The first floor of Erin’s dungeon was relatively small. Without the traps and Bat-Apes obstructing the way, adventurer's could probably run from the dungeon’s entrance to the Boss room in about twenty minutes.

  That is to say that the layout was simple; there were only two major obstacles that barred the adventurers' continued descent, the ignition trap and the Bat-Apes.

  That being said, many adventurers struggled with the remarkably simple floor. The Bat-Apes were, surprisingly, considered a significant threat by a gross majority of the adventurers present.

  Within the first corridor of the first floor, a few Bat-Apes lingered around, usually three, but never more than four. For the average party of five with at least one dedicated tank, four Bat-Apes were easily manageable.

  When the corridor expanded outward and the domed ceiling revealed itself, however, and ten Bat-Apes emerged — five from the left and five from the right — the average party of five could scarcely engage such a force directly.

  Why was that? It was because the average party consisted of silver ranked adventurers, or in other words, men and women approved to hunt C-ranked beasts such as goblins, kobolds, gnolls, and unorganized undead.

  Instead, however, these adventurers were pitted against Erin’s Bat-Apes; beasts that appeared to be in the same weight class as goblins and kobolds — they were similar heights and traveled in similar numbers — but the Bat-Apes were produced with intention.

  Their skin was coarse and thick, strong against blades and arrows and although they were short, they had the stature of a powerful dwarf.

  Their arms and legs were massive, reinforced purely by genetically enhanced muscle. And since they were too heavy to properly utilize their wings, Erin hardened those to an unnatural degree as well — to the point where mundane arrows and swords could not pierce the Bat-Ape’s patagium at all.

  In essence, they were more like miniature orcs than goblins, even with the intelligence handicap between the two. In other words, the silver ranked adventurers were in over their heads, but the dungeon was C-rank recommended — a fault not of their own.

  At the same time, Erin indirectly played into the persuasion. The initial combat against three or four Bat-Apes? That only proved to further encourage the adventurers; since they could defeat a handful of Bat-Apes in a tight-knit space with a clear retreat line — apparently — that meant they could contest with the rest of the dungeon.

  Idiocy, blatant and remarkable, and yet Erin was very thankful for it, but he was not blind to the unrest above. The adventurer’s spirits were dwindling. A good chunk of them had died already; thirty percent of the men and women from the start were no more.

  The remaining adventurers were better off because of it, no doubt; they were more careful, more proactive, and more methodical in their approach. In fact, their performance overall had become more streamlined.

  Most, if not all, of the parties that raided the Oakroot Catacombs now employed the same strategy upon the first floor; they learned to run and jump into the fountain of water even before they clashed with the Bat-Apes.

  Since the Bat-Apes were so short, for them to reach the adventurers within the fountain, the Bat-Apes needed to climb the fountain’s perch prior to striking.

  The five adventurer’s knee deep in water, however, would never let that scenario come to pass. So, while the Bat-Ape's flailed along the edge of the fountain, the adventurer’s slaughtered them until the final beast’s heart quit its drum and the ignition trap began its countdown.

  All in all, it took the adventurers about a month to overcome the hurdles presented by the first floor in addition to just under fifty human lives, most of which were ranked silver.

  Of course, Smoky was the final obstacle presented by the first floor, but a well organized group of five could out-tactic Smoky. The same could not be said against overwhelming numbers and unexpected strength.

  Smoky, at least, looked as strong as he was. The Bat-Apes were remarkably deceptive in this field, however.

  From the second floor onward, new strategies continued to emerge all while Hyzen and Martha remained the only two to successfully breach the dungeon’s third floor.

  Three groups had contested with the Vesperclaw thus far, but none had bested it. The skies were too dark to spot the black-skinned beast and the bridge was too brittle to resist the onslaught of the Boss’s crazed dives.

  Sadly, the trick to defeating the second floor remained not in slaying the Vesperclaw, but in slaying the beast before the bridge collapsed. That was the true challenge presented through the second floor’s Boss — speed.

  In other words, the adventurers needed to slay the grotesque oversized bat within its first three collisions; any more and the bridge risked failure.

  Of course, of the three groups that had clashed with the Vesperclaw, only one remained. The other two succumbed to the aerial bombardment of the Batarangs. All ten of them died from the venom.

  Well, two decided to take their own life rather than experience the agony, but the end result was the same.

