They packed up; moments after they left the clearing, Serenity felt something change in the air of the dungeon. There were no other signs and no one else seemed to notice anything; on the other hand, he didn’t say anything either. They walked for about ten minutes before the mountain started shaking.

It was only a small earthquake, but it was followed by a continual rumbling under Serenity’s feet. Not only could he hear it, he could feel the magma that ran underground as it moved towards the throat of the volcano. He somehow knew that the mountain wasn’t ready to erupt; it was giving warning that it would, soon, but not yet. Traveling uphill was dangerous; if he wished to be safe, he needed to head down the mountain where he could avoid the lava.

And yet he knew that it wouldn’t hurt him unless he allowed it to. That had probably been true on previous levels as well, but he felt it far more keenly here, in a place where there was actually something that would normally be able to harm him. Lava didn’t care what Tier you were; either you could withstand it or you couldn’t, and while dragons were well known for their resilience and their scales, they weren’t lava-proof.

Serenity tried not to pay attention to the feeling that he was safe if he chose to be. He’d take advantage of it if he had to, anything else was stupid, but until then he wanted to act like this was a normal dungeon run.

Animals fled down the mountain, alongside monsters. It was a distinctly natural scene, for a disaster. They simply ran; none tried to attack each other, as long as they weren’t in the way. There was everything from ordinary Tier Zero beasts through true monsters at Tier Five.

Naturally, a trio of Tier Five elk ran directly into the group. Gabriel attempted to divert them with an ice wall, but by the time the spell was cast, Daryl had already shot one of the three in the heart. Like lower-Tier creatures, they didn’t seem to have shields and a grievous injury could be enough.

The ice wall separated the two remaining elk; one charged Naomi while the other headed directly for Serenity. It was enough to make him wish he had a spear instead of his sword, especially when one of the elk’s antlers slammed into his shield; that was going to cost him a good bit of mana and he might have to repair the spellform. It was still better than not having a shield. That fact was made even more obvious a moment later when Serenity pushed his manablade through the chest of the elk; it had very little resistance.

With the three elk downed, the group moved on. No one even commented on the fight; it really wasn’t much of a fight. It did leave Serenity wondering if there was a better way to handle his shield, however. He didn’t have a shielding Skill yet; realistically, there wasn’t much benefit in having one if he could simply maintain the spell. On the other hand, having the ability to alter his shield to match the enemy he fought would be huge. He couldn’t do that with a spellform that he could maintain at Tier Eight, even with triggers.

He could, however, potentially make a set of runes for it; it wouldn’t be the sort of shield you’d see on a person, since people used Skills or spells. Instead, it would be the sort of rune you’d sometimes see on a physical shield or even armor to enhance its ability to take hits or resist magic. Serenity could do the same thing for his armor, as long as he was willing to put a rune on himself. He could even make it trigger on being hit; that wasn’t a good idea for a person, since the initial damage would go through before the shield activated, but for armor it was generally considered acceptable. If he were smart, he might even be able to come up with a set of runescripts that triggered only for the appropriate damage type.

Would putting it in his armor-self as Quickrunes work? He had to try that and find out. He already knew that a Quickrune would last through a shapeshift; more accurately, it seemed to alter what he considered that form to be, so it went away when he shifted away from a form but came back when he shifted into the form.

Most of the time that was a good thing, and it would definitely be a good thing if he came up with a good protective set for his armor, but it did mean that he couldn’t make different variations of himself and shift into them to have different rune loadouts. He’d tried.

Serenity spent the next hour thinking about runesets and runescripts along with triggers and transforms and possible ways to interlock the shielding scripts so they wouldn’t interfere with each other if they triggered together. It wouldn’t be hard to limit it to a single trigger, but a single trigger meant he had to either power them all, which wasn’t a viable option for any length of time, or he could only have one thing up. That wasn’t what he wanted, either.

There were other monster attacks, but none were really notable any more than the elk had been. They were all small numbers of maddened Tier Five “animals” that tried to charge through the group. More than once, Gabriel saw them far enough in advance that he was able to divert the charge with an appropriately placed slanted ice wall; if the monsters ran past without actually starting a fight, they kept going. When he didn’t manage to avoid the encounter completely, Gabriel was able to routinely break them up so that they weren’t a problem.

The monster attacks didn’t pull Serenity out of his concentration on a new runescript; instead, it was the feeling of another trigger being flipped that made him start paying full attention to his surroundings again. Moments later, the mountain shook violently and the volcano erupted in a shower of fiery sparks. There was a sensation like pride from the dungeon.

The pride was definitely not appreciated by Daryl. “Shit! It’s a Flame Wave! Gabriel, Ice Dome. Naomi, Serenity, huddle together!”

