Chapter 32: Ebb and Flow

  The flash of golden light subsided, replaced by the familiar chill and overwhelming shadow of the dungeon’s depths.

  Blychert was quick to recast his light spell, even though it still had some legs left on its overall duration, just as the other two appeared behind him in a similar spark of bright energy, one right after the other.

  Silently, and to himself, Bly let out a small sigh of relief, content to know that at least his gut feeling hadn’t led them all to their deaths. Well, if it had, then at least it wasn’t immediately ensuing.

  Glancing around, Blychert regarded his surroundings for a diligent moment.

  The auxiliary light of his spell floated up slowly into the dry air, illuminating the stark, blackened walls of the dungeon more properly now that his eyes had readjusted. The corridor in which they found themselves was wide enough for at least ten to walk abreast, stretching all the way up to a vaulted ceiling affixed with many pointed arches and buttresses. Bly wasn’t certain that he’d been to this floor before, and Reingard practically confirmed it a moment later.

  “Floor eleven, and it looks like the seventh sector…” he ruminated aloud, and his tone of voice wasn’t overly optimistic.

  Bly couldn’t help but to smirk a little bit.

  Stepping forward a few feet, he leaned down, and picked up the resonance stone from where it idled, quietly thanking Lisel to himself, before standing back upright. Peering down both ends of the corridor more thoroughly, he could just make out more of that golden light, at least down one end of the hall, the wispy strands of which were just barely shifting.

  Well, at least they had something to investigate.

  By all indications, this wasn’t the floor they wanted to be on, or so according to his and Skaldan’s working theory. But just how much of this strange magical energy was there? They couldn’t possibly keep jumping through them at random, sooner or later something had to give. Unless, of course, that was exactly what they were meant to do. He hadn’t heard about anything like this from Nelkaar, or any of the others, and Skaldan seemed just as clueless about it as he did. Perhaps that was where the investigation on the seventh floor had originated? And why the floor had been closed to begin with?

  It was hard to say with any certainty, but surely Skaldan would have heard about something like this, if no one else. He was the one who’d been investigating it all this time.

  And anyway, wasn’t the dungeon supposed to be a static entity? Things seemed to be evolving—changing, in a way; the Hall Keeper had confirmed as much during Bly’s visit with him. As aberrant energy spread throughout the Silver Vault, more instability became prevalent, allowing for more erratic volatility changes, allowing for—

  “Hm… a raid sequence, maybe?” Bly mumbled to himself, unsure by the idea.

  Were the happenings in this dungeon actually just the byproduct of whatever it was Administrator Caelus was trying to achieve, and nothing more than that? A distraction? Why else would the Sister of Mercy have suggested that certain people in Frostwall were becoming suspicious of a rift unless they weren’t trying to deceive everyone in the first place?

  What was Blychert missing in all this?

  “Consider ourselves lucky…” Reingard exhaled heavily, brandishing his sole remaining blade, “We can reroute to the wayshrine chamber from here, head back up. The others hopefully retreated to the wayshrine on their floor, but we should still head to seven. It shouldn’t take more than an hour if we move carefully—”

  Out of nowhere, Reingard’s voice stuttered, as he pivoted on his back foot and shifted to his left. In the same instance, his shortsword parried a shadowed claw that had suddenly peeled off the dungeon wall, lashing very nearly undetected.

  Blychert fired off an icicle spell the instant he realized what was happening, the energetic cold of which pierced the spawn head-on, if only but a few moments later.

  “Shades—!” Reingard growled, moving into a series of attacking and defensive combos, as the spawn lashed out at him. Even despite his injuries, the fighter carried himself with the utmost agility.

  By the light of Blychert’s light spell overhead, easily a dozen shadowy silhouettes had also begun to reveal themselves, shedding away from the shadows of the dungeon until each had fully manifested as a dark, ethereal figure lining the corridor for thirty yards out. As each shade found its bearing, many of them produced dark tendrils for weapons into their hands from the very same shadows that had spawned them.

  “Reingard!” Bly shouted hastily, garnering for the fighter’s attention. Sparing no moment for consideration, he added, “There’s more golden energy down the corridor. We can make another jump.”

  Wordlessly, the party leader glanced over his shoulder and gave an approving nod, before gesturing for Bjadir to take point. The half-giant grunted in acknowledgment, dashing forward down the other end of the corridor with his maul firmly grasped by the handle and grip. Skaldan quickly fell into step some ten yards behind him, followed closely by Blychert, and then Reingard bringing up the rear, who had just managed to take down two more shades in the span of several seconds before fleeing as well.

