The Dungeon Survival Guide, Rule 1: Have an escape pn. Something will always g, make sure you get out – or measure yourself for a casket. Your choice.

  - The Unexplored Lands, by Lyeneru Silverleaf, Elven Pathfinders Guild.

  Aliandra

  Hmm… Ali poked thoughtfully at the corpse of the red-scaled Fire Mage. Ih, it seemed no different than any other Kobold mage she had killed, certainly not as terrifying as it had been in life. Level een, though. Even sidering the obviously higher level, this Fire Mage had been much strohan she had anticipated. Her favorite strategy against mages was to deploy several rogues, relying on Ambush and surprise, and then finishing them off with Are Bolts – but this mage had used a poteive fme shield, much like the Goblin Fire Mage she had entered in the southern forest, burning her rogues on every strike. Worse, though, was the heavy bone armor skill it had employed. It was only with the extra nature magic damage granted by her Empowered Summoner skill augmenting every dagger strike, that her rogues were able to deal any damage at all – and a pitta that.

  Ali destructed the Kobold corpse, making Malika’s task of colleg and evaluating their equipment vastly easier – and less gory – while simultaneously refilling her entire mana pool. Her Grimoire appeared, updating several parts of the Kobold imprint with new lines of runes, deftly ied here and there as the pages riffled softly, readjusting. Higher-level versions, perhaps? Being able to make a level een Fire Mage or a level sixteen rogue would definitely e in handy, but the ces of getting precisely what she wanted out of her stubborn book were depressingly small.

  Better some ce, than all, she enced herself. Her Grimoire was limited to summoning creatures of her own css level or lower, but the obvious fact that it had never summoned a Toxic Slime above level one, oblin Sger above three, implied that she o explicitly record higher-level variants if she wished to summon more powerful minions.

  “Let’s go,” Mato said, tapping his foot, ever impatient when a fight might await them just around the er.

  “Ok,” answered, darting silently back up onto the roof with impressive agility before vanishing into the pervasive gloom.

  As they delved deeper into the dungeon, approag the ter of the ruins, Ali found the mana growing noticeably denser and more potent. The thick yer of bohat encrusted everything spewed out prodigious amounts of dense, dark mana that perfused the slowly crumbling hollow husks of the buildings. Without the be of Are Insight st time, all she had experienced was an uneasiness and an occasional prig of magic, but now she could observe the roiling darkness of bone mana merging with the pitch-bck tendrils of death magic.

  Even more fasating, as she studied it, was the structure that emerged underlying the entire space. The two affinities of mana wove together in a chaotic-seeming pattern that heless expressed a fual underlying order aition, an emergent harmony stretg out as far as she could perceive.

  This dungeon must possess a domain.

  It was the intricately woven structure of the mana that captured her fullest attention, instantly calling to mind her own domain and the distinct appearanato’s Arboreal Sanctuary – a skill that she now knew also carried the domain trait. The venerable Night Elf sage, Lorien Silverveil – the distinguished and formidable Professor who had taught her Magic Theory css – had once described domains as an aura or structural ttiana that allowed the caster to extend or empower their magical influence over a much rger area than was normally allowed by the limitations of their css and level.

  That must be how the dungeon empowered these Kobolds with regeing bone armor. The visible flow of mana had been fasating to watch – bone magic absorbed from the enviro causing beion along the surface of each of the monsters. Ali still couldn’t her mind around it, but her Sage of Learning had definitely reacted to the phenomenon. Even though the structure and fun of all three domains were dramatically different, Ali felt that the mere presence of the plex structure was enough evidence for her theory.

  “Hey Ali, are these robes better than your curre?” Malika’s voice redirected her focus from the ambient mana of the duo the tattered robes held in her hands. She seemed a little on edge, and Ali was about to ask if she was ok when she remembered that Malika’s parents had been killed by a dungeon-break, and she robably quite unfortable delving down here in the heart of an unknown dungeon – even if they seemed to be retively capable of killing the Kobolds.

  Tattered Robes – level 17Resistance: 163Requirements: Intelligence 60Body – Cloth

  “No, my Tailored Cotton Clothing has two hundred and sixteeand Lydia’s self-repair entment.” An entment that had seen little use with Mato tanking most of the monsters, but ohat Ali still appreciated.

  That’s strahough, my armor set is only level fifteen.

  She mulled it over in her mind, not ing to any reasonable expnation before her curiosity got the better of her. “Why is that worse when it’s a higher level?”

