The girl jumped toward the ground, the very moment the door of the cell sprang open.

Her detention was finally over.

Gaia’s eyes were sore from the wind shooting in her face and from the fact that she had done nothing but cry and obsess over the severed connection with Crystal. Yes, it was not completely severed. Otherwise, she would have died or gone entirely mad. She was still sane, though freaked out.

What happened? She had just sent him on a surveillance mission. What could have swayed her Bond Spirit to that degree?

She kept shooting toward the Rapids of Mana. They soared in her wake, welcoming her back and empowered her, making her soul almost burst from Mana. She felt their need for her. The Rapids loved her, almost like a daughter; they had loved her mother in the same way. Yet it was not the time to revel in their love now. Empowered by the liquid Mana, she shot toward The Cradle, bursting through the guards, barely recognizing her in time to move away.

Like a missile, she flew barely twenty feet above the ground, in the direction of the only person who could have helped her.

When the push from the Rapids of Mana, ended. She landed on the streets, not stopping for even a second to recover, she started running at the top of her strength. She rammed into people, her mind so worried for Crystal and possibly the Herald that she even forgot to say sorry. When she reached her objective, she didn’t even stop to open the bat door.

***

“Master, really, how were Dungeons born?” Veronica asked. Though stuffing himself with a hamburger, Bartholomew nodded in tow, not daring to remove his eyes from the conversation.

“Where does that question come from?” Varcivald asked with a grin.

“Oh, it’s just that we’ve been doing a lot of Dungeon delving lately. We got curious.” She said back.

Varcivald and his proteges were resting at Commodo’s inn. It had become a ritual ever since he started the preparation for his relocation. Of course, it would take a while, another couple of months, at least.

Though he had already found a good place, he needed to protect his income. The Cradle obviously required much more expenses, so what better way to increase his earnings if not by opening a small school for young people whose families could not afford to buy experience for their children.

“Well,” Varcivald started, “to tell you the truth, it is not really known the process behind Dungeon formation. The youngest Dungeon was born roughly fifteen hundred years ago. The one before was born more than four thousand years ago. The process behind it has not yet been figured out, but what is known is that, sadly, it involves a lot of death. So as beneficial as they are, Dungeon’s study is not allowed; it is taboo in pretty much every society, almost as much as Necromancy is.”

“So it is not known how they are born? But why are they so important?” She asked, Bartholomew, nodding in tow as his sight moved from her to Varcivald and occasionally to his new hero, Commodo. The dwarf always had something to say, always had a smile on his face, and other than having a skin that could turn into metal, he was hilarious to talk to, and so was his beautiful wife, Garena.

“Because they are interminable fountains of riches and experience. Every society claiming one will flourish immensely.” Varcivald paused.

“Take for example our Yggdrasil itself, if it wasn’t for the many, even if low-level Dungeons which feed its veins and fuel its inhabitants, it would have never become so big and mighty as it is today, or it would have but in ten times as much time. The Mother Tree back in the Mother Forest is three times as old as Yggdrasil, and yet it is just as big.”

“Those that mean that the elves have fewer Dungeons in The Mother Forest?” Bartholomew asked.

“Exactly, though we have more higher-level Dungeons, there are far fewer than in The Den,” Varcivald said.

“But, why can’t Dungeon-making be studied? It’s science, after all, if it is bloody, can’t they research to make it less bloody? What’s stopping them?” Veronica was really taken by the argument.

“Politics, little lass, that’s wots stoppin’ ‘em. Besides, people are still fighting ove’ the last Dungeon, the war ‘tween the Core, and the Vast’s factions have been goin’ on for hundreds of years! Almost a thousand! And it goes at intervals. And let me tell ye,” he said, throwing the cloth in his hand on the counter, and pointing at them, “Whoever claims it’s not about the Dungeon is…” Commodo started mimicking, “a big, fat, bad, ugly liar!” Bartholomew and Veronica laughed at his funny movements.

Commodo and Garena were looking at the two little humans’ laughter until it became their turn to laugh, after they, in unison, raised their plates saying, “More, please!”

Varcivald couldn’t help but smile at that until his smile disappeared, as he, Commodo, and Garena turned their heads to the entrance.

In a flash, the bat door was slammed open, sinking slightly into the walls.

Varcivald recognized the girl instantaneously, well, almost everybody did.