  Furthermore, three parties died to human hands rather than to Erin’s. All three parties were killed by the same group and as of yet — the Guild was completely in the dark about it.

  The Guild was also entirely unaware of the home-grown sauna Erin had so generously installed into the lower depths of the second floor. The party that had discovered it prior did not report it and the mage that had copied down the rune, he researched it independently.

  The Guild, naturally, rewarded discoveries such as these, but perhaps due to Erin’s dungeon being unique, the adventurers instead hoarded the goodies for themselves rather than contributing to the greater good.

  At first, Erin was fine with it. He needed the time to expand his dungeon, to work amongst the third floor, and to further delve into the depths of mana and spells and cores and how it all interacted.

  Lo and behold, the third floor was as complete as it could be without human testing and Erin had just successfully worked through his magic problem. He could revise the first and second floors again, grant the inhabitants their a spell or two, but that was not the point of those floors — to be a wall for the adventurers.

  Erin needed to regularly remind himself that his goal was not to obliterate his incoming guests, that would only hasten the signature of his own death warrant.

  Instead, he needed to impede them. He needed to grant them the grand allure of progress, of conquership, whilst simultaneously keeping them distracted from the grand prize.

  Erin needed them to see his dungeon as an opportunity, not as a threat. Which meant that Erin could no longer revise his earlier floors anymore than he already had, but he also did not want to begin construction of his fourth floor without remedying the third.

  But in order for that to happen, the third must first be breached. All of a sudden, Erin found himself waiting for the adventurers to adventure more. He needed them to discover the sauna room so that the Guild could hire outside resources to study his rune.

  Erin also wanted more spells in his repertoire, now that he knew he needed to copy them from someone else — the more the merrier.

  In his mind, Erin reviewed the spells he had seen thus far. From what he could tell, magic was divided into the elements. Not like the periodic table, but rather like the original, alchemic elements such as water, fire, earth, air, lightning, shadow, light, death, and life.

  Were there more? Most definitely.

  The spell that the Scout girl had used? Tinted yellow and targeted specifically at a person's stamina — Erin was unsure how to categorize that spell.

  Not to mention the existence of Bram in a glass cube resting at the bottom of his canyon, that alone hinted at some type of space or dimensional element.

  Then, Erin had to consider the possibility of fusions. Hyzen’s apprentice, Martha, primarily used ice magic. Was ice its own element or was it a cross between water and air?

  Erin had no clue.

  Kuzo seemed to control metal.

  The Dark-Elf had manipulated gravity.

  There was too much about this world that Erin still didn’t know, and the least of it was magic related.

  A lightbulb then struck Erin.

  With the ambient mana as his sixth sense, Erin scanned the surface world. His focus meandered through the streets like a breeze. He picked up little conversations here and there, stopping only if the information caught his interest: if it had to do with magic or the Guild or the Empire, etc. and etc.

  Then, once Erin had digested most of the recent gossip spreading throughout the newborn viscountcy, he flashed unto the Guild Hall’s street.

  Four doors down from the Guild, the viscountcy’s sole library paled in comparison. It was a two story building with gargoyles along its roof and a massive clock erected on its North face.

  The library was laid of charcoal colored brick, iron bars were situated around the building’s perimeter, and its roof and door were painted a murky green.

  Erin phased through the library’s pair of double doors and quickly found himself floating amongst the lobby. The floor was paneled oak and massive wooden bookshelves lined the library’s interior like a labyrinth.

  A spiral staircase sat in the center of the library that led to the second floor. Within the center of the staircase, a woman with short, red hair sat behind a circular desk. The staircase cascaded around her while she, the librarian, flipped through a text thicker than a Bat-Ape’s calve.

  She wore spectacles crafted of thin, flimsy metal that laid gently on her small, button nose. Her eyes were hazel with a splash of spring and freckles spanned across her nose and upper cheeks like stars inlaid into the horizon.

  Apart from the librarian herself, three more people were scattered across the library. Two sat alone on the first floor, each at their own table.

  The other mused above on the second floor; he was browsing the culinary section, specifically the ‘magical beasts and how to eat them’ section.

  Erin ignored them all. Instead, he hovered towards the back end of the library: the history section. There, he spread his mana throughout the book’s pages and felt the contrast between the ink and the parchment.

  In a weird way, reading like this was like reading braille. Erin could, of course, pull the book from the shelf and open its page, reading it through light like that of a human, but there were others in the library.

