The translucent apparition shattered into dazzling shards of light like the fall of glass onto marble. A chorus of shrill shrieks followed as the hurt Dungeon roared yet again in pain. The wraiths that emerged from the cut of the ancient dagger bore the garments of ghastly wyrms. Blood red wisps flickered around the violet constructs. They wrought the same agony that Triss projected into the lightsword when they shattered.

The appearance of the wraiths were loosely modelled on the Firebrood lieutenant that Triss had seen. They were, of course, not nearly as gigantic nor did they sport limbs or an additional head. They truly looked sinister, however. Triss found the wraiths to be a much more efficient skill than the lightsword as only their shattering relied on a significant amount of mana. It was akin to using the sword in bursts.

He guessed that the shatters didn’t necessarily amplify the sensation of agony as much as with the sword, but he had no way to confirm it directly as of that moment. It was still difficult to estimate the number of deaths, and the surge of the records had become almost unnoticeable after a few weeks of sweeping through the Dungeon.

Triss had always carried the tambourine with him as it proved perfect to attract the attention of the local monsters. He hadn’t found a way to replicate what Veles had demonstrated with his own magic but discussing with his colleagues had given him a lot of insights that he would have struggled to come up with on his own.

He spawned another wraith on the tip of his fingers to try and find a roundabout solution to the problem. He hadn’t seen Veles since he disappeared but he managed to find Shaw with free time on his hands once or twice a week. The Scholar suggested applying a few theories from ‘Passing of Snow’ and practicing with them with the wraiths. He wouldn’t have to deal with this if not for the forced awakening as people usually understood their personal Classes instinctively.

The illusion formed from a puddle of light on his index finger. It extended outward and took shape like a liquid filling a container. The light dimmed and took on the form of a resting butterfly. It still shone slightly and the colours looked more vivid than the real thing.

He gripped the dagger in his other arm and tried to learn a bit more from it. It didn’t scare him as much as it used to, but it was still annoying to have to think back to his awakening to grasp his connection with the laws inscribed in it.

The light from the butterfly slowly dimmed as he concentrated. His lips curved into a smile as he saw shadows. Natural light was reflected as it was supposed to look like, if it were an object. The wings quivered as he controlled the tiny illusion into a short flight.

Giggling to himself, he brought his hand closer to it to try and feel the lifelike creation. It perched on his index finger again, but this time he could feel its short legs. He then moved his hand to try and carry the illusion but it ended up going straight through. It was still a construct of light.

Just as he had done that, the miniature apparition shattered and the agony stung him. He slipped from the sudden pain and brief loss of sensation but caught his fall. He shook his head and started laughing. It was still a wraith, after all. He had to be a lot more careful.

His next experiment had him grow an illusory branch on one of the extant Wafa trees in the forest. He could spot some discrepancies from the real thing if he peered close to it but that didn’t matter from a metre or two away. He slowly walked back away from the illusion. After he was seven metres away, the illusion had come off of the tree and started to float in midair having been disconnected from the tree itself. It didn’t lose its detail, however.

It was around forty metres away from the illusion itself that he could sense it shatter. It was too far for him to see directly amidst all the foliage but he could feel it go off like any other wraith. He then sent one of the wyrm-like apparitions in the same direction to gauge how far it could go without impressing detailed characteristics. It went straight through the trees in front of him and travelled for what he guessed to be another five or so metres before shattering.

Triss clenched his fists and stretched his arms into the air. That day felt like another victory for him. The tambourine resounded from his waist as he moved and it brought his attention back to the more important task.

He had essentially succeeded in creating light that could fool his senses, and he already had the ability to take away the sensation of hearing from anyone he attacked with his skills. Based on his discussion with Shaw, he decided to attempt to project that loss of sensation outward into the world itself.

The rest of the mana that he had was spent trying to segregate the loss of hearing from the other effects from the shattering on that day. He succeeded a few times but struggled to consistently replicate it especially since he had to deal with the pain and discomfort from testing it on himself. Another week had passed until he succeeded.

Success for the next part of the task came much quicker. A thunderstorm had hit the island, and it proved perfect for his practice. Triss didn’t need the tambourine as a source of sound. He still considered the instrument to be stupid because of the bizarre circumstances in which it was handed over to him.

He stood in the open rain as the droplets splashed on his armour. He raised his free arm up to his face and focused on the sounds that emerged from on top of it in the rain. He felt the connection to the dagger in his other arm again, and a glove of light coated his arm.

