Stew always ended up tasting the same out on the field, since it was a mixture of a dozen different ingredients cooked long enough to achieve uniformity, but that didn’t mean it was bad. Just a bit monotonous.
Everyone around him moved about, checking the surroundings or chatting with the newcomers. Malik and Yvonne hadn’t left their side, except to bring them more stew, and while Nick was fairly confident in his cooking skills, he doubted the two were even tasting their first proper meal in days.
They looked worse in daylight. Tessa’s cheek was swollen, and Ord’s right arm was bound in a makeshift sling, and the cloth had dried with a rusty stain.
Raphael courteously waited for them to finish their second bowls before starting the questioning. “Ord,” he said. “Tessa. Tell me what happened.”
Malik jerked up, annoyed, but sank back down sullenly when he saw the mage’s serious look.
Ord blinked, swallowing too quickly, then coughed once into his fist. “We delivered the kids to Long Reach,” he said hoarsely.
“There was no problem on the way?”
Tessa shrugged. “We were safe enough. They were shaken by everything that happened, but the guards were decent, and last I saw, they were taken to a nice house.”
Nick stirred his stew with the tip of his spoon, listening as if he was just curious, while secretly searching for inconsistencies.
Raphael angled his head. “And the return?”
Ord exhaled through his nose, his eyes flicking toward the canyon mouth. “The first part was easy,” Ord said. “We took the direct route and didn't stop until we were halfway across the savannah. We saw a few monsters, but nothing that wanted to fight us enough to give chase.”
Raphael grunted, nodding. “Then what?”
Clearly, something had happened, or the two wouldn’t be in that state.
“Then the werewolves found us,” Tessa said, hunching her shoulders. “It was a small pack, nothing like the ones we fought in the village, but they were enough to force us to run.”
“They tried to herd us off the direct path,” Ord added, “Whenever we thought we lost them, they’d howl and force us to keep running.”
Nick’s spoon paused. Nothing so far was unbelievable, but if that really happened, how had the two survived? On their own, they would barely be able to handle three or four werewolves, much less an entire pack, however small it might have been.
“We couldn’t outrun them, and believe me, they tried. So we did the only thing we could, and tried to lead them into more favorable terrain. We found a narrow bend with a shelf above it, with bad enough footing for them if we could keep them from getting around us. We thought we could pick them off like that.” Ord said, rubbing his jaw.
“And?” Raphael asked, though the answer was written on their faces.
“And we were about to die,” Tessa said simply. “One of them climbed the wall like a spider and came down behind us. Ord took a hit meant for me to give me an opening, but I couldn't get a clean strike, and every time I thought I had them, there was a second wolf in the way.”
Ord’s throat bobbed. “We were surrounded. To be honest, I thought we were done.”
Raphael waited.
Tessa’s gaze darkened as she remembered the chaotic scene. “Then another group came,” she said. “Three adventurers arrived from the west and started attacking the pack from the outside, and we managed to start taking them apart like that.”
Monte’s posture tightened, and Nick shared a look with him. Again, a strange coincidence.
“Were they known to you?” Raphael asked.
“No, I’ve never seen them before,” Ord said. “It was a strange team, with one knight, one ranger, and a druid. Never seen anything like that.”
“Did you get their names?” Raphael asked, and although no suspicion colored his voice, Nick could see that he, too, was beginning to have doubts.
Ord shook his head. “They did not share them, even when we asked.”
Tessa’s lips pressed together. “They helped us fight the pack, so we really didn’t have standing to ask too many questions. They just wanted to trade information in exchange for their help.”
“What did you tell them?" asked Monte, with a serious look on his face.
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“We didn’t have any other options,” Ord replied defensively. “We only told them that we fought werewolves together, and about the army around Long Reach. And they told us that the dungeon changes a lot depending on the direction you enter it from, so it’s not like we got nothing in exchange.”
Nick’s eyes flicked to Raphael, and he gave a quick nod, as that matched Calder’s memory.
“They said the dungeon has multiple environments, and even subterranean levels,” Tessa continued.
Raphael’s gaze sharpened. “They used those exact words?”
“Yes,” she said. “Exactly those words. They said we should be cautious of sudden changes, as the monsters also shifted.”
Nick felt Monte’s attention shift toward him in a silent question, and he responded with a blank stare and a slow blink, the closest thing to a conversation they could manage.
“Why did you separate?” Raphael asked.
Ord shrugged with his good shoulder. “They wanted to head southwest, said they had business with another team, and they offered to let us come with them for a while to avoid more packs, but Tessa and I decided to stick to the route we knew.”
“And you found us by following it,” Raphael said.
Tessa’s laugh was thin. “Eventually.”
There was nothing obviously wrong in their story. It had the right kind of messiness, the small humiliations that no real adventurer would admit to without reason.
But it still felt too neat.
Calder’s betrayal. The collars. The Guardian. The howls that herded them. The beetles waiting for them, far from their nest. And now an unknown trio from the west, arriving precisely to stop the two from dying.
Raphael finally nodded. “You did your duty,” he said. “Finish eating and let Willow look at your injuries one last time, then we’ll move.”
