All motion seemed to have stopped outside the subway car. The magic level dipped back to something comfortable but not intoxicating the way the ley line had been. Serenity took a deep breath, then let it out as he realized that he no longer felt the static of the subway car trying to talk to him.

Even though mana was no longer flooding into him, Serenity felt much better than he had outside; mana and essence were no longer draining out of him as quickly as he regenerated them. He felt stable.

[New Dungeon entered]

[Dungeon: Blue Line Enigma]

[Dungeon Type: Puzzle]

[Participants: 3]

This wasn’t good at all. Especially not with someone as young as the girl at the other end of the train in the dungeon. Serenity wasn’t worried about anyone who entered a dungeon knowingly, but this dungeon had simply sprung up around them. Serenity, Raz, and Roy were all old enough to at least theoretically know what they were doing, but the girl looked to be about twelve. Maybe fourteen? Serenity wasn’t good with children’s ages.

Since it only registered three participants, it was possible the girl was left out, but Serenity was willing to bet that he was the one left out. After all, how could the core be counted as a participant?

He hoped he’d be able to leave once they found a way out.

It was fortunate it was a Puzzle type; puzzle dungeons were usually relatively safe. Almost all had monsters, but it seemed like the harder the puzzles were, the weaker the monsters were. Puzzle dungeons weren’t well liked, because the more you knew about a Puzzle dungeon when you went in, the worse the rewards were. It made them hard to prepare for, and there were stories about how long they could take.

Still, they tended to be relatively safe as long as you could figure out the puzzle.

Serenity stood up and walked to the other end of the car. The first thing to do was to get her to join up with the rest of them so that she’d be safe while they tried to figure out the dungeon. The girl was bent over a tablet and seemed to be filling something out. “And … there! Yes!”

She looked up at him and blinked. She looked familiar. The familiarity was confirmed when she shouted “Serenity!” and threw herself at him in a hug. “Where were you? I thought you were gone! You said you would be but I hoped I’d find you. I figured out how to make the sparkles multicolored and make them cold or zap things! I even managed both cold and zapping things once but Mom said not to do that again.”

“...Mandy?” Serenity hugged her back. Mandy was the girl he’d tutored in a Tutorial after she’d managed to explode several boar with a nasty miscast of a fire-based spell. She’d intended to make pretty sparkles but that wasn’t what happened.

Serenity had never expected to see her again.

“Yup! Hey, is this tablet yours? I only just noticed it. It was on the seat next to me. It had a fun puzzle on it, I had to make all the squares the same color.” Mandy showed the tablet to Serenity. It had a set of squares on it, with a black outline around a white square. The squares all formed a plus sign. Below the shape was green text that said SOLVED with a check mark.

Serenity looked away from the tablet and verified that no, he hadn’t somehow gained his normal sight back. When he looked at the tablet again, he could see what was on it.

Of course he could see what was on it; it was his, after all. He’d designed it. It would be silly to make something that he couldn’t see.

He’d designed it? What?

Serenity turned back towards Raz and Roy. On the seat next to each of them was a tablet. There wasn’t one on the seat next to where Serenity had been sitting. “You should pick up those tablets. I think they’re part of the dungeon’s puzzle.”

Why wasn’t he a participant in dungeons? Yes, they didn’t see him the same way as they saw other people, but if this was his dungeon … why did that have to matter?

[Participant added]

Serenity was holding a tablet. He tipped it to where he could see the screen and realized he could read it. The line at the top said PUZZLE 1: Lights Out; below that was a set of squares arranged like an X, and below that was a set of four names.

MANDY - SOLVED

RAZ - INCOMPLETE

SERENITY - INCOMPLETE

STARSCREAM - INCOMPLETE

Serenity looked at Roy. “Starscream?” He couldn’t suppress a smile.

Roy didn’t look at him as he said, “Yeah, that’s me. It seemed like a good idea at the time.” He looked up from the tablet. “You’re really Serenity? The Serenity?”

“Only one I know of. I hope there isn’t another one, it’d get confusing,” Serenity joked. He knew there wasn’t another; it wouldn’t be allowed. That was how he’d gotten into the mess with Tranquil Conviction, after all.

“The Serenity who’s been in a bunch of Tutorials, the one people aren’t sure is human? Or at least isn’t from Earth?” Roy stared at Serenity.

“I’m from Earth. Born and raised. Mostly in Arlington, even.” He looked down at his hands and focused on the claws. “I can understand why people would wonder, but yes, I am. Please don’t make more of it than it is. I want us to succeed and prosper, and that’s not going to be easy in the coming years. For now, can we focus on the dungeon?”

As Serenity looked back at the tablet, the line next to Raz’s name changed to SOLVED.

“Is your name really Thomas?”

Serenity looked back up at Roy. “The same way yours is Roy, at least assuming that’s actually your name. Yes, I’m Thomas Rothmer. Would you please pay attention to the tablet? The other two are waiting on us. The subway car seems to have stopped and I’m not sure what that means.”

If Serenity had to guess, they were probably temporarily in accelerated time. If that was true, they had a limited amount of time to solve the puzzles - until the car left the dungeon, probably - but that time could be quite long. The other likely option was that the creation of the dungeon had actually stopped the car, but Serenity considered that less likely. There hadn’t even been a bump, after all.

