The armored man leaned over and whispered something to the woman sitting next to him. She replied, then he turned back to Serenity and Raz. “Ynsarac Hale. Please call me Hale, everyone butchers my first name. Who are you and what are you doing in our sector?”

The woman he’d spoken to seemed to be muttering something and gesturing. Serenity expected she was casting a spell of some sort; some schools taught word forms and gestures as methods as a part of spell casting. There were advantages to it, especially in the ease of learning new spells that weren’t Path Skills; it simply wasn’t Serenity’s preferred method.

It was probably fine. A detection spell of some sort was the most likely and if it was anything else … well, he and Raz could duck back into the dungeon. He hoped it wouldn’t come to that, though; hiding in a dungeon wasn’t a good solution. He’d have to talk their way out of this.

“I’m Serenity and this is Raz. We’re - well, short version. I walked here looking for people and found two people alive in the dungeon out of a group of-” Serenity paused, counting. Raz, the guy with a hole in his chest (Garrett?), the mage that ran (Greyvine), the armored lady (Iva?), and the guy who was thrown down the stairs. “-five. One ran while Raz and I finished off the dungeon. We killed it and another one appeared - it’s very different.”

The spellcaster finished her spell and leaned over to whisper something to Hale. He relaxed and took his hand off his sword. “Why don’t you come join us and tell us the rest of it? Come, sit. We were about to have dinner, we can spare some if you’re hungry?”

“I’d be happy to,” Serenity replied as he sat where Hale indicated. He could see a pot of something - stew? - over the fire, and the idea of freshly cooked hot food sounded wonderful. All they’d eaten in the dungeon was some of the jerky Serenity still had in his bag, since Raz didn’t have any food of his own.

Raz seemed impatient, but kept quiet while the food was eaten. It wasn’t particularly good, but it wasn’t terrible either. Serenity noticed that he and Raz were the only people who had seconds. Serenity finished his before Raz did. “You sure you don’t want any more?” Hale asked. “There’s not much left, you could finish it off.”

“Thanks.”

After Serenity got the last bit - only about half a serving - the spellcaster started laughing. “I thought you’d never get anyone to finish off one of your meals, Zan! You always cook too much!”

A quiet man with a pointed face, big black eyes, huge rounded ears, and brown fur twitched his nose and stated, “You never know when you’ll need extra, Katya. Today shows the value in cooking as though you’ll have company.”

“But what about all the other-”

“Katya. I know you and Zan love arguing about food, but let’s pay attention to our guests.” Hale looked at Raz, who had just finished his bowl. “Why don’t you tell us how you ended up here?”

Serenity was pleased to hear Raz start his story with his arrival on Tzintkra. He finished off the stew and set the bowl down. He felt comfortably fed, even though his healing reserve wasn’t full.

The story of Raz’s recruitment made Hale shake his head. When he mentioned Garrett, the mousekin asked Raz to describe the man. “That two-timing bastard! It’s not enough he-”

“ZAN.” Hale interrupted the rant. “I want him dead as much as you do, but let’s hear the Draykin out.”

“He’s dead.” Raz said quietly. He seemed a little shocked by the mousekin’s rage, or perhaps he simply hadn’t come to peace with seeing people die before his eyes. Serenity remembered that being difficult, once upon a time.

Sometimes it still was, in his dreams. He tried to remember that none of it had happened yet, and it probably never would.

“Go on, Raz. I think the next thing is when Garrett got the group together in the morning?” It wasn’t much of a distraction, since he’d heard the story before, but anything was better than thinking about the past.

The others managed to stay quiet until Raz reached the point where Iva threw the unnamed man down the stairs. Zan exploded again, and this time Hale didn’t stop him. He seemed to be ranting at the air more than at Raz; after a moment, he even turned and started swearing in multiple languages towards the fire.

Serenity was impressed. He knew most of the languages Zan was using, and he wasn’t just repeating curse words. Zan was calling down inventive curses on Garrett, certain delicate body parts, his family, and even the people who trained him.

After a minute, Serenity stood and gestured at Hale to step away from the inventively raging mousekin. “Either Garrett had quite a reputation, or you know him personally, and that looks pretty personal.”

“It was,” Hale said with a sigh. “Garrett dated Zan’s twin sister Zekia. It wasn’t until after he got her killed that we found out more about Garrett. It doesn’t help that the whole mess ended up with Garrett stealing some of Zekia’s maps of this area from the Guildhouse. That’s why we’re out here; Zan wanted to catch up with Garrett. I’m not sure if I should be glad he’s dead or sad that Zan can’t kill him.”

