It took a moment for Meriel to realize what had just happened, but the air blasting past him was a good wake-up call. He couldn't see, but he didn't need to know where was up and where was down. Panic surged through him, and he tried to think of an idea on how to save himself.

  Not a single one came up. He panicked again, hid the gears in his head turning, and he tried to discern how much time he had until he eventually collided with the ground that must be there somewhere.

  If only he could see.

  Again for the second time on that day, he went through his spells, and again he regretted not having a single one that would provide him with flight. He would definitely study one as soon as he got himself out of this situation. A blasting spell would perhaps work, but the force with which it would push him up would quite possibly not suffice.

  He must have had only seconds now. He thought again and finally he thought of a spell that would possibly save him. He began the incantation, going through the words rapidly as fast as he could while keeping the words coherent. Saying one syllable wrong could possibly fail the spell, and he wasn't sure he had a second chance.

  He wasn’t one to fail his spells, however.

  [Stasis Field LVL 34 activated]

  A small bubble of shimmering light started coming to life around him. Small circles connecting to each other by thin tendrils of pure mana, the spell finally casting light around Meriel, bathing the rocky ravine in a dim, yellow glow.

  He fell faster than he expected. The moment the spell came to life, he collided with the ground. The fall should have killed him, but the bubble around him softened the blow, making it feel as though he fell into some soft blankets. It didn't manage to stop the pain completely, however. His speed was simply too great. Something cracked, and he felt piercing pain in his arm. Suddenly losing all feeling in his right hand's fingers. He felt so numb from the situation at hand that he didn't even feel like screaming. Instead, he bit his lip, swallowed, and tried to calm himself.

  Jonathan betrayed me, he murmured, trying to think of what happened above the ravine. How could he? Meriel took him for a friend, someone he had met several years ago, and he almost thought of him as an older brother. And then Jonathan just cast him away, throwing him into the ravine just as they completed all of their goals. He couldn't even think of a reason why he'd done so. Pettiness? Wanting to keep more money from the kingdom? Maybe he thought he'd have a shot with Elsa, if Meriel was out of the way, but that seemed foolish. She’d never shown much interest in him in the first place, not even before Meriel joined in. He just couldn't think of why Jonathan would do such a thing.

  Finally calmed, though a bit angry, he looked around, trying to decipher what exactly it was that the lights shone on. He must have been lower in the dungeon than he was when they fought the dragon—there were stalagmites all around, the spires several times his own height.

  Thank the gods I didn’t impale myself on one.

  Other than that, there were some small bones, coming from monsters he couldn’t identify, but what shocked him again was something else. An obsidian-shade crystal, glowing red from inside, hovering in the air above a small pedestal.

  “Fuck.”

  That was bad. Dungeon hearts were dangerous, oftentimes more so than the dungeon-brain, the monster that ruled over the monsters crawling within. It wasn’t usually dangerous in the same way that the monsters were, however. Instead of using brute force, the hearts were more prone to trickery and magic that the mages of Lavarza kingdom couldn’t identify, not even with centuries of studies.

  And worst of all, they disrupted spells. They sometimes cancelled them outright, but it was more commonplace for them to change them. A Firespark becomes a fireball, a summon undead summons skeletons not on the summoner’s side.

  Meriel glanced at the stasis field, pushing against the rising panic that was starting to hold him in its iron grip.

  The spell looked as it always had: just the yellow light connected by the tendrils. But he also noticed something else. It was thicker, as if it was seeping off energy from Meriel himself, but his mana pool wasn't large enough for a barrier as thick, especially not since the spell was one of the ones he didn't use quite as often. He almost forgot he had it, but he talked about the spell with Elsa last week, and that conversation probably saved his life.

  But why was it so thick? Where was it getting the mana from? When he checked his statistics, he didn't see anything out of the ordinary, and his mana was actually slowly recharging, not going down.

  The dungeon core was feeding it, he realized. That was the only solution that would make sense, and it would fit the ways of a dungeon heart. But how much mana did dungeon core have? Would it regenerate the mana it spent on keeping the barrier up somehow? He only just realized how little he knew of the hearts keeping the dungeons alive, but he’d had no way of knowing more. Too little time had passed since he’d discovered his arcanic powers, and all the time since had been spent following Jonathan from one adventure to the next.

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  He glanced at the heart again, his green eyes locking in on the veins, barely visible inside of the crystal. The dragon was dead, so surely it wouldn't be able to give mana to the spell for long. That was the way with dungeon hearts - with nobody there to protect it, one beast or another would eventually come to destroy it by force.

  And all this thinking just made him even more exhausted than he already was. He needed sleep, and he’d not discover a way out if he was dead-tired.

  All there is to do is just to wait, he said to himself, calming his nerves. and without anything further ado, he sat down, leaned against the bubble that surrounded him, and tried his best to fall asleep.

