“Lava Wurm, vermis vulcanocaeta- a denizen of the underground. This fossorial creature likes to stay near areas that have high concentrations of Pyr mana where their favorite food, Fire Shrooms grows. They secrete a viscous fluid that is not only slippery to reduce friction as they move around their burrows, but also heat resistant, making it the ideal lubricant for wagon wheels and other moving parts such as lift pulleys and watermills and windmills. It is a very docile being and will rarely attack unless provoked by using its spit, which is not only toxic but also hot enough to cause scalding; no doubt a property of the diet they eat…” from Philiarz Warnerskemander’s Bestiary for Adventurers: ‘Exotic Beasties and Where To Find Them

Dagger training with the snow-haired dhampir was rather subdued. Even Arthur could tell that she was walking on eggshells around him but he still got some training in.

Unlike swords, daggers were meant for stealthy executions which required minimal effort. Thus, most of the training involved learning how to get to an opponents’ vitals for fatality or incapacitation.

Nora was only too happy to show him where to do it, like the jugular which was a guaranteed kill unless the person had extraordinary regeneration which was in itself exceedingly rare.

In fact, Arthur was one of the selected few hominids in the camp who could recover from an injury like that besides Nora herself. For incapacitation, the tendons and ligaments were vital spots if one did not have the intention to kill.

Venera also amped the difficulty of her training regime but it had breaks in between. She also varied the things she taught Arthur like reining in his magical aura because of the way an aura could carry bloodlust; though Arthur had never reached that point himself it would still help if he continued growing as a swordsman.

Aura training, was to say the least, the definition of teaching a blind man colours. Arthur had no prior experience with magic, skills and the overarching entity that bestowed them. Maybe Venera was just a bad teacher despite being a magic swords-woman who combined illusions into her sword fights.

‘Well, can't be good at everything I guess.' were his thoughts when a visibly frustrated Venera said they'd put it off for a later date.

Venera still kept him on his toes as his body gradually adapted to the abuse she meted out until progress started plateauing. All he had to do now, was to wait for the World to award him a class as he kept going through his paces.

Five days after the first encounter, Arthur and his hosts held a meeting to deliberate strategy for the upcoming dungeon delve.

“Our scouts report that the monsters’ presence and numbers remain unchanged in the dungeon beneath the oasis. The first floor traps have already been disarmed and you have about a week before they reset.” Arkron declared as he met everyone’s gaze.

“Is that common for dungeons? Having a reset that is a week long I mean?” Arthur asked, hand raised in inquiry.

“I am afraid our clan’s lore on dungeons is scant at best. A reset that is a week long may only be native to the dungeon you are about to encounter.” Arkron responded. “Inasmuch as preparations for the delve are still ongoing, your party shall have enough time to get in and get out before the traps reset.”

“Do we have information on the monsters to expect?” Nora inquired shyly, not used to public speaking. “We would like to go prepared with weapons and gear that are suited to what we face.”

“Mmh,” Verana intoned looking at the map. “I think you should expect Ter aspected monsters or any of its derivative elements. Or perhaps Aer and Aqer as well, since those are the affinities associated with weather.

The biggest threats should be sand wurms, though they should be juveniles if they have to fit inside the dungeon passageways. You might also find sand and mud golems in the third floor while the second floor should have vermin like rats.

Since the dungeon only has three floors besides the first one, it shouldn’t be too hard for a team of your composition if you overwhelm them with brute strength because they might be bad matchups. Arkilius and Kervir are your front-liners, Livierre will just have to be in the middle since she doesn’t have much in the way of combat.”

Then turning to Arthur, “Arthur of Sturmdrache, you shall be in the middle making use of your ranged attacks and take care of Livierre. Though she should be able to use a dagger if anything does get past you. Nora will cover the rear guard while serving as your healer.”

“That should make you a match for a silver rank team,” Arkron commented, arms folded. “Are we in agreement then?” Everyone nodded to affirm their assent.

