Groaning, Crear swam out of the darkness and stared straight into Thira's face. The light was dim enough that it didn't hurt his sensitive eyes.

"How are you feeling?"

He closed his eyes. His legwas on fire, his clothes were sweaty and clung to him and his stomach felt queasy.

He opened his eyes again to stare at Thira. "How long have I been out?"

"Going by our provisions, three days maybe? Hard to say down here."

"We're still in the dungeon?" A deformed fox swam into view behind Thira.

[I can't just let you out because of an injury. It wouldn't be fair to other challengers, right?]

Go away...

"Yes. The stairs between the third and fourth floor. When you didn't wake up after two days, we took our chances with the third floor. Funny how there weren't any traps. It was... easy, compared to the second floor."

You're a bad liar with that scratch on your cheek. "Let me guess, more arrow traps?"

Thira smiled ruefully at his question.

"Idiot. Can't you magic a water shield around yourself?" He grimaced as he pushed himself into a sitting position and looked around. Lydia dozed against a backpack and held her spear in a vice grip. Roric sat against the wall on the other side of the stairs, keeping watch.

"You should eat something."

While my leg is burning up? "No. I need my backpack." Wouldn't be able to keep anything down anyways.

Thira looked around panicked. He pointed it out for her. "It's that one over there. With the quivers. Funny. I should've lost all those arrows thanks to that throw." He saw Roric flinch. But the big man stood up and brought his backpack over wordlessly, before returning to the far side of the stairs.

Crear regarded the big man, then shrugged his shoulders.

Shuffling about a bit, he leaned his back against the wall and removed the bandage on his left leg.

The stitches were good, but the wound was festering.

"It looks bad."

"You don't say," was his dry answer. "You're a water sorceress. Why didn't you heal it?"

"I..." Thira looked away from his accusing gaze. "... don't have the training."

"And this is the best your common medical knowledge could do?" he hissed, now outright glaring at her with his eerie white eyes.

"It's not her fault!" started Roric, but he flinched back when Crear moved his glare to the big man.

"How in the Spirits squishy paws did you get to C-rank?! - Let me rephrase it: How did you survive long enough to reach C-rank!"

"By carefully moving through the dungeons? By not overestimating ourselves? And a good portion of luck, I guess," said Lydia. Then added with a smile: "Good morning, Crear. You're finally awake. How are you feeling?"

"Much better if I could strangle you lot," was his hissed reply. Without them around, he would've healed his wound already - trollsoup, he wouldn't have gotten wounded in the first place, even if the trap had gone off with him right in the middle!

"We're all sorry about what happened. Come, you must be bursting by now. Did you know you were out for three days?" Lydia came over and pulled him onto his feet, one arm wrapped around him to keep him from falling down again.

His view blacked out for a brief moment.

"My pack," he croaked weakly, getting hold of it and pulling it after him as he hobbled down the stairs with Lydia.

Out of sight from the others and then some steps, he leaned against the wall and pushed her away.

"Now leave me alone," he grumbled.

Lydia stood there, unsure, then shrugged her shoulders. "Call for us if you need help."

He slid to the ground, listening. From further upstairs, he could faintly hear Thira asking why he hadn't come back with Lydia. And Lydia's reply: "Let's give him some space. You remember how cranky Roric was when he broke his arm that one time?"

Great. You stay up there and leave me alone. He arranged a strange assortment on the stairs next to him. A wineskin, a block of cloth-wrapped wood, a small knife, a needle with a fine thread, a rope and a set of bandages.

This is going to hurt. Taking deep breaths, Crear tied of the rope around his left tight, blocking the blood flow, then cut the stitches open on both sides. The hole was maybe 2 fingers wide and through the inner part of his lower leg. The bones were untouched, but the muscles had been torn. Biting down on the cloth-wrapped wooden block, he uncorked the wineskin and poured it over the wound.

He bit down hard on the wood, stifling his screams. Tears filled his eyes. But the last thing he wanted was for the others to come down and see him like... like this.

"You really think he'll be fine without help?" asked Thira once more in a low voice. They could hear water splash onto the stairs.

"Give a guy some privacy, will you?" grumbled Roric.

"You remember how you behaved after that accident, right? You hid under your blanket and refused to come out for weeks," sighed Lydia. "Just give him a bit of space."

"I'm... just worried, I guess... he may never be able to walk properly again..."

