“I hope this doesn’t backfire...” Thraisly said, bandaging my leg.

I clutched my sword hilt with both hands and focused on my grip to ignore the pain.

“....the way you’re holding that is...making me nervous,” she said sheepishly.

“Attached to hilt and pommel,” Dota said, leaning on the cave call a few meters away.

“What’d you say?”

“It’s a phrase to describe someone whose life is about fighting. Only a bit of a jest.”

Thraisly quickly finished my bandaging, tightly securing it over the bite wound I’d received before she moved on to Dota. Thraisly sighed, then got to bandaging his broken leg. What he really needed was a proper cast, but we had to work with what we had.

{Didn’t you say something about healing magic?} I wrote.

“Hmm...? Oh, that always comes after the bandages. It takes a bit of time, too...like, a couple of minutes. Though, I’m worried about time...”

Time.

With no idea where we were or what our allies were doing, we had to act quickly. It didn’t help, knowing that the dungeon was probably targeting us and might find a way to put us in further danger.

I looked at the torch we propped up with a few rocks and thought, stroking Cobaltio’s unburnt tail once he sat atop the [soul cusion] beside me and laid his head on my lap.

We were left with only a few options at this point. It had been about thirty minutes since we got trapped in the dungeon, and we were already running low on endurance. Dota had a broken leg, mine was injured, and Cobaltio was burnt. Also, many of our important abilities were already spent. [draconic embuement] needed a full day to recharge, [fire breath]’s cooldown was halved after tiering up but still needed another 40 minutes, Dota’s [shadow step] could only be used two more times, Milo’s [rush] was out of charges, and she was running out of stamina, and my [water creation] still had a while to recharge, if that mattered.

On the bright side, Dota and I had leveled up after all that, meaning I could deus ex machina by getting a class and use its class skill if necessary. Plus, Cobaltio was doing well on Exp himself.

And I had gained a neat new skill after combat ended!

Gained [reasonable writer]!

[reasonable writer]: gain 3 Cha when using written communication.

Which was...entirely useless in this situation. I mean, yeah, it was a free 3 Cha, and that was flat-out great, but, like, I didn’t care...

Though maybe charisma would help me lead my fellows out of this situation? It would help if it made them pay more attention to what I said. Though, they already seemed prepared to follow my lead...

Thinking about how they were putting their trust in me was filling my chest with a fuzzy feeling...

Anyway, taking all of that into account, I had to figure out what the next plan of action was. As Thraisly finished patching Dota’s leg up, I spent my time thinking of what the next move was.

As the time passed, majorly inhabited by silence, I drifted close to sleep, my [soul cusion] making me drift into daydream.

Take me to him.

Who...

He’s near us, isn’t he? Can you feel him too?

Was this another dream...? Why didn’t it feel surreal...no...

I feel it -his longing. H-he wants to see me.

No, I could feel my eyes. I could hear the crackle of flame.

Saya?

Sayanica? Why could I hear her...

Yes!

Who is she saying yes to?

You, duuhh, she responded, startling me a little.

Sayanica? another curious but dignified voice chimed in.

Oh, and its the little drake. Can you take me to him?

Who is him? I asked.

Zatchel. He needs me.

I don’t know how to find him, and I’m getting dang confused.

Oh, sorry.

And why can I talk to you? Who the heck even are you?

I’m Cobaltio, Cobaltio said, not noticing I had asked Sayanica.

I-I don’t know how to answer either of those questions. Zatchel could tell you more...maybe. My memories aren’t under my control without him...they have little chronology.

I shook myself up with an exasperated sigh. Ok, well, we can talk about this later. I’ve got better things to think about than mysteries.

Oh, sorry... Her voice faded away while I awoke.

Well, that whole in-mind conversation was a pain in the butt. I could hardly tell whose voice was whose -including my own. At the same time, though, I could tell what was being said.

What a pain...

I guessed Sayanica was somehow able to speak to me through the cushion now, and Cobaltio happened to join in on the fun. Still, she seemed to be hiding in the back of my mind, quiet. Perhaps she felt there was simply little to tell me after sharing all those memories with me and my bound partner.

I wanted to think about what just happened, but I decided to focus on the situation at hand and not that nonsense. So, I had my [soul cusion] move to Cobaltio and continued my thought process.

Ahem*

It seemed obvious what the next step had to be. I had to see what was further down the passage. If a split-off point went in a direction towards the mine’s entrance, we’d obviously want to go left or backward if possible.

Though, I was naturally inclined to try and destroy the dungeon as it was. I was practically salivating at the idea of destroying a dungeon core before it ever became an issue. The glory! The money! The Exp! The self-satisfaction!

But, uhh, if I had to go through three more rooms like the last one, that’d be rough.

Thraisly had finished bandaging Dota and crouched down next to me. “Hey, Saya?”

And...well, I wasn’t the only one with a stake in the journey.

I looked up. “Hmm?”