It was a cut-and-dried meeting; besides party composition, they also discussed what supplies and gear to carry and how they would leave from the fortress to the dungeon. While the others would be riding the beak toothed birds as mounts, Arthur was content to use his own hoverboard. He did not have any experience with mounted riding and there was no way he was going near those birds that looked peckish whenever he saw them.

But before he went to the dungeon, Arthur needed new spells. Not just the World’s crafted spells which lacked versatility and only came in rigid shapes like barriers, shields and a sundry of projectile spells.

He’d been using them for a while, not that they’d let him down; it’s just that he felt they were too predictable and easily countered. He also felt that he was underutilizing his masteries of Aer, Aqer and Fulmen affinities. By intuition alone, he knew that he had yet to grow into those skills and he had barely scratched the surface of what he could do with them.

Thus after dagger practice with Nora, he went to the Keep’s roof away from any sort of interference that might cause friendly fire. He even approached the sentries on guard to tell them that he was having spell practice and that there was no need for alarm if they heard noise.

‘Okay, time to do spell craft from scratch.’ He thought internally as he surveyed the fortress' roof. ‘ Just because I have mastery doesn’t mean I am adept at using magic. I am basically a toddler with a loaded cannon; who knows what might happen if I let a spell run out of control or use more mana than my body can handle?’

So Arthur sat down on the cobbled floor of the keep, in a lotus sitting position irrespective of the biting cold underneath. He let his hands rest on his thighs and closed his eyes to meditate. He had no prior knowledge of spell crafting because most of his spell matrices came prepackaged like proprietary software; there was no reverse engineering them unless he knew what to look for.

He was no scholar of spell-craft, in fact he thought himself closer to a sorcerer than a mage because he relied on his instinctual knowledge of sciences, rather than theories that the people of Eryth had put in their spell tomes. Magic was indeed a tricky thing.Trying to learn the entirety of the World’s system of magic and the system that was outside of the World was like grasping at straws for an outsider, so he stuck to familiar things.

Steadying his breaths, he tuned out the world around him; the sound of wind on his tunic; the chirps of nocturnal insects welcoming the young night and the crackling of flame in braziers faded from his senses.

Arthur delved into his inner self, feeling for his well of power that was pulsating in tune to his heartbeat. It was a spherical nebula of various hues of the affinities that he had. Aer was turquoise wisps, incorporeal like its nature swirling like zephyrs in tranquility or raging like gales when angered.

Aqer was an aqua blue blob that was fluid, gentle like a brook otherwise tempestuous like a vortex. Fulmen, Fulmen was like a jittery current of ambers and blues, lashing out, ever unruly like a feral animal. Locus was formless, like the void…a shapeless cloud that had specks of twinkling lights like its counterpart beyond the sky. The four of these were meshed together; coexisting in his core.

‘Now for air magic. I want concentrated blunt force. If I am to face a mud golem, nothing short of making it lose its cohesion or blasting it apart would work. It has to be a projectile, has to pack a punch like a shell, and has to move faster than the eye can track…finally, it has to make use of available missiles, whether air itself or something tangible. It has to be a cannon—

Arthur drew from his well of power, from his Aer affinity and willed it to follow his wishes. Mana was a fickle thing though, the wisps of Aer shied away from his attempts to push them where he wanted them to go. So he turned his wish into a serenade because air by nature was intangible; unless you showed it a shape to fill, it had no corporeality to even push a leaf if it was all over the place.

In his mind’s eye, he pictured a barrel of swirling air that got narrower with each breath, as the pressure in its middle grew higher. But the projectile would lack direction and end up crushed if it did not find the path of least resistance, so he added the rifling that imparted direction and spin to give whichever missile was aimed a trajectory; he held the image waiting for Aer to probe at the spell matrix.

