Edited by: KenChi死

I could still feel the dull pain at the back of my skull. He was still there pulsating and driving me mad. But as my face was betraying my discomfort, I was told by the rest of the team to take my time and rest for those couple of minutes as they were packing camp equipment preparing for diving deeper into the dungeon.

Nice folks… Well, in the end they are responsible for the headache... but it also needs to be said that back then I may have lost my temper and via my actions I gave them very good reason to “pacify” me.

I wanted to use that time for meditation and healing process. As soon as I sat down and started meditating and became one with my surroundings, once again the world turned black for a second or two just to shine with life and magic all around. I saw small piece of ore stuck in the walls of dungeon, small insects crawling around, my companion walking around the camp. And for the first time I saw my equipment. Yup, the pendant. It was actually the first thing I noticed.

The “life” had a yellow glow – it was hard and steady. The magic looked like a colored wind, twisting and changing as it flew slowly, eventually circling around the very object.

And then there was this little pendant. The violet orb pulsating like a heart surrounded by semi-transparent red mist. From time to time on the violet core some kind of symbols appeared. A rune, a marks that looked like some weird version of Chinese or Japanese writing, or something I couldn’t call anything but hieroglyphs. I have never seen anything like that before.

I felt uneasy about it. Something was off. It certainly had other purpose than being a piece of jewelry that glows.

I focused on it. Aaaand I regretted it pretty soon too. As soon as my magical consciousness “touched” the object on my chest, the violet core expanded and take a shape of a complicated structure. It was a multi-layered logically-mathematically-magical lock. Or something.

Imagine Rubik cube…. 7x7x7, trapped inside of the sphere of 3 rings that moved in different direction (one vertically, one horizontally and one diagonally)…

In order to open it, the cube needed to be solved, BUT! There are lots and lots of possible combination… the trick is, that I can’t simply moved it directly. I needed to move those three rings into very special, bah – unique- positions. And each time the position of one of those rings would be changed, the cube would perform a move.

And apparently, just my assumption thought, each time the cube would change itself something would happened. I just could feel it in my bones.

Maybe some random spell? Or some kind of defense system would be triggered?

Every reasonable person would leave it be, and start researching and information before even thinking about using it!

(ED: don’t do it)

…

…

…

…

Let’s play with it…. Just a little…

Vertical ring three moves back… Horizontal one move forward. The last ring not touched. Each time I moved a ring the cube shifted and after each movement some glyphs shined. Some vanished, some stayed glowing just like that… don’t tell me… not only position is important… but order too? IT’S FUCKING HILARIOUS!... once again?

Vertical five moves forward, diagonal one back, horizontal one back and one forward…

I did something. I have no idea what, but the cube reacted. Everything darkened and words appeared in front of me in the thin air.

Combination accepted.

Emerald Dragon, Fiery Plains, Month of Rain, Raging mountain, Crying Orphan, Merciless Wind, Bloody Path.

Command cannot be executed – incorrect location.

…double secured insane logical lock that depending on combination require special places to be opened.

What. The fuck. Is this. Shit?

No, seriously, Heira, what did you give to me? Or for what purpose.

She is extremely easy going and everything she does has mostly one purpose – to lift her boredom. And here she gave me something as secure as panties of prophetess. She. Something secured. So it wouldn’t be used mindlessly.

I think I will put it away for now and start looking for information. Maybe in theological books? Or those about black magic? Eventually in “How to destroy the world step-by-step; textbook for dummies Vol.1 of 5”.

Bad jokes again. The stress is eating me up. Okay. It’s decided, as soon as we will finish the dungeon I am taking a day off or I may turn into a crazy workaholic, or even worse, my sense of humor will be the same as Loki’s.

Someone was poking my cheek.

“…ari are you all right? Great, You fucking midget, now he is spacing out! Hit him harder next time! Why not!?” “Let me have a look… he is meditating you idiot. Deeply. Don’t disturb him. He will wake up as soon as he is done.” “And when will it be?”

I opened my eyes irritated a little

“Usually when someone yells over my head so loud, that I can’t hear my own thoughts” I said half seriously, half-humorously. “I just wanted to tell you, that we are pretty much ready. We can move anytime… once again – you are sure that you are in optimal condition to…” “Mrogul…I would have a small request” “Yes?” “Would you mind, if we would speed up our ride a little bit? I am afraid that I have some business to deal with.”

The question appeared in Mrogul’s eyes, Marika titled her head a little and Loki only sigh.

“Nope. Old Jericho would be angry. And by angry I mean really, really angry. Man is nuts when it comes to earning stuff by yourself. You can either follow us… and we already know passages traps and so on, but then you have to keep our pace… we would use it to show you this place, teach you as much as we can… you know the drill; or you could lead and we would follow. But I wish to point out that you know nothing about this place. How many times would you lose the way? Into how many traps you would fall? Hmmm? Decision is up to you.”

Loki wanted to prove something. But he was lacking some vital information. He didn’t need to wait long for my answer.

“Follow my lead.” “Awww, we will have to explain to ol’ man why the job that was supposed to be done in a week counting journey in both ways took us a month.”

He chuckled.

“You are free to report whatever you want.”

I said as I started moving.

Few hours later. Loki’s POV

Chaos. Hellgates. Apocalypse. The day of the end. Only those words could describe what I witnessed. As Whitish took a lead the hell came here and walk among the living. As soon as he started walking he covered himself in flames and start marching forward, deeper into the dungeon. The monster stand no chance. Of course they were not a problem from the very beginning, this dungeon is used as training ground… I saw mages in action a few times, but none used there magic so… naturally like him.

Magic is a complex art, and is made out of three steps – power – the pure force that is needed for every magical activity, focusing – the process of shaping the force into a desired form via spell, artifact, ritual, curse and so on, to finish with the effect.