  “It’s a poor-quality item, which usually makes any entments or bonuses weaker than normal,” Malika answered. “All of Lydia’s work is at least masterwork quality – it’s exceptional, and that often grants better than average entments, armor, or damage. Your clothes are eveer, they’re a magical grade item – I just didn’t remember the numbers. Here, why don’t you learn this, it’s not worth carrying back with us. And this, too.”

  Malika tossed the ripped, singed crimson Tattered Robes to her and added a bck-stained leather chest armor that the rogue had been wearing. Ali destructed both. They were both items she already knew how to make, but she leased to add some higher-level versions to her repertoire. As her mother sometimes used to say: Every little bit ts.

  “Are those special?” Ali asked, seeing Malika carefully examining the unusually colored steel ons and armor that remaio her untrained eye, they looked to be exceptionally well crafted, and something about the reddish glow of the bck steel caught her attention.

  “Special? Take a look at this,” Malika said, handing her a dagger. The bck steel had been polished to a mirror-like finish and, even uhe clear light of ’s orb, it gleamed darkly, with strong red uohe hilt was ed in tightly braided, bck-stained leather, and the straight, sharp bde was a little lohan her forearm. There was not a scrat it.

  Eimuuran Steel Dagger – level 17Damage: Pierg, Physical+18 Dexterity.Requirements: 60 DexterityOne Handed – Dagger – Eimuuran Steel

  “oothpick,” said Mato, peering over her shoulder.

  “No good. Me bash-bash, no slid-dice,” Ali chuckled, drawing a snort of ughter from the huge Beastkin. “What’s your assessment, Malika?”

  “A perfect on for an assassin – magical grade, with a very high dexterity entment,” Malika said, turning to examihe sword, armor, and shield. “Everything else is masterwork craftsmanship. My Appraise skill says that in addition to excellent craftsmanship, these all have high value as historical artifacts. It doesn’t seem like something a Kobold would normally have equipped – not to my thinking, anyway.”

  “If the armor and shield are this good, it’s no wohat warrior was so hard to kill,” Ali said, turning the beautifully crafted dagger over in her hand.

  Eimuuran Steel. Why does that sound so familiar?

  She puzzled over it for a while, but in the end, it wasn’t the the dark reddish-bck gleam of the steel that triggered her memories.

  S’eimyran stál. it be?

  The A Dal’mohran name for Emberfed Steel. Ali had never been particurly ied in ons or armrowing up, but even she khovir Emberfe by sight. There were even statues of the legendary bcksmith by the entrao the city, an honor reserved for the cil of Kings and the sages of the highest renown.

  Her school had oaken a field trip down to the fe, where she had observed the Dwarven Master Smith w his steel. Steel that was fed and tempered ily this color. The iion of Emberfed Steel had been Thovir’s ing achievement. Something about the way it was made, or how it was used, had been so sought after, that merts would cross the ti for a single issioem made by Thovir himself.

  Idly, she wondered how the name had morphed over the turies to ‘Eimuuran’ rather than Emberfed, and why her notifications for Identify had failed to correctly tra into A Dal’mohran as it did with almost everything else.

  In the same instant, her mind turo Thuli, the grumpy dwarf in his cold smithy, who Ali suddenly realized could have been Thovir’s brother were it not for the three thousand years that separated them.

  “These are artifacts of the a Dal’mohran fes,” Ali said, handing the dagger baalika. “Perhaps we should show them to the grumpy smith and see what he thinks? They could be valuable.”

  “That’s a good idea,” Malika answered. She quickly stored the daggers, sword, shield, and armor, and then handed Ali a bracelet. “Here, this is for your Fire Mage.”

  Bone Bracelet – level 12+5% to Fire damage.+11 Intelligence.Requirements: Intelligence 42.Hands – Charm

  Ali g Malika in surprise, but as soon as she Identified the item, she uood. Five pert was not a lot, but again, those small is could prove crucial. The bracelet was fashioned of the same bone substahat coated everything around them, but it had been polished to a smooth sheen. Delicately carved runes were etched into its shiny surface, f the basis for the entments. Ali tipped it one way and arying to get a good look at the tiny runes and the structure of the struct, finding, to her surprise, that she could uand most of them already using her Runic Script skill.

  “Here, this is for you,” she told her Fire Mage in Draid handed him the bracelet.

  “You are most generous, A Mistress,” he replied and slipped it on his wrist baring his sharp teeth in a vicious-looking grin. A grin that would once have sent her fleeing in terror, but now merely made her smile.

  After the break to recover their stamina, they pressed onward, pig their way through the creepy bone-encrusted streets, sending the crawling Bone Skitterers scampering for cover at every step. At least half of the patrols they entered were higher-level Kobolds with the same dense, regeing bes and ptes, drawing the battles out far lohan normal. Ali recalled the hordes of Kobolds out on the huge radial boulevard, realizing just how outcssed she and Mato had been the first time they had stumbled through these streets searg for the library and their way out.

