The doorway that Damien had pointed out seemed like a hole in the world that the Night Vision portion of Eyes of the Night Wolf couldn’t penetrate, likely meaning that the darkness before him was magical in nature. He likely wouldn’t have noticed it if he didn’t have Night Vision equipped. Since Leon’s goggles only provided him Dark Vision, he didn’t notice until Damien had pointed it out.

“… no. No, it wasn’t,” the human said, pulling his staff into a ready position as he rose to his feet. Damien utilized his Eyes of the Night Wolf Trait and activated both Magic Eyes and Soul Sight to better determine what stood before them.

[Eyes of the Night Wolf]

Rarity: Ancient

Description: Noctis, the fabled Night Wolf, has granted you the ability to see as he once did, as a mortal beast. Use this gift wisely.

Effect: Access to [Night Vision], [Magic Eyes], and [Soul Sight]

[Night Vision]

Description: you can see through all manner of non-magical darkness with complete clarity. This effect is passive.

[Magic Eyes]

Description: you are able to see Mana, its origin, and can determine the type by color. This effect is active. The accuracy of this effect is dependent on the Intelligence Stat.

[Soul Sight]

Description: you are able to identify individual souls and their Mana Affinity. This effect is active. The accuracy of this effect is dependent on the Intelligence Stat and your own familiarity with the souls in question.

Damien wasn’t sure exactly how useful Soul Sight would be in this situation, but given the fact that the doorway had appeared out of nowhere without a sound, it was better to be safe than sorry. He had minimal familiarity with this part of his Trait, since looking at people’s souls felt like he was crossing some kind of line in terms of respect for people’s basic privacy, but he really didn’t feel like getting caught off guard from something or someone on the other side.

Purple strings of Mana floated off the doorway, seeming to lead further into the doorway itself, meaning that the origin of this darkness came from whatever laid beyond it. The Purple strings were immediately recognized as Umbra-Attuned Mana by Damien, and gave him a bit of pause. People with Umbra as an Affinity were rare, and people with an Affinity as strong as his own were even rarer. Although Damien couldn’t sense how powerful the Spell had been, the Mana Control was tight and efficient. Not masterful or beautiful, but perfectly efficient in its use, with no waste in sight.

“… whoever made this thing either has a pretty good grasp of Mana Control or had access to a really good array,” Damien theorized. “I can’t be sure since I’m still getting used to how Mana looks overall, but either one might be… wait, what?”

As he’d been describing what he saw before him, a single, thin wisp of bronze entered his vision before disappearing behind the curtain of darkness.

“What is it?” Leon asked, gripping his staff even tighter than he had been before.

“I… I think I just saw Terra-Attuned Mana come out of there,” Damien said, still confused by the sight. “It’s weird. After all the intense umbra Mana, I shouldn’t have been able to see anything at all.”

“Hm… ah! I think I know what it is!” Leon exclaimed after a quick moment of thought. “We’ve just come across a developing Dungeon!”

“A Dungeon?” Damien asked, surprised. “Those are a thing?”

“Of course. Why wouldn’t they be?” Leon asked, looking at the Traveler in confusion.

“Sorry, just… never really heard of them outside of stories.” That was true, in his case. He had only ever seen Dungeons in fantasy video games, wherein they contained treasures beyond imagination and monsters that could cause real trouble if you weren’t prepared. He had a feeling that this kind of Dungeon might be similar, at least in theory.

“Well, Dungeons are… Dungeons,” Leon said, trying to think of a way to explain them. “They’re basically concentrations of magic that eventually gain physical form in places where atmospheric Mana becomes dense enough to touch. I’ve never seen one forming before, though. I think the only reason I recognized it is because you can see Mana, and it matches up to some rumors I’ve heard about developing Dungeons.”

“So… does that mean Loot?”

“Oh yeah - tons of it!” Leon said excitedly. “Even lower level Dungeons can be farmed for a ton of resources! And since monsters spawn there more frequently, it’s also a good place to grind out Levels!

“We should probably report it to the Adventurer’s Guild, though.”

“I’m guessing there are some regulations around developing Dungeons?”

