Rylan sprinted through the thick fog at full tilt, his shoes kicking up sand that floated into Tamina and Yuel’s path. They didn’t complain. The feeling of pressure bearing down on Rylan intensified as the shadow chasing them through the fog came closer.

  Come on, come on; where are you leading me?!

  As Rylan was starting to lose faith in the tingles, a massive, freestanding building suddenly loomed out of the fog, with right in front of them, an open doorway.

  No ominous dark hole in the side of a derelict building had ever gaped so invitingly.

  “There, hurry!” he called out, pointing forward and no longer bothering to keep his voice low.

  Mere seconds later, he barrelled through the gap in the stonework. His attempt to skid to a halt in the loose sand was not very successful, and he slammed into a wall none-too gently, protected only by the flash of white light from his Mana Shell. Tamina at least had the decency to avoid colliding with him, but Yuel had no such scruples, and they went down together in a swearing tangle.

  “Get away from the entrance, you gullbrained clodpolls!” Tamina hissed at them.

  After untangling himself from the blond former pirate, Rylan dutifully crawled away, before slumping against a mossy wall to catch his breath.

  The hallway they were in was pitch black and—apart from their ragged breathing—eerily quiet, so he fumbled for his glowband one-handed, and strapped it around his forehead.

  Meanwhile, Tamina took up position by the doorway, carefully looking out. After a dozen seconds or so, she let out a quiet sigh. “All right, I think it’s gone.” Purple-reddish light played over her face as she turned to take Rylan in with narrowed eyes, clearly suspicious. She glanced at Yuel, then sighed. “I think we should wait here for a bit to be safe, then call it for today and head back. To be honest, we’re already farther from the bubble than I’m comfortable with.”

  “Hear hear!” Yuel huffed, clutching his side. “I’d much rather be dinner-less than dinner!”

  Rylan only half-listened, however, as the tingles had once more grabbed his attention. Rather than become weaker and less urgent again like he’d expected, they’d actually strengthened, and now seemed to be laced not with worry or resignation, but excitement.

  More importantly, rather than back the way they came, they pointed deeper into the dark hallway.

  Before, he’d kind of assumed that he could simply sense where the being sending him tingles was, but it was becoming increasingly clear that whatever was sending them was actually supplying him with a sense of direction.

  The question was, why was the mysterious being suddenly indicating he should head somewhere new, away from the bubble of fog-free air? Does it have some kind of goal inside of this building? Something it wants me to do or find? Or maybe... something I might learn?

  He hadn’t gotten a very good look at the outside of the building what with the various layers of coral and moss covering its fa?ade, but at the very least it seemed to be a relative large and structurally intact complex. It could have been pretty important to the Hermeans, once...

  Rylan swallowed, then made up his mind. “Actually, if we’re going to wait here anyway, we might as well do some exploring, right?”

  Yuel let out a dramatic sigh. “Oh, how nice it must be to be so young and energetic... I vote we lay here and recover.”

  “Come on, Yuel,” Rylan needled. “There could be food in here! I, ehm... actually, I spotted an octopus when we first entered, and I think it may have laid its eggs here somewhere.”

  Tamina shot him an odd look, seeming to sense that he was up to something, and Rylan pled with his eyes for her to play along.

  Thankfully, Yuel appeared to be none the wiser. “You really think so?” he asked, perking up slightly. “I’ve never had octopus eggs before...”

  “Fine,” Tamina said after a moment. “Let’s have a look. I’ll take point, Yuel can guard our rear. Ry, tell me what I’m looking for.”

  “I think you’ll know it when you see it,” Rylan responded vaguely.

  Tamina shot him another look, but hefted her shield, its surface lighting up white with the mana from her Skill, illuminating the sandy floor in front of her.

  “Hang on, I brought something for this,” Yuel said, before producing a pocket-sized oil-lantern, of all things. He hung it from the bottom of his harpooncaster, and with a quick pull of the plunger, lit the wick.

  Tamina walked past them, paused briefly to give Rylan an unreadable look, then kept moving. A reddish-purple glow and flickering orange light played over the moss-covered interior walls as Rylan and Yuel followed her.