  They turned a er and Ali startled at a rush of the ever-present tiny bone creatures skittering across the street, rag for cover at their approach.

  Stupid bugs. She shivered, holding her opposite arms across her chest.

  It didn’t help that the entire enviro was eerily familiar – she had lived here, and her subscious k. A, at the same time, it felt entirely alien to her – some streets looked like they had been shrouded in a thick coat of dirty snow, while others seemed like a giant monstrous spider had turhem into its ir, trapping the skeletons of hapless Kobolds ihick, solidified cobweb drapes, tless ribcages and small horned skulls frozen, pstered up against the walls forever. Everywhere she looked there were always tiny bone creatures crawling away at the edges of her vision, seen only by the brightness of the mana they had ed. Mana that was rapidly growing dense and bright enough for her to be able to navigate entirely by mana sight.

  “I don’t like this pce,” Malika whispered.

  Ali nodded. She had seldom walked through this formerly wealthy neighborhood, preferring the main boulevard whenever she traveled to and from the library, but that way was inaccessible to them now. Back then, this entire area would have been brightly lit and filled with important people, but now it was a sea of bone and bugs.

  What do they do with all the mana? Ali wondered, one of the crab-like creatures abs the abundant dark mana from a er before their approach spooked it into scuttling out of sight. It was the sound, Ali realized, the soft clig ctter of bone on bone as the creatures crawled around, that set her teeth on edge and made her s the dark ers furtively.

  suddenly stopped their advance, pointing down the street, and Ali peered around the er. She gasped at the sight of an enormous monster made of boes crawling along a wall – the same gigantic creature she had seen from afar with Mato.

  It moved with a grinding, ripping sound as the boes shifted stantly, carried along the wall by hundreds of tihat bit into the bone and rock as easily as she might grab onto moss with her fingers.

  Seen from so much closer, it was truly unnerving. Ali recoiled from the sheer size of its domed and segmented carapace, and the jagged, sharp mandibles that protruded from its mouth. It was easily lohan her Bugbears were tall and probably weighed three or four times as much, a crawled along the side of the wall as if gravity had inexplicably decided to take a vacation.

  As they watched, the creature approached a patrolling skeleton. The mandibles opened wide, and, in a fsh, it bit down, making the top half of the skeleton disappear in an instant. Even from this distance, Ali could hear the grotesque g as the monster ed the bones before returning for the other half of its meal. Moving on as if nothing had happehe creature began spraying a gray fluid from its mouth which adhered to the wall, turning solid almost immediately, and sprouting spikes and ridges in a swirl of magical energy.

  “Gross,” Malika whispered, shuddering.

  “We o gh that thing,” observed, with what looked like forced calm. “Or… around it, although I ’t see how.”

  Spitter Drone – Elemental – level 25 (Bone)

  Ibsp;It’s like a massive pill bug. Made of bone.

  “That’s one ugly bug,” Mato said, eg her thoughts. “You guys ready?”

  “Yes,” Malika said, her lips curling up in obvious distaste.

  As soon as they were ready, Mato charged the monster, with Malika sprinting along just behind him.

  “Go,” Ali told her minions, reinf the verbal and with her i. All but her mage charged in. Her Mace Bugbear leapt through the air, flying seven ht meters before he came down with a gigantic, smashing strike. To Ali’s surprise, the heavy mace bounced off the hard bone carapace with a loud bang and the tiny crack he had made rapidly closed. The axes and daggers of her remaining minio with just as little success.

  The Spitter Drone dropped off the wall and one of her Kobolds had to dive for safety, barely avoiding being crushed by the huge bulk that sent a quake through the stone underfoot as it nded.

  Mato’s swipe tore some splinters of bone from the monster’s carapace, his cws glowing green in her mana sight as he empowered it with some magical skill. Probably Brutal Restoration, Ali decided. It turned on him with uny speed for such a massive creature, spraying a jet of vile fluid from between its two i-like mandibles. The jet tracked across the ground, along Mato’s fnk, and up the wall before it stopped. Dozens of razor-sharp bone spines shot out from the fluid, stabbing Mato and the Bugbear before the mana twisted and the ehing solidified.

  Mato roared in pain as his thrashing shattered the new bone encrusting his side, tearing out ks of skin, flesh, and fur which the liquid had just turo bone! His healing magic slowly flowed through his body, and the ossified flesh cracked and sloughed off as his wounds began to slowly knit together.

