March 16, 2019, 6:22 pm. After the ashes.

Tipan and I finish scouting our side of the dungeon a few minutes later, confirming all the side-valleys have similar safe-zones and each one requires a Champion’s Trophy to activate. Though I’m still lost in thought when we bump into Josh and Roberts, trying to figure out how we'll get Smoulder home. After trading off with them, we’re attacked on our way back to the entrance just outside the wind valley. Tipan’s almost struck by a wind enhanced bird of prey dropping from above. Even as I’m turning to help, she dispatches it with a flick of her staff. So, we continue on our way, hardly breaking our stride.

Now that we’re done scouting, I’m feeling more collected. Tipan’s relying on information four-hundred years out of date. There probably won’t even be any ashes in this urn of the Paragon. Another symbolic lie to bolster the Aetherium’s image.

Even as I tell myself this, there’s a twinge of doubt.

Shaking my head, I refocus. I can’t do anything about Smoulder… yet. Completing the World Dungeon takes priority. Maybe there’ll be an upgrade in Copper that’ll help. I mean… Anchor already lets me rewind time. And my Pause isn’t even a class ability.

There’s got to be more.

Tipan conveys our findings to Beth while my attention shifts to the structure dominating the center of the dungeon. There’s an obvious lack of windows and our flight around the perimeter didn’t reveal any doors or other entrances either. And the entire thing seems… weirdly familiar. Like I’ve seen it somewhere before. Shaking that off, I consider it as an obstacle. It’s clearly the end point of the dungeon, but with no obvious entrances, I suspect we need to complete at least one of the side valleys to gain access.

“Okay. No obvious door to the main dungeon. Thoughts?” I ask, turning to the others.

“Side quests,” Josh says, “We need to recover keys to use the safe-zones, so we’ll probably need something similar to get inside.”

“Might be able to enter without them, but if it’s like the Pescal puzzle dungeon, once we activate the core, we won’t be able to explore the side valleys,” Tipan observes, causing Beth to frown.

“Well, we know how keen the System is to punish completionists. Doing all the side valleys is guaranteed to kick a hidden boss into motion. That said, we should do one, at least. Get a feel for how dangerous it’s going to be. I think we should start with-”

“Fire!” Josh, Rufka and I all say in unison, with Tipan only a half-second behind.

Beth blinks a couple times, looking at each of us.

“Not fire?” She tries with a tentative smile, prompting us to burst out laughing.

I rub my cheek, wiping away the grin as Roberts says, “I believe the vote is for fire. I’m sorry Beth.”

This time even Beth lets out a little chuckle, though it’s restrained. “Fire it is then. Shall we?”

The next few minutes are busy as we prepare a fire-resistance tea Tipan picked up while visiting her mom. She’s added a whole smorgasbord of teas to her collection lately, it seems. Luckily, this one tastes way better than the one she gave her father. May that devil’s brew never cross my lips again.

Once we’ve all taken our share of the Firespitter’s blend, Josh leads the way into Fireside Valley. We don’t shy away from any of the encounters, though we pace ourselves, doing our best to conserve resources. But nothing in the valley even gets close enough for Josh or Roberts to attack, nevermind defend against. Two hours later and we’ve cleared out the entire valley, the only thing remaining is a giant tortoise sleeping in a ring of burning trees.

The tortoise is easily the size of a house, but I’m getting used to big monsters. Size isn’t nearly as important as special abilities. The tortoise’s shell appears to be a black basalt, though there are cracks through which dark glowing embers glisten. Over each of its eyes are giant spikes, forming a rough ridge of stone that resembles a heavily mascaraed eyebrow.

It’s a giant, goth fire-turtle. Or a fire-goth giant turtle?

I don’t know how it didn’t wake at our rampage through the valley, but I suspect System shenanigans.

“Creature analyzed: Ashen-Shelled Tortoise. Female. Gene seed D.”

“Name: Lebethin.”

“Attributes: Physical; Moderate, Mobility; Moderate, Magic; Moderate, Awareness; Low.

Attacks: Flame Breath. Wrecking Ball. Rending Snap.

Defences: High physical resistance. Low magic resistance. Fire immunity"

(Wyonna) ”Just your standard desert tortoise taken to extremes. She doesn’t get visitors often, so don’t take her grumpiness personally.”

Wyonna fills the others in as we fall back to gather a nearby patch of Flame Blossom Josh noticed while I was inspecting the tortoise. The ash and orange pattern almost completely blends in with the rest of the flora, so it hasn’t been as easy to find as we’d been hoping. We’ve still got several cubic metres of it at this point, since once we do find it, there tends to be a lot of it.

“This is going faster than expected,” Roberts notes, his fingers steepled as he paces outside the treeline once we’ve finished gathering the Flame Blossom. “Is anyone else concerned?”