“Be glad he’s dead. He killed himself by coming here; do you think Zan would take that as his sister getting her revenge?” Serenity already couldn’t remember Zan’s sister’s name, even though he knew it started with a Z and Hale had said it twice. He was usually better with names, but he kept being distracted by Zan’s rant. He was going to have to remember some of those imprecations.

They watched Zan until he finally wound down, then Hale had Raz continue his story. Serenity hadn’t heard Raz’s description of his own entrance before, and he found it overly dramatic. It hadn’t been all that impressive; he’d only used a couple of skills and done a little fighting. They’d been the right skills at the right time, and he’d had the ability to perfectly counter Death-based opponents, that was all.

When Raz explained the new dungeon, the other three wanted to see it immediately. They went in and all three seemed surprised. “This could be the best thing we’ve found out here.” Katya asserted. “I think it might even be more profitable than Anthes-Kor.”

Hale sounded skeptical. “How? Yeah, this place feels nice, but it’s not an eight-level high-reward dungeon on a ley line nexus.”

“Entrance fees. If we can really customize this, we can turn it into a rest and healing location where we don’t have to ship people back to base. I think the low Death levels would even permit us to do some of the healing that’s usually restricted to the protected areas in the Shining Caverns. Saving days’ worth of travel time could save lives - and also be worth some real Etherium.” Katya almost seemed to bounce. “And did you say something about items? Do you know when it will make items or what it will make? Can it make curatives as well as protectives?”

Serenity had to resist the urge to answer. Fortunately, she was looking at Raz, who did answer. “Why don’t you ask the Core? It should know.”

Raz had to point out where it was, but once he did, Katya put her hand against it.

Nothing happened.

“Awww. I wanted to talk to the Core!” She kept her hand against the Core.

Serenity wondered why she couldn’t. He liked her plan; it felt like something that would work for the dungeon, and also something that would be useful for the locals. He knew there was a way, and he reached with a sense he didn’t really understand. Suddenly, he knew what the problem was.

He walked over to a chair and sat down. He should have done that as soon as he realized she was trying to interact with the dungeon’s core.

“Why isn’t this working?” Katya had been standing there for a couple of minutes.

Serenity knew that she didn’t have the capability of holding a Link. He could probably change that, but there was no reason to do that and every reason not to.

The only question was if he should speak “for the dungeon” or let someone else try. He decided he’d wait. Hopefully that would lead to fewer questions.

“Let go of the core, Katya.” Zan’s voice caught Serenity by surprise. “Be glad it didn’t catch you. No one should try to link to the Core until we can get a dungeon specialist in here. Preferably a proper Keeper.”

Katya let go and turned to Zan. “Why? It’s such a great idea!”

“The dungeon killed Garrett with his desires. What if this is another trap? It’s a lot nicer, but that just means it’ll trap different people. I’ve never heard of a dungeon that didn’t try to kill people unless it had a Keeper, and this is a Special Field Dungeon. Field Dungeons are often strange, and shadows falling on people to possess them sounds more like something I’d expect than something comfortable.” Zan looked around the space. “I’ll see you guys outside, I’m done here.”

Zan headed up the stairs.

There was a moment of silence before everyone followed. Serenity knew that wasn’t the truth, but he couldn’t think of any way to convince people of it without revealing more than he wanted to. Even revealing his control wouldn’t help; they’d assume he was possessed by it or perhaps that he was the mastermind behind a trick.

When they got outside, Serenity saw that Zan was finishing setting up his own claim marker. He couldn’t resist asking, “I thought you didn’t trust the dungeon?”

Zan shook his head. “It’s too good to be true. Things that seem too good to be true usually are. It’s still worth the risk of claiming it and seeing what it’s like. Even if it is a trick, there may be some way to make it real.”

After Zan finished with the claim stake, Hale asked Serenity to elaborate on his story. There really wasn’t much to add. “I finished a quest, the reward was transportation to Tzintkra. I didn’t appear at a portal. It was inside a stone building in the jungle a day or so’s walk from here. I can show you where it was.”

“No trouble on the walk?” Hale seemed doubtful.

Serenity shrugged. “There were a few undead, nothing of note. I don’t really have to worry about the undead.” Serenity expected Hale to question that, but he didn’t.