Gaia Waterfront stopped as she reached the counter, she was soaked, huffing and puffing, and her face was one of desperation, “Mr. Commodo, please! I need your help!”

Varcivald moved aside, signaling the children to join him and get out of a possible scruffle.

“Ms. Waterfront. I have much respect for ye,” Commodo especially emphasized the singular pronoun, “just as I had much for your mother. But who says I have any intention of helping ye, after what yer family did to us?” Commodo was barely containing himself. The side of the counter he was gripping started creaking.

Unlike the rest of the furniture made with Redwood, the counter was instead made of Castwood, one of the most resilient types of wood, mainly used for magician staves or arrows. No other lumber could contain tainted Mana as well as Castwood, well no easily accessible kind of wood, at least.

“Mr. Commodo, believe me when I tell you that you have no idea how sorry I am for your losses and how I wish I could go back in time and stop what that my stupid, heartless, useless brother has done to you. But I cannot… All I could do was repay you as much as I could, and I’ve done it. I do not hold you for that, nor am I asking for anything in return.

What I’m here for is to beg you, beg you for personal help. It goes for my life and that of… Mr. Gabriel, and I’ll get on the floor and prostrate to you if it helps me gain your trust and benevolence.”

Hearing that, Varcivald’s eyebrows arched in surprise. An Elf would never go so far as do something of the like. Only in a true life or death situation would an Elf lower oneself like that. Now, Gaia was just half-elf, but she had been thought by her mother, a true Daughter of the Forest; Clairin was a Princess of the Forest Folk, and hearing her daughter speak of kneeling in front of anyone just felt… unreal.

As Commodo held back, gritting his teeth, Gaia blew air from her nose and started bending forward.

Varcivald jolted forward, placing a hand on her shoulder and stopping her.

“Com, I don’t think she’s lying, please…” Said Varcivald, first locking eyes with her confused face, then meeting Commodo’s. It took but a second for the dwarf to waver in front of his pitying stare.

“Vald… alright… Alright!” Commodo coughed a couple of times, “Alright, everyone one, drinks are on the house, naw, I need ye all to leave. Yggdrasil’s Guardian needs to have a word with me. See ye all tomorrow!”

With less resistance than he expected, Commodo’s patrons started leaving, saluting kindly. His clientele was one of excellence.

In a matter of minutes, the hall emptied. Varcivald made to take the kids and leave, but Garena stopped him.

They want me to stay?

He recognized that Gaia was looking straight at him, “You are of Glade folks, but which Season?” Her eyes, still darting about, and clearly even in a hurry, showed genuine interest toward him.

“I am of the Spring Forest.” Varcivald let the meaning behind the answer fill the void.

“So you must have met my mother even before she moved here?” She said with a slight bow.

“Yes, Ms. Waterfront.” Varcivald was a respectful person, yet he knew the plots of politics. That he didn’t call her Princess, meant that even though a rightful Princess of her people, she was not one for him. He was an exile, and nobody could pretend servitude from an exile.

He caught the glimmer of understanding in Gaia’s eyes. She had understood. “You had direct contact with the Herald, am I correct, Mr. Varcivald, right?”

“Yes.” The elf did not waver in front of her knowledge of her name. Running a background check on every person who had contact with a Herald was the base minimum. Who wouldn’t? But why asking for his origins then? Was that a ploy, or was their net so poor as to not have really figured out the origin of his persona? Something was afoot, Varcivald realized.

“Kids,” he said, suddenly turning to them, “I need you to go home. It’s rather late too.” Taking out an enchanted scroll, he tore it in half, a signal for their parents to summon them home. It took barely seconds for that to happen.

They barely had the time to start complaining when they disappeared in a flash of azure light. It was costly, but an extremely secure set-up for emergencies, and what he paved in front of him, might as well have been one.

The entire hall had become deserted. The only exception was the four of them.

“Naw,” said Commodo, getting out of the counter and taking his place on a stool in front of Gaia, “what is that you require of me?”

Gaia looked at him straight in the eyes, “I need you to transfer me to Kanceldom, now!”

Varcivald, following the two, was a little confused. He couldn’t possibly know all there was to know about the dwarf, but being a space magician, that he didn’t expect, and though Kanceldom was in The Expanse, which was the most contiguous of the continents around The Den, it was exactly behind the corner.

