MAGE WAS THE FIRST TO ATTEMPT IT ALONE, HOWEVER. I REGRET TO SAY THAT HAD YOU NOT COME BY CHANCE, YOU MAY HAVE BEEN CALLED REGARDLESS.

Shadar didn’t think there was any ‘may’ about it. A single woman conquering this Dungeon was more than grounds for his intervention, and the Hydra had been moments away from another death. He glanced at the stump of a neck where its ninth had had been, and saw a pinkish lump already forming on the end, the beginning of a new head. The Dungeon’s magic at work.

“I have called for the Golden Nest to march on the humans.”

The gigantic creature remained silent.

“I hoped you might offer some of your servants for the battle, but considering--”

HAD MY DOMAIN NOT BECOME SUBJECT TO SO MANY ATTACKS OF LATE, I WOULD HAVE BEEN GLAD, GOD-CHOSEN.

Shadar nodded. He knew the Hydra considered itself a true servant of Massahn. And the prime directive of Massahn’s Children was to struggle against their adversaries. The thing no doubt approved immensely of Shadar’s decision to finally launch an attack on the humans, but it wouldn’t abandon its own lair when it could fight humans there just as easily. The Hydra did not truly understand the concept of tactical attack, or strategic troop placement. It simply wanted to fight humans. That was the main resistance Shadar had encountered among the older of Massahn’s Children: they didn’t truly see themselves at war with the humans, nor did they actively seek victory. To them, the conflict itself was the goal.

“Very well.” He didn’t say anything else, just slung the black robed mage over a shoulder. She smelled like old death, but that was not a new scent to Shadar.

The Hydra didn’t respond. It had spoken with dragons before, Shadar was certain, and it knew their idiosyncrasies. Dragons did not say goodbye, and Shadar had picked up their habits long ago.

Wyvern Wings. Intelligence and Wisdom now returned to his own baselines, Shadar felt a noticeable tug on his relatively small mana pool as the feathered appendages sprouted from his back. He ascended to the balcony, taking one last look at the room below him. The multi-headed serpent stood in the middle of a wasteland of cracked, ruined stone, smoke, and rubble. The edges of the arena had crumbled away from the stresses of the battle, and beyond the stage was a mess of gore and blood, the bodies of the Hydra’s minions. As Shadar kicked his armor through the portal, then followed with the woman over his shoulder, he shook his head slightly. Some monsters simply didn’t know how to treat a Dungeon properly.

*****************************

Maiz took a deep breath, staff shaking in his hands. He stared at his opponent, preparing for the struggle to come. He bent his knees, raised his staff, and mentally accessed his magic. It was time to fight.

The cloth-and-wood dummy stared back at him impassively. Well, it didn’t have eyes, so it couldn’t actually stare at him.

Maiz was grateful that he was alone on the spell-testing field at the moment. He felt more than a little ridiculous, especially since he didn’t actually know how to use his only spell. Should I just say it? Suppose that’s as good a place to start as any.

Maiz, gripping his staff tightly, said, “Flaming Strike.”

A very odd feeling came over him, as he felt his mana moving without his direction. It flowed down from his skull like water, then when it reached his hand, continued out into the staff. Suddenly Maiz’s awareness of mana extended past his own body for the first time, as the chill in his mind suffused the staff, then began flowing in a complex pattern across its surface. He wasn’t sure how he was sensing the mana, but he felt absolutely certain that it was actually within the staff. The flow of the mana sped up around the staff, accelerating until Maiz could no longer distinguish its movement.

Maiz yelped as a flash of light momentarily blinded him, and suddenly the staff was surrounded by constantly shifting ribbons of fire. He dropped it and hopped back, hands flying to his cheek where he expected to feel a horrible burn. The staff had been right by his face when he’d cast the spell. Idiot, why didn’t I-- His self-recriminating thoughts faded as he felt at his face, and felt no evidence of an injury.

“Part of the matrix has an identifier which excludes you from the effect.”

Maiz jumped for the second time as the unexpected voice sounded in his ear. Why does he keep doing that! Maiz recovered more quickly from the surprise than he had in the hall, and he tried to turn around with some semblance of poise this time. Once I get my Dexterity back up… It had felt rather nice not being clumsy for the first time in his life during the trial. Sure enough, Instructor Hakim was standing a meter away, red robes fluttering slightly in the wind. He seemed… smaller somehow, outdoors in the middle of the field. His moderately wrinkled face was still impassive however, strong jaw and large nose making him look vital despite his age.

“Sir?” Might as well try and get some information if he’s going to scare the hells out of me anyway. “What is a ‘matrix,’ if you don’t mind me asking?”

The Instructor simply looked at Maiz for a moment, likely considering the question. Or deciding whether or not to blast Maiz into oblivion. Maiz suddenly realized that the old man had never actually shown Maiz his title--he could have been a Grandmaster for all Maiz knew, though of course few enough of those existed in the world to make them all but legendary.

“The ‘matrix’ is a term that those with titles such as Enchanter use. It refers to the… pattern that mana is directed into to create a permanent magical effect in an object.”

Confused, Maiz looked down at the staff. Sure enough, the ribbons of fire had vanished. Tentatively, he asked, “Um, permanent sir? I’m surely being ignorant, but the effect seems to have fade--ow!”