  In order to not stir the crowd, Erin could not move the books at all. Instead, he opted to focus on the minute details afforded to him through his mana sense.

  With his mana temporarily ingrained into the book, Erin felt the weight behind the ink alongside the coarseness of the page. He separated the two, isolated the ink, and recreated the impressions in his mind.

  Then, he read.

  For hours. For days.

  Erin read through the entirety of the library’s history section. Then, he read through their research on flora. He memorized list after list of herbs and their effects in teas, potions, and home-brews.

  After two weeks, Erin consumed the entirety of the library’s first floor content. He had planned on immediately moving onto the second, but then, an underlying sensation grappled with Erin’s senses.

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  He felt something thick and heavy step into him. It weighed onto his chest, and although he had no physical form to speak of — Erin’s breaths felt tighter.

  It was as though his mana weighed five more pounds. Not enough to cripple him, but enough to wear him down over time, to exhaust him given the right circumstance.

  With a tug on his senses, Erin appeared on his first floor.

  He hovered beside the initial few Bat-Apes that stalked the Acorn Hall’s first corridor. From beyond the corridor’s corner, Erin felt something approach him.

  The feeling was dark and heavy. The air itself seemed to recoil at its approach while the mana slowed, as if chilled. Whatever it was, their aura pulsed like a black star, a vortex of unkempt rage and hatred that devoured the light in favor of the dark.

  The pressure exerted was palpable, Erin could see it in his Bat-Apes. An unknown pressure constricted their lungs and pressed against their chests.

  It was as if the very warmth of life was snuffed out and withered — left cold and rotted.

  Then suddenly, a tapping approached.

  *tap*

  *tap*

  An old woman rounded the corner, her form bent and frail. A black cloak hung from her crooked frame, tattered and forgotten; she wore the remnants of an ancient shroud.

  Her brittle cane tapped against the ground with a hollow, rhythmic clack. Each of its strikes echoed unnaturally, as though the sound itself carried the weight of her unspoken malice.

  Beneath her hood, her face was marred in darkness, with only her sunken, hollow cheeks and a mouth twisted into a grimace peering out. Yet, despite her fragile appearance — standing barely above the Bat-Apes — the storm within her raged unabated, a tempest of fury and chaos that defied the frailty of her body.

  Her presence was a contradiction — a vessel of decay that housed an inferno of dark power. Her hunched form seemed to grow larger in the mind’s eye, a towering specter of rage and vengeance that loomed over the world despite her miniature stature.

  The shadows clung to her like loyal servants. They writhed like they were alive and fed upon the darkness that poured from her very soul. Her eyes, when they flickered into view, burned with a cold, calculating fire — a reminder that this was no mere old woman, but a force of nature that consumed all light and left only despair.

  From the moment Erin saw her, he froze. His thoughts slowed to a halt and his pulse of life, his breath of mana, stilled.

  The woman stepped into the corridor and, like Erin, the Bat-Apes were immobilized. With each passing step, Erin saw the true effect of the woman’s presence on the Bat-Apes themselves.

  First, their lungs and chests were pressured, but then….

  It was their stomachs. Simultaneously, Erin heard them all pop. A grunt followed from each of the Bat-Ape’s mouths, but soon thereafter, more pain graced them.

  Their diaphragms were squeezed shut and their lungs were flattened. Their ribs shattered and exploded back, piercing their lungs and ravaging their insides.

  Then, the Bat-Ape’s brains succumbed to the force. Stronger and stronger, the pressure exerted itself onto the Bat-Ape’s brains until a gloopy, pink liquid oozed from their ears and dribbled from their nostrils.

  Foam gurgled out of their mouths. As the woman passed, the Bat-Ape's seizured, then collapsed to the ground in a pool of their own brain matter and blood.

  It took the old woman thirty seconds to cross the corridor, but to Erin, it felt like an eternity. When she finally rounded the corner and escaped Erin’s purview, the mana seemed to unstill and time continued to flow.

  Instantly, Erin’s attention rocketed behind him.

  What the fuck was that?!!

  Who the fuck was that?!?!

  Erin flashed to the fourth floor. His metaphysical form appeared amongst the dark and beside the row of ponds that acted as underwater cages.

  Three layers down and Erin could still feel the vile wretchedness that exuded from that woman’s form. Erin was desperate to learn more about the woman, but he could not dare risk positioning his primary focus near her again.