As sweat beaded down his brow and his hands clenched white from concentration, finally reprieve came…and the aspected mana for the spell settled into its new spell matrix.He mentally probed the matrix’s integrity and saw that it held. Then he opened his eyes and exhaled, the spell had formed. All he had to do now was test it.

With his mana sight on, he picked stone that was worn down by the vagaries of weather near one of the nub shaped crenelations. He looked for a target in the night sky, and spotted a quad winged bat stalking a bug in the air, well away from any form of habitation. It would not do, if a missile popped someone’s skull. Mimicking a finger gun with the stone securely between the thumb and index finger he zoned in on the bat frolicking in the air.

However, he felt sorry for it so he switched to the bug that was trying to escape its clutches instead. The light from the two moons and his sharp eyes were enough to catch the reflection from the open carapace of the beetle-like insect. Thus he gave the spell its name and fed it power from his well.

In his mana sight, he caught the faint ethereal beginnings of the spell matrix existing between the seen and the unseen world. It twisted and turned like clockwork cogs and gears being tuned. He was so entranced he almost gasped in surprise, but it faded from his view. Yet he knew that it was somewhere to the front of him, wherever he thought to aim, it would be there, slowly adjusting for elevation and deviation.

When he intuited the spell to fire, there was a barrel woven out of air from his hand to the furthest point he thought he saw the spell matrix appear.Suddenly, the stone was in his hand in one blink and disintegrating a beetle into green ichor and broken body parts in the next.

There was a whoomph! sound followed by the cracking of air displaced by the missile like a gunshot. Arthur felt no recoil in his hand whatsoever, so the spell was definitely a success. As for the unfortunate bat…needless to say, it managed to arrest its fall after being caught in the aftershocks.

“[Air Cannon],” he muttered under his breath. A shadow squeaked in alarm and Arthur guffawed when he saw Nora fall out of her shadows. “Oh, Hi Miss Nora, lovely evening.” The pale dhampir turned the color of red beet under the moonlight.

“So, were you spying on me?” Arthur asked as they leaned against the crenelations; the wind was whipping Nora’s hair behind her back.

‘Vesper Pits, that was more frightening than a thunderclap. I knew he was an Aeromancer, but that spell had no lightning in it. I'm so embarrassed.’ Nora cringed internally

Nora shuffled to the young man that had discovered her after she was startled out of her [Shadow Shroud]. She was nervous ; even though the human...or supposed human had taken it all in good graces and found it more amusing rather than offensive. She wanted to apologize but her tongue was tied. How would you have gone talking to such a person, more so a boy after decades of her life. Nora flushed crimson again

'Vesper take me, I can't keep on embarrassing myself like this'

But what was the difference? Kervir and Arkilius were both boys, and she'd grown up with them. Well part of her childhood that was. Dhampir's blood heritage tended to make maturity a mixed bag; they could mature after forty years, or after 20 years as a human would...but that was not the point.

The thing is, Nora had never been around a human for so long and so close. Her mother was a human, but she didn't remember whether she died after her birth or still lived; her memory was fuzzy. The rest was a blur; sometimes she thought she had nightmares but she couldn't tell what was real and what wasn't.

Technically, Nora was 40 years old in human years but with the speed at which she aged, she barely identified as an adult. So perhaps her mind was playing tricks on her because she had met a boy who had half of her heritage? She would know, she was a [Blood Healer] after all and she knew every single thing about her own body; but this was a new experience and it stumped her. Nora didn't even know how or who to ask.

'Maybe Venera would know’ she thought. But she shook her head thereafter because the woman was too eccentric and could only aggravate or tease her about it.

“Miss Nora is it? Does your clan head not trust me enough to deliver that he's having you tail me?” The boy asked her.

Nora tugged at her hood as if it could hide her shame. She didn't have a straight answer. But that was not what she was here about! It was all a misunderstanding. So she mustered up her nerves and muttered,

“I'm here of my own volition; the clan head has nothing to do with it.” she shook her head.

