The meditation room was situated on top of the tallest tower on the Palace, and there was an odd slit in the half-sphere that formed its roof. Serenity had had a suspicion of what the room was when he first saw it, but he hadn’t been able to immediately confirm it because it was another room with extremely complex runes.

It took hours and Serenity ended up photographing all of the runes in the meditation room as well. It wasn’t just an astronomical observation room; it appeared to have been set up with divination magic of some sort in mind.

As he was on the way out, Prince Ora handed him a small sack and explained it was a bonus for all the work he’d done. When Serenity checked, it contained a number of kopeks that was probably significant, since it was more than he’d get from the sale of three tiny monster cores.

The one thing Serenity still didn’t quite understand about the runescripts throughout the Palace was how they were powered; they clearly weren’t being powered by the people using them, since no one was using them as intended. The knowledge that there was a Palace Dungeon had to be the explanation; they’d be powered by the same ley lines that powered the dungeon.

It was strange he hadn’t yet found any ley lines.

That night, there was a new message from Rissa; it seemed she’d figured out how to send them with Aki’s help and no longer needed to travel to another node to access the messaging system. Blaze had arrived, but he was the only one; Rissa didn’t expect to even start the trip for several days, since she was still expecting Kerr, Ekari, and surprisingly Sillon. Honoria had messaged to say that she would be delayed by at least a couple of weeks and would meet them after they reached Zon.

Blaze was fascinated by the medical information available on the internet, once Rissa got him a translator and showed him how to find it. Rissa wasn’t certain if Blaze was learning anything or not, but he seemed completely happy spending several hours a day wandering around the internet and reading articles.

There was plenty of time for a dungeon, even if they took it slow. If it took too long, they could always find a way out; almost all dungeons had some way outside available periodically.

The following morning when he returned to the Palace with Andarit, Serenity found the answer to the question of where the ley lines were. The entrance to the Palace’s dungeon was deep underground. It wasn’t the first time Serenity had seen an underground dungeon, but most weren’t discovered until they reached the surface.

The Palace complex had clearly once been far, far larger than it was now.

They traveled through old passageways, worn with time but still intact. Serenity was amused to see that the passageway was studded with runes. Most of them were for light and air purification, but he could see stability runes studded along the passageway as well. There was always one at each crossing path and doorway; if a hallway went more than about a hundred feet between crossings, there was a rune for stability without an obvious feature anchoring it.

Many of the crossing corridors were clearly barely used if they were used at all; they had an obvious layer of dirt and dust settled on the floor, raising them higher than the one to the dungeon. Even the dungeon passage itself seemed to have a layer of dirt that had been beaten into a more or less solid floor, but Serenity could see that it was not very deep; there were spots that were scraped down about a half-inch to an obviously stone floor.

It was amusing that the prince hadn’t taken him to this part of the Palace; perhaps he simply didn’t realize it was enchanted? All of the runes seemed to be in excellent shape, perhaps because of the stability runes. This setup wasn’t integrated into a single whole, either; instead, it was overlapping bits and pieces of spells fed on ambient mana.

Serenity could feel the mana level in the tunnel rising as they went down the tunnel. Long before they actually reached the ley line, Serenity felt himself start absorbing the mana. It didn’t seem quite as efficient as normal, even though he was confident the ley line was stronger than any of Earth’s, but that was probably because even though his dhampir heritage was based partly on Essence Dragon, it was less draconic than his normal chimera form.

The ley line was indeed stronger than any of Earth’s. Serenity remembered the issue he’d had with glowing in ley lines in the past and was prepared to artificially limit his mana intake to prevent it, but it didn’t seem to be a problem when he was using his dhampir heritage as a disguise.

The dungeon entrance was simply another door, styled like one of the several doors they’d passed. If Serenity hadn’t been able to sense that they were in the nexus, he wouldn’t have known it was any different than the doors they’d simply walked past except for the obvious fact that the corridor beyond it was clearly less used.

“This is it. When you come out, you’ll be here as well; make certain you speak to a guard and get a guide out of here. Wouldn’t want you to get lost.” The guard gestured at the door.

Serenity wondered how anyone would get lost on that path; it was clear which way was well-used. Well, it was probably more of a safety precaution than anything, a way to prevent them from going anywhere they shouldn’t. That was fine; Serenity didn’t have any intention to go anywhere that wasn’t the dungeon.

Serenity reached out and opened the door, letting Andarit precede him into the dungeon. She’d been in the dungeon before, so she should know what was there, even though she hadn’t said anything about it yet.

Andarit paused in the entryway and set a small packet on the ground just inside the dungeon before she continued on into the dungeon. Serenity didn’t know what was in the packet, but he didn’t see any need to ask; he’d seen similar offerings before. She was asking the dungeon to go easy on them by giving it something. Serenity hadn’t prepared anything and wasn’t confident it would help, but it couldn’t hurt. He’d have to remember to pick up some similar supplies; it was a good idea.