  Instead, he vaguely reached out to the mana amongst the first floor. It was still cold. Still slow. Still frozen.

  But like a radar, Erin could use the varying levels of stillness to project a general idea of the happenings up above. From what he could gather, if the woman was the center of the stillness, then wherever was frozen was where she currently was.

  In that case, the stillness just entered Smoky’s Boss Room. There was only one problem — a party of five was already in combat against the gargantuan squirrel.

  ***

  Ryn was born in the smoldering ruins of Ashveil, a once-thriving city now reduced to a wasteland after a catastrophic volcanic eruption.

  His family, like many others, struggled to survive in the aftermath. With ash and soot more abundant than shrub and bush, they were forced to scavenge for scraps, living in the shadow of the still-active volcano.

  Ryn’s father, a blacksmith, taught him not only how to forge a blade, but also how to wield one. His mother, meanwhile, a former mage, instilled in him a deep respect for the elemental forces of fire. Even still, life in Ashveil was harsh and hope was a commodity no longer granted to those that chose to stay.

  When Ryn turned sixteen, and the island settled and the sky no longer seemed as bleak — raiders descended upon the small town. They ransacked Ashveil, stripped the hinges from the doors and the nails from the boards.

  In the chaos, Ryn’s parents were killed.

  With his ties to Ashveil severed, Ryn fled and vowed to never return. His family was killed; his home destroyed. Before he left, he took only his father’s daggers and his mother’s grimoire, the latter filled with incantations she never had the chance to teach him.

  For years, Ryn wandered the world. He honed his skills with the blade and continued his mother’s practice of flame. Throughout his journey, he learned to channel his grief and anger into his magic, which earned him the nickname “Emberclaw” for the fiery trails his dagger’s left in their wake.

  It took years for Ryn to open up to others, but eventually, he did it. Ryn found people to trust. He found companionship and experienced loyalty. It was then, when their party was at its peak, that word of a new unique dungeon began to spread.

  A recipe for hardship, naturally — but Ryn was no stranger to hardship. He had been tempered by loss and struggle, as had his party: a band of lost souls; wanderers; misfits.

  After a rowdy meal and a drink goodbye, they boarded the first ferry across the great sea and thus crossed into the Empire; they arrived in the viscountcy prepared and determined.

  When they plunged into the dungeon’s depths, they thought they were ready.

  The battle against Smoky started without a hitch. Ryn’s closest friend, the party’s tank and yet simultaneously a berserker, initiated the fight with a roar.

  His screams pulled the Boss’s attention, and like clockwork, the beast sprung into action.

  It leaped across the arena with its golden acorn in-paw and slammed the shiny weapon into the ground. Dust erupted through the cracks and a cloud obscured the arena’s view.

  “Bestial Transformation: Saber’s Talons!” The berserker roared as he tore through the dust cloud.

  He pounced onto Smoky’s back and dug his nails — now blood-dripping, vicious claws — into the beast’s flesh. Smoky roared in agony and whipped a tail at the leeching parasite.

  “Elemental Arrow: Flash Shot!” A woman shouted and the dust cloud split in two; an arrow wrapped in lightning exploded through the center of the cloud and cracked against the bristles of Smoky’s tail.

  Smoky stumbled backwards from the impact. A squeal echoed from the beast’s cry’s.

  While Smoky was distracted with the berserker and the archer, Ryn snuck through the dust cloud and arrived at the beast’s flank. He moved stealthily, his footfalls silent amongst the ruckus of the fight. Meanwhile, his gaze remained focused; his eyes never left the ginormous form of the beast before him.

  “Pyrelight: Scorchfang!” Ryn recited his spell and his twin daggers glowed. The steel burned hot. First, red. Then, orange.

  A combination of his father’s blacksmithing and his mother’s flame magic, Ryn created his own school of magic; the Pyrelight series.

  His daggers ignited white and a heavy heat immediately descended upon the arena. Around the cusps of the blades edges, the air grew distorted. The heat burned the oxygen faster than the world could replace it.

  Ripples spread through the air, visible to the naked eye.

  Ryn wore gloves and a full leather set. He wore a mask underneath a helmet, yet the tips of his eyelashes shriveled underneath the heat and turned to ash with no spark nor flame.

  As the ripples affected the air, Ryn seemed to move in slow motion. His white-hot blades trudged forward slowly. They penetrated Smoky’s hide with a sour hiss alongside a pungent odor as smoke rose to the oak mural above.

