Xylia dreamed of the cold. Of nights she was almost too young to remember spent out at sea desperately hugging her sister for warmth. The dozen other strangers huddled together on the ship as it battled in the freezing rain. The cold desert nights spent alone with a blanket too thin. The chill that came after the argument had faded. The frozen grip of death around her heart. The barriers of ice surrounding it, chipping away, all too fragile to fight the world.

She hugged the dying ember of life in her heart close, as she had done so many times before. It’d flicker and fade like a candle in a snowstorm, always a breath away from extinguishing like the ember it was. Yet whenever it seemed her fire would fade, she felt a chill worm its way inside. A chill deeper than death’s hand.

Yet in that chill, she felt a warmth. A warmth unlike the radiance of the sun or the burning of fire around the mountain. But instead like the warmth of a song, or that of a toy. The type of warmth that surrounds you always, yet never enough.

Xylia would cling to the warmth and the chill that permeated its being, and they would build her fire back up. When the chill was there, her fire stopped flickering in the cold, and burned like a star in the sky. Mayhaps dimmer than before, but all the more steady because of it.

When the winds no longer struck her heart, she could feel her mind start to rise out of the depths of her soul. Memories of the stupid descious that brought her here rose to the front of her mind. The reason she came to the mountain in the first place. The undeserved confidence as she beat some of the small fry that lived at the base. Her stupid decision to try and take the salander in its sleep. How it wasn’t asleep. How that had caused her to lose her sword and likely her arm. She still remembered the searing pain she went through at the time.

‘Actually, now my arm just feels kind of wet.’ She thought. ‘That isn’t blood? Is it? Am I bleeding out?! I just got better!’ Her body felt stiff as she tried to ruffle herself awake. Groaning, she opened her eyes to see the roof of a cave. At first she thought it was Gralo’s place, but the roof there was brown, this one seemed more...purple? Grey?

‘Um where am I?’

Memories of last night(? she wasn’t sure how long she was out) flooded her mind. The salamander dissolving corpse haunted her as she watched it get eaten by the very fish that saved her life not a moment before.

‘This-this was a dungeon, wasn’t it? Those places people go to die in. The places countries go to war over? That shouldn’t be possible! Swelan wasn’t supposed to have dungeons! Mt. Fugra was supposed to be the only one! And it didn’t even count as a dungeon!’

Xylia curled into the fetus position as all the stories her sister and the old and worn adventures told her to keep her away from ever trying to find a dungeon. She felt cold tears begging to form as she waited for the dungeon to finish her off.

‘Wait...I was knocked out for a while...Shouldn’t the dungeon have killed me already?’ She thought. She looked to her arm, noticing it was feeling much better than before she woke.

What looked like blue/green bandages were tightly wrapped around her arm and leg. They were different then the sandy wrappings people used back in Rofvil. She wished she had some sort of inditefy skill to tell what they were. At the very least, she could move her arm again.

She delicately (as much as she could with one arm) removed the wrappings to her mostly healed arm. She couldn’t hear anything but little splashes of water and very faint and distant sounds of burning material. Did the dungeon have someone living inside of it?

She heard the sound of rustling cloth and expected to see whomever had saved her to appear from behind a corner she couldn’t see. Instead, something that looked like her doll when she was younger walked towards her. Although the thing didn’t have any facial features beyond two white dots for eyes, it seemed happy to see her.

“H-hi..Um…d-did you heal me?” Xylia stuttered out, the stories refusing to let her relax, even if she lacked the experience to say why she shouldn’t. She shook but couldn’t tell if it was her self preservation working overtime or because it was really cold in the dungeon. (Which it very much was; she was very cold.) The doll titled its head, but she motioned to her arm and it nodded quite enthusiastically. “Uh-why?”

A strange air filled the room; Xylia wasn’t quite sure if she could describe it. It felt both warm and cold at the same time, almost like the temperature equivalent of unsurity.

The feeling passed in a moment but it still sent an unnoticeable shiver up her spine. (Unnoticeable because she was already shivering. It was rather visible but it was hard to tell the difference.)