“A little,” I agree, with nods from the others.

“Hmm. Good. Just so long as we’re agreed. Shall we?”

Josh again leads the way, stepping inside the trees. Nothing happens until Roberts, who was trailing behind the rest of us, enters the clearing. The second he crosses the threshold, the trees flare, encasing us in a dome of fire. Which is the signal for the tortoise to wake, its eyes snapping open to reveal whirling molten pools beneath. Even as I’m entering Pause, it sprays a wave of flame from its mouth, coating Josh in burning goop.

He simply sheds the outer layer of his armour, stepping out of the flaming debris while only taking a few dozen points of health damage before charging. I don’t let him act alone, unloading on its giant head with a spear of ice as he rolls beneath the snapping of its jaw. It hardly notices my attack, but I’ve already started switching elements as we engage it in full, building Elemental Cascade’s increased damage effect while studying it more closely.

After a minute, it’s starting to look like that opening attack was the most dangerous part of the fight. It is tough though, having endured a lot of spells, despite not being strong against magic. Since its opening salvo, it’s been easy to avoid its breath attacks, and even when it rolls into a ball and rampages around the arena, we’re not in any danger, thanks to Roberts’ shields.

It finally shudders to a halt when it drives itself onto a massive thorn Josh weaved while waiting out its latest rampage. When the System message appears, it doesn’t grant us integration points or drop any essence. Instead, we each receive a single spike, as though taken from its eyebrow, the tortoise bursting into blue dust in the background.

“Lebethin’s Eyespike: A trophy taken from the Ashen-Shelled Tortoise Lebethin. This item:

can be used to activate the Fireside’s Respite Safe-zone. does not take up inventory space while within the World Dungeon. may not be discarded while within the World Dungeon. provides increased fire-resistance to all remaining World Dungeon Denizens while the bearer remains within the World Dungeon. has additional effects when carried with other trophies.”

Wait, increased fire-resistance to our enemies?

Rufka bumps my shoulder as she waves her spike around. “Guess we know that each of these side-valley’s is gonna make things harder. How… what’s the word… awesome? How awesome is that?”

Beth nods, inspecting her own spike. “Rufka’s right. If the System is making things harder based on how many of these valley’s we clear, it’ll give us extra rewards to match. It also means we can probably head to the centre now.”

“But we’re not going to,” Josh says, smiling at the rest of us.

She smiles back at him, and I can’t help but feel warm inside. “Nope. Not when it’s this easy. It’ll get harder, but we’re not stopping now.”

Beth is right. It does get harder. When we defeat the second boss, a bronze bull that shoots thin lines of bronze that serve as nearly indestructible hazards, we gain several of its scales. Not only do they have a new line in the description, Lebethin’s Eyespike's description updates as well.

“Update to Lebethin’s Eyespike: This item’s new effects:

provides increased Strength to all remaining World Dungeon Denizens while the bearer remains within the World Dungeon.

“Xanthica’s BronzeScale: A trophy taken from the Steel-Scaled Bull Xanthica. This item’s unique effects:

can be used to activate the Foundry’s Respite Safe-zone. provides increased metal-resistance to all remaining World Dungeon Denizens while the bearer remains within the World Dungeon. provides increased Constitution to all remaining World Dungeon Denizens while the bearer remains within the World Dungeon.

And that’s just the beginning, cause the last line about having additional effects with more is still listed on both trophies.

Still, none of us have used hardly any of our resources, so we keep going. After a surprisingly fun but not particularly dangerous match with a wind-enhanced paper doll, the dungeon denizens’ Agility increases. Even with the enhanced Agility, the Earth crab is slow, but easy, its defeat increasing the remaining dweller’s Endurance.

At his point, we finally call a break, returning to Fireside’s Respite. The break is as much to sort through and store all the resources we’ve been gathering as for our need to rest. The inability to immediately store everything of use reminds me just how convenient the inventory system is.

I sit with Rufka, watching Josh as he coils several lengths of silver vines around several earth infused tree trunks. “It’s weird to me that those count as plants,” I comment, indicating the rock-hard vines.

“I don’t make the rules,” Josh shrugs, cinching the entire bulk tight before storing it in his inventory while we have access.

“Yep. You just follow em,” Rufka notes, shifting about, making it hard to use her lap as a pillow. “Such a good boy.”

Josh scowls but doesn’t rise to Rufka’s bait. Moving off to help Roberts with dinner instead.

“Why’d you do that?” I ask.

“Do what?” Rufka replies.

“Taunt him like that?”

“Cause that’s what he does? He follows the rules.”

“Sure. But he’s nice.”

“Yep. Nice. But he doesn’t do anything unless Beth asks him to.”

“So?”

“Lexi, I don’t know. It bugs me.”

“Okay. Sorry.”

