Inke didn’t like to use Ignari.

Except that she did.

It was heady, an intoxicating rush of the power of the stat increases, active effects, and passive effects alone that suddenly activated, but also filling her with the thrill of the knowledge that she could do anything.

Not that she actually could, but in those first moments after activating her bond with Ignari, it certainly felt like it. She raised her arm, pointing her left index finger at the swan, which cowered back, sensing something about Inke’s presence. “Lightning Strike.”

Activated Skill: Lightning Strike (Ignari)

Mana Activation: minimum – 250; used – 1200

Damage Inflicted (.5MP): 600 HP

Skill Weakened – 13/25 Bonds: x0.52

Total Damage: 312 HP

Screeching, the boss fell from the sky, the crown of its head marred by a black stain, fractals of black lines reminiscent of a tree’s branches spiraling out from the epicenter. Inke didn’t give it the time to react.

“Lightning Strike.”

It shattered, shards of light flying out from its body and hovering momentarily in the air before disintegrating. There was the characteristic chiming sound of a rain of Crystal as the loot fell from the sky where the swan had been struck down, no physical body remaining for the dungeon to Absorb.

Inke didn’t care about the rewards.

She knelt beside Harin, hands frantically tugging aside her cloak to find one of her healing potions. None of the Skills that Ignari granted Inke could heal someone. If they did-

A shudder ran through her body at the unnervingly close similarities between Harin lying on the floor and them. Tugging the cap off a potion she had retrieved, Inke dumped the entire bottle on Harin’s injured side.

Applying the potion topically was much less effective than if she could’ve gotten Harin to drink it, but he wasn’t conscious, and Inke wasn’t going to spend more time than needed to trying to force him to drink it while passed out.

To be safe, she grabbed another bottle and poured onto the wound. And Inke had seen him bleeding from his ears earlier, so pulling another potion out, she made her best attempt at adding it to his head.

But Harin could still have more injuries, internal ones that she couldn’t see. With another healing potion, possibly-

-Inke’s vision blurred, and it wasn’t Harin lying there in a cheap tunic stained with blood, it was someone wearing rich robes of silver of purple, it was someone in dark black leather armor, it was-

A hand grabbed Inke’s arm, abruptly jerking her back to the present. “I-Inke?” Harin was sitting up, a concerned look on his face. “I’m o-okay, I d-don’t think I n-n-need any more p-potions.”

She swept her gaze over the surrounding area, eyes catching onto the numerous potion bottles laying discarded on the floor of the boss room. Shakily, she sat back, crouching on the ground. The potion in her hand hit the floor and crashed.

Slowly, Inke’s hands reached up to her face and covered her mouth. “Oh,” she said quietly. “Yeah. I don’t- I don’t know what I was doing.” Standing, she stared at a point slightly to the left of Harin. “Let’s go. I think the boss dropped its loot somewhere over there.”

Harin still looked hesitant. “Inke-” he glanced at the potions on the floor. “Where did all of the potions- no, Harin, focus,” he muttered, chastising himself. Steeling himself, Harin squared his shoulders and looked Inke in the eye. “How- I- wh-what happened?”

“…I drank a potion, killed the boss, healed you.” When Harin looked like he was going to say something else, Inke broke her gaze from his and strode over to where the Crystal and other drops had fallen. Quietly, she muttered, “Deactivate Bond: Ignari.”

A small pile of white, softly glowing Crystal lay in a heap on the floor, interspersed with what looked like razor-sharp, edged metal discs.

“It’s a fortune,” Harin breathed, having followed her.

Laughing softly, Inke felt slightly more herself when she responded, “To a Copper, maybe. That pile right there? It’s worth maybe a slightly enhanced, reinforced set of steel armor.” She squinted at it. “It looks like Light Crystal, which is solidly second-tier. Always useful, but there tends to be quite a bit of it available, and it takes quite a bit of work to make it combat-applicable.” Running some quick mental conversions, Inke added, “In coinage, that’s about ten gold coins a shard.”

Harin gaped at her.

“There’s a reason that adventurers use Crystal for most of their transactions, you know.” She fell silent.

Seeing his opportunity, Harin cut in, “I-Inke, I really think that we should… talk…” When Inke didn’t respond, Harin cautiously changed the subject, picking up on her clear reluctance. “H-how d-do we divide it, th-then?”

Inke shrugged. “Even split is the best. We can each take half. I’ll count it.” She stepped forward.