“Well, thanks...I guess…” She muttered. “Not that your kindness and uh, generosity aren’t appreciated! It is! Your Uh, great-um-holy-dungeon-ness!” She backpedaled quickly, not wanting to insult the murder hole. For all she knew, dungeons just preferred killing healthy people because…well, she didn’t know why they would do that but she also didn’t know why they wouldn’t.

A slightly warmer yet still freezing wind blew through the room. It didn’t seem to have any malice in it but she didn’t have any wind feeling reader skills. She doubted anyone did but the world was weird, so she didn’t outright dismiss the idea. Although technically she did as her thoughts turned to leaving the dungeon. Her lessons told her to get out as soon as she could, even if they mentioned nothing on what to do if the dungeon healed someone.

“Well, thank you, mr-uh-ms uh I mean, your greatness dungeon! But i should really be g-going now...Pleasedon’tkillme!” She stuttered. The dungeon once again blew with that odd air, and there felt an anticipation in the air. The doll smiled at her with its eyes. The creatures of the dungeon didn’t respond any further though, so she took the opportunity to leave.

She started to run, her [sprinting Lv3], her highest level skill, taking her faster than she could follow. The recent level up does no favor for her control. It wasn’t far before she felt her sandal slip into something smiley, cold and wet. That was the general feeling of the dungeon already but this felt even more so.

She wildly panicked and kicked whatever was on her foot away from her; it landed in a splash a few feet away. The event turned out to be rather fortunate for her as she forgot about the moat and would have absently charged right into it.

More concerned for what would happen to herself on how the dungeon would react over hurting one of its defenders than the thing itself, she looked to spot it in the river. It turned out to be a slime, but it didn’t look any worse for wear, not that she’d be able to tell the difference. Two other blobs with long flowing tails circled around it. They were really pretty but she didn’t know what they were.

Sighing in relief, she got up and jumped the moat at the entrance of the dungeon she turned around. It felt wrong to her to just leave without saying goodbye. The core was hidden well enough that you couldn’t see it from the entrance but she knew it was there. “Thank you, dungeon. I’ll...not sure what I'll do actually. Uh-I’ll-I’ll tell my sister about you! She’ll know what to do! Oh, but...we’re fighting right now…” She was silent for a moment. “I...I’ll figure it out later. G-goodbye!” she ran away, the difference in temperature hit her like a dragon.

She lost herself in retracing her steps to the entrance. The tunnel to the dungeon was windy and easy enough to get lost in. She really didn’t want to think about what would happen when she made it back home. She had left without saying anything to her but...she…

The volcano wasn’t normally this hot, right? She knew she had just left somewhere cold so it would feel hotter than normal, but it almost felt like she was next to a bonfire. One that seemed to be getting hotter. She could almost hear the-

Her heart froze despite the hot surroundings. In her way was a swarm of monsters. Fireflies, fire slimes, small fries, fire foxes, and sizzle salamanders all cramped the entrance to the cave. There was even a number of the same giant salamanders that had chased her into the dungeon originally! She tried to count the larger salamanders but lost count at around two dozen.

Although the things terrified her, it was the beast in the center that chilled her (metaphorically speaking only) to the core. It was easily twice the size of the giant salamanders and with teeth that looked like they could slice through her arms in seconds. The rest of its body was covered in flames and the heat was making it hard to see, but it looked much more draconic than the lizards surrounding it.

“I-du-h-uh” Xylia stammered, mind frozen in shock.

The beast let out a deep and booming growl that shook her bones and seemed to burn her skin.

She tentatively took a step back.

The drake took a step forward, the impact of its claws on the ground launching a few nearby salamanders into the air briefly.

“Na-na-nie” Xylia couldn’t speak as her mouth shook.

The colossal creature reared back and bellowed out a roar that seemed to shake the entire mountain. Xylia had no idea what it did next as she ran away immediately.

Her feet flew off the stones, carrying her as fast as her skills would take her. Waves of heat rolled across her back, forcing her to keep moving. She dove into the dungeon, the air premiating with surprise.

She leaped the moat and grabbed the doll close to her chest, hoping and unsuccessfully trying to calm her nerves as a literal wave a fire tore down the path, hellbent on chasing her and the dungeon down.

As the dungeon dropped in temperature preparing its defenses, Xylia muttered to the doll in a very tiny voice. “I don’t think I’m gonna be going home for awhile.”