“Vanguards, advance! Casters hit it with whatever you got, Towers, you just make sure our lights stay on, and Lancers, see if you can’t find a weak point or something!”

A calamitous roar shook the cavern as the oversized lizard roused from its slumber, only to be greeted by the sight of invaders into its home. We were already moving, choosing to take the first move. Our vanguards charged forward half of the way in between the space between the lizard and us before settling into a readied stance. There were only a few of them against a singular house-sized monster, but I could sense the movement of mana around their legs, anchoring themselves in place with earthen magic.

Our casters were already taking pot shots at the creature, fireballs exploding harmlessly against its titanic armor, spikes of earth and steel shattering like twigs, and gusts of force doing nothing more than giving its scales a quick polish.

Meaning it’s our turn.

Myself and several others, depressingly few, dashed off in opposite directions around the creature, occasionally slinging what weapons we did have in our arsenal of abilities at the beast, but for the most part, simply looking for a vulnerability on the beast.

Nothing.

It was as heavily armored, if not more so than the lizards from before. Perhaps the only difference was the composition and genera physique of the lizard, almost as if instead of an armored monitor, it was-

Shit.

“Watch out!” I yelled, feeling the mana within the room suddenly sucked into the giant maw of the lizard.

No, not a lizard.

It was a salamander.

When the raging tidal wave of fire coursed out from its mouth, the vanguards and many of the casters should have been eviscerated on the spot.

Except, we had our own answer to fire. Sprinting forward, I saw a woman, Tez, dash in front of the vanguards, arms spread wide as if trying to hug the tidal wave of fire.

She didn’t hug it; of course, that would be preposterous.

No, she began to inhale, the fire suddenly swirling and redirecting toward her as she seemed to visibly inflate as if she had overeaten.

She didn’t manage to get all the fire, but it was enough, I saw several of the casters, and one of the Towers, switch to defensive spells, blocking the rest of the fire that died out seconds later.

Tez, meanwhile, seemed to gather her bearings, her hands in front of her mouth as if she were making a funnel.

What is she-

My thoughts were answered as what looked like a bar of liquid fire was jettisoned from out of her mouth, funneled by her hands, into a lance of scarlet flame that was so hot even the salamander, a creature born of fire, roared out in pain, the dragon fire extinguished within moments and revealing a patch of charred scale armor.

Tez's show of power wasn’t without cost. I saw as she dropped to her hands and knees, gasping for breath as if she had run a marathon at a full sprint.

Right, no more convenient get-out-of-jail-free cards then.

Having run around the creature, it was obvious there were no clear weak points. Even the weaker and more brittle joint plating, while more fragile-looking than the rest of its armor, on a creature of its size, was still thicker than even the thickest plates of the lizards which we hadn’t managed to pierce to begin with.

Well, there is one weak spot.

The charred patch of scales Tez had scorched left a mess of brittle flakes compared to the rest of its scales. Already the casters were throwing a barrage of magic at the singular point, but even weakened, it was holding out longer than one would hope.

With no obvious weak points, the other Lancers changed tactics, and joined the fray, weaving in between its legs, as they futilely attempted to hack away at it. If they could distract or trip the creature up their efforts would be worth it, but for all their efforts it completely ignored them, we were nothing more than ants to it.

To a thing of its size, it wasn’t exactly far from the truth.

We're getting nowhere fast.

We were one of the largest gatherings of golds-

Myself not included.

-and not just any golds but the top of high-gold. Yet, here we were flailing about as if we were nothing more impressive than some novice tins.

Rather than it being a remark of our shortcomings, it was an adage for just how out of our league we were within the relic of Sages’ past.

I paused for a moment, to look down at the rapier in my hand. I had intended to strike any potential weak points or slip in between gaps in its armor, but with a thing of that size, even if I did, I doubted it would amount to anything more than an annoying mosquito bite.

Change of plans.

Sliding my rapier back within its sheathe upon my back, I pulled free my falchion, sliding two fingers along its edge.

“Aulous,” I whispered, a trail of water appearing behind my fingers, coating the edge. Pulling my fingers away, the water began to oscillate until it was but a blur of motion.

For a moment, I felt a swell of panic within my chest as the mana within the room was once more sucked in by the salamander, the only warning of its oncoming flame breath, but I bit the panic back. Even if it were perhaps the most dangerous foe most, if not all of us here, had battled before, it wasn’t as if we were rookie adventurers; otherwise, none of us would have made it this far as adventurers in the first place. Rather than leap into action, I stood where I was, biding my time from the other side of the oversized salamander as its tidal wave of fire washed out from its mouth once more, ready to incinerate all in its path-

-Only to be met head-on by the united magic of our group, the two magical fronts slamming against one another in a terrifyingly close match of magic.