  Ali stared in horror. She couldn’t imagihe pain Mato must have just endured. But he just swiped a huge paw at the monstrous bug-like creature even while his blood leaked from between the cracks in the bohat hadn’t fallen off yet.

  “We o fight smarter than this,” Ali excimed. “We ’t just tank it and hope for the best…”

  “ you see if ybears target their mandibles, s?” said, firing another arrow. “It must have some weakness.”

  “Ok,” Ali said, nodding. “Hit the legs,” she anded her Bugbears, and instantly they switched strategy trying to wedge their maces uhe lip of the carapace.

  Not wanting to let her friend ehe fight any lohan absolutely necessary, Ali immediately picked a spot and opened fire. Her Are Bolts smmed into the bony carapace with a staccato thwag sound, flinging shards of broken and shattered bone in all dires, slowly f open a gap in the armor which grew wider only slightly faster than the bone armor’s extreme regeion could close it up. Quickly, to capitalize on the vulnerability, she instructed her mage to use Firebolt tet the same location. and Malika immediately noticed her efforts and joined in. It was clear that the bone was regeing signifitly faster than the Kobolds they had fought earlier. Ali dared not let up, or their efforts would be rapidly undone.

  Another fluid jet sprayed out, spshing against the wall and filling the air with a putrid stench. Even though it missed Mato this time, the spikes shooting out of the fluid as it hardeill impaled him several times before he twisted his body, snapping them off. Malika darted in to touch him with her healing magic before she returo delivering a furious onsught of fshing punches.

  The bug writhed and sprayed several more times while Ali rained down bolts in cert with her Fire Mage’s efforts, widening the hole torn through the carapad exposing the monster’s innards.

  That’s just big enough to fit… she thought, sending the and te.

  “Ining Fireball!” she yelled, getting Malika to duck right as the sizzling ball of fme shot forth, smming into the hole and vanishing ihe gigantister.

  There was a muffled thump and the sound of bone crag, and suddenly, gouts of fire erupted from several rge cracks in the rapidly disiing carapace. The Spitter Drone lurched sideways, ricocheting off the wall before slewing drunkenly to the left, nearly crushing Mato before the Bear danced free.

  “Go! Go! Go!” Ali’s rogues and Bugbears, useless in the fight until now, unched a devastating offeargeting the ots opened all over the heavily armored carapace by the powerful explosion of fire magic. Even though the carapace was visibly repairing itself already, the axes and daggers were relentless, sending shards of bone flying among sprays of vile gray fluid.

  For the first time itle, the monster shrieked, writhing to try to escape the furious onsught. Its frantic thrashi some of her Kobolds flying, but the rogues were dexterous enough to nd on their feet and resume the attack.

  After a few minutes of wild spray, glinting steel, and bone splinters shattering in all dires, the monster suddenly shuddered and stopped attag.

  “We’re close! Attack!” She urged her minions to finish it.

  From deep within the monster, a dense ball of glowing mana began to coalesce, pulsing like a heartbeat that grew stronger with each beat. As it grew, the chill of premonition traced down Ali’s spine, setting her shivering with dread.

  “Take cover!” she yelled, throwing as much mana into a protective barrier as she could, blog both herself and .

  The mana within the monster pulsed o time, and the entire behemoth of bone vaporized in a detonation that dwarfed her mage’s fire magic. Ali was flung to the ground as the eoreet exploded, flinging deadly missiles of bone and ro all dires, skewering her minions and ricocheting off her barrier and the walls behind her. All her rogues were bsted across the street, striking the stone walls with siing sptting sounds. She reeled from the stinging recoil of multiple mana reservations snapping. Dimly, she saw Malika nding on the roof, pulling several shards of bo of her thigh before pulsing her healing magic. Mato had been blown backward through a wall, but he emerged shaking his huge head before knog several boes out of his shoulder and fnk and cmbering over the rubble.

  Ali stared in a daze at her cracked aen barrier which had surely saved her and from being skewered. All around her, bone and … pieces… rained down silently. Malika was yelling something as she leapt down from the roof, but she too was silent.

  She seems very insistent.

  Malika was yelling something again.

  Oh, I’m deaf.

  Ali trated on Malika’s lips and got as far as “Run” before she saw a horde of Kobolds barreling around the er at the far end of the street.

  Oh shit! That’s why.

  In panic, she struggled to her unsteady feet, reag out for help. Only one of her minions remained – a Bugbear with only a bleeding stump protruding from beh his heavy steel pauldron. Knowing she could never run as fast as the others, she ahe Bugbear to pick her up and flee.

