Auros heaved uncontrollably as he threw up in the corner of their newfound surroundings.

“I guess dimensional travel doesn’t agree with you, then?” Kydan fought the urge to laugh at his companion.

“Urf… Why did I even bother coming here…”

“For a story to tell, remember?” Kydan smirked, “Once you’re done, let’s get moving. We don’t know how much time has really passed or how long Lendras has been here.”

“He… Only entered the cave… Moments before us… Urk! Remember?” Auros spoke between retches.

“Yeah, he did, but time works differently each time someone enters a Dungeon, especially one as dangerous and powerful as this one.”

“So… He might be hours ahead of us?”

Kydan sighed, “Yeah, that’s the reality of it. That, or maybe he hasn’t even arrived yet.”

Auros laughed, “He must be having a bumpy ride if that’s the case. Maybe it’ll kill the old miser.”

Kydan grinned, “I don’t think luck would be that much on our side.”

Auros picked himself up off the ground and dusted himself off. Miraculously, his hooded garb was free from any vomit, but he still looked pale and ill. Once again, the bard was impressed by how hardy his young companion seemed to be. He had barely so much as reacted to being hurled between dimensions. Needless to say, his purple vest and black trousers showed no signs of vomit or indeed any other dirt or damage on them. Auros watched as the young man reached for his knife and clutched it in his hand, ready for anything that might come at them.

How does this kid do it? It’s like he was made for this…

“If you’re ready, shall we go?” Kydan looked to Auros with an expression of confidence.

The magic user nodded, “Yes, let’s. We don’t know how much time we’ve lost.”

And so, the two set off. Their surroundings were cavernous, not unlike the cave they had just been through, except much larger and wider, with stalactites, red and orange in colour, hanging from the ceiling.

“I can feel the magic in this place,” Auros muttered as they walked, “It’s almost… Suffocating.”

“I feel it too,” Kydan said, “Although not as much as that. I’m probably not as in tune as you are, but if it’s suffocating to you already, I’m sorry to say it’ll only get worse. And… There’s no turning back, we either conquer the Dungeon or die here.”

Auros nodded, “I’m aware, lad. Don’t worry, I can handle it.” He sounded surprisingly confident for a man who had been vomiting uncontrollably ten minutes previous.

It wasn’t just the surging magic in the air that felt off-putting to Auros, either. He’d had a strange feeling for a while now, since they were outside, and he didn’t suspect it was anything to do with the magic. His mind felt like it was… Swirling, as if it was a pool of liquid that someone was stirring around.

Am I… On the verge of something here? Is a lost memory of my past returning?

Auros struggled to make sense of this feeling. Was it even familiarity? He struggled to imagine himself ever having been in a Dungeon before, since he thought he definitely would have remembered the stomach trouble it gave him, as well as the sense of foreboding and claustrophobia. Besides, he was just some bard who happened to be able to use magic. What need would he ever have had for a Dungeon?

“What’s on your mind?” Kydan asked, after about fifteen minutes more of walking in silence down this continuous corridor of darkness. He had taken to using the flames from his knife to light their way, and examine the strange inscriptions on the walls. There were crude drawings which depicted beasts and men, locked in combat, as well as men with sceptres at the head of a crowd, seeming to be orating to their gathered followers. Kydan wondered if these men in the drawings were supposed to be the leaders of old, the kind of men he heard about in stories as a child.

“I… It’s probably nothing. I just… Have a strange feeling.”

“A ‘strange feeling’? Come on, I need more than that. You’re not normally this quiet, in fact since we met this is probably the longest I’ve ever heard you go without talking, apart from when you’re asleep.”

“It’s been twenty-five or thirty minutes, lad,” Auros laughed softly.

“Exactly! It might not be much, but it’s strange for you,”

“You may be right. Very well then, I’ll try to be more specific.”

“I’m listening.”

“This might sound strange, but this place, or at least something about it… Well, it feels familiar,”

“Familiar? You’re saying… You’ve been here before? But that’s impossible.”

“Maybe not here exactly, but… Maybe somewhere like it- Somewhere with a vast concentration of magical power.”

Kydan thought about this. Well, the man was clearly a magic user and by the way he dressed Kydan theorised that he may have been well-off before he lost his memories, so maybe he’d been inside a Dungeon before?

But if he’d been inside one, that would mean he’d have to have…

“Conquered it, exactly,” Auros finished Kydan’s thought and the young man’s eyes widened just as it did each time the man seemed to read his thoughts, “But… I have no memory of such a thing, and certainly no magical tools or Spirit Vessels to speak of. Hell, I would probably be ruler of the Republic of Auros if I had that kind of power at my disposal!”

Kydan laughed weakly at the man’s attempt at humour but knew that this was really bothering his companion. He imagined how hard it would have been to go about life not knowing where you came from or who you truly were.