It was no mean feat to travel all the way over another continent.

He doesn’t give me the vibes of a Tier 5, is there something I’m missing.

Commodo drew a breath, then looked at Varcivald.

“I thought it could be about tha’, but ye do know tha’ I cannot decide the location, righ’?” Commodo asked back with great confusion from Varcivald.

“My sources say otherwise,” Gaia answered, eyes unwavering.

Garena lightly giggled. “She a toughy, ain’t she? Our Guardian.”

Commodo snorted, but after a couple of seconds, he smiled. “Is it about the laddie?”

“I really hope so... but my life is in danger too.”

Commodo gave her a moment, probably waiting for her to expand on the argument, a thing she did not do. Her look was straight. She was indeed a tough one.

“Ye’re not really giving me much here…”

“Maybe I was wrong then. I might have asked the wrong dwarf. Well, it was a pleasure meeting you,” she rose up, then turned toward Varcivald, bowing slightly, and when she was about to salute Garena as well, the orc placed a hand on her forearm.

“Com, I don’t think the Guardian is here only to confirm our abilities. She looks serious in her plea,” said the she-orc.

Commodo sighed, “If this comes out, we’re ganna leave The Cradle, Guardian. Be warned, our connections spread far and wide.”

“I swear on my mother’s name. I nor any member of my family, our followers, our guards, or our servitude, will ever intentionally spread the secrets of your establishment.” The light from the Anchor appeared on top of her, binding her oath to the system.

Commodo smiled, satisfied.

“Vald, follow us too. Ye’ve gotta see this!”

Should I… Varcivald didn’t know if he was supposed to swear or what, but looking at Commodo’s smile, he knew he wasn’t meant to. So, with a wide smile on his face, Varcivald nodded and followed them.

I wonder where we’re go- what? We’re already stopped? But that’s the hearth…

“Alright, naw look, I barely have half an idea how, but… I’ve managed to crack it,” the dwarf said excitedly.

As he switched a few of the railing bars around the hearth, Varcivald saw the railing coiling on itself from the two sides, the earth opening up wider, like the mouth of a Sandwyrm. Many different variations of essences tainted Mana with a hiss, started flying around the hearth, and what was definitely a portal stabilized on top of it, right in the middle of the flames.

“This is a… stable portal!” Varcivald couldn’t help but shout!

“Yup!” Commodo crossed his arms on his chest and exclaimed with pride.

“Did you make this!? It is incredible!” Varcivald moved around, looking at the hearth’s most minute details.

“My family has been working on it for generations, grampy, dad, and I worked together to finally have a perfect reaction. Though t’was ‘round two weeks ago that I stabilized it.”

“But… you are a genius, Com!” Varcivald turned toward Commodo and placed his hands on the dwarf shoulder, squeezing them. “This is incredible!”

“Actually… t’ wasn’t myself the one fixing it. As hard as it is to accept…” he sighed, “and believe. T’was Olivia, who did.”

Hearing that statement Gaia’s brows arched. And she couldn’t help but interject.

“Olivia? Olivia Wanderlust? The runaway?” She asked.

“Yeah, I didn’t think of her a genius of magiceneering, but ye can’t never really kno’ a person, righ’?”

“Excuse me, if I push on the subject, Mr. Heisen… but, may I know when did she improve your machine? I thought she had still to come back from her escape with the Herald.”

“Oh, she didn’t directly; she left me a note. Wait here.” Commodo went back, behind the counter, and took something from the ManaCasher.

As the dwarf got back and handed Gaia something, Varcivald could clearly see that it was a thick metal sheet with writings on it.

Gaia Waterfront’s face grew various shades of color, but when she raised her head up, seemingly staring into nothingness, her face turned white, her eyes wide and her lips trembling.

“Oh mighty Tree… oh, mighty Tree!” She said aloud.

“What is it!?” Garena saw her grow pale too and quickly knew that the Guardian had figured out something.

“I need to go now! I might be too late!” She answered. “Please! To Kanceldom, Turtle Dungeon if you can!”

Commodo shook his head, “It can’t get you inside of a Dungeon, but it can get you to Kanceldom.” To that, Gaia quickly nodded.

In front of the hearth stood what looked like a new installation. It was a globe of sorts, encased in the ground.