Until, at last, the flame breath died out once more.

Close. Too close.

The contest of magical strength seemed to have been too much for many of the casters, several collapsing just as Tez had, but, if perhaps luckily, the salamander sagged, two fire breaths back-to-back wearing it out as well.

Mana was hardly an unlimited force, and both sides had already pulled out all the stops.

I reached my perception of mana forward, testing the concentration within the air. Sure enough, the mana within the environment had been heavily depleted. The salamander as a magical beast, couldn't rely on internal reserves of mana in the same way humans could, and thus was constrained much by its environment. It would need time before it could be spewing anymore of those wide-scale fire attacks.

Time to act.

I darted forward, only stopping once to toss aside one of the Lancers who had been too close to the flame as it erupted from the salamander, badly burnt but a problem for later.

Still running forward I never bothered striking it as I weaved between its legs, much as the other Lancers had. Even with the cutting power of my water edge, I would be incapable of damaging its scales.

The casters still on their feet continued their magical bombardment, but in the same way that I lacked a good way to enact any lasting damage, so did they, their magic glossed off the beast with little effect.

Annoyed but unable to utilize its fire, at least for now, the salamander switched to physically assaulting our front line. It shot forward far more swiftly than I expected, nearly trampling me underfoot as it did, before swatting a webbed claw at the vanguards forming our forward flank, tower shields raised to absorb the impact.

Had they been any everyday adventurers, the building-sized creature’s attack would have sent them flying like pins before a ball, but these weren’t just any adventures. They ground their feet in, and the earth responded, shifting and bracing them as the strike slammed into their collection of raised shields.

It was a testament to the beast’s power that even with seven vanguards reinforcing and bracing themselves with earth magic, they were still shoved back, many of their shields warping under the impact.

They can't take many more of those.

It was a good thing then, that Iris, who had been strangely absent for the duration of the fight so far, finally joined the fray.

She hadn’t been absent, it turned out.

She'd been preparing.

Directly above her, an arrow the size of a bull appeared, it was the densest formation of magic I’d seen to date, a cloud of steel mana particles so packed together it felt as if it had its own gravitational pull. With my keen mana-enhanced eyesight, I could see Iris straining, before at last, the tension released from her shoulder, like an archer finally releasing hold of their bowstring.

And with the sudden release of tension from her body, the arrow formed above her split the air with a crack, flying as fast as, well, an arrow.

The magically formed ballista bolt landed true, slamming into the already scorched plating with a thunderclap of noise as, at last, the scales fell away, exposing the leathering-looking hide beneath.

As impressive as it was, Iris, like Tez and several of the casters, fell to her knees a moment after, wavering from mana exhaustion.

The enraged salamander struck again, and this time as its webbed claw raked at the vanguards one crumpled under the force of the blow, tossed aside like a wet towel.

Four casters, six vanguards, and two Lancers were left standing, me included. In the hectic explosion of violence, another Lancer had been knocked aside by its stubby-looking tail. Even our Towers were in lousy shape. Between reinforcing our defenses with magic and ensuring our lights stayed on, they looked like they were choking for breath.

As if things couldn’t get worse, that was when I felt it. I had naively believed the salamander would hold off on any more fire attacks, but seeing the state of our group, it ignored its own exhaustion. Mana was being sucked in, albeit more slowly with how thinned out the mana was already, but this time when the fire came we would have no means of stopping it.

Meaning, that we had seconds until we faced a total party wipe at the hands of a single oversized lizard.

Amphibian, whatever.

“Flow,” I whispered, and feeling as light as a ghost, I dashed forward, overtaking the salamander who had left me behind moments prior during its charge. Appearing without warning before several adventurers, they recoiled as if they had just seen a phantom, but I paid them no heed. Deactivating Flow before I thoroughly drained my first ring of its remaining mana, I waited as the salamander finished gathering the rest of the mana needed for its final flame breath.

“What are you doing?” A voice yelled out to me, a quick backward glance revealing it was from none other than Elsmere, the same member of Iris’s party who had been my second during our duel. “Get out of here!”

I knew what she meant. In her eyes, our short-lived quest had failed, and we were about to be wiped out by an oversized salamander. It would be better for me to flee rather than die with the rest of them in some false sense of duty.

