My stone-tusk rats were investigating the smoldering remains of the cauldron, pawing over the shallow crater of igneous rock that had formed as the fiery magma hardened to stone.

Below, the core was still a molten churn, slowly splintering into distinct strata of mineral and rock as the trapped heat pushed the elements to bind and separate. But the rats were sensing something already, scratching at the scar of smooth black rock. Somewhere beneath a treasure of the earth was forming.

All around the island, fiery flowers were blooming. They seemed to be half-solid and half-phantasm; they grew, unfurled their burning petals, and wilted away to nothing in the blink of an eye, leaving behind sparks that drifted through the air. The phenomenon was beautiful, but I sensed a life to the flowers, a rude sentience; they were tiny elementals growing and dying in the span of seconds.

How I had created them was another question. Was it simply imbuing sufficient Mana into the flame, or had something else been needed? Were they loyal to me, like my purposeful creations, or would they grow aggressive as the earth-elementals had?

If I was right, I suspected I’d formed something similar to the earth-geodes where the stone-hounds and the earth-lizard had been born. A combination of Mana, crystalline elements, and fire had birthed something new.

And if so, I had every cause for elation.

But did it have to be now? I could hardly wait for the magma to cool, but time and time again, my attention was drawn towards the jungle above, where the hunters were fighting against my creations.

Trivelin had pleaded for me to make the hunting grounds less deadly than my lower floors, and I had, grudgingly, obliged. There were no waiting traps, no singularly lethal foes. As long as they avoided being surrounded they would live.

Still, my terrors had claimed several lives already. Aurum hunted in the southern regions, tearing apart the poor convicts with their useless knives. His bloodrage was frightening even to me. The noble, gentle creature I knew seemed to vanish, replaced by a seething blur of golden scales, a flash of pink jaws and gleaming teeth, a burst of fire coming up from deep within. His mantis claws and scorpion pincers ripped flesh with abandon.

And throughout, I saw the moments of horror and wonder. I reaped satisfaction in those silent pauses, those looks upwards, lost in the dense and unnatural foliage of the jungle. The moments where they paused to lean down and inspect some small, strange blossom of flora, or paused to sip water from their canteens and followed the drift of a lantern-mushroom up towards the artificial sky.

Cabochon had done well. It was not as singular in vision as the Field of Lament, not as delicate and alien as the Garden of Glass Bells, but the surreal notion of the sky lent something to the colorful and vibrant sprawl of foliage below.

I was proud of him. Proud and worried.

There was something about these adventurers. Every one of them warped the Mana of my Dungeon around them, shaping it by their very presence. They all had their own form of magic.

The arachne’s glaive slammed down, smashing into Caiorre’s crossed-blade guard and throwing his arms aside- before he could recover the backswing tore the tip of the glaive through his left shoulder, ripping loose a long spray of blood.

The spear plunged forward, and the swordsman barely managed to twist to deflect with his one blade. It was a miracle he was still on his feet. The sheer force behind the goliath man-spider’s blows was very nearly throwing Caiorre about, every impact straining him muscle and bone as sparks scraped from the collision of steel, and the flow of blood from his shoulder painted his crippled arm red.

A bolt of fire lanced out from Nolan Mhurr’s hands, forcing the spider back as the brilliant gout of red rippled and rebounded around his armor. A hiss of pain came growling from behind that skeletal mask.

In the moment the fire faded and she had a clear sight to those blank, hollow sockets, Tyrna let her arrow slip from her grasp, bowstring plucking a clear note as it sent the arrow into flight. It jumped across the short distance in a blur-

The spider caught it in one hand, snapping the shaft.

And then he rushed forward again, slashing wide, forcing Caiorre to jump back or be thrown aside. In the moment before the swordsman could recover, the glaive pushing forward, smashing into him directly. Caiorre pivoted again, turning so the force passed by him, rasping against his single sword.

This time the spider drew back, stepped forward, and brought the haft whirling around. There was no escaping - Caiorre was lifted from his feet and thrown through the air, and the glaive was already raised, ready to come sweeping down on one of them.

“Scatter!” Tyrna roared, her fingers already moving, drawing another arrow from the quiver at her back. She ran forward, firing up, planting the shot perfectly into the gap in the underarm of the spider’s armor. It reared up, and she realized now every leg was a blade, slashing through the air, seeking for her. She somehow found the grace of the wind and pivoted before her momentum took her squarely into a deadly kick, circling back, ducking-

Her heart beat like thunder. She felt blood roaring in her ears.