“Sort of,” Leon said. “I just know that basically all Dungeons are required to be registered with the Adventurer’s Guild by law, including any developing ones. If you’re found to be entering before that, barring special circumstances, you can get fined a hefty sum or get jail time.”

“It’s that serious?”

“We’re talking about pocket dimensions that basically spawn a theoretically infinite amount of money. Of course it’s that serious.”

“Okay, I see your point,” Damien said, deactivating both Magic Eyes and Soul Sight, the latter of which hadn’t come in handy thus far. He hadn’t used it since he’d wanted to exercise Primeval Awareness, but he knew that it might become vital later on. “Is there a finder’s rate on a Dungeons?”

“Yeah, although I don’t know the exact numbers,” Leon said in thought. “I know it’s more than a thousand Camori even for the lower level stuff, and if you can identify what kind of Affinity the Dungeon will spawn in with, you can practically double that rate!”

“Information is king?”

“Something like that.”

Damien and Leon quickly gathered themselves, the latter pulling a map out of his bag and marking the spot where they’d found the developing Dungeon. Damien was a little miffed that Corbyn hadn’t given him a map to find his way out, but his mentor had more than enough confidence in his ability to look up and find a manhole, and he easily pushed the mild annoyance aside.

The two young men quickly advanced through the tunnels, engaging in light conversation as they searched for the nearest manhole. After a few minutes had passed, they managed to find one that was just out of the way, with a ladder set into the wall leading up to it according to Leon’s map, and it was just around the corner!

“Alright! Looks like we’re home free-”

“Sh!” Damien hissed, putting a hand up to silence his human companion. Then he reached out with both Primeval Awareness and Soul Sight. At the edge of his eight-meter radius for the former, he sensed an alarming number of Vermisca, most likely Younglings given their general size, with a few Adolescents peppered amongst them. Soul Sight revealed far more just beyond that, with the freshly familiar sight of Terra-Attuned monster spirits lighting up the sewer like a night sky.

In all conceivable ways, they were severely outnumbered and hilariously outgunned. Damien had no idea why they’d decided to block off their nearest available exit, but it couldn’t be anything but deliberate. Something was obviously controlling them. For all the danger Vermisca might pose to someone who was unprepared, they were very, very stupid. Even the Alphas roamed around on sheer might and survival instinct.

“We need to leave now,” Damien warned, cautiously backing away from the monsters in front of them. “We’ve got Vermisca just around that corner - a lot of them, too. Don’t fight, just walk away.”

Leon’s face morphed from confusion to understanding in less than a second, the human moving back in step with Damien. When they were right at the edge of Damien’s Primeval Awareness, the little bronze dots began to move towards them, as though they could sense it.

“Fucking shit, they’re coming! Run!”

The shout was like a starting pistol, and soon, the two were running back the way they’d come with a wave of rat-like monsters literally snapping at their heels. Their footsteps echoed against the concave walls of the sewers, only further alerting the horde to their position as they desperately ran for their lives. In less than a minute, the things had nearly caught up to them. And suddenly, their only escape route was cut off as yet another horde of Vermisca roared forward from the other side of the tunnel, entirely cutting off any routes of escape.

“Shit, shit, shit!” Leon exclaimed in panic, looking around for something, anything that would let them get out of this situation alive. Damien rapidly began searching as well, unwilling to accept an end as mundane and avoidable as this. The fact that something was directing these things, that something was clearly trying to kill him for no reason at all… it pissed him off. It pissed him off badly.

But his anger was not enough to cloud his judgment as he saw their final chance for escape. Whether through happenstance or sheer dumb luck, they had ended up in the exact same place they’d found that developing Dungeon from before. Except, this time, it wasn’t hidden by Umbra-Attuned Mana, and the doorway was a solid panel of earthen stone that could have only been made by Terra. It had managed to finish forming in the few minutes they’d been gone.

Damien threw caution to the wind and grabbed Leon by the collar, reaching for the entrance just as the Vermisca caught up to them and pounced. But just before they managed to land so much as a scratch on the two of them, they vanished, leaving a very angry, very hungry horde of Vermisca to rage, fight, and cannibalize one another.

