It wasn’t difficult to defeat the animated weapons and shields so that I could land at the opening of the cave. A few strikes of low-level lightning bolts shattered the copper into smoldering pieces. Most dungeons I had entered had a hall or foyer that was devoid of traps or enemies, usually with some sort of warning. This one didn’t, but I simply assumed that it was due to my spell cutting the dungeon in half.

It made me curious as to what might happen to the other half. Were dungeons like worms that could regrow from broken sections? I took my tome out and began writing down questions I had that required further experimentation. Then I frowned as I recalled the two enormous monsters fighting to the south, snapped my book shut, and put it away.

I gazed further into the darkness of the tunnel before me and asked myself if this was the best use of my time. How many lives might be lost by adventuring here instead of returning to my tower to further prepare for the coming Pestilence? Could I even prepare a weapon powerful enough to defeat either the Tervan blood god or the hydra broodmother if I had enough time? What if I accepted a new Authority?

I had a suspicion that choosing another elemental would also open the adjoining spells. Learning fire would open magma spells or water would open mud. What was I doing adventuring at a time like this? I shook my head and turned away but something sticking out of a broken spear shaft caught my attention. Mana crystal. Why would the enchanted weapons require mana crystals as a power source if they were dungeon creatures? That didn’t make sense.

I looked closer, and also saw death crystals in the remains, some with souls still trapped inside. That explained the air of necromancy I felt, but it didn’t make sense either. I began to sift through the parts and pieces of these animated copper weaponry, and I could see the tell-tale signs of hand-wrought enchanting work. These things weren’t dungeon creatures at all! Someone had made them! Was this a crypt of some long-dead enchanter? If so, the knowledge it held might be useful in the coming battles.

With renewed enthusiasm, I shifted my attention back to the dark tunnel and prepared myself for a dungeon dive. Additional wards for exotic attacks, my flight spell exchanged for a levitation one, recasting my invisibility spell, adding new layers to my existing wards that prevented magical fear or charm, and more. Even a new defensive ward that would respond to magical attacks with my nullifying lightning, a reminder of the three dead blood mages above.

I had lost my friend Ram to a dungeon monster in the time it took to blink an eye, and I had entirely too many responsibilities and burdens to lose myself the same way. Only when I felt completely prepared, did I proceed.

The first tunnel I traveled down contained numerous more enchanted weaponry, just like the ones I destroyed above, but I was more cautious now. I pulled at the walls of the tunnel and created barriers of soft earth that hardened when pierced, entrapping the enchanted weapons inside. A few went into my bag of holding after I carefully removed the death crystals.

The swords were of a thick curved blade that had no guard. Their handles were hollow and filled with a cylindrically cut mana crystal, with a death crystal mounted on the pommel. From the enchantments, it looked like the mana crystals drew mana from the air and the trapped souls inside the death crystals which directed the movement. The shields and spears were constructed similarly.

I was an hour or so into the tunnel, using a light spell to find my way when I came across the first deviation. Instead of the three types of weapons I normally saw, the entire tunnel was covered with throwing knives. The light from my spell glimmered off bunches of them as they scrambled about in groups. The clinging or chiming when they touched created a chaotic noise, and I just watched on in amazement. There were hundreds—no, thousands—of them! All in this one hallway.

Of course, that made them easy to trap. I simply softened the earth around them and hardened it back when they touched it. Beyond the sheer number of them, it was also interesting to see that I could recognize the type of creature bound to the death crystal: rats. The movements when they moved, the way the tip quivered when it held still, it was clear to me that they were rats. Then, upon considering the age of the things, I recognized that it may be the spirits of some animal precursor to rats.

The style of weapons, the enchantments, and the use of spirits all spoke to me that this was a cavern from a previous age. I had been in a few, but most of those known across Sena had already been explored. I was the first to discover this tomb, and if there remained a single scroll on enchantment or necromancy here, then it could advance my knowledge in those subjects tenfold!

A few more miles of tunnel led me to another type of enchanted creation. This one was a suit of bronze armor, full plate, though the size of it was too short. The height was barely to my waist, but the length of the halberds they carried were a man’s height. Still, nothing that could escape being trapped within walls of stone and hardened earth, but the enchantments within were even more complex. I only took two of these for future examination and noted that the stylistic designs on the outside didn’t match any of the five kingdoms' art styles.

The tunnel carried on for miles in such a way, with odd turns that led down deeper into the earth. The twists and turns looked as though they were carved out by primitive hand tools, with no worry as to aesthetic. It made me wonder if I would be coming upon an enchanted pickax or shovel soon. I was certain it had turned to nighttime when I came to a large open cavern, big enough to house my reflection lake inside.

My weeks-long journey made me miss sitting on my tower-top sipping wine as the sun set. It was the type of habit that helped me to relax and calm myself when my thoughts grew too jumbled.

Yet, my lake wasn’t here. What was here was an uneven cavern that dipped in the center like a valley. Water dripped from stalactites in little rivulets into a shallow stream at the bottom of the valley. Here was the first place I had seen light other than my own as I traveled, and it came from low burning fires on either side of the cavern. I had seen the lights as I approached and dimmed my own until it was nothing so as not to be noticed myself.

Those fires revealed two villages of goblins, one to either side of the cavern, and I used my magic to float up towards the ceiling to take the sight in. I wasn’t certain what I had been expecting, but this certainly wasn’t it. The design and make of the weapons and armor were much more well-crafted than anything I had ever seen made by goblin hands. The enchantments as well, much more complex than any spells I had seen a goblin cast.