They continued on in uncomfortable silence from that, Kydan’s mind racing as he took in more of the intricate patterns on the cavern walls. Then, he started to see some light at the end of the long path they’d been traipsing down for what felt like ages.

“Look, Auros,” he grinned, “I see an opening!”

“Yes!” Auros exclaimed, “Some fresh air, at last! I thought this weird corridor would never end, lad!”

Despite their relative fatigue, the two companions broke into a run towards the light at the end of the tunnel. Their footfalls echoed out on the rock floor…

…And alerted the Fiends waiting for fresh meat. The hallway they were running down filled with shrill shrieking of the worst kind. Vengeful, blood-hungry, murderous.

“Gah! What the hell are those!?”

Flying towards them from the direction of the end of the hallway came what could only be called a horde. The Fiends were bat-like creatures, with dark green wings, black bodies and scarlet eyes. Their fangs glistened as they emitted their piercing shrieks. Kydan’s knife glowed with flame once more, and he looked to Auros.

“Of course, Fiends had to show up right as we were heading towards fresh air… Life is cruel sometimes.”

“Don’t worry, we’ll blaze right through them!” Kydan assured him, “We won’t become the meal of some lowly Fiends!”

And with that, the two sprung into action as the bats enclosed upon them. Two of them flew right at Kydan, fangs at the ready, but were cut down and set alight for their troubles. Three more followed suit and met the same fate. They dissipated in clouds of darkness as they shrieked their last and perished to the flames, returning to wherever it was that these monstrosities came from.

“Searing Wave!” Kydan called out as a larger column of fire blasted six more bats out of the sky in one fell swoop. As terrifying and outlandish as these things looked, they were nothing compared to the larger Fiends Kydan and Auros had faced on the road.

“What’d I tell you?” Kydan said, “Small fry!”

But when he turned and looked at Auros, the bard was having a much tougher time. The remaining eight Fiends were circling around him, lashing out with their fangs, Auros narrowly avoiding them.

“What are you doing?!” Kydan cried out, “Auros! Use your magic!”

“I… I can’t!” Auros replied, panicked.

“Damn!” Kydan spat. There must have been some force preventing him from using his strange brand of magic.

“Back off then, I’ll torch these things!”

“Just be careful not to torch me as well, lad,” Auros said as he deftly ducked out of the way of another attack from a bat.

“No promises,” Kydan muttered. Auros didn’t seem to hear.

“Flaming Burst Barrage!” Kydan yelled out, and instead of a single concentrated blast of flame, eight individual orbs of fire surged out, one by one, from the Dagger of Sakhtras.

The orbs pulsed through the air, each closing in on a Fiend, a stunned Auros watching as one by one they met their mark and the Fiends were obliterated…

“Gah!”

…Before the last bat was torched to nothing, it managed to catch Auros while he was distracted, and sank its fangs into his right hand.

“Ah, damn it!” he grabbed the small Fiend, ripped it off of him, and threw it with force against the wall, where the fireball followed and caused the beast to meet its end.

“Auros!” Kydan yelled, “That thing bit you, you’re…”

Auros examined his hand, which was bleeding quite profusely.

“Oh… Oh dear…”

“Damn thing, that might’ve been poisonous!”

“P-Poison?” Auros looked at his companion, aghast. He tried to walk towards Kydan, but was unsteady on his feet so even slight movements were laborious. It was probably a combination of things- The shock of not being able to use his magic, the suffocating feeling the Dungeon gave him, and the wound on his hand which may have led to poison coursing through his body.

Kydan knew what was happening by the way Auros was walking and his slow, laboured breaths. He looked back to see the bard growing paler by the second, his green eyes full of panic and fear. Kydan knew what had to be done.

“Come on, we’ll rest up ahead.”

“Rest? What are you saying, lad?”

“You’re not dying because of some minor Fiend like those things! You need to rest up! I have bandages, and some antidotal ointment too, in my pouch… We need to hurry, though, it seems like you’ve been infected with a fast-acting poison…”

“Always prepared, like a true Dungeon Hunter,” Auros slurred. Kydan then managed to rush to his companion and throw the pale man’s arm around his shoulder to support him.

“Th-Thanks,” Auros mumbled, “Sorry… I swear, lad… Just leave me and get the… Vessel…”

“I’m not leaving you!” Kydan roared fiercely, “I won’t just abandon you, not when this is treatable! Your life is more important than a Spirit Vessel!”

“But… Your home… Your friends…”

Kydan gave Auros a warm smile, “You’re my friend now, too, Auros. I’m going to try and treat you as best I can, and when you’re ready we’ll keep going after the Spirit Vessel! I doubt that Overlord has the brains in his thick skull to make it to the end of this Dungeon anyway…”

Before he faded into unconsciousness, Auros let out a slight chuckle.

