The discussion died out again, leaving only the crunch of carbonized plant matter to break the stillness of each step. The fire-ember field didn’t particularly bother Serenity; his eyes were protected and when he accidentally touched one of the floating embers, it was uncomfortably warm but not painful.

The same couldn’t be said of the three Silver Blades; they were clearly sweltering in their damp outfits and while they’d tried to cover everything, moving hastily could leave a gap. Serenity saw, more than once, an ember that seemed to move of its own volition to fly into one of those gaps. It was behavior Serenity had seen before; the embers themselves weren’t really “real” until they touched something. They were simply nodes in the dungeon field.

The behavior made avoiding them especially difficult. It was still possible in many fields, but these embers were closer together. This field was obviously intended to be dealt with by preparation or healing; because it was now a property of the area, it ignored Serenity’s shield as if it didn’t exist. The Silver Blades’ preparations said that low-Tier shield Skills like theirs were also ignored. It was absolutely possible to create a shield that would stop a dungeon’s field effect, but it was a mana-hungry endeavor and not necessary most of the time. Serenity wasn’t about to build the spell right now, not when the embers barely affected him at all.

The mountain was relatively steep but walkable until they reached an area littered with giant stones. Those had to be scrambled over; oddly enough, it was Naomi and Daryl that had the most trouble. They were stronger than Gabriel but he was lighter and more flexible.

Serenity also got the feeling that Gabriel enjoyed mountain climbing while the other two were more martially inclined. After the third time Gabriel had to help Daryl, Serenity decided to ask. “Do you climb mountains for fun?”

Gabriel laughed. “I used to and I probably will again when I move on from Takinat. There aren’t any good mountains nearby. The land’s a bit flat, if you hadn’t noticed.”

Serenity grinned back. “Yeah, I noticed. Hard not to. It’s good for traveling, not so good for some other things.” Serenity was thinking about hiding from aircraft, but that wasn’t the only thing helped by rocky terrain. “It’s not very good practice for this dungeon.”

Gabriel shrugged. “Rest of the dungeon’s pretty flat. Most of them are. There’s a small Tier Two level in one of them with the best climbing in the area. I’ll have to point it out when we get back to the Guild and you have your map.”

Serenity grinned at Gabriel. “I brought a map. Show me tonight?”

“Sure.”

They moved on. It wasn’t long before Gabriel added, “Thanks for not asking why I didn’t go for a physical build if I like climbing mountains.”

Serenity shrugged. “There are several possible reasons to go for magic even if you like being outside. Wanting to use magic or not wanting to practice with weapons are both good reasons.”

Gabriel chuckled. “It’s neither of those. It just makes it too easy.”

Serenity nodded, even though Gabriel probably couldn’t see him. “I can respect that.” He didn’t agree, not for climbing mountains, but there were other things he did the hard way. Languages, for example, when he had time.

Moments later, they reached a ridgeline and were able to see into the mouth of the volcano. It almost glowed with floating embers; deep inside, Serenity could see movement that was colored in a deep red and black. That had to be lava.

The Silver Blades gave Serenity a little time to take in the panorama while they searched for a good route down. When Naomi found it, she called everyone over.

It looked like an actual path. It was still volcanic rock, but it was relatively even, wide, and sloped like the path people might make. Serenity took one look at it and knew it was a path they were supposed to take; he’d seen many paths like it before in dungeons. Paths that were made to sort of blend in yet still give enough room and good enough footing to fight. Paths that made the fights a little bit more fair for the delvers but also let the monsters (or perhaps the dungeon) know where the delvers would go.

In a well-managed, relatively safe dungeon, the obvious paths were well worth taking. You could certainly go off of them to find secrets, but a simple clear wouldn’t require anything other than following a relatively obvious or well known route. In dungeons that had become killers, on the other hand, obvious paths needed to be avoided. They were where the traps and ambushes were. Most dungeons were relatively safe, fortunately, and this seemed like one of them.

Well, safe if you accepted the notion that you’d have to fight for your life and that you shouldn’t overextend yourself. This one let you back out and limited itself to appropriate challenges; some, like the Fire Wave, would require preparation but Serenity was confident that a reasonably cautious party of explorers would be able to come out of it with only some burns and be able to escape the dungeon. It wasn’t like it was followed up by a large wave of monsters.

They didn’t hurry down the path. The Silver Blades moved cautiously, more concerned about the terrain than they’d been about the monsters they’d seen so far in the dungeon. Their caution was rewarded; the only danger they saw was a pair of fire elementals, which were quickly handled by Gabriel before they reached the party.

When they reached the floor of the caldera, Naomi led the way forward, followed by Serenity. They were to be the vanguard, but Naomi knew the way. Unlike on the way down, they wouldn’t be following the obvious path. Daryl was in the rear, just in case something attacked from the side, but the Silver Blades assured Serenity that the fire-rock elementals weren’t ambush monsters.