“Can I have your chalk for a moment?”

I shrugged, then gave her my chalk. With it, she began inscribing a weird circle into the floor beneath us. I recognized some of the runes she inscribed in it, but I wasn’t sure what exactly was going on.

Wait...was that...a ritual circle!?

Ritual circles were the original way to cast magic before it was eventually adapted into the system, or so they say. I wasn’t ever directly taught how to make one, though it probably wouldn’t have been difficult for me to do so with a bit of direction.

Still, I was curious why Thraisly would bother to make one.

Once she finished, she patted the middle. “Ok, let’s get you all patched up. Stand in here.”

I picked up Cobaltio with his cushion and walked to the circle with Dota, who hopped on one foot..

Thraisly kneeled outside it and placed her hands on its rim. “[cure wounds].”

The circle glowed a light green, then I felt the pain in my leg begin to lessen and some vitality return to my body. Cobaltio’s burns were partly healed, too, looking much better than before.

Once the circle’s glow faded a few seconds later, Thraisly fell on her back, breathing heavily.

Dota seemed as confused as I was. “What was that?” he asked, sitting and prodding around his leg.

“That...” Thraisly said between breaths, “is ritual magic. It isn’t very efficient and uses up a lot of mana, but it doesn’t have the same restrictions as system-based magic. I don’t technically know [cure wounds], but I can still use the circle.”

Mana isn’t something that most mages, and especially me, had to think about, so I didn’t know much about it. From what I understood, everybody had a certain amount of mana, which was used up in any spell, and could only be regained through rest. The thing was, while a spell like [flame manipulation] had a 20-second cooldown, it would take longer than an entire hour of constantly casting it to deplete my mana reserves. It just didn’t usually apply.

Thraisly looked pretty drained, though. Using up too much mana could make someone lethargic and would even make spells unstable in extreme situations. I was quite curious about how it worked, but I decided not to ask.

{Thanks.} I wrote. Wipe, write, {Let’s get going then. Dota, can you move?}

Dota nodded. “I’d rather ride, though. My leg still hurts to walk on.”

Thraisly smiled wryly. “I want to ride too.”

Milo snorted, annoyed.

“Aww, come on, Milo! I’m eeexaughsted!”

“Yee-haw!”

“Ch! Fine, I see how it is.” Thraisly batted her black hair aside. “Dota, you can ride her.”

“Appreciated.”

It didn’t take long for us to mutually agree that pressing forward was the only right...the only option. In about a minute, we mobilized and began walking through the tunnels. To our surprise, there were still light runes. The distortions of space seemed rather tame, so deep into the dungeon, so we didn’t need to worry much about that either.

In another five minutes of powerwalking, we arrived at a crossroad, this time with a passage leading roughly towards the mine entrance, our passage, and stairs that led further down into the dungeon.

“So, I’m voting for us to skedaddle out of here down that passage. How about it?” Dota said.

“That’s a vote from me too,” Thraisly replied, looking down the backward passage.

I was tempted by both options, to be honest, but I had already made up my mind as far as our next move was concerned.

However, I knew very little about dungeons, and there were some things I wanted to know before we made a decision.

{How long is a dungeon, usually?}

Dota rubbed his head with his knobby hand. “I hear the most dangerous one is 99 floors, but that’s the one in Hell.” Right, where the [peacekeeper] seal was hidden. “But I’m fairly sure the typical dungeon is around ten floors.”

{So, what if the dungeon were still forming?}

“Well, I can’t say it’s impossible that this dungeon is a flub still in the making.”

Flub? What was that supposed to mean? {So, what if we scouted to see what the next room would be?} Thraisly seemed nervous about my idea. {We might find something useful.}

“But...” Thraisly began, “What about the others? If they got out-”

Footsteps.

We all paused and looked into the other passage, weapons drawn, listening as shoes echoed against stone.

Pit-pat, pit-pat...

Samantha ran out of the darkness of the other passage. Keen was unconscious on her back, blood running down his head, and she held her great axe between her hands. “Thank Seraph!” she briefly looked at us as she passed by, turning into the passage we came from. “We need to run, now! Please, it won’t be long before...” she stopped and looked behind herself. “That catches up.”

Thump, thump. Steps, which I felt in tremors more than sound, reverberated down the tunnel.

“W-what is that?” Thraisly asked Symantha. “It sounds...heavy.”

“I cannot be sure, Thraisly, but ever since it saw me, it hasn’t stopped. I was forced further into this dreadful place because of it...but...why are you all here? You should be with Reco or escaping!”

I shook my head. {We got trapped. There’s no going back.}

She glanced at my slate. “How unfortunate. Then I suppose we can only go one way...” all our eyes silently fell upon the stairs leading down.

The thuds got closer as we paused, and I began to hear what sounded almost like a yawn echoing through the cave.

“Yahh...”

With that horrid sound approaching us, nobody needed more convincing to run.