  Behind, she saw a ing mass of angry Kobolds and skeletons that grew into a tide that threateo wash them away. More and more joihe throng as the group of adventurers fled into the dark streets of the ruins, desperate to get away.

  Ali summoned barrier after barrier behind them to slow the horde, but it was as effective as building sandcastles on the beach to stop the tide. They crossed the border from the encrusted buildings into the regur city and tinued sprinting into the darkness, her Bugbear puffing and panting from the effort. Every time she checked behind her, Ali was certain the Kobolds were growing closer. They ran and ran, but the Kobolds chasing them were tireless, and even though she was still deaf, her imagination could easily jure the chirps and hunting calls growing louder as they closed the distance.

  “They’re not giving up!” Ali yelled, her voiing out as no more than a hollow vibration ihroat and skull.

  “We have to use the smoke bomb, teleport out!” Malika yelled. Or at least, that’s what her lips seemed to say. A bck potion appeared in Malika’s hand.

  Ali’s guild ring had e with a free potion of recall, and she quickly found it and summohe vial of bck liquid.

  Malika threw her potion to the ground, and she vanished in a silent explosion of shattered gss and bck smoke.

  “Put me down quickly,” she told her Bugbear, and as soon as she reached the ground, she dashed the potion oo her feet, feeling the disorienting lur the pit of her stomach as the magic pulled her away.

  She didn’t stumble this time, but she experieroigo and dizziness as she was whisked into the teleportation locus in the ter of the Novaspark Academy of Magic. Malika was off to the side wearing a worried expression, and a few moments ter twin puffs of smoke and a fresh smell of burning sighe arrival of Mato and . Ali let out a held breath sensing the st reserved mana for her Bugbear snapping away. She shivered. That was close.

  Malika sat down and hugged Ali, pulsing healing magic through her body. “Well, that ectacur disaster, are you ok?”

  Ali’s hearing cleared instantly as Malika’s magic repaired the damage.

  Ali nodded, but her body was still shaking from the aftereffects of the huge adrenaline-fueled run for their lives across half the ruined city, and the delightful experience of being blown up by a monstrous bug creature of bone.

  “How we ever win against that many?” Ali asked. Her voice shook but she didn’t care. The explosion had nearly killed them, and if she hadn’t reacted exactly when she did, she was certain both she and would have died in the explosion. The horde of Kobolds drawn to the explosion had been endless.

  “Rex a little, Ali,” Mato said, his voireasonably calm.

  “How I rex after… that!”

  “It retty epic train, I will agree. And that bug exploding was something else. But we won, a out alive, so in my books, that’s a good fight,” he decred, grinning.

  Ali looked at him incredulously. Is he even on the same p? Did he not see the Kobolds?

  “You didn’t get hurt, did you?” he asked.

  Ali opened her mouth and then shut it again in surprise. I didn’t eve hit. In fact, the only damage she had sustained was when the shockwave from the explosion had burst her eardrums. She gred at Mato and frowned. “But you had your body turo bone! You had to break it off in pieces. And I saw you impaled by dozens of shards when that thing exploded!”

  “I’m the tank now. I have a lot of health and armor – it’s my job to get hit so you guys don’t have to.” He smiled softly at her. “Yes, we were surprised by that explosion at the end, but other than that, the battle went pretty well.”

  “Yn the part where we almost died to a horde of Kobolds that wouldn’t give up after running halfway across the city. And that was after almost being blown up by a giant bone monster,” Malika pointed out, taking a strongly trasting position to Mato’s rosy perspective. “Not to mention the cost of those potions to save us. Still…”

  “Yeah, I prefer being alive, too,” Mato agreed.

  “We learn from this,” put in.

  Their calm logic slowly dispelled Ali’s adrenaline-jangled nerves and her feelings of being overwhelmed. She began to think about it a little more objectively. Malika’s right, he’s taking an overly optimistic view, but he’s irely wrong. I don’t want to do that again, but at least we are alive because we were prepared and had those potions to escape. We fight another day, we will fight – and we’ll fight better, too.

  Ali regarded her ihoughts with surprise. Huh. If she didn’t know aer, she might be accused of sounding brave.

  After taking a few moments to recover, Ali and Malika settled the ma for their teleportation fee. Betweewo of them, they were easily able to cover it without waiting tee.

  He must see this kind of thing all the time, Ali thought, notig that the official hadn’t interrupted his work for even a moment during their entire versation. Her gaze lingered a little on the beautiful runework of the teleportation locus before she followed her friends out of the hall.

  These three have my back. I’m only alive because of them.

  Some things no amount of could buy.

  timewalk