Milla returned after having stepped away to make a call, interrupting Luke as he was about to heal Curtis. "Do you know when the portal will open?"

  "No," Luke said, glancing over to the spot where he knew it would turn up, "but soon."

  She nodded and walked away again, speaking into her phone, perhaps with Johanson. That made Luke remember he needed to text her himself, and he did so before forgetting again: "Going into a dungeon. Like I said, try not to hurt Ray if you find him again. I'll be back soon."

  "Are you going to heal me or what?" Curtis asked.

  "Of course I'm going to help you, my good friend," Luke said, and put a hand on Curtis's shoulder where he sat on a bench overlooking the parking lot.

  A torn vein was leaking blood. It wasn't anything major, so it made little sense to go through the trouble of fixing it the hard way. Instead, he added a small amount of healing mana to the area with pinpoint precision, stopping the bleeding.

  "There," Luke said.

  Curtis turned to look at him over his shoulder. "I still feel like shit."

  "You lost a lot of blood, but your Vitality should take care of that. If you weren't Integrated, you would already be dead."

  "Thanks," Curtis said, his voice dry.

  "Are you going at it alone again?" Luke asked.

  Curtis spoke without looking at Luke. "Like I said, I'm all out of credits and health potions. Perhaps going solo isn't sustainable."

  Luke grinned. "Admit it, you're lonely and you want a pal."

  "Never mind," Curtis said, as Milla headed over.

  "I'm just teasing!" Luke shouted after him. "We can go together!"

  "My team is heading over," Milla said. "They should be here soon."

  Luke checked his phone. He'd received answers from quite a few people, and most of them were coming, even Luigi and Liza from back before the pink portal. Kirk was coming as well, and he'd be bringing some people. Penny said she couldn't make it because of some issue with Colt, but Mateo was on his way. Also, Simon the gem refiner, of course.

  "Lots of people coming," Luke said, noticing Milla was out of breath. "Why don't I take another look at your lungs while we wait?"

  She made as if to wave him off, then thought better of it. "Sure, please have a look, little brother."

  Milla's lungs were worse off than right after he'd healed them a few days earlier, but this time Luke could go deeper. The mana channels were damaged. Healing the physical aspect of his sister's lungs must have improved the mana channels, but not to the point of restoring them. After that, her health was spiraling downward again.

  "Can you find anything?" she asked.

  "Yes," Luke said, and retrieved one of the chairs he'd taken from right before they met the Flesh Golem. "Please sit."

  Once she was seated, he remembered all the books he'd taken as well and brought one out, placing it in her hands. "Some light reading while I fix you up."

  "What's this?" she asked, leafing through the book, frowning at the ominous imagery and flowing penmanship.

  "No clue," Luke said. "Found it in a dungeon."

  "Can I keep it?"

  "Sure, I have several."

  Milla sat down and crossed her legs, resting the book on her thigh.

  "Ready?" Luke asked.

  "Ready," Milla said.

  Restoring the mana channels was easy, now that he knew how, and it was pain-free, a good thing, seeing as he wasn't sure numbing the lungs was such a good idea. Still, he used The Healer's Moment to make sure the physical aspect of restoring the lungs didn't hurt her. Feeling almost a little let down about how easy it had been to fix her, Luke was about to withdraw when he noticed another spot near her liver, where it looked like a mana channel had deteriorated. He fixed that one as well as The Healer's Moment ran out, then noticed another weak spot in her leg, and a fourth in her shoulder.

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  Restoring them was just as easy as creating the new ones, and he'd soon healed her to full capacity. Milla drew in a deep breath and let out a sigh of relief. "Thank you. That feels so much better."

  "There's something weird going on with your mana channels," Luke said.

  "My what?"

  "The way mana flows through the body. It's sort of like veins and nerves wrapped up in one. Yours were weak in several places, especially around your lungs."

  Milla frowned. "Why?"

  "I honestly don't know. I mean, you were sick before all this, so the underlying issue couldn't be your mana channels."

  "But I'm all better now, right? I feel great."

  "I think so," Luke said with a smile as a new sound approached. He looked up. "Is that a helicopter?"

  "Working with the DIA has some benefits," Milla said.

  "And you have a full party?"

  "That's right. Our bosses don't want us separating from that party. But you and Mr. Ray-of-Sunshine over there can tag along if you want."

