By the time my first scout checked in, Alexis had killed five more alligators.

“They’re coming more quickly now,” Shiro noted after stomping a sixth’s skull in. “They’re not dangerous, but…”

This had been the first one since we’d started moving to the location reported by my scout, which all but confirmed to me that they were targeting us and we hadn’t simply been intruding on their territory.

Sarah grunted in assent. “Must be the dungeon trying to put pressure on us. It starts easy, and then little by little—”

“It would have been uncharacteristic of a dungeon to let us search in peace,” I said, once again checking for creatures breaching my spell’s perimeter. “There’s something coming ahead and to the right—it’s something else, though. Bigger than the alligators.”

Without being prompted, Winnie took point, readying himself for the incoming beast. It still surprised me to see initiative in him. While I did know, logically, that he was cut from the same cloth as Etin, I didn’t hold the same expectations for the undead bear.

I felt a prickle of guilt at that thought. It was unfair of me to think so, and yet…

What came out of the thicket was closer to what I would have expected from a dungeon, but was still built on top of an actual animal. Its shape was that of a panther, but its fur was dark and mana oozed off it as a mist so thick it was almost liquid. With the naked eye, it was impossible to tell where the panther ended and where the mists began.

It looked almost like a moving shadow, and if not for my keeping an eye out, it would probably have caught us unawares.

“Let me handle this one,” Cam said, stepping up ahead of the group. “I want to try something.” He patted Winnie’s rump, who took a few steps back—enough to let Cam take the lead, but remaining close enough to intervene.

The rest of us remained a respectable distance behind. Against single half-monster like this, I wasn’t at all worried. It would only be when they started attacking in groups that they might pose a danger, and at the moment, it didn’t seem like the dungeon was planning to do so.

I watched Cam through Soul Sight as he readied his spell. He wove Force, as was expected, in the shape of a lance. What wasn’t expected was the smidgen of Fate he placed at the tip. A tiny fragment, but that was all you needed for something like this.

The flow of Fate mana was awkward and choppy, and it lengthened the time it took him to activate the spell, but the Force Spear flew true in the most literal sense of the word. It impacted the beast somewhere in the front—somewhere I’d have thought was empty space, but turned out to be the beast’s head.

It died with shock on its face, not expecting its mirage to be seen through.

And truly, it hadn’t been. You didn’t need to see through the illusion to punch straight through it.

“An interesting combination,” I told him as he returned to the fold. “Did you draw inspiration from True Strike?”

Cam nodded with a satisfied grin. “I couldn’t do True Strike—I’m not good enough with Fate. But I figured out I could attach a payload to my Force Spear, so I tried it out with different kinds of mana. It’s not as accurate as the real thing, but it’s good enough.”

I nodded thoughtfully. “A good approach. You played to your strengths while covering for the lack of flexibility. I approve.”

Cam beamed. He did usually take well to praise, and this was well deserved. Much better spell-casting than when I first started training him.

We continued along the path given by the scout goose, encountering a few more alligators and panthers on the way. The last encounter was a pair consisting of one of each beast, but they were still not strong enough to register as a threat.

Still. The pressure was steadily mounting. It wouldn’t be long before the dungeon brought out the big tricks.

I received a few more reports from my scouts. Two more had discovered structures matching the description I’d given them, which was a bit worrying. We had limited time to explore, and if they were far apart…

With a bit of luck, the temple would be in the first location we searched.

Realistically, it wouldn’t, but it never hurt to hope.

~*~

An ancient pillar stood ruined among the trees. Half of it had toppled over, a thick moss covering it as it had settled at the bottom of the swamp. The half that still stood was in a no better condition.

It was the right track, at least. The style of carvings on the pillar matched the ones on the spear. For the sake of thoroughness, we spent a few more minutes checking the area, in case the pillar marked a hidden entrance of some sort.

We found nothing.

Time limit: 10 hours 46 minutes

After making sure we hadn’t missed something obvious, we started in the direction of the second site. If there was a silver lining, it was that both sites were roughly in the same direction.

As we walked, Shiro tested out the spear on a few of our next ambushers.

“Eh,” he said, disappointed, as he wiped the blood off the blade on a panther’s fur. “I was hoping it’d shoot lightning or something. This is pretty lame.”

“I wouldn’t get used to it,” Alexis warned. “We’ll have to part with it soon, remember?”

“It’s not my style anyway,” Shiro agreed. “I just hoped it had some abilities to let us cheat the test. But nah, it’s just a plain old spear.”

“That can turn fifteen feet long,” Cam noted.

“And that.”

Conversation petered off after that. Traversing the swamp was annoying at best, and the increasing amount of attacks was keeping us on our toes.

I actually missed an ambush, at one point, from a gang of tree-bound monkeys. I learned, then, that the human propensity for not looking up also extended to surveying spells. They were individually weak, but they used swarm tactics to their advantage.