Serenity saw Roy tapping on something; it looked like his phone rather than the tablet, but at least he wasn’t being distracting.

Serenity looked down at his tablet and tapped in the answer. It was really a very simple Lights Out puzzle; it seemed more like it was making sure that he knew what the goal was and how to do it than like it was actually a problem.

Even though he was looking at a tablet, he knew it wasn’t the sort of technology the chip Tek gave him was designed to interface with. He could still feel a little buzz from what everyone was wearing, especially the cell phones Roy and Mandy carried, but there was no external noise other than that. He would have to remember that dungeons were peaceful.

Once Roy swapped over to the tablet and tapped in his answer, the screen flashed a “STAGE 1 SOLVED” banner then cleared to show a simple sudoku-type puzzle. It had symbols instead of numbers, but it was still easy; almost all of the spots were filled in.

Stage 3 was a simple tangram puzzle and stage 4 was a sliding block puzzle. Both seemed more like they were making you show that you understood what the puzzle was rather than actually being something to solve.

Serenity could understand why this was called a puzzle dungeon, but he still didn’t understand the point.

Stage 5 was a simple circle on the screen. His screen immediately changed to SOLVED before he even did anything. This was the important puzzle; that was obvious. He just wasn’t sure what it was.

Raz and Roy both asked what Serenity had done to solve the puzzle, and he had to admit that he had no idea. They all fiddled with their puzzles for a while. Mandy figured it out when she got annoyed and cast her “sparkles” spell at it and her circle turned green and was marked SOLVED.

Once they knew the trick was to direct magic at the circle in the tablet, Raz was able to complete it quickly. Serenity thought about it while Roy was trying to figure out how to direct magic and realized that his puzzle had completed instantly because they were in his dungeon and the tablets had the signature of his magic. It must be checking for the appropriate participant’s magic signature and marking it complete if it was there.

It felt like a teaching puzzle. Serenity was interested to see what the next one would be like, but first they had to get through this one. Roy had never learned to direct his magic at all. He’d gone to some magic classes during the Tutorial, but they’d been entirely theoretical.

“I was told that if I wanted more than that, I needed to select a Mage Path or I wasn’t worth the time to teach. I’d already selected my Path by then. It’s not a combat Path and I never-” Roy stopped. He sounded upset.

“If there’s something you want, you can always train in it and pick it up later. Coming to magic late isn’t that unusual. Whoever told you it wasn’t worth teaching nonmages doesn’t know what he’s talking about, magic’s useful for everyone.”

Serenity was unhappy. He was going to have to go to some of the basic magic classes the next time he was in a Tutorial and find out what was going on. He knew the Armsmasters would train anyone in combat, and he also knew that even someone who didn’t directly use magic would find it helpful to have some of the basics. The sort of magic that was needed here was very similar to what was needed to activate a triggered magic item; even a non-mage should know that much. Refusing to teach anything was simply laziness.

“What’s your Path, Roy? It might be more useful than you think.” Serenity was convinced there weren't any useless Paths. There were Paths that he considered evil and immoral and there were Paths that were a bad fit, but there wasn’t such a thing as a Path that was useless.

“I’m a Swift Runner. I love to run, so when I saw that was an option, I took it without thinking about it. It’s a lot of fun, but it doesn’t help at all in fighting and it doesn’t give me any magic.” Roy shook his head. “I should have waited until I knew my other options. I could have picked something more useful.”

“I bet you were useful in Stage Two of the Tutorial as a scout. I also bet that you get experience every time you go out and run. Neither of those is useless. I don’t know what the skills are, but I bet it also gives you a way to generally move faster. If you want to move into combat, look for something that takes advantage of that. If you don’t want to do combat, you can look for a Path that lets you carry more while running with less fatigue. The point of a Path is to do what you want to do, not just what seems the most useful or powerful. Choosing power that doesn’t fit you well is how people get stuck.” Serenity had seen a lot of people get stuck over the years. He’d also seen people free themselves by finding a Path that fit them better.

“Yeah, I get experience from exercising. Doesn’t everyone?” Roy looked puzzled.

If that was the only thing Roy got out of it … well, there were worse things to latch onto. “No. It’s unusual. Experience comes from following your Path. I’m combat-focused, so I’ll get good experience from fighting. My current Path is a magic Path, so anything magic-related will also be good, even if it’s not fighting. Raz is focused on dungeons, so he’ll get the best experience from anything involving dungeons. Mandy is still a child, so things like learning and new experiences will be good for her.”

Serenity didn’t mention that Roy would probably get reduced experience from the dungeon, since it didn’t line up well with his Path. What it was likely to do was open additional Path options, if he learned something interesting then started using it outside.

“There are a couple of ways to move your magic. I assume you’re just sort of imagining magic flowing out of you and into the circle on the tablet?”

Roy nodded.

“All right, then. Think about your body. There should be a feeling of either warmth or coldness somewhere, it’s usually in either the head or the chest. When you find it, think about having it extend down the arm and out through your finger to the tablet.”

Serenity kept suggesting methods until one finally worked for Roy. It turned out that he needed to get his blood flowing by moving up and down the subway car, then concentrate on controlling his breathing and heart rate. When he did that, he was able to feel something that he could move to make the circle turn green.

It wasn’t going to be an easy method to improve, but being able to feel magic at all was an important first step.