It was the first time Serenity had seen Daryl use Gabriel’s real name. It was obvious that calling him “Gabe” had to be deliberate.

“On it.” Gabriel was channeling mana through the Ice Wall wand, but instead of using it to cast the predefined spell he was forcing it to continue past the normal cast and to curve. As he spun in a circle, the wall enveloped the small area the four of them were in; as soon as the circle was complete, he lifted the wand to make the ice block the air above as well. The moment he released the channel, Gabriel sank to his knees and panted.

The wand was on the ground in front of Gabriel. A glance at it showed cracks forming in the wood; it had clearly been pushed past its endurance. Gabriel might or might not be able to get another Ice Wall out of it before it failed. He certainly wouldn’t be able to create the dome again. It simply wasn’t made for it.

Serenity frowned. “Why don’t you have a wand for the Ice Dome itself? It’s clear you’ve planned for this.”

“Enchanter Remath won’t make Ice Dome as anything below a Tier Seven spell. This version of Ice Wall’s only Tier Five. There’s a huge price difference and the Fire Wave is rare.” Daryl answered instead of Gabriel, who was still trying to catch his breath. “Gabriel breaks an Ice Wall wand making an Ice Dome a lot less often than they die on their own, so it’s just not worth it. At least, that’s what he tells me.”

“Watch … the Fire Wave …” Gabriel looked up and away from the others. He stared at the peak of the volcano. “Ice Dome’d be worth it if we didn’t have to stop and rest in the dome. But we do, so it’s not worth it.”

Serenity followed Gabriel’s vision. The Ice Dome was at best translucent; in a number of places, it was more white than clear. Between that and the ripples in the ice, the entire horizon seemed to be filled with fire. Serenity hoped that it was merely the appearance of a wall of flames, but he couldn’t count on that. It was clear why they called it a Fire Wave; it was also clear why the dungeon had that momentary surge of pride.

It’d triggered a rare event. Serenity suspected that it was his own fault; was the dungeon showing off? Serenity grumbled to himself but focused back on the incoming wave of fire.

The air inside the Ice Dome cooled rapidly; Gabriel had already started to shiver despite his warm clothing. That probably had as to do with the Ice Dome spell itself as the actual temperature; mana overuse could cause all sorts of symptoms. Fortunately, they should be temporary.

Despite the chill, the three Silver Blades started stripping off their warm outer gear and passing it to Daryl to stick in his bag. Serenity followed suit, sticking his back through his Rift, but kept his eyes on the fire outside.

The Fire Wave washed over the Ice Dome. Serenity could see the outside surface of the dome melt rapidly by the ripples in his vision from water streaming off the dome, but the Fire Wave kept coming. It wasn’t the simple line of fire it looked like from the outside; instead, it was at least ten feet wide, thick enough to envelop the entire barrier.

No, it had to be at least twice that thick. It didn’t move past the dome; instead, it seemed to stay over it and try to melt it. Serenity felt a spot of heat on his back and turned to look; the ice had melted away in spots where the top of the dome joined with the sides and heat was getting in when the meltwater didn’t block it.

Serenity glanced around and saw that the other three had all moved to spots where they weren’t getting blasted by the flame from outside. The temperature inside the dome rose quickly.

Serenity didn’t have an Ice-based Skill or wand. Even if he’d had one, it probably wouldn’t have been able to build walls; his Skills tended towards damage, while he used spells to do more permanent effects where he could take his time. Honestly, an earth-based one would probably be better; at least it wouldn’t melt the way the ice was.

The Fire Wave finally passed. Serenity felt water dripping on him; the Ice Dome clearly continued to melt. The air coming in from outside felt cooler, but was still warm. Serenity could see embers actually floating in the air; that seemed likely to be a dungeon effect, so it probably wasn’t going to go away if they gave it a little time. The one good thing Serenity could see out of the situation was that at least Gabriel wasn’t shivering anymore.

Daryl turned to Serenity. “We’ll stay in the dome until it’s not protecting us anymore, give Gabe some time to recover.”

“Gabriel.”

Daryl grinned at Gabriel’s immediate response.

Was he doing that to make Gabriel feel better? Did it even work like that?

“So, meant to ask last night, but since we’ve got time now … who are you with? The symbol on your shirt and armor’s clearly a membership of some sort, but it doesn’t look like a normal Guildmark. It looks more like a Lord’s emblem, even if they’re not quite the same.” Daryl sat down next to Gabriel and looked up at Serenity. “The sort a retainer might wear, but I’ve no idea why a Lord’s personal retainer would be in Takinat.”