“ What can I do for you then?” the man scrunched his eyes in confusion.

“I just wanted to ask…”

“Mmh…”

“What is the world out there like? I have lived all my life in the Bowl hearing stories of it from merchants. Then...then the clan head just announced that I would accompany you. I had no idea he would saddle you with me I swear, “ Nora bowed.

“Huh? Hey hey, raise your head. You don't have to do that,” Arthur's hands hovered over her shoulders, conflicted if he should touch her. Nora didn't notice. “I think it's okay. It made me think how naive I was that I could walk the world out here alone because I have great magic.”

'He's not lying; his heart beat is steady' Nora noted, her vampiric senses sharpening of their own accord.

“How wrong I was,” his mood turned wistful. “I almost lost my life on the second day of my travels...to a spider because I had no one to watch my back—” He paused as if framing his next words, “and then again, almost lost it to bandits because I—becuase I hesitated at a crucial moment. So, I am sorry to say, I might not be the best person to tell you what the world is like.”

“Oh...is that so? I thought you were well traveled and just happened to fall into an unfortunate encounter. I heard you fought dozens of the Sand Bandits by yourself."

“Oh, that?” the youth winched. “ I almost got done in by a girl. I was only trying to be harmless, or so I think I was. And took a crossbow bolt to my leg. I assure you I didn't see it coming.” Then his face turned pale and his eyes became glassy. Nora thought he was getting ill and her healer instincts spurned her into action. She caught the young man as he slid down against the walls of the crenelations.

His breath came in short gasps, and she could also see him attempting to fight back nausea that was turning his face green. Cold sweat was drenching his back. He raised his face to meet hers and mumbled

“ I killed people...Miss Nora,” his hands were shaking. “ I think somehow, something happened when I was knocked out from the poison. I can remember their last moments, entombed in hot sands and doomed to die as they burned alive. Two were children,” he almost turned frantic as he looked at his hands, eyes wide in horror.

Nora did not know how to handle the outburst. This was the kind of thing Venera was good at; putting the mind at ease. She wanted to jump to wherever Venera was using her [Shadow Port] skill but the man noticed and grabbed hold of her cloak.

“No, please stay. I know you want to get Venera...but she's not what I need,” he shook her head, smiling thinly even as his eyes tried to focus. “Give me time to catch my breath.”

‘I think you're the most soft-hearted human I have ever met Arthur of Sturmdrache. This world is harsh...mayhap it was a good thing that Arkron said to go with you.’ Her own hand hovered over his shoulder as Arthur held onto his cloak. Finally, his breath steadied and the color returned to his face.

"Sorry about that Miss Nora. I don't know what came over me,"

'At hiding your emotions, you're a poor actor Arthur Sturmdrache; especially knowing I am part vampire... I hope you won't know that I can smell your moods, dark and churning like a witch’s cauldron,’ Nora almost chuckled but shook her head after thinking that was exactly what Venera would say in that situation. 'That she-fiend. Such a bad influence' she scowled.

“Something the matter?” Arthur inquired when he noticed her shaking her head.

‘Maybe I should tell him the Clan scouts found signs of two survivors? No, he has to learn how to deal with guilt; the sooner the better.’

“No, nothing...I can tell you're fine now.” Nora said, with a subdued smile. Her expression revealed nothing of what she was hiding from him.

“Sorry if you didn't get to hear stories from outside the Bowl. I am as new to the world as you are.”

“It's no bother…”

“At least we shall see more of it together...I guess” the young man said as he turned his gaze to the starry sky.

Nora nodded, casting her eyes towards where her tent was pitched,” I must be going…”

Swirling the shroud of shadows around her, she caught the tail end of Arthur’s bidding her a restful night. She vanished from his sight and reappeared in her yurt. Though her meeting with Arthur wasn't exactly what she'd seen coming, it still gave her some things to think about. Perhaps she was looking forward to the outside, more than ever before.