The glaive sang as it swept through the air, her only warning. Tyrna flung herself head over heels to escape as the blade ripped through the ground, sending up a spray of loamy earth and fungal spore that splashed against her as she rolled away. She came up on her knees, lifting an arrow, firing, moving faster than she ever had before, letting sheer instinct guide the shot.

And still.

Still it wasn’t enough.

The spider lifted the haft of its glaive to deflect the arrow away, and now it lunged past her, seeing Mhurr shaping a new magic and lifting its weapon to cut him and his knotted spellcraft in two.

Henri intervented. Wisps shot towards the spider’s helm, congregating in a cloud of pale fire and igniting, giving their all to go up in a great roar of brilliant light that blinded the spider for a split second, tongues of ghostly white flame spreading across its armor with tiny threads of rainbow light within.

Mhurr lunged aside and simply threw his half-formed spell. It went off like an explosive, delicate characters and complex diagrams unfurling in a blast of golden flame that knocked the spider back and threw Nolan aside with the rippling wave of force that washed backwards.

Two colors of flame wrapped around the guardian’s body.

Tyrna ran to Caiorre, finding him already fighting his way up. It was bad. He was almost split in two by the touch of that glaive, by a glancing blow, but he wore a smile on his blood-streaked face. “Pocket.” He gasped. “Pocket.” He was fumbling to get something out of his front pocket.

She reached in, and found a vial, glimmering with a single drop of azure liquid.

Lifting it to his lips, she watched his wounds stitch themselves together, a shining light working to knit new muscles and bone until there was nothing left but a shiny pink scar. His left fingers curled into a fist.

Grasping her shoulder, he levered himself up, and they ran to the battle. She drew an arrow and fired, drawing the half-blind spider’s attention. This time, as its glaive swept down, Caiorre had the strength to meet it.

Their blades locked, steel ringing out, and Caiorre shoved back, surprising the beast. It reared up, slamming a bladed leg down - where he used to be.

It was like he had lost ten years, ten years of feeling his body slow and his muscles decay. For a moment she was seeing Caiorre in the prime of his life.

He dodged the stomp, deflected a sweeping kick, and now he was in the shadow of the beast. It brought its weight down, and he was like a shadow, light as a feather, dodging five limbs and meeting the sixth with a whirling flash of steel that broke through.

The spider roared in anger, blood leaking from its stump as Caiorre danced free, his blade sweeping a shallow cut across its bulbous abdomen.

Tyrna peppered it with arrows from the front, a lucky shot finding the gap in its armor just across the gut. They had it flanked now, unable to devote its attention to either one of them, Henri and Mhurr hiding somewhere in the brush.

And it knew it.

It was desperate.

It was clumsy.

But above all, it was a cornered animal, and those were the most dangerous of all.

With a sudden howl of anger, it spun and flung its glaive towards Caiorre. The blade sung as it sailed forward with awe-inspiring force, ripping a long, keening note from the air as it travelled. He deflected, barely, but the force slammed him down to one knee, and the spider rushed forward, reaching-

It caught him by the air, plucking him into the air, crushing down with bladed fingers as his sword jabbed into the meat of its arm and twisted, trying to cut the tendons and make the beast release him.

Tyrna had a single shot before the guardian finished him, and her fingers were suddenly trembling. All her life she had hunted game. She had been the predator. Now she was prey.

It was an unsteadying moment of realization.

And in that moment-

“Hey!” Draig shouted, the old greybeard standing with his staff held high, poised to bring it crashing down on a grey-blue egg that lay in a nest at the breach’s edge.

The spider froze. Just for an instant, just for a heartbeat.

Tyrna’s fingers knew what to do better than her mind did. Before she could even think, before she could recognize the opportunity, she had already let the shot fly.

The arrow blurred from the twang of her bowstring and reappeared, thrust through the gap at the back of the spider’s helm, sticking through its spine.

“Hhhaa...” A trembling, gasping almost-laugh left her lips.

Caiorre dropped from suddenly loose fingers, falling to the ground and barely rolling aside in time to escape being buried. The spider’s legs toppled from under it, the human half slumping forward, the helm spilling off as it crashed into the dirt below.

Dead.