Day 66, 5:45 AM

  Finally, a night during which I didn’t feel bugs crawling all around me or vines reaching out towards me to check whether I was alive or dead. Initial Darkness Intuition feels like a curse most of the time, almost like my nose. I’ve gotten used to both, even so, sleeping on a bed with nothing creeping or burrowing within a foot of me felt like a small blessing.

  The rain lets up, drumming quieter against the tiled roof above, and Millie knocks on the door.

  “Breakfast is ready.”

  The four of us, clean and bathed, descend the stairs and enter the dining room. The room is void of people, save for Harlos, our host, and Millie, who happens to be his granddaughter.

  “I hope you have slept well.” The old man’s face is strained.

  It’s a tiny, barely perceptible crease in the corners of his eyes, and there’s a slight tension to his voice, something only I seem to notice, but I make no remarks. I’m cautious, but what I’m getting is hesitation, shame, and embarrassment rather than fear or hatred. Harlos should be harmless.

  “Haven’t slept better in a long while.” The girls, even Edna, nod in agreement with my statement.

  We sit, consume our morning stew, and bid our host a good day, heading for the wall to meet up with Elie.

  The labyrinthine castle streets follow the same depressing architecture as Tallrock, with uniform block buildings adorned by roofs and gutters which channel the water out of the settlement. Toilets with constantly running water and tap water are an interesting concept, even if the said water is always cold. They would have been wasteful on Earth and Arborea, but on Everrain there’s no shortage of water, nor reason to consider rationing it.

  We leave the front gate of the residential district, torrential waterfalls roaring all around us, splashing the moat, which, in turn, has two side waterfalls overflowing with even more water.

  We pass farmland and two more rows of fortifications before we see Elie marching our way.

  “Good day, I hope you had a good night’s sleep.”

  I smile, we exchange pleasantries, then move on to the important topic.

  “I was thinking we should go to the dungeon and clear the upper floors. If we remove the source of the monsters and sweep the floors regularly, it’s only a matter of time before we remove all the bugs from the forest, assuming we want to remove them. They will kill each other to manageable numbers soon enough if their reinforcements disappear.”

  “I think clearing the surroundings should also be an important task, one with high priority. While we are self-sufficient to an extent, we rely on merchants for salt.”

  “I will conjure salt,” Edna says, probably as keen as I am about the news spreading of mages arriving and setting up shop in a forsaken castle. “Do you need it now?”

  “We have some more stockpiled, but we will run out in some two months. We also need bronze ingots for tools and weapons. With the reduced population, we are smelting what remains from those who left, but that won’t suffice in the long run.”

  “There are ores in the dungeon,” I say.

  “They are too valuable and too expensive,” Elie starts, but I wave her silent.

  The law of supply and demand states that valuable commodities are those sought after more than there are available. In theory, if we supply the townsfolk with diamonds and mana-infused metals until they are more common than bronze, bronze will become a rare material.

  “Do you know where the dungeon is?”

  “It’s four days westward, the corrupted land has claimed that region when I was a girl.”

  A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

  Four days westward. Naturally, there is a path, but a path that’s been unused for half a century. I glance at Edna.

  “Do you think you can find it?”

  She gives me a what-do-you-take-me-for look, and I bid Elie goodbye before we leave.

  “Your lesson will have to wait until we enter the dungeon,” Edna says as soon as we are out of earshot. “I don’t know how close to the settlement the aberrations are. They aren’t within hours of this place, otherwise they would’ve attacked, but they can’t be too far either. Risking a night assault over several days isn’t worth it.”

  I agree and turn towards Gila and Lucy. “You guys sure you want to come?”

  They both nod without hesitation. An increase in mental stats is a blessing and a curse. Their increased faculties paint an extremely clear image on why they need more attribute points to invest in intellect and wisdom to advance further more easily.

  Initial Awakened Consciousness in particular blew their minds and let them understand just how much there was to process while using magic.

  “There is one thing I must tell you.” I need to issue the important warning. “Something about the dungeon is off. The increase in attributes you get from it is extremely addictive. It might be intentional, it might be an accident, but it’s very difficult to stop yourself from going down floors once you get a couple of free attributes from it.”

  I look at them, but all I see is puzzlement, even from Edna.

  “Another thing we need to establish right from the start. Our lives are more important than clearing the dungeon, than Deephorn, and even more important than magic. If we are facing any genuine danger and the going becomes rough, we will leave. We can always return once we are stronger. Is that understood?”

  The girls nod, but Edna seems offended.

  “That goes for you too, Edna.”

  She cocks her brow. “If I need you to lift a finger before we reach the fortieth floor, I’ll eat my own shoe.”

  “Actually, we will let the girls fight for as long as possible. Then I will help them. Then I will fight alone. And only then will we fight together. We need training and getting used to the monsters we’re going to fight.”

  Edna shrugs with a knowing do-as-you-wish look.

  We keep walking until the road before us splits in two. The eastern fork leads towards the rest of the human lands, the road is overgrown, but the ever-thirsty jungle hasn’t reclaimed it yet. The western fork, however, is a mess.

  Roots and grasses have dislodged the flagstones. The stones jut out and tilt drunkenly, some sunken or dissolved. While the road is not traversable, we could follow it, and use it as a guide rather than for its intended purpose.

  “Should we follow it?” I ask Edna, who shrugs.

  Good enough for me. I lead the way, and the four days of trek Elie mentioned stretch into five days of constant battle and swatting away monstrous fauna.

  “Wait,” Edna says around midday of the seventieth day since I have been reborn in Everrain. She rushes to the side of the road, towards a large obelisk free of creepers. She places her hand on it and smiles.

  “So, this is where we are.”

  She seems happy, and I let her enjoy her seemingly important moment. Edna caresses the stone, and I read what I can from it. It says an archmage of healing called Hadriuse had lived in the vicinity before sacrificing himself for the sake of entrapping the wormlords.

  There’s a long list of grateful students and mages he had healed at the bottom, expressing their eternal respect with the indestructible, unblemishable monument sculpted in his honor.

  “Would you like to visit the place?” I ask, and Edna shakes her head, then nods.

  “I visited Hadriuse’s House of Healing when I was a girl, but it was far from the corrupted lands back then. I can’t believe humanity has shrunk to this extent.”

  “How far is it?”

  “About five hundred yards that way.” She points towards the jungle. “This monument stood by the entrance to Hadriuse’s complex. There was an ornate bronze gate here before.”

  I guess they scrapped it for metal.

  “The dungeon should be close too, some eight miles down the road.”

  “How about we first clear the dungeon, then come here to see whether anything remains of the complex.” It was abandoned over a century ago, but if inquisitors haven’t burned it to the ground, we should find something useful.

  Edna nods and we continue towards the dungeon.

  Eight miles translates to three hours of debugging the forest, but after those three hours we stand before a small mound with a brick outhouse identical to the one near Tallrock. The soil around the entrance appears plowed, countless sharp limbs had passed the place, bugs climbing the stairs and escaping the dungeon.

  Was that also an intended feature by archmages of old? For the bugs to escape, sapping the wormlords inside more safely than people delving?

  It’s possible, but I can’t believe such wise, intelligent people didn’t see the obvious problem it would cause. The monsters are flooding the ecosystem, and the world has transformed into a bug world over the centuries. Or perhaps it was always a world dominated by bugs, but how did the humans get here in that case?

  They are logical questions, ones I’m certain Edna doesn’t know the answer to. Maybe I’ll get to the bottom of them if I become an immortal archmage and dig for a couple hundred years, but for now, I have the bottom of a dungeon to reach.