When Damien and Leon ended up on the other side, their positioning caused both of the young men to stumble to the ground with a soft thump. Damien groaned slightly from the sudden impact, but quickly got over it as he heaved breath after breath of refreshing air. ‘Refreshing’ was relative to the fact that it didn’t wreak of waste like the sewer had.

“Okay, you alive Leon?” Damien said, unwilling to move from his spot on the floor.

“I really fucking hate you right now,” Leon mumbled into the ground.

“We’re alive, aren’t we?”

“Yeah, and you also dropped me on my head kinda hard. You’re lucky I can’t get a concussion from a fall like that anymore or I’d be a lot more pissed off…”

Damien just grunted in response before a notification made its way across his vision, and sent a chill up his spine.

NOTICE! You have entered the Level 5 Terra Dungeon [Unnamed].

You cannot exit [Unnamed] until one of two things come to pass:

1) 10 full hours pass within [Unnamed]

2) Complete the [Unnamed] Dungeon Quest

Would you like to see the details of the [Unnamed] Dungeon Quest?

Yes | No

“… uh… Leon? Are you seeing what I’m seeing?”

“A notification that we’re gonna be trapped in here for the next ten hours until we either survive or complete a Dungeon Quest?”

“Yeah, that’s the one.”

“It’s right in front of me. Awfully convenient timing, too.”

“I’ve found that’s how the System Interface works for basically everyone.”

“… hey, Damien?”

“Yes, Leon?”

“Are we screwed?”

“Not completely. I think,” Damien replied as he sat upwards, glancing around at the space around them and placing the notifications to the side of his vision for later. He turned to Ash, who had remained largely silent once he’d started coordinating with Leon. Got any bright ideas?

“Not particularly. My body’s still weak enough to have a serious amount of trouble against that many Vermisca, even Younglings. And you can’t get out of this Dungeon for a while anyway. They’ll probably be done cannibalizing each other by then. Probably. Also, you’re gonna want to get your shit in order soon.”

Why? Is something happening?

“Uh… something like that. Look around with Magic Eyes and you’ll see what I mean.”

Trusting his familiar, Damien began to look around the space with Magic Eyes activated. The place they were in was a narrow entrance hallway which, all things considered, looked relatively cozy, with warm, floating light bouncing off the cavernous stone tunnels. And at the end of the narrow hallway was something very, very bad. A net of bronze, Terra-Attuned Mana covered the exit, the structure giving a slight pulse every second, fading ever so slightly more after each successive movement.

“Shit,” Damien said, standing up and dusting himself off, drawing his jian. “Leon, you’re gonna want to get up.”

“What do you mean? Do you see a barrier?” the human asked, pulling his goggles off of his face and placing them on his forehead, using his staff to keep himself upright.

“Something like that,” Damien said. “And I can also see some kind of countdown. We’ve got… seven? Maybe eight minutes before it goes down?”

“… what happens when it goes down?”

“Nothing good. Make whatever preparations you can,” Damien said, unsheathing his sword as he sat, legs crossed in a Meditation pose. Though he hadn’t expended much Mana, and his own reserves were far greater than average, he had a feeling that he was going to need every scrap of power he could gather if they were going to survive what lay ahead of them. The minutes went by in almost total silence, Leon’s worried pacing doing nothing to disturb Damien’s forced bastion of calm focus. Then, about three minutes before the barrier would fall, he opened his eyes, and spoke.

“Leon? Sit, please. If we’re going to have even the slightest chance of surviving this, then we’re going to have to know each other back to front. I know we just met today, but the alternative is probably a painful death.”

“Uh… okay,” Leon said, sitting right across from Damien with only a little hesitation. “But what about all of that stuff you were talking about earlier? Secrecy and making sure no one knows too much about you just in case?”

“We don’t have the luxury of secrecy right now,” Damien explained, his own nerves raging beneath his placid facade. “If it makes you more comfortable, I’ll go first. But before I do, I need you to promise me something.”

Leon quickly nodded, and Damien continued. “What I say to you doesn’t leave this Dungeon. Not a word. Not a hint of a hint. I need to keep this all under wraps until I have something of a decent power base under me. Okay?”

“Yeah, I got it. I think,” Leon said, unable to really grasp the full gravity of what Damien was about to tell him. So, with a heavy sigh, the Traveler pulled off the glove on his right hand and held up the mark for the human to goggle at.