The first “fire-rock elemental” appeared about five minutes after they left the path. Serenity took one look at it and dubbed it a lava golem. It was shaped like a blobby clay sculpture of a person, but seemed to be made out of lava. Most of it was blackened like the crust on cooling lava, but wherever it moved, cracks opened and dripped a thick red-orange material that had to be molten rock. He could see why they called it a fire-rock elemental, but it was far too golem-like for Serenity to think of it as anything else.

Serenity chuckled to himself and sent a Death Magebolt at the lava golem. It staggered then stepped forward, so Serenity sent another. The golem took another faltering step forward. It was probably not much of a threat anymore, but Serenity sent a third Death Magebolt just to be certain.

“No shield, but they’re stubborn,” he muttered. That explained why it was alone, even though there were four of them in a dungeon made for five; a Tier Four Skill backed by an Incarnate wasn’t enough to outright kill them when they were Tier Five. Serenity’s Death Magebolt was decidedly stronger than that of a normal Tier Four; he suspected it was closer to peak Tier Six when he cast it without weakening it the way he just had.

Serenity suspected that magic was the lava golems’ weakness; the hardened, cooled rock would be tough to beat through and once you did, it would spit molten rock at you. Melee was a bad idea and Serenity doubted arrows would do all that much better. They usually didn’t, against a rock.

“Stubborn’s one way to put it,” Naomi agreed. “How often can you do that? Daryl and I usually concentrate on keeping them away from Gabriel so he can use magic to deal with them, but yours is working better. After seeing that, I think Gabriel’s ice spear spell is a little too physical.”

“It has a secondary cold aura,” Gabriel protested. “That’s why I got it. It solidifies the liquid rock and the flash-freeze cracks the hot solid rock.”

“And then dumps more not-yet-cooled-down rock on me, thanks.” Naomi didn’t sound very happy about it.

“I can’t help it that my affinities are Healing, Fire, and Ice! It’s the best I can do!” Gabriel tried to defend himself.

Naomi relented with a sigh and a little relaxation in her posture. “You do a pretty good job for your limited Affinities. I just … it’d be nice if we had Ked back.”

Gabriel sighed and looked at his feet. “You know why he left.”

Naomi nodded. “I also know he’ll come back if things change.”

No one moved for a long moment. Serenity didn’t want to break the silence, but when he saw another lava golem, he had to. This time, he pushed the Skill a little. He wanted to expand it and make it more useful and this one had plenty of resilience. Two Death Magebolts were enough, and he even ended up spending slightly less mana than the three he’d used on the previous golem.

“If you can keep that up, we can hurry to the fire-heart,” Naomi offered. “Going the fast way means more fire-rock elementals at once, but it’ll save us hours.”

Serenity took a quick look at his Status. He didn’t think the Death Magebolts took an appreciable amount of power. He was a little off; they did take a noticeable amount, though it would come back pretty quickly as long as he didn’t continuously spam the spell. He could probably cast it a few hundred times before he really needed to worry. “I can do that a lot before it’s a problem. As long as you can keep it so that I can take them out one at a time, I’ll be fine. I have an area version as well, but it’s a lot more expensive.”

“If you’re that fast, one at a time is fine.” Naomi turned about thirty degrees to the right from the direction she’d been leading them and set off through the caldera. Serenity suspected he didn’t need her to lead anymore; she was headed directly towards the vent in the middle of the volcano.

There was a constant stream of lava golems. At first, Serenity was able to keep up and kill them before they reached the group, but as they got closer to the vent the golems became more and more common. When they encountered the first actual stream of lava, Serenity found out why: they formed at the edges of the stream. Naomi knocked them back while Serenity killed them; Gabriel and Daryl each tossed bits of black fireglass into the stream until it solidified enough to cross.

Golems didn’t rise from the fireglass-solidified lava, but they would as soon as the glass melted.

They were over two-thirds of the way to the vent when the first lava golem caught up to them from the rear while they were waiting for a lava river to solidify. From that point on, only Daryl was able to manage the fireglass; Gabriel had to carefully place Ice Walls to slow down the lava golems. He didn’t even bother to pull out his Ice Spear wand; apparently he thought that slowing them enough for Serenity to take them out was more effective.

Serenity noticed that he was using a different wand for his Ice Walls than the one he’d used for the Ice Dome; this one wasn’t cracked. Serenity didn’t say anything, but he approved. It meant Gabriel was prepared and also that he took this situation seriously.

When they were close to the vent, the attacks lightened back to a level Serenity could easily keep up with on his own. They were still walking over frozen lava rivers, but the only golems they were seeing were the ones that caught up with them. It gave Serenity the feeling that they were getting close to a big fight; the dungeon was hoarding monsters and giving them some breathing room at the same time.