  “Shards of winter's night, craft your bulwark and arise…” Bly began to cast, as he raced forth behind the others. His mana was in a sufficient place to cast wall of ice without dipping into the red, and the width of the corridor was short enough for him to cast the spell without having to amplify it any further than its base, “Upon the frostbite that whispers, may this biting cold reign, and let stir your design. Let these bitter winds blow, weaving frozen calamity unto itself. Wall of ice!”

  Twisting around, Blychert stretched his arms out and manifested the desired length of his wall through the channeling of his mana. The elemental energy surged and soared upwards, crafting an icy bulwark between the two points in the darkened stonework, all within the span of a few seconds.

  Bly wasn’t certain it would hold back shadow monster for very long, but as the only support left in the party, he had to try something. At the very least, it would give them enough time to get out of here.

  “Which one!” Skaldan shouted, his voice breathy from the full sprinting, “There’s three of them!”

  “Just pick one—” Reingard growled, obviously in pain from his own running.

  “Wait—!” Bly urged, before Skaldan had the chance to act on Reingard’s orders. Stepping forward into the cluster of golden light, Blychert hastily cast his aura detection spell, hoping to garner some similar sensation like in the other chamber before this one.

  The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

  Sure enough, one of the wisps pulled on the back of his mind more intently than the others, its aura was unmistakably denser—richer in energy, somehow. It made the hairs on the back of Bly’s neck stand tall, truth be told.

  “That one—” he pointed, just as the shades entered the radius of his light spell from the other side of the corridor. Bjadir didn’t need much convincing, and was gone in a flash, with Skaldan right behind him.

  “How can you be sure?” Reingard asked pessimistically, as if they had the time for such a conversation.

  “I can’t—” was the only thing he could say in response, before he himself jumped through after the others.

  “Floor nine.” Skaldan confirmed, “And look, more lights…”

  With the flash of golden light subsiding, Blychert was met by the image of his three companions coming to, as each of them spread out across the narrow, hexagonal shaped chamber in which they found themselves.

  Skaldan’s observation appeared to be correct. Strands of golden energy spread out across the room, flowing in and out of each wisp—each node, as if all of it really was an interconnected entity.

  Bly’s aura detection was still active, which meant he could feel the immediate surge in the back of his mind. It was pulling on his psyche just a little bit more intensely than the last set had. Something about this magical energy was familiar to the point now where he was even more certain that he had interacted with it before. But it wasn’t like other sources of magic that Bly was used to interacting with, like the kind he used during spellcasting. It was explicitly a form of magical energy that almost seemed… restricted to the dungeon?

  Blychert spared himself a moment’s thought, digging deep for anything he remembered from his time learning about dungeons in his youth.

  It wasn’t uncommon knowledge that dungeons fell within the purview of Sage, or that magical energy was utilized in the powering of dungeons themselves. But what if… what if similar to how Bly converted raw mana into functional mana for powering his own spells and abilities, the dungeon was subject to the same system. The same rules of mana expenditure? And if an external pressure exerted the dungeon’s “mana supply” to a point where it would have no choice but to dip into the red, as Bly had done several times throughout his life, what then?

  Could a dungeon be pushed past the point of no return, like people could?

  “Too far from the wayshrine on this floor, we’ll have to try another jump…” Reingard sighed, disappointed by the sounds of it, “Trelen, getting anything?”

  Blychert couldn’t blame him. His entire rotation party, and that of a fellow colleague’s, might have been wiped out completely, and they wouldn’t know any better. They were trapped down here, away from the fight—away from where they could be useful. For a party leader, especially for one as dedicated as Reingard, this must have been a fate worse than death.

  “This one.” Bly nodded, pointing at one of the wisps of light, “It’s a lot stronger than the last two. I think we might be getting close to the source.”

  “Then we might be getting close to Cynric.” Skaldan suggested with an unshakable hopefulness in his undertone.

  “Listen…” Reingard exhaled slowly. He inspected the edge of his shortsword for a moment, before saying, “We’re all on the end of a long rotation. If we can’t get out of here in a timely fashion, we’re going to have to take a rest, and replenish our personal resources. I want to find out if everyone else made it out okay, but… but I still have to look after the wellbeing of the people that are still with me. You got that?”

  “Reingard…” Bly muttered.

  They really had put him in a tough predicament, hadn’t they?

  “Hm.” Reingard smirked, “I guess you can make it up to me by leading me to the dwarf. Yeah?”

  “A promise is a promise.” Skaldan nodded, “You have my word, Reingard.”