“I’m a Shade Hunter,” Damien said. “I’m in the early stages of my training, and I don’t have very many Spells or Abilities, but I’m still a Shade Hunter. So I think you can appreciate just how far I’m sticking my neck out by revealing this to you, yeah?”

“Uh.. yeah. Holy shit man,” Leon said, his eyes wide as his gaze fell to the ground. “Just… damn. I knew that the Hunters recruited sometimes, but I didn’t think I’d actually run into one of their trainees all the way out here! And you’re a Shade Hunter too… haven’t seen a lot of them.”

“Not quite what you were expecting?” Damien asked with a sly smile.

“Not in the slightest,” Leon said. “Although, now that I think back on it, it does make some sense. Hunters are some of the only Classes that fully balance both martial and spell-casting disciplines. Most of the time, it’s either one, the other, or using one to support the other one. I told you earlier that I leaned towards fighting, but… uh… my Class is Monk.”

That was actually something of a surprise. While it wasn’t quite as legendary as his own position as a Hunter, Monk was still one of the archetypal martial Classes. It was one of the ones that Corbyn had been drilling into his head for the last few weeks as one of the most balanced Classes in the world, due in no small part to the fact that it could do two things incredibly well: damage per second, and dodge tanking. If Damien ever ran into a Monk who knew what they were doing, he would be in for a rough fight. Leon was still learning the ropes, just like he was, but that didn’t mean he didn’t have the potential to become dangerous, Damien did, which was still a concept he was trying to wrap his head around.

The two young men sat around as the seconds ticked on by, sharing different abilities and potential strategies with the full intent of relying on each other to survive. When there was less than a minute left on their time, the two stood side by side, Damien with his sword raised and Leon with his staff prepared, both ready to meet whatever laid on the other side of the tunnel.

Then, like a starting pistol, the last strands of bronze Mana faded away.

Nothing happened.

“… that’s anticlimactic,” Damien said.

He didn’t lower his sword, however, just as Leon didn’t let go of his own weapon. The two crept forward, Damien reaching out with Primeval Awareness as they approached the end of the tunnel. They stepped out into a wide, circular room completely made of the same stone as the entry tunnel, the warm lights illuminating the entire space giving Damien a sinking feeling.

“This feels like a kill box,” Leon said, gripping his staff even tighter than he had before.

“Not a kill box. An arena,” Damien corrected. And just when he commented on the area’s construction, a notification lit up his vision.

Arena Area Activated! Survive the oncoming waves of [Constructs] and continue further into [Unnamed].

Waves Cleared: 0/3

“Son of a bitch!” Damien said, getting back to back with Leon as they were suddenly surrounded on all sides by enemies. These weren’t the same type of enemy as the Vermisca they had fought out in the sewers. Instead, these monsters pulled themselves right out of the ground as though they had once been a part of it, their frames constituting a bizarrely humanoid appearance, with two legs, two arms, and a roughly hewn torso each. The only exception to the rule was that none of them had heads. It was almost like fighting against a room full of decapitated bodies, minus all the blood and the implied necromantic magics that would have to come into play.

“Looks like… what? Five each?” Leon asked, trying to sound confident. “Should be relatively easy, right?”

“That depends entirely on how strong they are,” Damien replied, using Identify on the nearest Construct.

[Construct]

Level: 1

Affinity: Terra

That was something of a relief. Damien breathed a little easier, loosening his wrists as he began to prepare himself to hop right into his own set of five while Leon handled the other. Level ones, he could handle. As long as he took them one at a time, it shouldn’t be a problem.

“Ready?” Damien asked his human companion.

“As I’ll ever be,” Leon replied to the Traveler.

Then, a beat passed, and the two separated with a crack of movement.

Damien whistled through the air as a blur, the blade of his jian cutting into the rock of the Construct’s body like tough flesh. He managed to get his blade out of the thing’s leg before it could capitalize, forcing the heavy blow to rock it forwards and send it off balance. Damien capitalized once again by slicing downwards in a perfect arc, bisecting the Construct and killing it instantly.