Except, what she didn't know, is that I had no intention or plan that involved me or anyone else dying for that matter.

I held my sword out in front of me, shouting briefly.

“Get behind me, and ready what defensive magic you can; I don't think I'll be able to block everything!”

Whether they heard me or listened, it was too late for a response as the fire roared out once more, a wave of burning death.

“Null.”

A cold feeling swept over me as a field of negation mana appeared around me, just in time for the fire to wash over me.

Or rather, around me. The moment the magically created fire reached where I stood, it fizzled out. Even the heat was defused by the cold within my Null field.

C’mon… C’mon!

I held my sword before me, counting the seconds in my head. I knew I was cutting it close; Null was a short-lived activation, but so was the channeled fire-breath of the salamander. I was gambling on which could hold longer, but it wasn’t a gamble without reason. The mana in the environment had already been largely depleted after two fire breaths, I was trusting that this third and final breath would be the shortest yet.

Five.

The fire continued roaring toward me.

Four.

Even within the cold field of Null, I was beginning to feel the heat.

Three.

Droplets of sweat were beginning to slide down my face, sweat that had nothing to do with the heat.

Two.

The fire swelled in one final crescendo-

One.

-before winking out of existence, the salamander had finally run out of mana to sustain its flame.

Zero.

Null tapped out a second after. I looked over my shoulder, meeting the looks of momentary appreciation from those behind me.

“I’ve got one good strike left in me, then it’s on you guys to follow up.” I caught their eyes only long enough to ensure they understood the message. Those still capable of standing gave me quick nods.

I sure hope this works.

After losing in my duel against Iris, I’d considered what I could have done differently. From that introspection, I'd realized something that should have been painfully obvious from the start.

The way I relied upon and utilized the power of my rings, and the word magic they granted, was all wrong. I had only ever pulled them out as final trump cards when in reality I should have treated them as tools to freely use. While Null may drain me of what little internal reserves of mana my body naturally had, it left the mana reserves within my rings, the true source of magical abilities, untouched.

Meaning, that even after using Null, I still had some mana to work with.

“Flow,” I whispered once more. My eyes locked onto where the heavily armored scales had been split apart, leaving behind nothing but its hide. Such thick hide would be hard to penetrate even without its scales, but it wasn't as if there were any other options available. If I could cleave through, the fight would be ours.

Having already used up half of Flow’s duration when I raced to defend the party from its flame breath, there was no time to waste. I shot dashed forward, ethereal like a ghostly light, shouting at the top of my lungs.

“Lift!”

The vanguard I was running toward heard the word and acted out of instinct more than rational thought, raising his tower shield overhead and presenting me with a convenient ramp. I ran at it with as much speed as I could muster, before leaping from it, soaring high overhead.

Getting a bit of déjà vu here.

Gravity drawing me back down, I aimed myself toward the patch of vulnerable flesh upon its neck. Falling fast, I saw as the single remaining Lancer waved her hands in front of the beast, pelting it with tiny phantasmal flames and distracting it just long enough. Swinging with all my might, I brought my falchion down upon the salamander's vulnerable neck as it roared out in sudden pain.

Oh shut up you stupid, overgrown, wannabe land frog!

One, two, for three seconds my sword sawed through its flesh, but before my blade could carve any deeper my hold on Flow evaporated, the last of the ring's mana used up. My body seized, and a moment later I crashed to the ground with a thump as my vision began to black out.

Mana exhaustion is always such a bitch.

I had failed to kill the salamander, an ugly-looking gaping wound left in my wake, but the creature was still very much alive.

The salamander turned its head downward, and though it had no eyes, I could imagine them, filled with hate as it looked down at me, as if mocking me for failing to finish it. Its mouth open, it reached down to swallow me up.

Ick. Death by a fake frog.

I closed a single eye, reflex at the thought of being swallowed up.

I needn’t have bothered.

One eye still open, I saw as a spear of stone whistled through the air before slamming directly into the wound I had left behind, the salamander staggering back.

I raised a hand, flipping the salamander off.

Vision turning to black, the last sight I saw was a barrage of magic crashing into the wounded salamander with a satisfying splatter of gore.

I never did like frogs.

Salamanders, whatever.

And then, I was gone, the darkness claiming me.

-----------------------------------------

“Hey, it looks like he is finally waking up!”

Why does he have to be so loud in the morning?

My head hurt, a splitting headache that felt like the sun was burning into my eyes.