*

At the same time, #215 was starting to grow weary. The oppressive air in this place clawed at her like a wild beast, and it seemed to be taking a toll on Lendras as well. The man’s breaths had been ragged before they had even entered the Dungeon, but now they were even more so. If she didn’t know this man, she’d assume he may have been on death’s door.

“Perhaps it may be pertinent to rest, Overlord Lendras,” the man with the white-streaked hair said, “It would seem we may still have a ways to go.”

They had already been through the wringer. First it had been the bats- A swarm of them accosted them, but the swordsman quickly disposed of them, which hadn’t been too bad. It was what followed that had been truly perilous.

They had been trudging along a long dark stairway descending deeper into the Dungeon when the hulking oaf that was #215’s master stood on an indentation in the ground. This had triggered a massive spiked ball to come rolling down from the top of the stairs at a breakneck pace.

“Damn iiiiiiiit!” Lendras cursed as the four of them sprinted down the stairs, the rotund man almost stumbling once or twice.

She had feared for her own life at the time of course, but #215 derived a twisted delight from the memory of the Overlord squealing like a pig as he scrambled to escape the trap. She gave a slight exhale from her nose in lieu of outward laughter.

Of course it had fallen on her to stop the rolling spiked ball, though. While the three men ran ahead, she was ordered to “D-Do something!” by a floundering Lendras, and so she met the trap head-on and right before she was to be crushed, she punched through the centre of it with such force that it shattered into pieces.

“Damn!” the mysterious man exclaimed, “You can really throw a punch, kid!”

#215 of course said nothing, but feeling his gaze on her unsettled her deeply.

“T-Told you before,” Lendras grunted, sitting on the ground panting like a hound, “Don’t… Talk to her…”

The man smiled that sickening smile, “Pardon me,” he said, “Anyway, shall we continue?”

By #215’s estimate, that had been at least an hour and a half ago. Since then, they’d engaged in a minor skirmish with some Fiends that resembled large armadillos, except their shells were heavily armoured and also on fire. Lendras and the mysterious companion left #215 and the swordsman to deal with them, and the Fiends were dispatched with little effort.

“You really are strong,” the swordsman said before they caught up with the other two, and #215 thought that there may have been kindness in the man’s dark eyes in that moment. She wasn’t quite sure, though, and she wasn’t allowed to answer him anyway, so she just quickened her pace and walked ahead.

Then, a short while later, came the golem. A large humanoid creature of molten rock, which launched parts of itself at them, which could easily have melted their skin on contact. At first, the swordsman and #215 had been ordered to deal with it, but when they had no luck and couldn’t break through the creature’s rock-hard body, even tougher than the armadillo Fiends’ shells, #215 witnessed something that few slaves had ever seen, but all of them feared.

She and the swordsman kneeled on the ground, breathing heavily, reeling from the golem’s last attack, where it had attempted to bring its huge, tree-trunk thick arm down on them.

“Urf…” The swordsman growled, “Th-This thing’s tough,”

“Can you fools do nothing?!” The ungrateful wretch of an Overlord roared, “Seems I’ll have to deal with this… Myself!”

And so, there it was in front of her. The Burning Gauntlet’s power. For a man of his age, Lendras Rosharien moved alarmingly fast in that moment, appearing as if from nowhere in front of #215 and the swordsman.

Azure flames coated the gauntlet for which the Overlord had earned his title, and he delivered a punch to the golem’s chest which contained an orange orb.

The creature exploded into nothing but a pile of rock, the orange orb at its centre rolling towards Lendras. He crushed it underfoot, and energy dissipated from it into the air.

The mysterious man clapped almost mockingly, “What an attack! Bravo, Overlord Lendras, sir! May I say, you’ve still got it!”

#215 looked at him, panic in her eyes. She knew what was about to follow-

Moving extremely fast once more, Lendras was upon the mystery man in an instant, and grabbed him by the throat with his still-smouldering gauntlet.

“I don’t know who you think you are, you nature-defying monstrosity,” He growled, spittle falling from his maw, “But no one speaks to me that way. I demand RESPECT!”

He released the man violently, but the mystery man seemed unperturbed. He still wore the same smile he usually wore, and rubbed his neck where the man’s gauntlet had enclosed it. Strangely, there wasn’t even a mark, #215 observed.

“My apologies,” the man said through his wicked grin, “I was… Out of line.”

Lendras grunted in response and turned his back. The swordsman, having picked himself back up, followed suit. #215, still on the ground, was the only one to see the venomous look on the man’s face, his pale grey eyes narrowed with disdain. He didn’t seem to notice #215 looking at him, but the look disappeared as soon as it had arrived and he seemed to put that façade of aloofness and uncaringness he wore back on. But #215 knew that deep down, he was enraged, and would remember the Overlord’s slight against him.

There was no doubting it now, this man was extremely dangerous…