Garrett pulled the door open and Iva walked up with her hand around the back of the neck of the man whose name Raz still didn’t know. His hands were still tied.

“No. No no no no no. No.” The man simply repeated the one word as he looked into the darkness beyond the door.

“Looks like a stairway going down.” Iva turned to the man. “So, are you going to go in there willingly?”

The man just kept repeating the word no.

“All right. Your choice.” Iva pushed the man into the darkness with the hand she still had on his neck.

Raz could hear him screaming as he tumbled down the stairs, followed by a POUMF and the sound of some rubble. There was a sound like a wet slurp followed by an increase in the screaming before it cut off.

“Ah, good, sounds like he found something. Good enough.” Garrett looked at Raz. “And when we tell you you’re going first, you’re going in, right?”

Raz tore his eyes off the entrance to stare at Garrett, then nodded frantically. He’d much rather go into a scary place on his feet looking for traps than head over heels sliding down a staircase.

“Good. For now, Iva will lead and you’ll be in the rear, but when I tell you to get in front, you will.” Garrett waved the others into the darkness.

Raz had to get away from these people. Maybe tonight, when they weren’t watching so much? They probably would be. Perhaps when they got back to the camp, then. If he survived to get there.

They took the staircase slowly. Raz wasn’t sure how long it took, but they reached the bottom of the staircase without further incident - and also without finding the body of the man Iva had thrown. That seemed to worry Greyvine, but Garrett brushed off his concerns.

“There’s only one reason we wouldn’t have found his body-”

“The dead don’t rise that quickly in a dungeon, even a weird proto-dungeon like this seems to be. There’s always a delay.”

“True. But what else could it be?” Greyvine sounded worried.

They continued into the space below the stairs. It seemed to be a large rectangle, with a raised floor at the far end. A large chair sat on the raised floor, with something on the seat; Raz wasn’t sure what it was, at this distance. Raz looked for a way forward or a dungeon core, and didn’t see either. It was probably behind the chair, since that was the only blocked wall in the room.

Despite the torch Garret was carrying and the small light spell Greyvine held, the walls seemed to be covered in moving shadows. The floor seemed empty, so they moved forward. Eventually, Garrett waved Iva over to one of the walls. He handed her the torch and told her to check out the shadows.

Raz turned to look behind him. Something didn’t feel right. There had been a couple of traps on the stairs, but nothing in the room yet, which meant-

The stairs were covered in shadow. “The stairs!” Raz didn’t know what else to say, but even that little brought all three of the others turning to look.

Iva stopped heading towards the wall and went back to check on their way out. As she reached the shadow, she said, “It’s not a shadow. The light penetrates it a little bit, but it’s semisolid.” She reached forward with her free hand, covered in a gauntlet, and touched it. It sounded sort of like that wet sound Raz had heard right before the unnamed man started screaming louder. “It’s a little sticky, but comes apart when I pull my hand back out.”

She didn’t see the shadow that gathered over her head, but everyone else did. “Iva, MOVE BACK!” yelled Garrett.

It had already dropped onto her. This time, the squelching noise was loud and unmistakable. The torch went out, but other than that nothing moved for a few minutes.

Raz noticed that the walls weren’t covered in shadow the way they had been.

Iva turned towards the remaining three, only Raz was sure it wasn’t Iva. She dropped the torch and pulled her giant sword. She was coated in the black shadowy-looking stuff.

Raz tried to separate himself from the other two. If he could get far enough away, maybe he could get back up the stairs while the shadows were out of the way.

It looked like Greyvine had the same idea, but he was quickly confronted by another shadowy figure. Raz suspected it was the man Iva had thrown down; the figure looked like it had multiple broken bones and was being held together by the shadowy stuff. Raz didn’t want to think about what that meant for fighting them; he wanted to run.

Raz looked up to see a shadow gathering above him and quickly moved out of the way. He needed to watch all directions and not get herded away from the door.

Serenity looked at the message that had appeared while he was in the middle of draining his healing reserve.

[Linked stone type currently set to: True Core]

[Effects available: Filter (Inactive), Amplify Aura (Inactive), Increase Link Distance (Inactive), Change Stone Type]

[Amplification Available: 0% (Power Reserve Empty)]

[Maximum Distance: 0 (Power Reserve Empty)]

[Current Links: 0, Maximum Distance Exceeded for all Recorded Links]

[Recorded Links: 4]

Whatever the “seed” did now, it looked like he needed to figure out how to power it. He’d tried pushing stamina, mana, and essence at it, but none of them did anything to fill the Power Reserve.