Gods damn it. How much did we drink last night?

We had come back from our commission, Keion had been bragging to the bar about our –

Wait, no, that’s not it.

My brain decided now was the time to finish rebooting, and instantly my eyes snapped open as I lurched up to a half-seated position.

“Ahh, shit.” I instantly regretted the move, my head hurting like hell as my eyes blinked back the pain.

I looked around, I was in an underground cavern, lying upon a single rolled-out blanket.

“Good to see you back in the living world, Zero.”

The person speaking to me was the same Lancer I had briefly talked to during our first descent down the stone stairs leading into the dungeon, the same one who had distracted the salamander for long enough for me to wound it.

Right, we were finding that thing. Now, what was her name again?

She offered me her hand, doing the majority of the work as she pulled me up.

“I'm Fey, by the way. Since I never did give you my name.” She answered as if reading my mind.

“What happened after…?” I let the words hang in the air, my meaning obvious.

“It went down only a few seconds after you did. Turns out, having your spinal cord split and then fried from the inside out isn’t exactly great for your overall longevity.”

I let out a quick snort of laughter before it petered out, my brows furrowing.

“How many did we…?”

“One.” She answered, looking downcast for a second. “Vanguard from the Sunju, think his name was Ulfric.”

I was reminded briefly of the scene of a vanguard being tossed aside, crumpling on impact with the far wall. As unfortunate as it was, I was more surprised that we hadn’t lost anyone else during the melee.

“What about, uh, what was his name. Tom, tale, t-”

“Thon.” She pointed off to the side, where a body was lying down wrapped in bandages, the Lancer who had been too close to one of the salamander’s flame breaths. “He’s lucky. His Kin magic saved him.”

“Oh?”

Fey smiled briefly at me before nodding. “He’s with us, Shangsattva. If I’m a trap breaker, he is a true scout. His Kin Magic, Aquarius Skin, forms a layer of mana imbued water over his skin in response to danger, protecting him from all sorts of things. It’s the only reason the heat didn’t kill him instantly after he failed to get out of the way in time. Thankfully for him, it also has some nifty healing properties. He should be fine, those burns will heal shortly.”

Relief flooded me. We hadn’t lost anyone else besides the single unlucky vanguard. I had begun to relax until I felt the presence of someone quickly approaching.

“It’s nice to see you awake, Zero.”

The voice was unmistakable, belonging to none other than Iris.

Fey cast a quick glance between myself and Iris before pointing anywhere else but here.

“I’ll, just, uh, go check on the others.”

Iris, who had joined us, gave a curt nod before the Lancer ran away.

“You have my thanks.” It was apparently my turn to receive one of Iris’s stiff nods. “Had you have not jumped in as you did at the end, we would have all perished.”

“Yeah, well, anyone would have done the same.” I shrugged as if it only made sense.

“Yes, but that doesn’t mean everyone can.” Her eyes narrowed for a moment as she watched me. “I’ve been wondering about it since our duel. Your abilities make no sense.”

“Yeah, well, some would say the same about yours,” I forced a fake chuckle out.

“Only if you lack the prerequisite knowledge behind them.”

I opened my mouth to deny her, but I closed it a second later.

She wasn’t wrong.

“It could only be Kin magic, but then, for all the varieties of Kin magic I’ve seen, I’ve never seen any quite like yours.”

“Yeah, well-” I coughed awkwardly. “-the world’s a vast place, right?”

She held me in her gaze as if trying to dissect me with it alone before finally sighing. “Yes, I do believe you have a point. Anyway, that was not the point of my coming here.”

“It wouldn’t be your great concern with my wellbeing, would it?”

She was silent, staring at me with deadpan eyes.

“Right, it wasn’t funny. My bad.” I coughed again, even more awkwardly.

The woman was impossible to grasp, disarming in the worst possible way.

“I came here to show you what we discovered after the battle.”

Iris turned away from me, walking toward the center of the room, obvious she intended for me to follow. Matching her in lockstep, it didn’t take long to see what she was heading toward, confusion filling me as we stared down at the pile of…

Crystals?

“What are these?” I waved toward the pile of crystals; most were no larger than my fist, save for one in the very center of the heap, as large as my head. “Where’d they come from? Also-” I turned my head around, ensuring I wasn’t mistaken. “Where did the body of the salamander go?”

“There.” She pointed direct center to the pile.

“Excuse me?”

“Data crystals.”

“Excuse me?” I repeated, staring at her as if she were speaking a foreign language.