Deep breaths carried him through the pain of the alcohol in the wound and the threatening blackout. It had only been a quarter of the bottle and it burned! Like being trapped in a burning house, he thought self-derisively.

[Hey. You still alive?] A shimmering glob that could've been a fox sat in front of him.

Go away, he thought at the fox and put his hands over the wound. He fought through the pain to reach a semblance of peace. Sweat gathered on his forehead as he concentrated on healing the wound. Muscles and sinew. Blood vessels. Then flesh.

Little by little, the muscle grew through the hole, knitting itself together once more. The big blood vessels tunneled over the muscle to reach their frayed other ends. A tiny bit of protecting flesh grew over everything, before he had to stop because of the overwhelming pain.

A break and more deep breaths carried him through stitching the skin together, wrapping a fresh bandage around it and removing the rope. Blood flowed through his left leg once more, bringing with it a more healthy color to the pale skin.

The wooden block clattered to the ground with a soft sound. Too weak to do anything else, he pushed the assortment of utensils into a corner and fell into a restless slumber.

[Stop ignoring me!]

Thira fidgeted. They hadn't heard anything for some time now.

Roric stood up and stretched, moving down the stairs.

"Where are you going?" asked Lydia.

"Takin' a leak," he mumbled.

Lydia didn't stop him.

He found the boy even further downstairs. It reeked of alcohol and something putrid.

What did he do? Drown his pain with beer? Another step closer and he was sure it wasn't beer. Doesn't smell like beer. Yuck. How can he sleep with that stench around?

Roric sneaked a bit closer and winced at his loud steps. Any other time, and he was sure he would've woken Crear up.

Tiptoeing, he went back upstairs.

"He's sleeping again. Must've changed the bandage on his leg, too," he answered the womens' questioning eyes.

The smiling face of his father, as he set the mansion on fire with magic, turned into a hateful grimace. "You were supposed to be the greatest of us all!" The door fell shut.

The furniture went up in flames. Fire licked at his feet, climbed up his clothes.

"What did I do wrong?! Let me out!" He pounded against the door but it didn't budge. The fire burned on his skin and ate into his flesh. "No! I don't want to die!"

His head snapped up with a snarl, a dagger partly pulled from its sheath before he registered the staircase and the dim blue torches. Relaxing slightly, he leaned back against the cold stone. Just a nightmare.

Another moment passed and his thoughts were back in the present. Checking on his wound, he found it cool to the touch. It's healing. Good.

"Awake?" grumbled Roric from the other side.

Since when...

"Eat and drink something. Lydia wants to get out of this dungeon before our provisions run out." He threw a small bundle over and left.

Crear stared after the gruff man. What was that?

Looking into the bag, he found a flask with water, a piece of bread, two stripes of meat and a handful of dried fruits. His stomach growled. Within minutes, he had devoured the meal and a sizeable part of his own remaining rations.

The sounds of packing from above made him hurry to pack his own things. The wineskin was still open when he grabbed it. A quick search produced the cap. "Amazing that it survived the rough handling..." A few of his arrows were broken, sure, but his stuff was otherwise intact. Not much breakable things in there anyway.

Between packing and taking a break, Lydia appeared next to him and pulled him to his feet.

"I can walk, you know?" he said when she didn't move away.

"Nonsense. You have a leg wound and if you don't want it to worsen, you will refrain from putting weight on it."

"If you insist..."

"Yes."

And damn it that she is right. It hurts just moving around.

Feeling like an invalid, he hobbled down the stairs with Lydia's help.

"And what about traps?" he asked when they reached the next floor. Had Thira said they had gone through the third floor already?

"Uhm..."

Crear sighed.

"You tell me when to stop and what to do?" offered Lydia.

He sighed again. But did he have a choice?

===

A pitfall trap and two rooms later, the voice returned.

[You're a sorcerer.]

Am not, he snapped in his mind.

[You healed your leg with magic!]

"Stop. Poke that light grey stone. But softly!" said Crear loudly.

Lydia leaned him against the wall and prodded at the stone in question with her spear.

"It's not mov- wait. It's slipping into the ground a little."

[Stop ignoring me!]

"We have several options. One: We walk around it without triggering it. And make our path of retreat much more difficult. Two: We figure out what kind of trap it is and trigger it from a safe distance. Three: I disable it," explained Crear as he raised a finger for each possible action. Beads of sweat trickled into his blindfold, put on after the brighter torches on the fourth floor had become too much for his eyes.