  Reingard gestured towards Bly, seemingly content by the response, “Let’s keep jumping then. Bjadir, you’re on point for now. Trelen, keep doing your thing. And Your Highness… just, don’t do anything stupid.”

  Blychert chuckled to himself, and followed his half-giant companion through the golden orb of light.

  They jumped a total of five more times before something significant happened.

  By all methods of reasoning, they were still inside the dungeon. However, upon closer inspection, they had ended up in another unmarked section of the Silver Vault, given the complete lack of mapping data. However, this wasn’t a series of crude, narrow tunnels like Bly was used to dealing with when it came to abnormal areas of the dungeon. Rather, these were familiar corridors, highly reminiscent of the dungeon’s architecture itself, if but only a bit more… decayed?

  With his aura detection still active, Blychert would have had to have been unconscious not to feel the immense, and overwhelming flow of magical energy throughout the entire area. The golden strands of aberrant magical energy ebbed and flowed like milky strands floating atop the surface of the sea. It was denser too, and there was more of it surrounding them here in this corridor than they had seen in the entire time of their wayward travels.

  This was the source, Blychert was certain of it.

  “Tight cluster formation, defensive spells at the ready, Trelen.” Reingard said in a hushed tone. He must have immediately realized the same thing that Bly had. But curiously, he seemed even more intent to investigate it, because he followed up with, “I’ll take point from here on out. Bjadir, you secure the party’s rear, set a five yards’ pace behind. Trelen, keep that detection up for magical traps. Skaldan, you have sight enhancement, yeah? Then you can help me watch for any physical threats. Alright, let’s move. Slow.”

  The party set forth, set to the diligent pace of Reingard ahead of them, while golden light continued to become increasingly intense around them. The energy hummed in Bly’s bones, vibrating to the intense and tumultuous toil that only mana ever did. He wasn’t sure what they were walking into it, but at present, it didn’t necessarily feel like a dangerous thing. It was just… present. Blychert wasn’t sure it belonged here, at least in this capacity, but it didn’t make him feel uneasy.

  Although perhaps that wasn’t the advantage he thought it was.

  They must have only walked forty or fifty yards, before the corridor turned right and ended abruptly, where upon a massive chamber opened up in front of them instead.

  It was hard to tell exactly what they were looking at, in so far that the entirety of the chamber was illuminated in a massive vortex of golden light, so much so that Bly had to squint just to keep his bearings. Extinguishing his own light spell, Bly studied the vortex for a moment.

  The golden energy swirled around its spiraling downdraft slowly, so much so that it was somewhat hard to tell that the energy was spinning at all, until one’s gaze reached the point at the ground where the energy seemed to be spiraling increasingly faster. Blychert couldn’t make out what exactly it was spiraling on top of, only that it was some kind of square-shaped dais, maybe ten meters by ten meters across. However, something caught Bly’s attention, several large, dark shapes swirling around inside the energy cloud towards the top of the vortex.

  His eyes widened.

  They were humanoid shapes, weren’t they? Those were people spiraling around up there.

  “What the hell…?” Reingard mumbled, perhaps unintentionally aloud.

  It was as good a sentiment as any, and one Bly shared.

  “Curious, isn’t it? This physical manifestation of choice.” a thick and guttural, and altogether unfamiliar voice to Bly said from an adjacent side of the chamber. Glancing sharply to his right, Bly saw the short-statured figure standing there, seemingly basking in the light of the vortex. It wasn’t hard to make out that one of his legs was considerably thinner and shinier, and that he wore an eyepatch around his face, covering his left eye. The cloaked figure turned, his rough beard a sharp ruddy color under the golden light, and added, as he gestured up towards the bodies swirling around in the vortex of energy, “That the choices you made, and the choices they made, however similar, and however random, could have led to such drastically different outcomes.”

  “What did you do to them?!” Reingard shouted, his blade fully extended towards the man on the far side.

  “Nothing… nor can I.” the figure stated, seemingly with a certain sorrow in his tone of voice. He turned, peering into the swirling energy, and stated as a matter of fact, “The dungeon will be awakened soon.”

  “But we can stop it.” Blychert insisted, taking one step forward, “Right… Cynric? That’s what you want. That’s what Prince Skeggan was trying to help you accomplish? But you… you didn’t succeed. Did you?”

  The dwarf glanced to his left. Closing his one good eye, he shook his head as if to say no. However, he wrinkled his nose, opened his eye again, and gestured for the party to follow him, “Come. It is not wise to linger here for longer than is necessary, if you are not accustomed to this degree of exposure. I can tell that you have questions. Perhaps… I may have answers.”