  His dagger slid into Smoky’s flank, but no blood pooled out. The wound and the beast’s insides were cauterized before they could bleed.

  Then, everything went dark.

  The lanterns along the columns and the glowing acorns embedded along the walls — it all disappeared at the flip of a switch.

  “Huh?”

  “Hey! What happened to the —”

  *BOOM*

  Something big kicked Ryn in the chest. He flew across the arena and slammed into the wall on the opposing side. He tried to stand to return to the fight, but he felt his ribs had cracked.

  The berserker, on the other hand, was slammed into the ground directly beneath him. He, too, tried to stand up, tried to fight back, but something held him down. He felt his wrists bound to the ground while a consuming pressure slowly wrapped around him.

  The archer as well, and the rest of Ryn’s party for that matter, was slowly bound in shadow. The tendrils slithered around their ankles and traveled up their legs.

  It covered their mouths and brought them to their knees. Against their will, the five adventurer’s prostrated on the ground with their wrists bound behind them.

  *tap*

  *tap*

  The sound of tapping suddenly disturbed the quiet.

  *tap*

  *tap*

  “Well… Well…. What have we here? A little shadow, lost and broken?” An unknown voice croaked.

  They trudged across the arena’s tiles one by one. Their cane tapped alongside them, and with each increasing tap, the sound seemed only to grow louder.

  Then, it stopped altogether; and Ryn felt something he’d never felt before.

  Ryn’s chest felt hollow. And cold.

  Like his stomach dropped, he suddenly couldn’t find his breath. His tongue felt stuck at the back of his throat; then, he tried to speak, to mumble, to scream.

  But he couldn’t.

  He was hollow.

  He was empty.

  He was dark.

  Father? Ryn heard a voice. A quiet voice. Distant. Soft.

  What is it, my son?

  How’d you meet Mom? The distant voice asked, now distinct enough to recognize as a young boy’s.

  Hmm… The older, gruffier voice paused.

  Your mother, well, what can I say? She’s always been a real firecracker….

  “P……..-ght.”

  Ryn’s throat ached.

  “Py……-ight.”

  The words churned through his throat like sandpaper, rough and coarse. Even still, Ryn’s bleeding lips rose all on their own.

  “Py-Pyrelight…”

  An ember ignited beside Ryn. It was small and fleeting, like Ryn himself, yet it pushed against the dark nonetheless.

  In that instant of muffled vision, Ryn pushed his neck up and looked around. The beast… the Boss… it lay dead on the ground in the center of the arena.

  A hunched figure stood above him. A black cloak shrouded their person, but their hand was pressed forward; it was weak and frail, their skin looked thin and wilted, and wrinkles cascaded down them like the ruffles of a blouse. Their nails, meanwhile, were long, jagged, and blackened.

  The figures’ disgusting nails pressed into the bloodied hole found on the beast’s nape. Their fingers slipped underneath the beast’s flesh.

  “Don’t struggle… little one. You will only… make it worse.” The words were faint, but Ryn could hear them.

  Then, another gentle light breached the dark. It was ominous. Smoky's corpse emitted a scarlet glow.

  His own blood glowed in the dark. As it did, the full scope of the arena was revealed to Ryn.

  Runes were painted around Smoky’s corpse in blood. They were ignited with a scarlet light and as the light further strengthened, the more distorted the space became.

  Ryn tried to peel his eyes away, but like his voice and his breath — he was left a puppet in his skin.

  The figures' decayed form rippled. The cascade of wrinkles receded and a wash of rose-tinted moisture rushed through the being’s wrist as it straightened their joints.

  Their hunched back unfurled and their posture remedied itself.

  Then, the ritual dimmed and the light weakened.

  The figure ripped their gentle palm from the beast and prepared to leave, but when they turned to go — their gaze met Ryn’s.

  “Aww!” Her voice was light and bubbly.

  “The taste of despair… the flavor of fear… it’s been too long since I’ve fed so well!” Her cackle echoed through the dungeon.

  *tap*

  *tap*

  “P-P…” Ryn stuttered.

  The woman knelt before him. She raised her noticeably delicate hands — with clean, cut nails — and removed her hood.

  Grey skin. Long, straight, white hair. Bright, violet eyes.

  Ryn’s pupils dilated.

  She… She’s beautiful. He thought; before the darkness took him.

  Rest traveler. Unwind; and pace yourself for what's to come.