The only thing he’d figured out was that when he pushed mana at it, the Filter effect went active and he got Essence out of it. Unfortunately, he had no idea what he should do with the Essence and it simply seemed to dissipate. He’d hoped it would turn into Ev, but it didn’t.

He pulled some food out of his pack - he did need to refill his healing reserve, after all - and looked around. There seemed to be an odd repeated flashing on the next ridge over; it was regular, and he’d never seen anything like it. Of course, he also hadn’t depended entirely on Eyeless Sight since he’d been a Draugr; he’d worked out ways to give himself more normal vision after that. It was too bad the methods he knew used Death magic to alter an undead body and wouldn’t work on him now, even if he had the power to try.

He headed up the hill towards the light. It was regular enough it might mean people were there.

The flashing seemed to be the top of a pole set a little ways outside a closed door. The remains of a campsite was nearby, but Serenity didn’t see any people. Maybe they were inside?

Serenity took a minute to examine the pole. He couldn’t tell how it was flashing to Eyeless Sight until he tried using Life Sight. It flashed as though it was intensely alive, but somehow it clearly wasn’t. Maybe it was a concentrated mana pulse? That would be possible to detect from a good distance with almost any detection method, so it would work as a beacon as long as you didn’t care who saw it.

It was probably a claim stake. Serenity had seen them before; he’d even used them himself - but he’d never realized they flashed in any way other than visible light.

The normal action now would be to move on. The door was probably a dungeon, and whatever it was it was claimed. Even so, it wouldn’t hurt to check it out; he was here, and he didn’t care about the dungeon rewards. All he wanted was a Path Quest. Maybe the people here could give directions to others.

Serenity set his hand against the door.

[Field Dungeon: Last Refuge of the Deathless (Corrupted)]

[Historical Dungeon: This Hall was once the seat of power for the sorcerer known as The Deathless. In the final war for Tzintkra’s Core, the forces of Death overwhelmed him and turned his symbols of everlasting Life into symbols of everlasting Death. Legend states that the Deathless lives on in the bodies of those he corrupts with the promise of immortality, lost in his quest to preserve his life, meaningless though that now is. This Dungeon was sealed in ages past and has weakened with the lack of sapient fodder. No ley lines currently support the Dungeon.]

[Status: Active]

[Current participants: 3]

[Tier: Unrated Special]

[Type: Death, Undead, Possession]

[Join current assault?]

It was far more information than Serenity had expected to see; he wouldn’t have been surprised to only see that it was a Field Dungeon of Unknown Tier. He didn’t have an ability to get more information from Dungeons yet.

Still, that wasn’t the most important information. There were only three people in the Dungeon. That was an unusually small number. Serenity looked back at the camp. There were at least four spots that had been used to sleep. A Death/Undead dungeon shouldn’t pose a real threat to him. Possession was a possible threat, but as long as he was careful he could destroy the creatures before they possessed him.

Still, who in their right mind would take on an Unrated Special dungeon without being massively overpowered for the area? They could be anything from a riddle game to a literal deathtrap. They were usually easy to prepare for once they’d been completed once, but preparation was key - especially for a Possession type. They were almost as bad as Trap types.

But at least it’s not spiders.

[Field Dungeon: Last Refuge of the Deathless (Corrupted)]

[Historical Dungeon: This Hall was once the seat of power for the sorcerer known as The Deathless. In the final war for Tzintkra’s Core, the forces of Death overwhelmed him and turned his symbols of everlasting Life into symbols of everlasting Death. Legend states that the Deathless lives on in the bodies of those he corrupts with the promise of immortality, lost in his quest to preserve his life, meaningless though that now is. This Dungeon was sealed in ages past and has weakened with the lack of sapient fodder. No ley lines currently support the Dungeon.]

[Status: Active]

[Current participants: 2]

[Tier: Unrated Special]

[Type: Death, Undead, Possession]

[Join current assault?]

There clearly wasn’t time to wonder why people had gone into an Unrated Special Field Dungeon without adequate preparation - unless he wanted to wait for them all to die and jump the claim, anyway. It would be open once they were all dead.

Nah. That wasn’t why he was here. Dungeon rewards weren't the point; getting back to Earth was. There would be many dungeons on Earth soon.

Yes, please let me into the Dungeon.

After all, he was massively overpowered for the area, as long as the enemy was Death-based - and maybe someone there could help him find a Path Choice Quest.

Serenity wasn’t going in there to see if he could save someone. Definitely not. That would be foolish.

You’d think I’d know better than to try to lie to myself, wouldn’t you? I don’t know these people, but one is already dead or worse. Probably worse.

The door opened onto a dark stairway, which Serenity hurried down. When he was about halfway down the stairs, he heard the sound of someone else’s feet.

“Do you need some help?”