He could still hear the rain splash on top of his arm before he realised that the illusory glove was still a wraith. It then shattered and gave him another reason to smile. He didn’t hear anything from atop his arm for that brief moment and that wasn’t accompanied by his total loss of hearing. It had succeeded for a short moment. The only challenge remaining was to apply that to the illusion itself, and not the effects of it shattering. It came to him quite easily after a few attempts. Understanding his own Class better and practicing with it had accelerated his progress in using it as a general rule.

Satisfied with his success, he started making his way from the grove to the Dungeon proper. He practiced on the way by cancelling the sound from his footsteps. The walk turned into a giddy sprint in his excitement.

Triss fell on the forest floor as he saw the carcass of a massive sea serpent be devoured by the Dungeon. It withered away similar to the monsters and seeped into the ground. He covered his mouth and stared at Randall who stood by the beast uncaringly. The man had dragged the creature from the shoreline by his lonesome with his bare hands. There was a trail of blood that covered the entire path from the harbour to the Dungeon. The residents of East Klatakos were never as terrified as they were after that event.

Shaw nodded his head in satisfaction. “There should be a sufficient challenge from this Dungeon with the information and material that something such as that could provide.”

Triss erased the smell leftover from the carcass with an illusion. His skill had grown versatile.

“Quite useful,” Shaw said.

“Yes… How long do we wait?” Triss asked.

“A new type of monster should spawn relatively soon. A quarter hour, maybe. There was a good amount of material for the Dungeon,” Shaw replied.

“Will the locals find it a problem?” Triss asked.

“It depends on the strength of their hunters. It doesn’t matter to us either way, the Third House can clean up. We will be leaving relatively soon,” Shaw replied uncaringly.

Triss felt a bit peeved. A runaway with the strength of a sea serpent was definitely too much when people like Zekie found it too difficult to deal with even the weaker monsters.

He had grown to like the island and its residents in the few months that he had spent in the place. Even strangers would offer him a free fruit from their baskets when he walked by to the Dungeon during his routine. The practice with Lower Dealic helped cement some of his confidence as well.

In those few months, his horns had grown out as well. Unlike the residents, though, his horns had circled around his head from the sides and tapered off into a pointed crown as they reached his forehead. It was very different from most Khea whose horns grew straight upward from the front.

It was still enough for the residents to warm up to him, though, and they found some comfort that someone of their kind was on the other side. Since he seemed to have been treated well, they hoped they would not have to become subservient to a power they knew they couldn’t resist.

Half an hour passed in silence until the glint of a predator’s eyes appeared behind the forest cover. Triss took out his dagger and positioned himself to take on a strike from the monster. A massive land serpent slithered out of the cover and it slowly observed the group. It focused its attention on Shaw and raised its body in an intimidating fashion. Scarier than its size and its fangs were just how silently the beast moved around.

“It’s smarter, too,” Shaw commented as he noticed the attention he had been given.

The dagger in Triss’ grip shone in a pink light as three wraiths emerged from it. They were wyrms that were about half the size of the monster. The apparitions immediately rushed at the creature, which failed to defend itself with a lash of its tail. All three wraiths shattered as they contacted the monster. The monster looked like it was screaming and then fell on the ground dead but there was not a single sound heard from the event. A loud shriek came from not much farther away, though.

Shaw assessed the damage on the creature and spoke. “This is passable, but you haven’t done anything to hide the trace of the magic itself. Anyone with good enough magical perception could perceive the inhibition of the sound. Well, that probably doesn’t matter when you’re sending out apparitions looking like that. Work on hiding those, too.”

What the what? Triss thought he had done a more than excellent job. No one had ever mentioned to him that it was even possible to conceal traces of magic itself, though. Was that something so obvious and yet he failed to realise it? It felt like Shaw had just spat on his efforts. If it weren’t for his own connection to it, he wouldn’t even perceive the traces of his own magic let alone figure out how to hide it from others.

Another land serpent emerged as Triss pondered about his dilemma. He projected a lightsword with his dagger and ran straight for the monster. He jumped back at the lash of its tail and then just extended the length of the sword. The light cut straight through the beast. It was another instant quiet death. These monsters also provided the first noticeable stimulus in his acquisition of their records in months.

“Randy, clear the trees in that direction,” Shaw ordered Randall.

As his hands were occupied dragging the sea serpent, Randall hadn’t brought his halberd. He held arms together and formed a golden orb of light in between them. He stretched his arms away from each other and the orb grew to a large size. He then took his right foot behind and stuck his left foot down. His right arm punched the orb of light, which then shot out as a destructive beam towards the section of trees.

