POV Natalia Talios

  “This dungeon is strange.”

  Natalia turned at the statement to find Boris looking thoughtful even as his eyes roved their surroundings. They had found their way up on top of the deck quickly enough via an earthen ramp. Korim had been hard to convince that she was fine after her muffled outburst. She was somewhat frustrated that her conversation with Valterra had been cut short, especially considering the information he had dropped on her before leaving.

  “Oh,” Natalia said, some of her frustration converting to snarkiness. “What gave it away? Was it the overgrown deck? Us being so small that caterpillars tower over us? Or perhaps it was the System message and the dungeon being able to literally shrink us to three inches tall?!”

  Boris simply waved a hand dismissing her words. “No, although that all contributes. No, what I find stranger are the Aether levels.” At her baffled look, he sighed and looked toward the sky. “Haven’t you noticed the Aether fluctuating?”

  She nodded with a shrug. “Yes, but that’s pretty common for the Sylcyne Forest. We encountered that kind of thing on the way here.”

  Boris nodded as well, but his voice, when he replied, had a tone of academic interest in it. “Yes, but we aren’t in the Sylcyne forest anymore, are we? We’re in a dungeon. A dungeon that obviously doesn’t have a set breathing pattern. I said it before when we were below, but Aether is pooling in random places, probably around more of those pylons. If so, they’re spread out enough that the general density is similar to what a second floor might be if we were delving a normal dungeon.”

  Natalia winced at the subtle reminder of their eventual conversation about such a topic. They hadn’t got to it when they had rested, and none of her teammates had mentioned it directly, but she knew the time was coming, and soon. Boris continued speaking, as though he wanted to make sure he didn’t forget his train of thought.

  “What’s more, this dungeon shouldn’t be more than a couple of months old if what you’ve told us about your System message is true. How did it get all these different creatures so fast? And don’t get me started on how dense some of their Aether signatures are? Most dungeons move on from mice or rats as soon as they can! That isn’t the case here. Some are even Bronze Rank!”

  Natalia blinked before her mind began to whirl with the implications. It was true that most dungeons moved on from smaller creatures past the first few floors. To be honest, she hadn’t really noticed much. Her mind had been much more engaged with all of the mind-bending truths of reality Valterra had been dropping on her with all the subtlety of a couple of large boulders.

  What fights they had had on the way up to the second floor had been disappointing. They had quickly realised that most of the creatures on the lower floors wouldn’t offer much in the way of growth, and so they had taken to beating the living daylights out of them and then letting them slink off to lick their wounds. Still, Boris had a point, but her mind could only conclude that it was more of Valterra’s strangeness, which led her to a possible solution all on its own.

  “What about the System message…by the gods!” Natalia saw her party whirl to where she was looking, only to also stare up at what she had seen. A large serpentine head loomed out of the grass, a forked tongue darting out to bring air to its smelling pits. It looked down at the party hungrily, and Natalia thought she heard Aliria mumble in momentary fear, “Oh, why, why does the dungeon have snakes?”

  Boris’s voice broke the tense silence that had stolen over the group at the appearance of their next foe. “It’s a Bronze Rank,” he said, and there was an almost audible gasp of relief from Aliria that had Natalia smiling in spite of herself. Her friend had always hated snakes. Luckily, she had her bow, though her arrows would be hard to find if they missed, and they weren’t trying to kill the creatures, which made most of their weapons superfluous.

  Regardless, despite the fact that Aliria was trained in unarmed fighting, it was not her preferred method of combat. Natalia herself wished she could avail herself of her mace, but as a combat healer and a Silver-Core, she was liable to kill the beasts with a single blow. Fists had done the job so far, and they would continue to do so until they met more powerful denizens.

  The snake was fascinating. With red scales and a darker diamond pattern etched into its forehead, it was a beautiful creature. What stood out was the jagged nature of its scales. They gleamed with a sharpness that would have been concerning to a less experienced or powerful delving party. Even if they had been their proper size, a snake like that would likely cause deadly lacerations as it passed by.

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  With a snap of its sinuous body, it was moving, its mouth open wide to swallow one of them whole. Korim, the target of the attack, was perhaps the worst one it could have gone after if success was what it wanted. He flashed out of the way with effortless grace before snapping a leg upward that closed the snake’s jaw with the same force. The sound of the snake’s anguished hissing could be heard clearly even as it sought to curl its length around Korim.

