I followed Dru'hazzak out of the cavern and into the stone passageways beyond. Creating a proper scene of devastation without a wide open space wasn't easy, but these tunnels were trying their best. Scars of spells were everywhere, as were the corpses of monsters and the occasional dwarf. A hint of burnt flesh permeated the air, and blood of varying colours stained the walls and ground. We even passed a couple more pits, suggesting the monsters had tunnelled into more areas than ours. Other areas that wouldn't have had the benefit of a hundred armed delvers being able to spring into action... How far behind the battlefront had the monsters spread? How bad were the civilian casualties? I could hear the sounds of fighting in the distance, coming from all directions, so whatever was happening was still ongoing.

I was correct about the warehouse being near the dungeon entrance, and we soon found ourselves standing outside of a huge pair of stone doors, ten metres tall and just as wide, intricate patterns carved into the frame. A few rows of delvers were blocking the entrance, dealing with the constant stream of monsters that were spewing out.

"Rank fours, to me!" shouted Dru'hazzak, at which there was a massive crash from the dungeon entrance, and within seconds half a dozen figures had assembled themselves around us. "Did everyone get the quest to destroy the dungeon core?"

There was a collection of nods. The sounds of battle had died away for the moment, one of the rank fours presumably having pulled off something like the Dawnhold guild master's move in order to be able to leave briefly without the remaining line of delvers getting overrun.

"Great. Peter here says the core should be accessible from the final boss chamber. Hurry and describe to us how to find it."

"No," said the only other rank four I recognised, the elf Tilyana. I didn't have [Oracle] down as a combat class, but she was staying in the delvers guild, so I suppose it wasn't too surprising. "A description is of no use to the blind. He must be our eyes."

"What's that supposed to mean? Stop talking in riddles."

"The entrance to the core chamber is normally hidden by powerful soul affinity magic," I clarified. "I have a trait that lets me see through it, but without something like that, you can't get through the door even if you know it's there. The earth mother may have removed the cloak for us, but I can't guarantee it."

Tilyana remained as inscrutable as ever... I thought Erryn had scrubbed that knowledge from everyone's memories, so how did she know the door was hidden?

Dru'hazzak tutted and scowled, folding one pair of arms. He was obviously unhappy about me taking up a place in the party, whether that was because I would take up the space of someone more useful or because he thought I would be too hard to protect.

"We need to hurry," said someone else, a stocky dwarf in a full suit of plate mail. "The line won't hold long without us."

"Right, we'll just have to..."

What his plan was, we didn't get to hear, because at that point the ceiling flowed. The rock simply seemed to decide it was in the wrong place, and needed to move to the correct place as expediently as possible, forming a perfect circle that stretched nearly from wall to wall.

"Now what?" muttered Dru'hazzak, planting his feet firmly into the ground and getting into a fighting stance.

"Wait," shouted the dwarf. "This one is on our side! Take him with you. He'll have no trouble protecting the kid."

With that the dwarf turned and dived back to the front lines, where combat had since restarted, and the other fourth ranks followed him. I didn't pay them any mind though, being too busy staring at the gigantic winged beast crawling from the new passageway above.

Kranakellicium, Dragon, Sovereign of Stone and Flame, (?/?)

Henry had mentioned that a dragon lived in these mountains, and for some reason I had assumed that dragons were monsters. I was wrong... I had finally found a species that wasn't just a human with extra bits glued on. There was also the issue that whoever had named him didn't seem to know when to stop. This one was definitely going to need a nickname.

He dropped from the ceiling, a single wing beat slowing his descent just above the ground. He was a reddish-brown, covered in scales, each larger than my hand, standing on four legs, at least five metres tall and twice as long. Thrice, if I included his tail, which was curled around in order to fit in the cavern. He looked around with interest, taking in the ongoing battle, before twisting around to look at me and Dru'hazzak.

Kranakellicium, Dragon, targeted you with [Athena's Insight]

ding

Skill [Secrecy] advanced to level 7

What the heck was that skill? The dragon's tail lashed once against the ground, shattering the rock and raising a cloud of dust.

"It does not seem to be for no reason that the System has granted me this quest," he said, his voice a low-pitched growl. "Explain."

What was a succinct way of putting it? While I was thinking, Dru'hazzak got in first. "A dungeon break on an unprecedented scale, and it's continuing to worsen. We've had level forty monsters tunnelling to the surface, bypassing the dungeon entrance completely. Apparently, destroying the dungeon core will stop it, but this kid here is the only one who can see through the illusion that protects it. We need to get him to the final boss safely."

Yeah, that was pretty succinct. But... level forty? We were fortunate that we only got ogres.

The dragon nodded once, then reached out a clawed limb and grabbed me. Umm... Did he consider asking first? I mean, I know we're in a hurry, but still... "The tunnel to floor forty. Is it intact?" he growled.

"Yes," answered Dru'hazzak. "This way."

He ran from the room, away from the dungeon entrance, and the dragon followed after plonking me down on his back. I grasped hold of his scales as best as I could, but they really weren't designed as hand-holds, and fit together too tightly for me to get a good grip. It didn't help that this dragon apparently came without suspension, making the ride incredibly uncomfortable. Nevertheless, we moved far faster than I could have on foot, short of using [Weft Walk], which seemed like a bad idea in an unknown, enclosed space.