In the same moment, Ash leapt out of his shadow, fangs barred as he leapt upon another of the Constructs, taking it to the ground as Damien moved on to the next of its kin. This time, Damien tested out Shadowbolt to see what reaction it got. As it turned out, while the spell had little stopping power against the lumbering stone men, it did chip into their structure something fierce. Like anti-armor rounds but without the force. Damien immediately capitalized, peppering one with half a dozen Shadowbolts and striking where the spell had struck his enemy.

Spiderweb cracks ran up their bodies where he’d struck them, and as Damien pivoted around another heavy strike, he stabbed dead-center into the thing’s chest, right where its heart would be, and right where one of his Shadowbolts had gone critical. He instantly killed the thing, its body crumbling down to dust as Ash finished ripping his own Construct in half like a toy. Now, there were only two left. Feeling somewhat safe for the moment, Damien gave a glance to where Leon was fighting, hoping to see that the guy was doing alright.

He was doing more than just alright; the guy was absolutely killing it! Leon’s instincts as a Monk were finally kicking in as he dodged attacks and dished out damage in equal measure. While fighting more than one Vermisca had primarily been a problem due to the environment and the tight confines of the sewers, here he could take full advantage of his increased mobility, utilizing it to blindside the Constructs and batter them with attacks from his staff. Though beings with the Terra Affinity did have some resistance to Leon’s own Ventus Affinity, that wasn’t likely to save them from blunt force trauma, as demonstrated when the Monk swung his staff into another of the Constructs, forcing it to crumble apart in a smattering of stone.

Damien quickly refocused on his own battle as one of the last two Constructs swung at him, the momentum of the missed strike carrying through to the ground, causing it to shake slightly. The Traveler kept his balance, using the opportunity to kick the thing in its center mass. It didn’t force the thing to move, but the strike did stagger it long enough for Damien to fire another Shadowbolt at its torso, causing another crack to appear. He peppered its torso with bolts like that, creating a perfect dotted line that he could strike through with little resistance.

The Construct didn’t take this laying down, and swung at Damien with its other fist. This one almost clipped him, catching at the barest edges of his sleeveless black shirt. He could feel the wind of the blow’s passing against his skin. And he was entirely uninterested in getting hit with something that heavy. He’d probably end up with some broken bones, at the very least.

Damien zipped forward and slashed down along the line he had created with his Shadowbolts, bisecting it almost instantly, and far easier than it had been when he’d killed the first one. It, like the others, fell to the ground in a heap of stone, shattering on the ground. Ash had already taken a massive chunk out of the last Construct on their side of the room, and was currently in the process of finishing it off. The Traveler checked in on his human companion once more, and saw that he too was finishing off the last of his enemies. The fact that it was reminiscent of someone getting beaten down with a baseball bat as he wacked away at the monster’s body was quite the morbid amusement to Damien.

Leon panted as he looked up, relieved to see that the fight was over, at least for the moment. Then he saw Ash tear a final chunk out of the last Construct, killing it. “Uh… is this the time to ask why there’s a Shadow Wolf helping us?”

“No, but we can talk about it after we survive all the waves,” Damien promised as a screen popped into his vision.

Wave Survived! Waves Cleared: 1/3

You have slain [Construct] x 5!

+450 XP

Next Wave in: 9:58

“Okay,” Damien said, looking to Leon with a discerning look on his face. “Did you get a Level from that?”

“Yeah,” Leon said with a nod. “I might not have been close to a Level Up before, but the fight certainly helped me along.”

“Alright. Spend your points while you have the chance. We’re going to need all the help we can get.”

“Why do you say that?”

“I have a feeling that these Waves are just going to start getting harder and harder as we get deeper.”

Damien began to use Meditation as Leon started debating what to put his points into. The Traveler didn’t offer any opinions on what he should do with them, since he didn’t know what Stats would best serve a Monk beyond Dexterity and Endurance; and that was a guesstimate based on what little he knew of the Class. A few minutes later, the next Wave came in earnest, with Damien and Leon standing back to back in the center of the room once more.

More Constructs appeared as the new Wave began, looking largely the same with only the slightest difference in size to differentiate them beyond their levels. This time, there were six Level twos and two Level threes, in contrast to the last wave. As before, they split up the wave and took half each, a bit more confident now that they’d had a taste of battling in each other’s presence.