  —

  Almost a whole day passed, or so Meriel estimated after waking up from his nap, and nothing changed. The bubble continued pulsing, casting light on the surroundings, and the dungeon heart still stood near, fighting the yellow light with it’s evil magenta tones. Meriel could swear that the heart knew he was there, that it wished he’d stay trapped forever.

  He’d do anything but. He again went through his spell, whispering their names as an actor might rehearse his text before a play, and he stopped at each, wondering if it could stop the Stasis field spell somehow.

  It took him almost an hour to realize that most of his spells were useless in a situation like this one. Most of his spells focused on one thing and one thing only, and that was destruction. But the spells, if cast here, would only result in his death, each spell more brutal than the last.

  The stasis field spell was nigh unbreakable—meant for stopping an enemy temporarily, usually lasting from two to fifteen seconds, depending on how well the caster controlled his mana. With the dungeon heart feeding it, it was long overdue on its expiration.

  He also thought of cancelling the spell, but found that to be a dead end. Cancelling a spell was simple; stop the mana that surrounded the caster, flowing into his heart and then into the spell. End the last part, stop the mana from going into the spell and completing the last connection. He’d not listened much to the much older mage teaching him, for he explained the ins and outs of magic in such a boring way that even the most energetic students tended to fall asleep, but he remembered this much.

  The first time he practiced the cancellation, it came to him as naturally as breathing. A lot of the other mages of the Lavarza kingdom praised his third eye, the imagined organ that let the mages see and use the mana, but all it showed him here was how hopeless his situation was.

  “At least I won’t go hungry,” Meriel chuckled ironically, trying to find some reprieve in his situation. The stasis spell would keep his body as is, not letting him age, feel hunger or thirst. He only hoped that he’d not have to find out to which extent that went.

  Taking in a deep breath, he realized something, and stopped. The air… it was getting harder to breathe. While, before, the air was crisp, if a bit cold, just as everywhere in the dungeon, now it felt still, almost like if he was breathing though a thin fabric.

  He almost went to curse, but managed to calm himself enough not to do so. Keep calm, lest you use more of the oxygen, he repeated in his head like a mantra. He’d not been in a situation like this exactly, but there were enough times when he had to rely on his quick wit to get himself out of a sticky situation.

  Glancing at the barrier again, he thought of using a spell after all, try to break it somehow, but then he shook his head. Too risky.

  Create something that would create oxygen for him, then. A plant, maybe? He attended the biology class in the academy for only a semester, but he remembered them breathing out oxygen after absorbing carbon dioxide. He opened his left satchel, full of herbs and salves, carried at all times by the order of Elsa, who promised to clobber Meriel if she found him not having them at the ready at any time. He smiled at the memory, but quickly shoved it away, his focus sharpening.

  He almost cast a spell, a spell that would revive a plant, but then… what plant will survive in absolute darkness?

  Yes, the darkness wasn’t absolute, but it was as dim as a place would get, and he had no hopes about any plant surviving without any sunlight. No, he needed something stronger. And he blanked at the idea.

  Maybe I should try that attack spell after all. Maybe a piercing one? He wondered, looking at the pulsing glow again. He considered his options, and suddenly another option pierced through the fog of his memories.

  The sandwich Elsa prepared for him. He hadn’t found the time to eat it, with all the fighting they’ve done, but he remember her telling him about the ingredients.

  And mushrooms were one of them. He reached out with his other hand, immediately stopping at the pain that shot up all the way up to his side, and then reached out with the other arm, snooping for the sandwich on his injured side.

  He found it crumpled up, pieces missing, but the most important ingredient was there. He smiled. Now just to combine it with the plant so it would actually create oxygen.

  …

  He blanked, no ideas coming to him. Combining elements of one form to adorn another was one thing, but combining two completely different life-forms was another. He found himself sweating profusely, the air getting noticeably thinner with each passing moment.

  A carrier, then, he realized. He could just create an animal, something that would carry the qualities of these two, so it would survive. Again, he reached into his satchel, looking for anything he could use. The sandwich was useless now. A knife, rope, a book he wanted to read in spare time but never managed to find the time for.

  And a scale. He forgot about taking it, with all that happened, but now he recalled sweeping it off from the ground, almost absentmindedly. A small chunk of flesh was still attached to it. He recalled the dragon, how it logged, the four legs and two giant wings on its back. It would be his only option. Create a new spell, a dragon, and then hope the attributes of his two other ingredients would transfer.

  He’d need more flesh, however. The small chunk on the scale was simply too little.

  His arm ebbed in pain again, and the idea came almost immediately. He lifted it, looking at the bone that pierced his skin near the wrist. Swallowed.

  And took out his knife.