Triss realised how far behind he still was. He couldn’t make half a difference when his group had heavy hitters like that. The entire region was burnt and the trees were no more than stumps. Triss also noticed a few more of the land serpent type of monsters. Their corpses, rather, as their bodies seemed to be severed.

How did the Dungeon spawn so many of them so quick? Triss questioned. That was not a welcoming sight. He would have struggled even with his magic to take all of those out. The worst part was that he didn’t even know that they were there.

“That is the standard you’d need as a minimum to survive fighting the Firebrood. To survive, mind, not to actually make a difference in front of their endless hordes. Increase the number of wraiths that you can put out to match that in the next fortnight. Make sure the mana cost stays the same, too,” Shaw ordered and started to walk away. Randall followed after him back into the settlement.

Triss slapped himself after receiving that ludicrous order. He felt like an idiot to have trusted Shaw when he had asked for suggestions on how to improve further. The Scholar had helped him tremendously during their stay on Klatakos but the kind of progress he expected of Triss put a damper on enjoying the result of his efforts.

When will I ever be good enough? He thought before he reconsidered. He received his Class much later than others, and he couldn’t do anything but play catch up at the moment. He resolved himself to deal with it.

“You know, you should have really gotten that armour replaced,” Sarva remarked as Triss rolled up a keg of freshwater onto Insomnia.

They would leave as soon as they were done loading. Veles had finally shown himself as well. Triss pushed over the barrel to the side and gazed at the Scholar standing near the ship’s bow.

“I’ll get it changed after this trip,” Triss replied. “I’m not actually sure whether I want to continue wearing armour at all.”

“Hush now, you’re going to be fighting more than I am. You still don’t have any magic that can defend yourself,” Sarva said.

Triss didn’t put up much of a debate and accepted it. He did make sure to get a bandolier, though. He enjoyed having a bar of soap and water skin on him, as well as a better place to holster his dagger.

Tambourine in hand, he decided to approach Veles. He walked up to the Scholar without making a sound and extended his arm to return the instrument.

Veles took it back and put it somewhere inside his robes. “The trace is not hidden very well, but it’s passable,” he mentioned.

“I know, I’m working on it,” Triss replied. He felt a bit stung that Veles had said the same thing as Shaw.

Veles affirmed with a nod and Triss walked away. The Scholar then turned behind and looked at the ship’s crew. They had finished loading supplies and were set to leave immediately. Tala and Shaw were standing by as well.

“We will be reaching the mists in approximately three days,” Veles said. The voice was loud and caught the attention of everyone present.

“There will be a correspondence with a peculiar creature at that stage. It is highly dangerous and can slaughter everyone here on a whim. After the one day mark, do not step onto the deck until you have been informed otherwise. I will personally be dealing with the matter,” he added.

The winter breeze that followed his speech brought with it a chill that affirmed the danger of the expedition. It was not the freezing winter that the crew was used to on Himmiord but the cold did not escape them. They would almost definitely encounter the Threat at some point, all of them knew.

The roaring sound from Insomnia’s engines brought a bit of peace to their hearts. It was a terrible noise to deal with but it was soothing in its own way, at least this time. The crew took the announcement to mean that they would only have today to get some sunlight, so most of them decided to stay outside instead of inside the insulated rooms.

Lahally and Anne had come to see them off as well. They stood on the shore and looked straight at the departing ship. Lahally was glad to hear Veles’ words and hoped the outcome from the meeting would be favourable.

“Righel, did you secure the ship’s purchase?” Anne asked her lord.

“I have, but the old bastard didn’t tell me the price,” Lahally replied with a sneer.

“Is that not unwise?” Anne asked.

“It is, Miss Young. A bit of a foolish decision in my old age, but I believe something that extraordinary will be worth every gram of gold, no matter how exorbitant,” Lahally replied.

“Of course, Righel,” Anne acknowledged. “But obtaining it still rests on their return,” she added grimly.

“His confidence was not unfounded. The younger ones, too. My instincts keep yelling at me to stay away even from those greenhorns,” Lahally said.

“The young Scholars? They are still limited practitioners and have not crossed the threshold, but to even threaten you, Righel?” Anne asked in surprise.

“They would, especially the girl. But it’s not just those two I’m concerned about. That Khea kid, he’s unsettling to look at,” Lahally replied.

“I believe Righel is just projecting Lord Fireblood onto the child,” Anne countered.

“Ha, you’re right. I just hate curved horns,” Lahally said and chuckled.