  The tactic clued Natalia into the beast’s nature, and she called out as she watched Korim dance around the creature’s attempts. “It’s a constrictor of some kind! Watch for its scales!” Korim simply nodded even as he smirked at the snake’s attempts. She knew he had the situation well in hand, but it was her job as the party leader and healer to make sure her people were aware of their enemy. Now, she watched with her usual admiration as she watched Korim practically dance through the air as he evaded the snake’s attempts to catch him.

  Boris, evading the area of the battle, made his way over to her as his eyes watched the surrounding area. Standing next to her, he continued watching their surroundings even as he lowered his voice so that no one else would hear. “So now that you have accepted your title, will you also accept our Wayfinder’s pursuit?” His voice was coy and held an irritating tone of humour. She punched him, but not as hard as she could have, and to his credit, he didn’t flinch, though the punch did nothing to stop the blush from creeping up her neck.

  “Shut up,” she hissed at him, but she caught the sound of his silent chortling even as he stepped partially away to get out of punching range. Having determined they were safe, he turned and met her eyes, and Natalia was stunned for a moment by the piercing blue colour of them and the sincere focus they held.

  “He is a good man, cousin, and he loves you.” Boris held up a finger to stop her from speaking as he continued. “He has also kept his promise and has not pursued you in any way during this time of grief. He is a man of his word.” All true and yet she knew it wasn’t as easy as Boris made it seem. His family would never approve of his seeking out a human woman to be his bride.

  As if reading the hesitancy in her eyes, he put his meaty hand on her shoulder and gave her a reassuring squeeze. “Just think about it, Natalia, because I am sure he is. Besides, you may just become a Dungeon Keeper by the end of this, and there have been exceptions made before.” Then he walked away before she could get a word in. Insufferable man.

  Her cousin was many things, but he was one of the few people she trusted to give her the truth. It was he who had warned her against going to the guild with news of her grandfather’s death/murder, and it was he who had tried to shelter her from the fallout of that disastrous decision. He was the son of her father’s eldest brother and third in line for House Calien’s Headship should her Uncle pass away. They had always been close, and when she had offered him a place on her delving party, he had leapt at the chance to put his magical studies to practical use.

  And he was right. As she watched Korim finally drive off the snake, she knew, as they locked gazes, that Korim would renew his advances, but that he waited for any sign that she would accept them. She couldn’t give him that sign, but she still gave him the customary thumbs-up and congratulatory smile at his victory. Then she looked up at where they were headed and scowled. The dungeon was going to make them climb, if the successively higher ledges were anything to go by.

  She sighed, Boris, having left another weight upon her mind, and she motioned the group on with a hand signal. It was time to climb higher.

  POV Juvenile Wyvre (Guardian)

  The Wyvre looked out and down upon the world below, the chains of moss dangling in the light breeze that blew through the Creator’s domain. He crouched at the lip of his abode, his wings out front to help him maintain his weight, acting like two front legs. His back legs with their talons scraped the stone of his new roost even as his long, stocky neck let him peer over the edge at the tiny figures below. They were finally beginning to climb upwards.

  He could sense their power from here, the Aether in his blood singing an accompanying refrain to the Aether coursing through theirs. These were powerful visitors to his Creator’s domain, and his Creator wanted him to test them. Guardian though he was, he was still an animal, and his instincts wanted nothing more than to climb back up to perch on the ceiling and stay there. He might have done so only a few hours previously, but now he had The Gift.

  His Creator had blessed him with something else, something that pulsed in the Wyvre’s Spark like an anthem. It was as if he knew he would not die, or at least would not stay dead if killed. That subconscious awareness calmed the instincts and awakened the hunger of the hunt. The apex predator's nature was surging to the forefront, and only the Creator’s words kept the beast from bugling his hunting call to the skies. He must wait for them to begin climbing in earnest. Fight them when they were vulnerable.

  So the creature sat and waited, restless eyes roving over the morsels climbing higher. He no longer saw them as a threat but as prey to be confronted and consumed. He waited and waited and waited until at last they were halfway up. He would see they got no further. The Wyvre Guardian spread his wings and let out a booming bugle even as he leapt out of his roost. He fell at first, but then rose with a mighty flap of his wings and kept rising as he gained altitude. He circled, his powerful eyes finding his prey frozen on their moss bridges, eyes wide and staring. With an open mouth, the Wyvre Guardian dove for his prey.