  Just then, the portal opened up in the center of the parking lot, displaying dark blue swirls. If the going theory was correct, then this dungeon would be a dangerous one. Still, the first part of it should be safe enough. If it got too dangerous, they could just run back out and wait for reinforcement. Luke stepped back from Milla and grinned. "My friends will get here soon. I'll just bring my compadre over there with me until then. See you inside!"

  "Asshole!" Milla shouted after him as he turned to run. "Let's go, Curtis. Just you and me!"

  Curtis looked past Luke, over to Milla. "Wasn't she coming?"

  "She's with the government. You can't trust them!" Luke said, sprinting past Curtis and into the portal.

  Inspected Integrated: Curtis. Reaver. Level 8.

  Curtis followed right behind, and to Luke's surprise, his sister joined them a second or two later.

  Inspected Integrated: Milla. Bloomcaller. Level 7.

  The three of them were lit only by the faint glow of the portal. Other than that, the dungeon was pitch black. At least until a ball of shimmering warm light appeared above Curtis's shoulder. It didn't help much, but at least they could see the stone floor they were standing on.

  "There," Milla said. "Now you have light to see by."

  "You don't have to wait for the other government stooges?" Luke asked, teasing.

  Judging by the way his voice sounded and how his words echoed, they were in a large, cavernous space.

  New Quest: Find and retrieve The Gem Of Communication. Reward: The Gem Of Communication.

  "Communication, huh?" Milla said. "I do need to wait for my party, but I thought I'd give Curtis here a little help first." She raised her hand, and swirls of green and yellow danced around Curtis, who stood a little straighter, color returning to his face.

  "Thank you," he said.

  "I'll give you a buff or three as well. Just make sure my idiot brother makes it out of here, okay?"

  Curtis nodded gravely. "I'll do my best."

  Milla flipped her hair at Luke and turned to walk back out through the portal. Before she exited, she snapped her fingers twice. For a moment, it felt like the sun shining against Luke's face, and a gentle breeze ruffled his hair.

  Two new icons appeared next to his health bar.

  Inspected Status. Windswept: Increased stamina regeneration.

  Inspected Status. Summer's Glow: Increased health regeneration.

  "Let's head out," Curtis said, bringing the massive sword out of his inventory. Luke grabbed his quarterstaff, and the two set off into the darkness.

  The cave they were in was huge, judging by how the light from Milla's light orb didn't even reveal the walls or the ceiling of the tunnel they were in. Rather than trudging on gravel, like in the Tutorial Dungeon, the ground was just flattened rock with rock protrusions sticking up everywhere.

  Continuing down the wide tunnel in silence for a moment, Luke thought of something to ask. "Back with the Hollows. You were raging."

  Curtis shrugged. "I get angry sometimes."

  "No," Luke said. "This was more than that. It's like you didn't recognize me, like you wanted nothing more than to kill anything and everything."

  "Yeah."

  "So, is that new?"

  "Not new, but worse since all this."

  "Is Reaver some sort of berserker?"

  "No. It's not related to my class," Curtis said without elaborating.

  The next few words out of Luke's mouth were spoken without a sliver of humor. "Just don't attack me again."

  Curtis glanced at Luke's staff. "That stick of yours was sturdy enough, wasn't it? And your little blue worms deflected my sword."

  "That hunk of metal cut straight through my Threads of Mana," Luke complained.

  "Well, yeah, but they directed it to the side at least, so you didn't get cut in half."

  Luke stared straight ahead. "Is that light over there?"

  It was diffuse and muted, but there was no question about it. Light. Bluish and steady, so not a torch or lantern. Interesting. They continued another ten minutes, the blue glow growing stronger, then something moved in the darkness, beyond the bounds of the orb's light. The shuffling of feet against stone sounded, and figures emerged. They showed nothing more than silhouettes, but Luke still counted at least ten of them. Curtis hefted his sword. A bunch of tiny blue lights appeared out of nowhere and hovered in the darkness before coming closer, crowding in around Luke and Curtis.

  On closer inspection, those blue lights were some sort of light-emitting gemstones attached to the pointy ends of spears. Even with weapons pressed in against them, Luke got the sense that whoever was holding them didn't want a fight. If they did, they would've attacked already.

  "Hello," Luke said.

  "Who are you and how did you reach these mines?" a male voice asked. "The path you just walked in from collapsed a generation ago."