Ord and Tessa submitted to healing without argument. Their exhaustion was too great for pride, and Willow poured healing spells into the bruises the potions had overlooked, as they focused on more serious wounds, and bound their limbs when necessary.
In the lull, Raphael approached Nick.
“Have you adjusted your sensing spell?” he asked, his eyes implying he suspected there was more to it.
Nick met his eyes and nodded. “Yes, I can work through more interference now.”
Raphael studied him. “Good. We’ll need that.”
When the bowls were scraped clean and the last of the fire’s heat was banked, the camp came alive again. Traps were checked, more wards were anchored, and Lina reinforced the jagged stone walls at the choke points.
Ord and Tessa took their places at the front without being asked, fitting in with their two companions like pieces of a puzzle.
They left the fortress-basin behind and slipped into the canyon corridors, making good time without being threatened by swarms of monsters.
They only needed to dispatch a few insects with pale shells and too many legs, but luckily, their small numbers meant they barely had to slow down to fight.
In a few hours, they arrived at the hill where the Outer Guardian had appeared.
Without the massive white wolf, it wasn’t any more remarkable than any other part of the canyon, but Nick could sense the mana density increase beyond it and suspected this was one of the points where the leyline came closest to the surface.
They passed beneath the rise, and the canyon narrowed until the ground started to split ahead, forming a jagged crack in the stone that descended at a steep angle.
Cold air drifted up from it, smelling of minerals and stagnant water. Mana rose with it too, thick enough that Nick’s skin prickled.
“That’s a big descent,” Monte said softly.
Nick’s gaze traced the slope, then the darkness below. “It goes deeper than you’d think,” he said, remembering having seen it through different eyes.
Raphael looked at him. “Calder.”
Nick nodded once. “Yeah, he took this route at least once before. It’s the right way.”
Raphael crouched, picked up a pebble, and tossed it into the crack. They listened as the pebble clicked against the stone, then again, then again, and finally, the sound faded into a deeper silence.
“Hundreds of feet, at least,” Mikel murmured.
“More,” Nick grunted, though he wasn’t so much worried about the distance as he was about the mana density. So far, the dungeon had only been able to harass them in waves, but this close to the core, it could become more active.
Raphael rose from his crouch, examining the darkness closely. “We will have to explore this area carefully,” he said. “We will not push too deep today.”
No one argued with that, and they began the descent.
The slope was so steep that footing was essential, and they moved in a staggered line, maintaining distance to prevent a single slip from causing a chain reaction if anything suddenly appeared.
Willow spelled small, pale orbs along the walls, like dew on stone, casting a faint light, while Lina used clay to stabilize loose rocks where needed, and Raphael folded space once or twice to lessen a treacherous drop.
Nick felt the mana rise with every step. It pressed against his senses, not hostile but insistent, and the deeper they went, the less the environment felt real. The light from above dimmed until only slivers seeped through the thick stone via cracks, and the sounds of the wind faded away. Even the smell changed, replacing dust and smoke with damp mineral and a faint metallic scent.
Nick listened to the dungeon, feeling the way it patiently waited for something.
It doesn’t seem to be trying to trap us, since that’s not how it works, but it's clear it expects us to reach a certain point. I can’t say I like it.
When the slope finally leveled out, they found themselves in a wide corridor where the stone was smoother and the angles less random, as if carved, though that was impossible.
Nick looked back up and saw that the crack above was now far away, a thin scar of light, with everything else shrouded in shadow, only illuminated by Willow’s lights.
“That’s enough for me,” Raphael said. “We should explore this place and mark it on the map. We’ll push deeper once we understand what’s ahead.”
They took a few steps forward, and a howl rolled through the deep corridors.
It wasn't the immediate sound of the Guardian’s voice. Instead, it was distant, layered, and echoed through the stone, arriving more as a vibration than as noise. Still, it evoked the same feeling Nick had come to hate, that subtle wrongness that told him it affected minds, even if his was shielded by [Blasphemy].
He didn’t waste time, releasing spiritual mana in a bubble around the group and shielding them from more manipulation.
Another howl followed, then another, each coming from a slightly different direction.
Everyone tensed, uncertain whether to retreat, as the sounds kept echoing oddly, making it impossible to identify their source.
Nick felt mana coalesce, a slow thickening that made his nose wrinkle. The walls around them began to darken in patches, as if moisture were seeping through, but it was not moisture.
It was blood.
Red, black, and a deep brown took shape, rough at first, then more distinct, like a painter gaining confidence with each stroke.
A stag, running.
A pack, chasing it.
A man, falling to his knees with his hands up.
A wolf’s mouth closing around a throat.
The scenes stretched along the corridor walls, each one a frozen moment of pursuit, hunger, and flight, depicted in smears and splatters. The blood-paint gleamed wetly, though it did not drip.
Nick’s skin prickled as he felt the domain grow heavier, and he watched one mural shift slightly, changing as if it were animated, depicting a group of men facing off against werewolves.
Spell flew in splashes of shimmering red, but they weren’t enough, and before long, the men succumbed to the monsters’ attack.
This is more than just a cave painting, Nick realized with mild horror. It’s happening right now.