Damien rushed forth, peppering the Constructs with Shadowbolts as Ash leapt out of his shadow once again, fangs bared as he rammed right into one of the Level two Constructs. The Traveler swirled out of the way of the Construct’s slow attack, having gotten used to the unliving thing’s speed. He aimed for the marks left by his magic, thrusting forward once before following through with a lightning-fast wrist cut, cutting one of its arms off by the shoulder.

Then, Danger Sense flared up suddenly, and he reacted too late to the backswing of one of the monster’s strikes. It wasn’t hard, and not strong enough to break anything, but it was enough to throw off his rhythm, sending him stumbling back as his mind reeled from the sheer shock and suddenness of the pain. A wave of it rippled up from where he’d been struck, and his eyes watered as he kept himself upright. It was difficult, but he did it. Despite the fact that this was the first time he had truly been struck, now that he’d had that moment of clarity, he smirked as he reset his position. After all, Corbyn’s strikes had hurt far more, in the end. And he had never struck Damien directly. Not once.

He lunged forward, stabbing straight through the Construct with startling alacrity, pushing his jian through the now crumbling body of the monster and taking his momentum on towards the next. Ash finished with his own Construct, and darted forward to distract the Level three on their side of the arena. Damien slashed out with his sword in fast arcs, each leaving a spiderweb of cracks where his Shadowbolts had stuck the Construct. It didn’t seem like these things had much going for them other than their strength, and so far, Damien had only been hit once. Granted, that hit still hurt like hell, but he still counted himself relatively lucky on that account.

The Traveler kicked out at a mass of cracks on one of the Construct’s legs, causing it to topple over with only a single leg to balance itself on. Damien took immediate advantage and stabbed down, killing it instantly. As the Construct scattered into rubble, Damien kicked off towards his final opponent, the Level three Construct, which already had its hands full with Ash snapping at its legs.

Despite their efforts, it didn’t appear that the monster had suffered a great deal of damage. The marks from his Shadowbolts were visibly smaller than they had been before, and though he could still hit them with enough effort, he would have to do so with more accuracy than he’d used on the Level ones and twos. He mentally signaled Ash to flank the Construct, and his familiar obliged. He lunged forward with his forward legs, raking his claws along the monster’s legs, causing it to groan in pain.

The Construct retaliated by swinging one of its arms at the Shadow Wolf, barely missing his body and forcing him to back away. Damien took advantage of this, thrusting three times in quick succession at the Shadowbolts that he was able to see, sending cracks through the thing’s entire torso. He stepped back, resetting his stance as the Construct swung another blow at him, the wind of its passing ruffling his dark hair.

Damien thrust forward a fourth and final time, his body rocketing forward with competence and speed that was drawn from his own Dexterity, and a pitch-perfect form drawn from the Swordsmanship Skill that the Grandmaster Tome had granted. The two synergized in a moment as Damien’s sword thrust through the Construct’s torso, slaying the monster in a final display of brutal efficiency.

“… you know, you’re really scary when you want to be,” Leon said, standing victorious among piles of rubble. “And I still think we should talk about that… familiar? It is a familiar, right?”

“We can talk about me when this is over, human,” Ash said. “Rest. Recover. There’s still one more Wave to go before you’re through this.”

Wave Survived! Waves Cleared: 2/3

You have slain [Construct] x 5!

+900 XP

Next Wave in: 9:56

“You can talk?!” Leon exclaimed, shocked by the development.

“Later, human,” Ash said, a smile in his voice as he merged back into Damien’s shadow.

If you keep teasing him like that, he’s going to bombard me with questions.

“I know. That’s the point!”

Damien rolled his eyes at his familiar’s chuckling, and instead focused on the lightly throbbing wound at his side. It had largely healed on it's own, but Damien rubbed at the spot all the same. He’d been getting cocky, assured in his victory against the monsters, only to be reminded of one of Corbyn’s most important lessons. No matter how skilled or powerful or gifted you are, you are still mortal, and you can still die. He only wished that the lesson wasn’t often so painful as it was.

A few minutes later, the two young men stood up, and prepared for whatever came next, determination blazing in their eyes.