Harin mumbled something that Inke didn’t catch. At Inke’s half-turn towards him, he added, louder, “Th-there’s sixty-seven shards in there.”

“Wait-”

“D-don’t ask. Please.”

The other adventurer had respected Inke’s non-answers about her own problems, so Inke didn’t ask about how Harin had known the amount of Crystal in the pile.

Running a hand over the back of his head, Harin looked downward. “I… I think you should t-take my share.” Before Inke could respond to that, he continued, “You used all those potions on me, r-right? That should m-make up for it. And you helped me the get all of this Experience, s-so…”

The healing potions she had used were probably worth a minor fortune, actually. High-quality healing potions that acted quickly and had strong effects were worth more than their weight in gold. An additional thirty-four shards of second-tier Crystal wasn’t worth nearly as much as that. Even if Harin also gave her whatever other loot they had collected from the rest of the dungeon, it might only double the total amount of Crystal, considering that boss loot was almost always the most valuable.

On the other hand, though, Inke had been the one to waste far more potions than the few she actually needed to use.

Also, she was rich.

Being a Shatter was a well-paying profession. Very few adventurers strong enough to reliably clear dungeons solo, and rogue ones, at that, wanted to be constantly moving from place to place and generally despised or at least shunned by the majority of the population.

Conversely, there were always more dungeon cores that needed shattering and desperate people willing to pay for the job.

Inke shook her head. “We’ll split it.”

“But I didn’t even- I didn’t even d-do anything-”

She raised an eyebrow. “You got me into the dungeon, didn’t you?” Inke sat down, cross-legged, and began counting out the Crystal into two separate piles. As she did so, she pulled out several pouches that Inke had stuffed previous loot drops into for dividing, as well.

Without saying anything, Harin sat next to her and took over the division of the smaller piles. He didn’t touch the larger one from the boss, which was probably good because Inke was constantly trying to work around the sharp discs that made up part of the loot.

“Are they good for anything?” she asked conversationally.

Out of the corner of her eye, Inke saw Harin shake his head. “The dungeon’s been around for t-two and a half months, now, but I think these only started dropping maybe a week ago. No one knows what they’re supposed to be for.”

Inke shrugged and returned to her counting.

They sat together in silence like that for a long while.

Harin and Inke exited the dungeon into a soft twilight, the sun having set recently. Considering that they had stayed in the dungeon for a relatively scant thirty minutes, due to its rather small size, neither of them felt terribly tired despite the time.

“Uh, hey,” Harin said, eyes darting away slightly, “do you have anywhere to stay the night? I haven’t seen you around, s-so I was wondering if you n-needed a place to stay?”

Inke shook her head. “I’ll be fine, though I’d be appreciative if you could direct me to the best inns.” She paused. “There are inns around, right?” Presumably, with the amount of traffic going in and out of the area, there had to be some place for the sheer number of people pouring in to spend the night, but it was just as likely that there was an encampment to simply set up tents.

She hadn’t needed to use one in over a year, considering that it was rare for her to stay more than a day in any particular area, and Inke had her own quarters at the Shatter Guild.

Visibly, he brightened. “Yeah, I could direct you to one, if you want? O-or I could give you some directions-”

“Directions would be perfect.” She paused. “I have… things that I need to accomplish tonight, but if you show up at the dungeon around midday, we can talk about partying together in the future.”

Harin gasped. “R-really? I don’t- I mean- you’d go through that a-again? I k-know I’m not exactly the b-best party m-member, but…” he trailed off and grinned, smile splitting his face. “A-anyway, that sounds amazing!” He began to pace back and forth.

She spent the next ten minutes standing there, listening to Harin gesticulate and ramble on about the six local inns that had managed to actually get genuine, wooden or stone establishments up and running within the span of two months, their relative pricings, local crime rates, comparative service and room quality, proximity to the dungeon, and his general rating of whether or not Inke should stay there.

“…and that’s why I think you should stay at the Blazing Presence.” A beat. “Even if their name is objectively terrible.”

“Thanks.”

Waving, Harin walked off, leaving Inke to her thoughts.

And plans.

Putting on her ‘people face’, Inke sauntered over to where the dungeon entrance was, approaching the person behind the desk. It was someone else, a pink-skinned humanoid with large black eyes and long, twisting horns.