"If you walk around the trigger, can you see any kinds of small tubes in the ground, the walls or the ceiling? Maybe hidden behind the moss and lichen?" He took a swig from his water flask. How that had survived the trap was also a mystery.

[Sorcerer! Don't ignore me!]

I'm not a sorcerer.

[Why are you so stubborn? You used magic. I saw it!]

Not. A. Sorcerer, he thought back stubbornly.

[Fine. Explain it.]

"I can't see any tubes," said Lydia.

"Then we'll move around it and hope we don't have to run this way."

"I'll mark it on the map," quipped Thira from behind.

[Explain it, explain it, explain it!] nagged the fox, floating right in front of his nose.

You're annoying.

[Explain it!]

Will you shut up and let us complete this challenge of yours in peace if I tell you?

The fox grumbled for a while, before it managed a [Fine.]

Sorcerers have an elemental affinity. I have none.

The fox peered at him with big eyes.

He watched Roric kill a pair of boars through the translucent fox.

"Let's take a break for a moment," said Lydia as she pulled him into the now empty room.

The fox floated around him in some kind of inspection. [No elemental affinity... Indeed... There are none of the usual elemental clusters around you, like with the girl. To think that I would meet a genuine mage again after all this time...]

Mage? That term was new.

[Those with magical talent but no elemental affinity. They used to be called mages. To differentiate themselves from the elemental sorcerers,] explained the fox. Then it giggled. [What a great thing! A mage, in my humble abode!]

You're nuts.

But the fox had vanished.

"Let's continue," said Crear aloud.

"But you've barely taken a break, Crear!" exclaimed Thira.

Turning towards Thira and tilting his head as slowly as an owl would, he watched as both Thira and Roric flinched uncomfortably. But he kept it to a cutting "I'll take a break once we're out of this pothole," remark.

"They're worried for you, you know?" whispered Lydia, as she walked beside him.

"Why would they? Oh, right. If I die here, you guys are stuck with the traps. You got a dying goblins luck. There is another one. See the mural on the ceiling? Half hidden by moss? Probably another arrow trap. Push that stone over there." True to his words, a volley of arrows hurtled down from the ceiling.

"They are worried because they like you. For all your snark and gruff silence, you're the first who hasn't looked down on us."

"Roric hates me, don't try to deny it."

They watched as the man in question killed another boar.

"Nah. He's just overprotective of Thira, is all. And now of you, too."

"Why that?"

"Because of your eyes. Someone must've treated you badly and... something like that happened to Thira a long time ago."

"You're all knuckleheads." Crear took another swig from his flask. I should spike it with alcohol. Would help with the pain and this group of brain-deads.

"Maybe. Look, the last room. And a riddle this time," Lydia groaned with despair as she leaned him against a wall to inspect the riddle.

He closed his eyes for a moment. His whole body trembled from exhaustion.

"What does it say?" asked Thira.

"It has cities, but no houses. It has forests, but no trees. It has rivers, but no water. What is it?" read Lydia aloud.

[You want to know? It's one of my best riddles.] The fox was back.

You said you would leave me alone.

[But watching you lot struggle is so much more fun! Do you have any idea how long I've been waiting for some company? Those others were no good. All grim and careful. But I had a good laugh when they noticed the paths were gone. You should've seen them! All panicky! If I hadn't blocked the way back, they would've fled without completing the challenge.]

"Dungeons, maybe?" asked Roric.

"Do dungeons have cities?"

"Well... no... but I heard the larger ones can have mountains and trees and... oh..." he quieted down again.

"A map," said Thira. "Although there are maps that show trees and stylized fishes. And a city map would show houses. But the regular maps don't show any of that. I can't think of anything else that could match."

[Whaa...] mumbled the fox disappointed.

It was obvious, you know? She's been doing nothing but draw maps since we got here.

[I'll make the final riddles extra difficult!] And it was gone again, as was the wall blocking the stairs.

Any other time, he might have enjoyed bantering with the fox. But not with a hole in his leg.

Lydia helped him down the stairs and called for another break.

It grated on his nerves, but she threatened to let Roric sit on him to keep him from moving. Grumbling, Crear nestled into his shawl and was asleep before he knew it.