A few minutes later, we came out in an absolutely massive cavern, and where the passageways had attempted a scene of devastation, this cavern had fully succeeded. Corpses were everywhere, dwarf and monster alike. There had obviously been buildings built in here at some point, but now they were nothing but rubble. Wherever we were looked like habitation. Or, more accurately, that it used to be habitation. Now it was ruins.

"No... What have I..."

What? Erryn is still following along here? But she still sounded out of it. The other two didn't react at all, so presumably she was still speaking only to me, if speaking was the right description. More like mumbling in her sleep. Calling this alarming was an understatement, and I really hoped that I wasn't responsible for this in some way...

We headed towards a pit that had a couple of delvers guarding it, staring at our three-person party in astonishment, but Dru'hazzak leapt in without saying anything. The dragon, whose name I'd already forgotten, jumped in afterwards, which was an impressive trick given that the pit was less than three metres wide, and the dragon, well, wasn't. The walls of the pit simply flowed around him, and we descended in some sort of rocky bubble. Sovereign of stone, indeed.

The tunnel we followed wasn't straight, but twisted around, with multiple offshoots and branches. Dru'hazzak had pulled out a light crystal, and we followed whichever path sloped down. I could feel the mana density rising, so I hurriedly shoved my lightning glove into my [Item Box], hoping that would protect it from an overload. It wasn't as if it had much effect on the ogres, so I doubt I'd miss it against even higher level monsters. To think a weapon that was so overpowered in Dawnhold's dungeon would be so weak here...

A few more minutes, and we came to a T-junction where the stone changed. The dragon stopped abruptly. "This stone is ruled by another," he rumbled. "We have reached the dungeon?"

"Yes," answered Dru'hazzak, pulling out maps. "From the mana density, this is indeed the fortieth floor. We'll need to move about some more to find out exactly where we are, though. I'm not familiar with this place."

The dragon nodded and then shrank. I leapt off his back, slightly worried that I'd been forgotten, given that I hadn't said a single word since he had shown up. When he started changing size, I'd assumed he was going to transform into a human or something, but nope. We now had a miniature dragon, still walking on all fours.

I activated all three physical buffs, and was happy to find that in this mana density, funnelling mana would let me keep all three active at all times. Not that they'd be likely to help against the monsters we'd be running into, but it at least made me feel better.

It took a few rooms before Dru'hazzak got his bearings, and he started leading us towards the boss chamber. This dungeon had none of the square passageways and hard corners of Dawnhold, or any of its internal light. The walls were dark stone, and looked like natural caves. Something else the dungeon didn't appear to have was monsters, but perhaps that was simply because they were all making their way up.

I got to see the flame half of the dragon's class when we reached the boss chamber, and he breathed out a bout of fire that left the room a mess of lava and red-hot rock. I didn't even have the chance to see what the boss had been, having been trailing too far behind. Of course, that left the problem of how exactly I was supposed to cross the field of lava to get to the other side...

The dragon breathed back in, and drew the heat in with the air. The rock cracked and popped as it cooled. Okay, never mind, problem already sorted. Feeling so far out of my depth that the shore was only a distant memory, I continued to follow the two downwards.

It wasn't until floor forty-six that we saw our first non-boss monsters. Two of them, and they were fighting each other. That was strange enough that the dragon refrained from immediately erasing them. They both looked like shambling, humanoid piles of rock, but one was stumbling and dragging itself around, as if it were being pulled about by strings, with black veins pulsating across its surface. I fired [Appraisal] at both.

Imbued Rock Golem, level 46

Normally I'd have complained about the regular one. Imbued with what, exactly? This time, though, I was more concerned about the second. I was seeing that error marker quite a lot more today than I was comfortable with...

While I was distracted by appraisal results, the black veined golem shoved its fist into the torso of the first one, and the black veins started to spread around the impact site. The normal-looking golem stuttered, then froze up, before the broken one turned to face us.

[Danger Sense] flared, but before I could react, the dragon melted them both.

ding

Skill [Danger Sense] advanced to level 5

What had it been about to do? As far as I'd seen in their previous fight, they had no ranged abilities.

"I don't suppose you have any explanation for that one?" asked Dru'hazzak as we started moving again.

"Not a clue," I answered. "[Appraisal] just displayed an error."

"As did my skills," squeaked the dragon, his voice now amusingly higher pitched after his size change.

"Corrupted... Remnants... Why... I... Destroyed..."

Erryn faded back out again. "The earth mother said something about corrupted remnants."

The dragon's head snapped around. "You are in communication with Erryn?" he asked, which made me blink in surprise. He knew her name?

"Not really... She sounds barely conscious. She keeps mumbling stuff telepathically, but isn't responsive."

"That is... disturbing. If whatever is here has incapacitated the earth mother, even my presence may be insufficient to rout it."

Again, no-one is questioning why the earth mother is speaking to me. It's nice to not have that bit of attention on me, but I wish I knew why people behaved that way. They should be all over me... Well, maybe not the dragon, since he obviously knew Erryn by name already, but Dru'hazzak hadn't batted an eyelid either.

We came across more corrupted monsters on floor forty-seven, but none survived a dose of dragon breath. Whenever one turned to look at us, [Danger Sense] flared for no visible reason. [Mana Perception] showed nothing either. It wasn't until I gave [Soul Perception] a try that I saw what was happening; these monsters had souls. Black, viscous things, that didn't match the structure of the monsters they possessed, but twisted and wrapped around them like some sort of worm-like parasite. Which was probably exactly what they were; we'd already watched them taking over a monster, and what [Danger Sense] was responding to was them sending their tendrils at our group.