Unlike most of the dungeons on Earth, this one seemed more settled in the place it was in. That probably meant several things; the primary one was that it was probably a Field Dungeon, like the Last Refuge of the Deathless. Most Field Dungeons weren’t instanced; the Last Refuge certainly hadn’t been, and the fact that he opened a door instead of being teleported in indicated that this one wasn’t either.

Unlike that dungeon, however, it was clear that this one was repeatable. Otherwise there wouldn’t be a path worn to it under the Palace.

As Serenity stepped inside, the normal dungeon message appeared and he paused for a moment to absorb what it told him.

[Field Dungeon: The Nights of Shadows]

[The Nights of Shadows is the name given to a dark period in the history of Zon, the time between the fall of the Ancient Empire whose name has been lost to the ages and the rise of the first successor kingdom. No one knows what caused the fall of the Ancient Empire, but portions of the past can still be seen on the surface of Zon today.]

[Status: Active]

[Current participants: 1]

[Tier: Progressive, maximum Tier 8]

[Type: Exploration, Gathering]

Serenity had seen Gathering dungeons on Earth, which specialized in rare, usually magical, materials. There was often a challenge for the best ones, but they were well worth gathering if you could find the right ones.

He couldn’t remember if he’d seen an Exploration dungeon or not. If there weren’t any yet, it made sense in many ways; Exploration dungeons were huge and the dungeons on Earth simply hadn’t been there all that long yet. This was clearly not a new dungeon.

The note that worried him was the Tier. The progressive part was fine; it simply meant that the challenge would increase the farther they were from the entrance. There might not be any fast ways out, but with the challenge decreasing as they left it should still be quite possible to exit relatively quickly if they retraced their route. The area near the entrance would be relatively safe, as well, but it might be the only safe area.

The part that worried Serenity was the maximum Tier. Eight was well over what he was comfortable handling at Tier Three, and more than that he didn’t understand how a dungeon could get that high on Zon; yes, a Progressive dungeon could sometimes be a little over its planet’s cap, but not that far.

Unless he was wrong about the Tier of Zon? He was going off of memory, after all.

Voice, what Tier is Zon? I thought it was Tier Three, maybe Tier Four? How can there be a Tier Eight in the dungeon?

[Zon is currently in decline, which makes its Tier difficult to accurately determine. By most measures, it is a Tier Five world, nearing Tier Four. However, there are pockets that are reminiscent of the higher-Tier world it once was. Currently, those pockets are generally Tier Six or Tier Seven. The one Tier Eight in the Nights of Shadows dungeon is a remnant of the past; if it is defeated, the dungeon will be unable to replace it with the available ley lines, which will result in a reduction in the final power noted as the dungeon’s Tier]

Well, that explained that. Duke Lowpeak hadn’t made any secret of the fact that Zon was diminishing, but Serenity hadn’t realized it was that bad. He also wasn’t quite sure where he’d gotten the idea that Zon was Tier Three or Four; perhaps it was a memory from Vengeance or perhaps it was simply an assumption based on the general power he’d felt on the world.

Probably the latter. Serenity couldn’t remember if Vengeance had even been to Zon, even though it seemed likely.

“Serenity? Are you ready?” Andarit was a few paces ahead of Serenity, waiting on him.

Serenity shook off his woolgathering about Zon and headed forward to meet her. “So, what should we expect first?”

Andarit shrugged. “No idea. The royal family doesn’t let anyone talk about the Palace dungeon.”

Serenity frowned. “I thought you’d been here before? Shortly before I arrived on Zon?” Serenity distinctly recalled her father Kalo telling Serenity about the trouble Andarit had gotten into by moving forward when the other nobles went back.

Andarit shook her head. “That was the Royal Dungeon, this is the Palace Dungeon.”

Well, oops. Serenity hadn’t asked the prince or the guard about what to expect, since he thought Andarit already knew. If they didn’t talk about it, he wasn’t certain how much they’d have said, but without his question they definitely hadn’t said anything.

“Then we’ll just have to treat this as an unknown dungeon. Have you ever done an unknown dungeon delve?” Serenity had done a bunch of them recently, but he was going to have to take this one far more seriously. He was going to have to take it far more seriously than the Great Tutorial Dungeon, as well; that one had almost killed Rissa when he took it too lightly.

Andarit shook her head. “The closest I’ve come was on Tzintkra; we were exploring partially known dungeons, trying to find hidden areas.”

Serenity nodded. “Not quite the same, but it’s a good start. First of all, tell me what you see.”

Andarit looked ahead of them. “It’s a corridor, same as outside.”

“True, but you’re missing a lot of detail. How well used is the corridor?” Teaching someone how to look was often more important than simply increasing the Perception attribute. It would also remind Serenity that he needed to pay attention.

“Uh, oh! It’s clean! The dirt that was on the floor outside isn’t there.” Andarit seemed happy to have an answer.

Serenity nodded at her. “What else can you tell me? Include anything that matters to where an enemy might be or to fighting conditions.”

Serenity took the time while Andarit was looking to examine the corridor for himself. It was a good exercise for both of them.