“Did you know that Uthica wasn’t the first K’tharn to complete the World Dungeon?” Rufka asks, causing me to blink in confusion at her rapid subject change.

“Uh, no?”

“Yep. Mum said it was actually a K’tharn named Alethan. Her entire clan entered around the same time. But she was the only one who survived. She never told anyone what happened inside but warned those who came after to only enter if they were prepared to risk everything.”

“Really?”

“Seems silly to me. Why warn people to be careful but not tell ‘em anything?”

“Maybe it was hard for her to… you know, talk about?” I suggest.

“Maybe.” Rufka grumbles, “Anyway, point is, here she is. This powerful K’tharn, reaching Copper-rank less than a year after integration. Could've saved a lot of lives by going out to help people. Left a sign to indicate the entrance with a warning. Would’ve done as much as she did. But instead, she just sat outside. Eventually Uthica came along. And she listens to Alethan, leaving only to come back a couple months later. The second time, she barely stopped to talk to Alethan before going inside. When Uthica emerged with all her companions, Alethan broke down.”

“Turned out her queen died in the fight with the last boss and Alethan hadn’t known what to do after that. So, she’d followed her queen’s last orders. Warn people not to venture inside.”

“So, she did her job?”

“Yeah. But she could’ve hung a sign and been just as effective. But Uthica, she wouldn’t let her stand around wasting her strength. She put her to work. And Alethan obeyed. She did whatever Uthica told her to. Eventually she joined the Queen’s Knights. No one really knows what happened to her after that.”

“Huh.”

“So, do you understand?” Rufka asks, leaning forward and staring down at me.

“Uh? Yes?”

“Oh? What do you understand?” Rufka teases.

“That following orders is bad?” I try.

Rufka snorts. “Not what I meant. It’s that it’s all she did. And even as one of the strongest K’tharn on Akilo, she faded away. I don’t want that.”

“Okay. But why bug Josh?”

“Cause… I guess I don’t want him to be like that either.”

“Maybe try talking to him about it?” I suggest, bopping her on the nose.

Apparently, that was the wrong move, because instead of responding, Rufka goes on the attack, attempting to tickle me into submission.

As we roll around, I eventually gain the upper hand, though she forces me to cheat. Rufka’s got two arms on me. I’m at a serious disadvantage in tickle wars. Or I would be, if I ever played fair. With Rufka held in place by two unbending arms of stone, I bop her nose again.

“Alright. I’ll try talking to him. Later,” Rufka grumbles, rolling her eyes as I let the hands drop away.

“Good,” I say, fighting to keep the smirk off my face, and failing.

We end up slipping away for a bath before dinner. When we emerge, I find we’ve started a trend, the others taking their own baths. I may have forgotten we’ve all gone without a bath for the last few days in captivity. The overwhelming smells of the dungeon combined with the others remaining under Beth’s invisibility spell are leading contributors. It’s definitely not that I just didn’t notice. Nope.

Making dinner while we wait for the others, we discuss what other changes we might expect the dungeon to undergo, but there’s no real sense of worry as we settle in for the night. The dungeon’s been kinda boring so far.

…TPWM…

Morning finds us retrieving most of our healing talismans and resistance brews from our inventory. Just in case. If the pattern holds, the next monster we defeat will raise the remaining dweller’s intelligence. Which means they’re going to be tossing around stronger spells. At the very least.

Despite our worries, when we defeat the hoard of Drill-Stone Mice that serves as the Endless Quarry’s champion, the increase to damage is barely noticeable. They don’t seem to get any smarter either. The next two champions fall quickly, an Ice Bear that resembles a grizzly with ice-skates, who Beth takes down with a series of quick shots through its crystal eyes. And a Water-Swan that tries to drown the entire valley. But flight isn’t restricted, and we pick it off from above, not even getting our feet wet.

Thanks to our rapid pace, we’re able to store away our new loot, of which there is a lot, before our first safe zone even expires. After storing the last of our spoils from the water drenched valley, we find the trophies have changed again.

Apparently, when we defeated the Swan, it gave the remaining dwellers not one, but two attribute and resistance increases. Every one of the trophies now also has the word moderate in front of the increase.

As we prepare to face the lightning valley, the Crackling Den, I can’t help but feel this was probably the worst valley to save for last. But I was outvoted. Rufka thought it’d be more fun, changing her vote with a cackling laugh at the last second.

Low clouds crowd the bottom of the valley, as if tethered to the ground, each one crackling with electricity. The bolts above weren’t very threatening before we completed the last valley, but now they’re intense enough that the rock of the valley floor splits with every strike. They’re also the only source of light within the valley. By some trick of the dungeon, the light illuminating the rest of the World Dungeon no longer reaches here.

And so, with a still chuckling Rufka at my side, we descend into crackling darkness.