Commodo, in one swift move, raised it up from the ground. When he did so, Varcivald noticed that the globe hovered in mid-air. It was no simple globe. It was Alter’s globe map.

The dwarf swiftly took a couple of gloves that had been deposited inside the void on the pavement. He wore them, and the globe started dimly shining.

Then Commodo manipulated it, quickly finding Kanceldom’s location and tapping on it.

The flames color changed, and so did the portal. After a few seconds, a circular window of sky opened up in front of them. Commodo adjusted it to face toward the ground with dextrous hand movements. When finally the window found its target, the spectators slack-jawed.

The window had opened on one of Kanceldom’s peaks. It oversaw the whole of the city, but what they could see happening in front of their eyes was… unbelievable.

The city was in the middle of a conjoined attack by what couldn’t else be but a small contingent of dragons, and… Priests of Lore.

They could only be Priests, their ungodly summons companion, monsters that looked like demons or angels, attacked in their stead as the Priests protected them, buffed them, and supported them from behind their damned Aegis. In the sky and one the ground, what couldn’t else be but Vulcan Dragons, judging by the fact that they were each fire bound dragons, set fire to the city.

“What the hell is goin’ on there!” Asked Commodo, confused.

“The Priests have joined the Dragons! But why?” Garena shouted.

Varcivald could see Gaia, placed her hands on her face, tears streaming down of them. She muttered something. He was barely able to hear her words, “I was too late… damn me…”

“Mr. Heisen, pls, I need you to get me all the way to the confines of Turtle Dungeon,” she said.

“But I thought Turtle Dungeon was in the middle of a war, it’s closed shut, how would you-” Started Varcivald, he had no idea what was happening anymore.

Gaia took out something from a pocket in her brown overcoat.

Commodo sucked in a breath, “That’s a Mana Pearl. What are you going to do with it?”

The spherical object was small, yet it had tons of Mana inside of it.

Varcivald knew that the Rapids of Mana produced the objects, and they were used to feed Yggdrasil, to suddenly expand parts of its body, they were especially useful in construct sites, but regular Mana Pearls were not so shiny… the one in Gaia’s hand was shiny so brightly that it was hard to look. So it hit him.

“That’s a Mother Mana Pearl, isn’t it?”

Differently from a Mana Pearls, which contained several thousand points of Mana and were produced by the Rapids with an almost constant rhythm, a Mother Mana Pearl detached from the deepest parts of the Heart of the Rapids and came to the surface, only once every year. A Mother Mana Pearl or an MMP contained tonnes of raw Mana, but its use was merely that of a weapon. There was no mortal with enough control over such a massive amount of unstable Mana if not...

If not for the very Guardian of the Rapids of Mana, of course, she can make use of it!

Gaia nodded to Varcivald.

“What are you planning to do with that?” His voice took the usual tone he had when dealing with his students. The thing slightly surprised Gaia, but not in a negative way.

“I’m going to detonate it to blow up part of the Dungeon’s shield and enter it,” she stated.

“Have you ever done something of the like?”

“No,” she admitted, but before she could continue, Varcivald interrupted her.

“No offense, Guardian, but you are not remotely fast enough to get out of the explosion range. You will die.” An MMP explosion was much more violent and fast than a regular MP. Varcivald yearly made a demonstration to his students about the use of an MP.

“That is for me to decide, and if I don’t get in there, I might as well die, because what expects me if I don’t is death or worse, madness,” she answered, looking at him straight in the eyes.

She’s really intense, and she’s so young… too young to walk in her mother’s shoes. She’s gonna get herself killed.

Before Varcivald could retort, Commodo interjected.

“I think we can work around that problem. There is a way to get ye in the Dungeon after all, but… I need eyes on the battlefield to confirm it. If the Giant I’m looking fo’, is down there and not in the Dungeon, then our attempt will be futile.”

“I don’t have time for-”

“What does he look like?” Varcivald interrupted the girl.

“Are you sure, Vald? It’s a dangerous battle down there.” Commodo didn’t precisely look eager to send him. He was worried about him.

Varcivald was happy about that, but he was prepared, “I need a bit of warm-up after all these years of idleness. Who knows, maybe I’ll be able to evolve a Skill if I manage to kill some of those bastards.” He paused, taking out his staff from his dimensional satchel.

“Now, tell me, who am I looking for?”