Rirwon, then, though it was odd to see one so far from their native land to the west. She didn’t know where the dungeon was located, but based on the number of humans Inke had seen, it was almost certainly somewhere in the Virsian Empire, where Inke was based and was home to the highest populations of humans.

“Hello,” she said, “I was wondering if you knew where the previous worker here had gone?” Inke offered the new clerk her best friendly smile.

“Please don’t kill me.”

She blinked. “Could you repeat that for me, please?”

“I think her name is Seola, she’s human, thirty-eight years old, whenever we have the bimonthly Annoyed Accountants Anonymous meeting she likes to complain about adventurers constantly threatening her-” Two solid-black eyes darted down to Ignari hanging in a sheath at Inke’s side. An audible gulp could be heard. “That is to say, I definitely don’t have anything to do with her, I don’t want anything to do with her, and I would really appreciate you not mentioning this to her.” When Inke didn’t say anything, only continuing to stare, there was a quick addition of, “Oh, and she went that way!” A point of an index finger. “It was only a few minutes ago, I swear, I have no idea what she was doing!”

“I appreciate it, thank you.” Inke headed in the direction that was indicated, slipping into a side street between two buildings. She didn’t travel very far before her eyes alighted upon the clerk, Seola, casually leaning against a wall and counting some Crystal. It was difficult, but Inke managed to restrain herself from alerting Seola through laughter. Frankly, Inke could have sworn that the older woman wanted to get robbed. The situation was almost hilarious with how stereotypical the scene was.

Pulling her cloak over her head, Inke glanced at her clothing, making sure that any identifying objects were covered by the common wool cloth. Once she was sure, Inke stalked forward, a cold glint shining in her eyes, though Seola likely couldn’t see it. “So,” she said.

The clerk backed up frantically. “P-please, what do you want, I don’t have any money on me-” It must have been on instinct because Seola shoved her hands full of Crystal into pockets in her pants and quickly backtracked, “If you try to kill me, I’ll scream and the guards will catch you.”

“What rank is the dungeon?”

She gaped. “I don’t- why does that matter?”

“Tell me.” At a shorter than average height, Inke couldn’t tower over anyone, but her demeanor was intimidating enough.

“Copper VII.” She held up her hands. “I promise, that’s what it is, anyone could tell you so.”

“The boss wasn’t Copper. Try again.”

“You faced- what- you faced the boss? Radia? It’s Silver IV, but the rest of the dungeon is only Copper VII, maybe only Copper VI at most. It’s technically classified as Silver IV because of the boss, but everyone knows not to face it unless they’re high-level enough.”

Inke had already ruined stealth with Harin, so it couldn’t hurt to reveal herself to Seola. Besides, Guildmaster Shatter was typically rather easy-going. Forgiveness versus permission, and all that. She flipped back her hood. “So why did you let us enter the dungeon?”

Seola’s eyes flitted over Inke’s features, clearly identifying her. “What was I supposed to do? I couldn’t stop him; he owns the land, so it’s his prerogative to enter if he wants to. It’s not my fault.”

Inke paused. “You’re right, I shouldn’t have assumed that the dungeon was Copper III without confirming it with someone. I don’t know why he didn’t tell me, either.” The clerk breathed a sigh of relief, but Inke wasn’t finished. “But you knowingly let us enter without warning us about anything.” A beat. “Who paid you?”

“No one!” Her eyes darted away from Inke’s.

“That’s a lie. I’ve dealt with enough political machinations to know when a plot is afoot.”

“Who even are you?”

Inke smiled, but it didn’t reach her eyes. “No one you need to be concerned about… unless you keep lying to me.” Stepping closer, she reached out, planting her hand on the wall next to Seola’s head.

“Somebody official! I wouldn’t have done it otherwise, I swear, but whoever it was had to have been someone high up in the Adventurer Guild; I was shown a formal seal and offered a bonus, all I had to do was let him into the dungeon without saying anything whenever he finally asked!”

Nodding, satisfied, Inke drew back and tilted her head. With a smirk, she said, “I wouldn’t recommend trying to tell anyone about this, unless you’d like to disappear.” Inke was pretty sure that worked in all the books she’d read. “Oh, and as an additional incentive…” She pulled a random pouch of Crystal from her belt and tossed it to Seola. “For you.”

Suddenly, Inke remembered the last thing she needed to do. She turned back, causing the clerk to tremble in fear. “Also, I could use some directions to the Blazing Presence.”