Here it looks as if he is somehow abusing the phase of focus. He is simply commanding the fire over and over again… He makes it appear to be as easy as breathing. From time to time he takes a break, and commands us to take a guarding role as he replenishes his mana.

But what is truly admirable, is that he never got lost. Newbies use to get lost easily, walking the same path over and over again, yet he never picks the same corridor twice. It’s not that he do not walk in the wrong direction, he does, but because of that he found a small treasure chest. It held a few silver coins. Usually as treasure is found, most of its contents would be shared among the one who found it and the one who checked for traps. Yet he demanded equal share. We told him how things were going and he only shrug his shoulders and still divided it as he pleased.

The guy is dangerous. No one knows anything about him, he appeared out of thin air in the guild. He is pretty skilled in using magic and more than skilful in the art of surviving. And he doesn’t care about money. Maybe… just maybe, the reasons why he joined the guild is the same as mine?

If the answer is yes, I will have to stop digging for information. When you are hunted… because of the reason like mine – being an assassin who’s face became well known, becoming the adventurer is a great way to start a new life.

Yet still I need to know the answers.

“Zari, I am asking only cuz’ I am curious – how is that possible that you are casting spell after spell without a chant?”

He turned around with puzzled expression. Almost as if he didn’t understand the question.

“’Tis but one spell. Or… it shouldn’t even be named as a spell. Basic fire manipulation. By igniting myself I created a resource of fire that I bend to my will. As I get more skilled with fire magic properties of my fire changed. It is more… sticking to the skin and its temperature is getting higher. The spell would be if I would shaped the fire into a double layered ball of fire – clothing and trigger inside, and then shoot it. This is what we call explosive bolt. But this…” He made the small blaze of fire dance atop of his hand forming into various shapes. “This is the same as if you would ask a warrior what kind of move he used, after he would barely pull the sword out of his sheath. It is natural to me, almost as breathing… Very exhausting breathing, indeed, but I barely track my actions… did you even wonder how you are moving your hand? This in yet another limb… just separate from the body.”

I indeed heard, that element manipulation is the lowest kind of training among magicians… But no one, simply no one, would use the element manipulation as a weapon. Lack of damage. No one but him.

“There is something bothering me… ya mind telling me how you are… NOT getting lost? I remember my first time here. My team decided to leave me in a place that was previously exterminated of monsters, and told me to came back by myself. It took me four days, my food supplies almost ran out. But you simply never get lost…”

He only smiled back and moved once again.

POV back.

I can’t tell him that. One – he would never understood the words I would say, Two – IT’S PATHETIC!

What would I say? That in my previous life I was no-life that spent lots of time playing old RPG- dungeon’s crawlers? Those games were labyrinths without maps provided. The only thing you could do was memorize… or draw on a piece of paper… the scheme of those caves. And trust me, I have finished the dungeon crawlers of over 100 floors without filling one piece of paper. I simply draw the map In my head. I wouldn’t even get lost if there would be teleportation platforms moving you into different places in random order. And trust. This place is waaaay less complicated than floors over 50th of certain games.,, The one with teleportation platform, puzzles all over the massive floor… you needed to solve the puzzles just for the rooms with levers to be opened… and then you would have to use those levers in the right order… and then there was a Boss fight…. Oh, did I mention that whole floor was filled with traps? Oh, and “fire”-themed? It means that every seconds inside of it was dealing to you and your party 1 dmg per screen-move? So you never fought with Boss on full hp?... unless you had fire protection ring… about this “trick” I found out after beating the game…. Hehehe….hahaha…HAHAHAHA! THAT RING WAS TRASH! YOU COULD BUY IT EVERYWHERE! EVERY-FUCKING-WHERE! YET I NEEDED TO REPEAT THIS VERY FLOOR ABOUT 10 TIMES AFTER AN INSANE GRIND JUST BECAUSE I WAS TOO DUMB TO FIND OUT BY MYSELF, THAT FIRE-RESISTANCE ITEMS WOULD HELP VERSUS FIRE BOSS ON FIRE FLOOR! …and why? BECEASUE BACK THEN I HAD FULL COMPLET OF ACCESSORY THAT MADE MY AVAT SHINE! AND I THOUGHT IT LOOKED BADASS!

Ha…. I was fired up. But… returning to the question that Loki asked me… if I would answer that if he would find an inner nerd inside of him he would be capable of the same things… would he understood? Oh, I doubt it. Even more as… oh. Are those stairs to a deeper floor? Uno momento per me! The fastest way back is… walk into first crossroad, then turn right and right away left into barely seen passage. Then pick a widest path, and walk forward ignoring every other side-passages until reaching the stupid para-labyrinth, there one would need to take – left, right, left, right, forward, left, left forward right forward…. Then 30 minutes walking through relatively straight path and we would reach the lake. From there it’s about 10 or so minutes to the higher floor. Easy-peasy. As long as something has corridors I will get through it

I am one with the Nerd, The Nerd is with me, I am one with the Nerd, the nerd is with me…

Eh, why do I feel bad about it? Nothing to be proud off? Well, in the times when there was no internet, the one with knowledge was a king in the backyard….

“Zari… something wrong? You froze in the middle of the room…” Mrogul once again showed interest In my state of health. For the first few hours I thought that it was because he care about his teammates.. but apparently he only needed a reasons to keep bulling Marika. Eh… “I’m all right. I was only trying to burn in my mind the map of this place. Just in case you would decide to abandon me here just like Loki was by his team.” “We would never do so!” “Yeah, especially because you would start freaking out again and Marika would have to hit you one more time…”

Aaaand they started arguing again. As soon as they finished we headed deeper. Deeper into the lair of NightmareScaled