  The hallway stretched out before them, shady openings leading alternatingly left and right. Tamina stopped at each one, peering inside before she moved on. Rylan only glanced inside as he passed them by, the tingles still urging him forward, deeper into the ruin.

  Eventually, they arrived at a junction with paths leading only left and right. Tamina turned towards him, raising a brow. Rylan hesitantly stepped forward, glancing both ways. Another tingle came, and his stomach jolted when it directed him firmly to the left.

  I was right! There’s something inside this building it wants me to find!

  “This way,” he said confidently, indicating the hallway.

  Tamina stared at him for a moment, then shrugged, and once more led the way.

  The hallway continued straight for a while, with more doors on either side. Tamina still stopped to look into each one, but moved on quickly each time, seeming to sense that their goal lay onward.

  In one room, Rylan spotted some decently sized mussels. However, he didn’t stop to harvest them, simply making a mental note for later.

  Even this deep into the building, the floor was covered entirely in sand. Still, the layer was growing less deep, and in some spots, Rylan could feel it shift across a hard surface beneath his feet.

  Scuffing some sand aside with his boot, he found stone tiles beneath that appeared to have been worn smooth.

  Seems like this place was well-trafficked, once... I wonder what it was for.

  Eventually, after following a curve to the right, the hallway opened up into a large, dark space.

  Tamina came to a halt in the opening. Taking a deep breath, Rylan stepped up next to her, lifted a finger to his forehead, and started feeding a stream of mana into the glowmetal. Reddish-purple light bloomed, illuminating the foggy interior of a grand, seemingly hexagonal hall. Rusted chandeliers lay on the ground, shattered black and white tiles visible beneath them through the thin film of sand. Despite the obvious signs of deterioration, the stone arches supporting what Rylan suspected to be a domed roof, stood firm.

  Suspected, because much like the other side of the room, the light from his glowband couldn’t reach the top through the ever-present fog.

  The tingles urged him onward, and he hesitantly stepped inside. As he walked towards the centre, a grand staircase that led up to a bare stone balcony appeared out of the haze.

  However, he quickly found that the tingles didn’t point up. Rather, they pointed down. Down into a spiral staircase that started near the grand one’s base, right in the centre of the room.

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  He stopped in front of it.

  “Ehm,” Yuel started as he walked up alongside Tamina. “So... are we still looking for those eggs? Because I’m not sure we’re going to find them in here; this place is huge! Maybe we should just—”

  “There’s something down there,” Rylan said, cutting him off with a frown as he stared down the spiral staircase. “I’m not sure what, though...”

  He wasn’t lying. It was no longer just the tingles running up his spine that told him there was something there: there was a kind of buzz in the air, and it was coming from down those stairs.

  Tamina cocked her head, squinting. “Is there? I don’t feel anything...”

  Could be a Perception thing. I do suspect mine is higher than hers.

  Rylan wisely decided not to comment on that, however. “I’m positive,” he said instead. “Shall we go check it out?”

  “Do we have to?” Yuel asked, looking rather unnerved. “What if it’s like a Malequint’s lair or something?”

  “Come on, Yuel, where’s your sense of adventure?” Rylan asked teasingly. “I thought you were a pirate?”

  “Exactly, were,” Yuel emphasized, expertly flipping his long blond locks over his shoulder with a toss of his head. “I voted in favour of retiring from that life for a reason! All this stress is bad for my skin...”

  “Let’s have a look,” Tamina decided. “Whatever this place was, it looks important. Who knows? There might be a store of Aetherium down there somewhere.”

  Yuel sighed dramatically. “Oh the folly of youth... Lead on, milady. Just don’t forget to protect your squishy friend Yuel should something jump out, all right?”

  Rylan patted the man on the shoulder. “Don’t worry, Yuel: you’re not that squishy. Though perhaps you should consider some weight training, once in a while.”

  Having said that, Rylan hid his grin by hurrying after Tamina, who’d already started descending.

  Behind him, Yuel let out an affronted gasp. “Excuse you! I have a lean physique, and I prefer it that way, all right?!”

  “If you say so.”

  “I have a dancer’s body! I’m a lover, not a fighter!”

  “Whatever helps you sleep at night,” Rylan replied gamely, as he stepped over a small anemone that had rooted itself onto the stairs.