It made me wonder how this group of goblins came to be. I had heard stories of dark elves that lived deep beneath the world, creatures of shadows and whispers, but I had assumed that those elves weren’t affected when the gods cursed my kind to their goblin forms. The questions that drove me so far beneath the surface seemed to compound here, as I watched on. Inside the villages, there were pens of rats. A goblin would pick one from the pen with his hands, heedless of biting and scratching, and bring it to a long table or altar to kill it. On that altar was only a sacrificial dagger made of stone and a handful of tiny death crystals. It confirmed my suspicion that the daggers acted like rats.

The more I watched, the more details I took in. Each goblin wore a death crystal tied to their arm, belt, or about their neck. Those crystals were larger, the size of the crystals used as the pommel of swords or the counterweight on the spears.

Yet, it wasn’t peaceful in these two villages, instead, they seemed to be in the midst of an ongoing feud. Warriors from each side would dart across the stream at the bottom of the cavern and ambush warriors from the other side. Or kidnap what I assumed to be goblin women. The goblin children weren’t protected from this, either, and I saw more than one cut down or grabbed as well.

Despite the ongoing violence, I saw goblins that grew mushrooms, goblins that sharpened stone tools, goblins braiding rope from hair, and all manner of normal activities. Other goblins, tattooed with strange pictograms, moved among them untouched. Their sole duty seemed to be gathering the dead.

It was only when three goblin shamans stepped forth from the tunnel on the other side of the cavern that all activities halted. Three figures, each wearing armor made of bones and leather, their faces tattooed in poor designs, carried a woven basket in one hand and a staff in the other. From what I could make out, each staff was also made of bone and leather with a death crystal cut in the shape of an orb on the top.

Those three shamans went about their business collecting the filled death crystals and little else. When they departed, most of the other goblins continued their work as if nothing happened, but the tattooed ones lifted the dead bodies and followed behind. My focus was no longer on them or any but the magic users. Where were those shamans headed? I followed along, ignoring the renewed movements and noises of the goblin villages below.

First, through several twisting tunnels that branched out in unusual ways. Goblins toiled in these tunnels as well, mining copper ore and mana stones from the walls with tools of stone and bone, and placing them in woven baskets. A procession of goblins carrying these heavy stone baskets formed behind the shamans, mixing in with those that carried bodies, as they all walked forward.

Strangely enough, it was a silent procession. I suspected it might be religious in nature, but I had never seen goblins worship anything that wasn’t a twisted idol or monstrosity. If that was the case here, I didn’t know. I had never suspected that anything they worshipped might be intelligent. What intelligent being would want the worship of goblins? The elder wyvern I had seen came to mind. It wouldn’t, but if a creature like that existed, then perhaps another ancient beast might. Yet, I found that difficult to believe. Even if they did worship a beast, what beast enchanted weapons?

The next chamber that we came to was a stone bridge, roughly cut, that passed over a large cavern. I marveled when I looked over the side and saw that the cavern was completely filled with the standing suits of armor. Suits just like the enchanted ones I fought earlier. It was several armies’ worth of suits of armor, all precisely the same. These were enchanted as well but stood unmoving in the darkness.

The goblins paid them no mind, and I only looked down appreciating the work it took to craft for a moment before I carried on.

On the other side of the bridge, the tunnel continued, leading to an unusual room. The walls here were cut with more precision, and the floor was flatter, even if I didn’t land to test it. Inside the room, the walls broadened to either side, and three things immediately attracted my attention.

The first was the large pool of stagnant blood in the very center of the room. The goblins passed it by with nervous glances as they went about their business.

Bodies of the dead were tossed into a shallow pit on the left, sloshing onto piles of other decomposing corpses. Around it grew other death crystals in numerous small, jagged spikes. Two other shamans stood to either side of the pits, both harvesting and cutting death crystals.

On the right, lit forges burned brightly, the heat strong enough that I could feel it through my wards. Around those forges, the skeletons of ogres or trolls worked the metal or fashioned the blades, a beautiful working of necromancy. Stone bins were nearby and the goblins dropped mana stones in one and death crystals in another before retreating to the center of the room.

There an elderly shaman, the sixth one I had seen and apparent leader of the group, sliced the forearms of each goblin before it was allowed to leave. Those injured, held their arms over the pool, dripping blood into it, before departing. The three shamans that had brought the filled death crystals joined the other two by the pit of bodies, and began to harvest and cut the crystals with them. All five worked in a wordless silence.

There were so many novel sights here that I wanted to observe, but the most novel of all were the double doors on the opposite end of the room. Those doors carried the same markings as the armor being crafted, and I was sure that whoever or whatever enchanted the armors and weapons was behind them. Did they work for the goblins or did the goblins work for them? Were they a prisoner held captive or a commander?

I had yet to feel the flows of mana I had come to associate with a dungeon core, but I felt them now. Not nearly as strong as I suspected, but that dungeon core was also behind the door. That was what I had come for, overtly. I considered turning back now. There were miles of tunnel behind me, and I hadn’t slept. It might not be best to challenge the last room of a dungeon in my condition. Yet when one of the skeletons stopped crafting weapons and gathered up an armload of spears for delivery, I swiftly followed behind.

I wasn’t disappointed.