Maiz exclaimed involuntarily as something smacked him in the temple out of nowhere. It felt exactly like an offhand cuff from a Sharir overseer, something Maiz had experienced on a weekly basis for the past two years. Except Maiz hadn’t seen anyone strike him. Indeed, the only person in sight was Instructor Hakim. If it looks like a snake…

In a contrite tone he’d practiced a thousand times, Maiz said, “I’m sorry sir, please forgive me.” He considering prostrating himself on the sand. That usually appeased the ones who thought he was being disrespectful, but it also tempted them to kick him. Probably worth the risk. His knees began to bend when the Instructor spoke.

“You speak as if you believe no one else is listening. Your actions are divorced from their meaning. You were about to bow to me, not out of respect, but because you thought it would stop me from hitting you again.”

Maiz tried to respond, beginning, “You’re right sir, I--”

Another blow, this one over his right ear. Maiz barely suppressed the grunt of pain--that was the worst spot to be cuffed.

Hakim hadn’t moved, but he spoke impassively, voice clear even over the sudden ringing in Maiz’s hearing. “You are not a boy, unable to defend himself or demand respect from his elders. You are a mage. If you remain as you are, one day you will be a monster.”

What is he talking about? Maiz felt a spark of anger, but then he quashed it, letting his face relax and hunching his shoulders in a show of submission.

The next blow took him in the stomach, and sent him onto his backside with thud.

“Ughghgff,” was all the sound Maiz could make as the intense, searing pain radiated throughout his body. He had the terrifying feeling of being unable to breath as the wind was knocked out of him, and he instinctively curled up around his stomach. He hadn’t been prepared for the blow at all.

The Instructor was saying something else about his flaws, but Maiz couldn’t hear him. Even above the pain in his stomach, Maiz was preoccupied with his own thoughts. Just like every one of those Sharir bastards. But it wasn’t just them. It was the guards who took bribes to look the other way when he’d run to them with a broken nose from an overseer. The nobleman who’d kicked him across the street because he’d been in the way. Every person with power used it to take from those who didn’t. To hurt them.

All sound ceased. Instructor Hakim might have still been talking, but Maiz didn’t hear him. All he could think about was the staff lying a few inches from his prone body. I have power now. He was up with the staff in his hands in less than a second, pain forgotten. The old man may have been a powerful mage, but that didn’t mean he had any sort of extra Agility. And Maiz was fast for his rank. The staff was over his head as he yelled “Flaming Strike!” The light flared, casting odd shadows on the Instructors wrinkled face, even in the sunlight.

Maiz brought the staff down towards Hakim’s head with all of the strength and speed he could muster, fully intending to show the bastard what it felt like to get beaten. But just as the ribbons of flame almost made contact with the man’s head, Maiz felt a push, and the staff jerked to the right, missing Hakim entirely and hitting the floor. There was a flare of fire, and the ribbons disappeared. Maiz, thrown off-balance by the unexpected redirection of his blow, fell to the sandy ground once again, and the pain in his stomach came back in full force.

“So you are not too far gone yet. I would apologize, but I think one day you will thank me for this.”

Maiz was lying on the ground, unable to move as he felt the stabbing pain in his stomach, and the waves of agony wracking his body. Moving so much had clearly worsened the damage, and now he was about to die for his moment of stupidity--either from the injury or from the Instructor’s retaliation. Why the hells did I attack a combatant Instructor? But a large part of Maiz didn’t truly regret the act. He hadn’t wanted to bow and scrape to the bastard any longer, even if it would now cost him his life.

Out of the corner of his vision Maiz thought he saw a flash of red, but the tears on the edge of falling from his eyes made it difficult to tell. Something moved his arm, and he felt metal, warmed by someone else’s body, encircle his wrist. Then, a voice in his ear.

“Your magic is similar to that of Enchanters, but not identical. Your mana lacks the quality which Enchanters use to maintain the stability of an enchantment for long periods of time. However, the spell you use still creates a matrix around your weapon, and empowers it with fire-based mana. I suggest that, after you feel comfortable using the spell, you begin to study the pattern it creates. You will need to understand it, eventually.”

While the voice was speaking, a strange sensation had been overcoming Maiz, starting from his arm. It felt like a warm pressure just beneath his skin, crawling up his arm, then down his shoulder. The way the feeling moved reminded Maiz of his mana, and indeed when the feeling spread to the base of his skull, it… released his magic. He felt the mana flowing down, and within the flow were strange currents, almost like the pattern that he’d felt in his staff when he casted Flaming Strike. Where the mana flowed, his pain subsided--not completely, but enough to make him feel less like he was dying.

The voice finished, Maiz barely having heard the words. Taking a breath, which only hurt a bit, Maiz said, “Wait.” He didn’t feel like saying ‘sir’ just then. He reached to his wrist, and felt at the band of metal around it. It took him moments to find the clasp, and he blindly undid it, removing the bracelet from his arm. He let it fall to his side.

Silence. Again, the voice spoke into his ear. “You do not have to say the spell’s name out loud, to cast it, so you know.” There was a rustle, and then no more sound.

Maiz lay there for a few moments, stomach throbbing, but not as badly. Then, using the staff to help, he slowly picked himself up, and walked to the building where Ziya and the other clerics were training.He managed to find her before he collapsed again.