  Yuel let out a huff of annoyance. “You’ve been spending far too much time with Nazyr. I swear, that man is a bad influence on you kids.”

  “Please,” Rylan scoffed. “You’re at least as bad. You’ve been trying to teach Soren how to pick pockets for days now!”

  “Why thank you,” Yuel replied, the smile audible in his voice. “I do try.”

  “Enough gossiping,” Tamina said dryly. “You’re like a bunch of nobles.”

  “Some would consider that a compliment, my dear.”

  “It wasn’t meant as one. Now shush and focus... I think I see light coming from below.”

  Rylan’s eyes widened as he spotted the glow as well. The buzzing he’d sensed earlier swelled into a crescendo as he hurried down after her, his spirit itself seeming to resonate with whatever lay below. Soon enough, the walls around the spiral staircase made way for a mere railing as they descended into a hexagonal room, revealing the source of the light.

  Or more accurately, the sources.

  In the centre of each of the room’s six walls, stood an oval-shaped, metal ring. Three of those rings were empty, showing only the mossy stone behind it. But the other three were each filled with a different colour of shimmering light.

  One shone bright silver, one a warm gold, and the final one an intense violet.

  “Are these...” Rylan started to ask.

  “Dungeons,” Tamina confirmed, excitement bubbling in her voice.

  Yuel let out a low whistle. “Well, I’ll be damned...”

  “Come on!” Tamina said, as she rushed down the stairs two steps a time.

  The floaty fog made it easy enough, but Rylan still felt a spike of unease seeing her enthusiasm. Everyone knew Ethereon offered some great rewards to the brave Quinthar who delved its Dungeons, but everyone also knew not every Quinthar came back alive from such adventures.

  “Hold on,” he said as he rushed down after her, his stomach flipping when he saw her make a beeline for the silver portal. “Wait! Shouldn’t we talk about this first?!”

  Tamina shot back an impatient glance, then turned around fully with a sigh, folding her arms over her chest. “I wasn’t about to just jump in immediately, you know? I was just getting a closer look, to see if it was stable.”

  Rylan frowned. Stable? I didn’t know that could be a concern...

  Then again, it seemed like there had originally been six Dungeons here, of which there were only three left. Looking them each over in turn, he felt like the light from the violet Dungeon appeared to be flickering a little in a disconcerting way.

  “I don’t wish to be a naysayer,” Yuel started, giving the Dungeon an apprehensive glance as he joined them in front of its shimmering surface. “but stable or not, should you be ‘jumping in’ at all? I’d really much rather not end up making my way back alone, you know...”

  Tamina rolled her eyes. “Look, you can tell these are three different types of Dungeons, right?”

  Rylan glanced at Yuel, only to be met with a blank stare. “Because of the colours?” he ventured after a moment.

  “That’s the most obvious clue, yes,” Tamina continued. “But if you look a little closer, you’ll also find there are different markings at the top of each ring, which should give you a hint what they’re about.”

  She pointed to the top of the ring around the golden portal on the opposite end of the toom. Following her finger, Rylan found it to be marked with a crossed sword and bow.

  “Right. So... something with combat?”

  “They’re Dungeons, Ry, they’re all about combat,” Tamina replied dryly. “That’s known as a Challenge Dungeon. In there, you’d have to fight a kind of stone puppet soldiers tailored to challenge you, and you could get seriously hurt. However, if you succeed in making it past them, you’ll receive something nice like an Enhancer or even a Pearl of Inspiration.”

  Rylan’s eyes widened. A single Enhancer could be auctioned off for fifty gold crowns; that was three times his entire debt! Though to be honest, if he got his hands on one down here, it might be better to just immediately absorb it. A permanently raised Attribute was still great, and more importantly, couldn’t be lost or stolen.

  The Black Sheep may be reformed, but fifty gold crowns was a lot of money.

  A Pearl of Inspiration would put even more of a target on his back. Sales of those were practically unheard off, as it was the number one item to help people acquire Skills. Who could you even trust to handle a treasure that many non-Quinthar would literally kill to acquire?

  “What about that one?” Yuel asked pointing at the violet portal with an ominous pair of eyes over a jaw full of teeth.