“Data crystals. Crystalized forms of pure mana. They store information within. Normally, data crystals are highly coveted relics or heirlooms from past mages. Even for gold level mages, forming one would be next to impossible, or otherwise excessively laborious work.”

“They sound like an overly complicated way of doing what books already do.” I pointed out.

“Not when you consider that information stored within a data crystal is presented in synthesized in exactly the form the mage creating it understands it. Take astrology, for example; you could go from understanding nothing of the stars to a master overnight. If you were given a data crystal by a master astrologist, upon absorbing the contents, you would understand perfectly whatever the original astrologist stored within it. No need to learn, you would simply know.”

“Right,” I whistled, staring down at the pile. “I can understand why that would be desired. But, and perhaps I should have started with this, why exactly does that matter to how these got here in the first place?”

“That is…” Iris stopped, struggling for a moment to find the correct words for what it was she was attempting to say. “That is part of why I wanted your insight.”

“My… insight?”

“They say many eyes lead to the right answer.”

“Sure.” I nodded, not that I’d ever heard that phrase before.

“After the salamander was slain, its body disappeared shortly after.”

“Disappeared?”

“Yes, it dispersed in an explosion of azure orbs of light.”

“Bodies don’t just disappear.” I stared at her, wondering if she was losing it.

“Perhaps not elsewhere, but we are within a dungeon.” She pointed at the pile once more. “Upon disappearing, these were left behind.”

The salamander disappeared and left behind data crystals?

None of it made sense.

But then, we were within a dungeon. Things weren’t meant to make sense.

Wait, think Rook. If this place is from the Lost Era, meaning it was likely made by Sages, what does that suggest?

I let the thoughts turn over in my head, like a slowly baking idea, before I formed a hypothesis tentatively.

“Yes?” Iris must have seen the look on my face, prompting me to speak.

“You said this is a dungeon, right?”

“Yes.”

“And a dungeon is a meta-space that ignores conventional laws of physics and space?”

“Yes.”

“What’s to say then that the monsters within don’t as well?”

“What do you mean?”

“Think about it. If these dungeons can shape and react at will, what’s to say the monsters aren’t similarly formed and created at will? But, even within a space that seems to ignore conventional rules of logic, I doubt it can truly create something from nothing, it would likely need a blueprint, wouldn't it?”

“Meaning-” I could see the spark of realization within Iris’s eyes, but I wasn’t going to let her beat me to the punch.

“Meaning, it’s likely every monster within a dungeon is formed through a data crystal, a data crystal that forms the sort of foundation upon which mana is then applied, resulting in a monster that can endlessly be created as long as a dungeon has mana to supply, and since dungeons are built upon ley lines-”

“An endless supply of mana for an endless supply of monsters.”

“Bingo.” I pointed to the data crystals. “ The question then is why these were left behind, by all rights, there was no need for the dungeon to have the crystals physically present.”

“Let me see if Ronin has anything else he can potentially share with us on the subject.”

Iris jogged off, leaving me alone with the crystals, lost in thought.

Why does something feel off?

It wasn’t the dungeon, everything about the dungeon felt off, but that was the point of a dungeon.

No, what felt off was how little we understood about dungeons. Sure, the last dungeon had been cleared decades ago, but with as large of a part of adventuring history as they made up, it made little sense for such little information to be retained. It was almost as if someone, or some group, were purposefully obfuscating information on them, but in such a way as to not arouse suspicion by completely blocking all information related to them.

No. I shook my head. Now I'm just being paranoid. What would be the point of that?

Only seconds later, Iris returned, shaking her head at me as she came to a stop.

“Ronin says he doesn’t know anything regarding data crystals in dungeons; since everything he knows is second-hand, any party capable of clearing dungeon likely didn’t mention them.”

I felt deflated, but I wasn’t too surprised.

Can’t have things be too easy, eh?

“So then-? I turned to look at Iris directly. “Now what?”

“Well, we need some time to recover, and I plan to send Fey deeper into the branch tunnels. Maybe we can find a way out.”

“Or a way deeper.” I pointed out.

“That too. Until then, as I mentioned, we need time to recover.” She gestured once more at the data crystals. “And finally, there are these.”

“What about them?”

For the first time in our conversation, Iris cracked a smile.

“Well, data crystals aren’t just about data after all. Remember what I said about them being formed of pure mana?”

I felt my eyes widen as she tilted her head a quarter of a degree in acknowledgment.

“It’s time we reap the rewards of clearing our first trial.”