Their only mistake had been to try to get the drop on who they’d taken for the weakest—Cam. The young mage promptly detonated his Force shield, sending the monkeys flying into the trees.

Some died from the impact alone, and the ones who didn’t were made short work of.

The second group of monkeys was even less lucky.

In the end, we made good time to the second location.

It was already a better sight than the first try, but it became quickly obvious that this place wasn’t a temple, either. The only notable features were two pillars and a broken arch.

What was interesting was that the arch faced the third direction perfectly.

“Third time’s the charm?” Sarah asked.

“If it isn’t, then we may be in trouble,” I said. “There’s been no more scouts checking in after the third.”

“It’s alright, it’s always the third. Plus, this dungeon looks like it has a flair for the dramatic,” Shiro said.

Sarah glared at him. “Shush. That’s how you jinx it.”

He rolled his eyes. “Really, your superstitiousness is getting boring.”

“It’s not superstition when we’re in a stupid sentient dungeon that’s probably listening to everything we say!”

Shiro arched an eyebrow. “Then you probably shouldn’t call it stupid to its face.”

Sarah blanched. “Right.” She looked up at the sky. “Sorry, dungeon. Slip of the tongue.”

Shiro rolled his eyes.

“Does that even count as an apology?” Alexis asked.

Sarah shrugged. “It’s not like I’m going to grovel. I’ve got standards.”

“Really? Could have fooled me,” Shiro said, smirking.

Sarah’s glare intensified. “Do you want—”

“Straight to your left,” I called out.

An arrow passed a hair’s breadth away from Sarah’s head. To her left, a creature’s lifeless body thumped as it hit the ground.

“—to get smacked again? Cause that’s how you get smacked again,” Sarah finished, completely unperturbed by the quick execution.

“Save it for later,” I said. “We have more company incoming.”

She let it go, falling into position, though the look in her eyes spoke of future retribution to come. The attacks were still intensifying. And the time…

Time limit: 10 hours 03 minutes

Two hours in, and the waves of enemies were starting to become difficult. They were still made up of the strange, mutated animals instead of the mana creatures I was used to, which was somewhat of a boon. In dungeons back home, it was difficult to destroy the dungeon denizens directly with spells—they were naturally resistant to magic.

The same wasn’t true for these monsters. They were still less affected by spells than a being with normal mana levels, but for my purposes, the difference was small enough that my magic found purchase, however tenuous.

There were enough enemies now that I couldn’t take them lightly anymore. I’d limited myself to attacks in the physical realm, relishing in the fact that the dungeon monsters couldn’t shrug them off anymore, but the waves were getting exponentially bigger.

The problem with both Soul and Mind was that, while both were uniquely suited to neutralizing a single, powerful opponent, doing so was costly and not at all applicable to a war of attrition. Any kind of large-scale castings required the subjects to be asleep, or as close to asleep as possible. The waking mind was an order of magnitude more difficult to affect directly.

If I started attacking the enemies’ minds, I’d be exhausting my reserves within minutes, and it didn’t seem like there would be an end to the enemies any time soon.

That didn’t mean Mind was wholly useless, though. Less direct spells worked well enough—specifically, illusions. Right now, I was using it to great effect to confuse our attackers’ senses—like a heavy fog they couldn’t part, which existed only in their imagination.

It rendered them ineffective, but it was only a matter of time until we were overrun, anyway.

At least, that would have been true if we were using conventional tactics. But I didn’t have to limit myself to that, did I?

Raising beasts on the fly, especially when they were bloated on mana, was difficult enough that it wouldn’t have been feasible for the me of a year ago. But didn’t I have Origin mana now? Couldn’t I just use it to smooth the process?

I could, and I did. The beasts fell in battle, and then rose as my Wights, ready to fight what seconds before had been their allies. The dungeon wanted a war of attrition? Then a war of attrition it would get.

“Well, that takes all the fun out of it,” Shiro breathed out heavily after falling back from the front line. He’d handed the spear off to Cam at some point, because the boy now stood bare-handed.

“Speak for yourself,” David said, suddenly appearing beside him in a flash. “I’ll happily take the break.”

It felt good to have an undead army again, small as this one was. I’d been… restless without them, while we traveled the seas. I just hoped the dungeon wouldn’t try to take them away from me.

It did feel like cheating, using the dungeon’s tactics against it. Hopefully, it wouldn’t take it personally.

By the time we made it to the third location, the monsters were attacking dozens at a time, with barely a minute or two between each wave—and it didn’t matter anymore. I had enough Wights under my control at this point that I only needed to replenish them if they were destroyed—otherwise, they could handle the beasts on their own.

The third location already looked better than the previous two. Ruins peppered the area, and the swampy soil gave way to broken pavement. The monsters were being kept at bay, which gave us ample time to search.

All in all, it was beginning to look good.