  Just the sight of it sent shivers down Rylan’s spine.

  “That one’s even worse,” Tamina explained gravely. “It’s a Champion’s Dungeon, and if you entered that one, you’d have to fight a Malequint one grade higher than you... to the death. Very few people who enter a Champion’s Dungeon ever come out.”

  “So if I were to enter it, I’d have to face a Sapphire-Grade Malequint by myself?” Rylan asked, his stomach clenching at the thought.

  Tamina nodded. “And if Miss Hammermore entered, she’d have to fight a Ruby-Grade Malequint.”

  Swallowing, Yuel took a step back.

  Tamina grinned. “Relax. As a non-Quinthar, you wouldn’t be able to enter a Dungeon if you tried.”

  “I’m still keeping my distance, if it’s all the same to you,” Yuel replied stiffly.

  Rylan frowned. “But... if a Ruby-Grade- Quinthar entered, wouldn’t that mean...”

  Tamina shook her head. “Champion’s Dungeons are the source of the Affinities that are required to unlock Ruby-Grade Skills in the first place. Even if Ethereon allowed a Ruby-Grade Quinthar to enter—which I don’t believe it does—there would be no point; you can only have one Affinity.”

  Rylan stared at the violet Dungeon portal with wide eyes, fear and ambition warring within him. After a moment, fear won out by a landslide and he averted his gaze.

  Tamina shrugged. “Anyway, I’m not interested in entering either of those two at the moment either, but this... this is an Equipment Dungeon.”

  There was a hint of excitement in her voice again as she turned back to the silver portal behind her. At the top, Rylan spotted a hammer and forge.

  “Inside an Equipment Dungeon,” she continued, “you pick one of your Skills, and Ethereon will test you on its use. If you make it through all the challenges, it awards you with a piece of equipment suited to said Skill.”

  “And it’s safe?” Rylan asked apprehensively.

  She cocked her head to the side. “Well... depending on the Skill you pick, more or less.”

  “When you say a piece of equipment...” Yuel started slowly.

  “Most Equipment Dungeons around the kingdom have been delved hundreds of times, and now they only push out mundane gear, raw steel without runes. But it’s said that once upon a time, they provided challengers with genuine, ancient Hermean runegear, the stuff our technology is based on. Now, I don’t know about you, but I don’t think this Dungeon’s seen a lot of use over the past couple of centuries...”

  Rylan’s heartbeat accelerated as he began to understand the hunger in her voice. But he still had some questions. “I thought Ethereon created the Dungeons... What do the Hermeans have to do with it?”

  Tamina glanced back at him, blinking. “I don’t know what to tell you. It’s pretty obvious that Ethereon controls the Dungeons, but they’ve only ever been found in Hermean ruins.”

  Well, that was certainly interesting. Could they actually be manmade?

  As he pondered this, Tamina squatted in front of the shimmering surface, staring intently at it, then she stood up and ran her hand along the ring. Finally, she nodded to herself and stepped back. “All right, it seems stable. I’m going in.”

  “Wait, right now?” Rylan asked, feeling alarmed despite her earlier assurance that it was ‘more or less’ safe. “You can only enter any individual Dungeon once though, right? Shouldn’t we come back later? Better prepared?”

  She shot him a grin. “You’re the one that wanted to come down here. Where’s your sense of adventure, Ry?”

  Yuel let out a snort.

  With a start, Rylan remembered what had urged him here in the first place. In the excitement of their discovery, the intense buzzing of the Dungeons had drowned out the tingles, but now that he was paying attention he realised they were still there, still directing him... straight towards the silver portal.

  It wants me to enter the Equipment Dungeon? But why?

  He opened his mouth to say something about it, then hesitated, glancing at Yuel.

  “Anyway, three of these six Dungeons have already shut down, meaning their functions are degrading,” Tamina said as she unstrapped her shield and propped it up against the wall. “I’m not gonna wait around for this one to give out as well,” she continued while sheathing her sword, unbuckling the belt it hung from, and laying it down next her shield. “I should be out in about fifteen minutes or so, and then you can give it a shot. You know, if you’ve gathered your courage by then. Wish me luck!”

  And with that, she strode forward.

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