I Hate Dungeon School

I swam in that darkness for what felt like an eternity, though some part of my mind knew good and well that it wasn't. I had been here more times than I cared for. The place my mind went to when it couldn't handle the pain my body was dealing with.

It was a place of darkness I saw in dreams sometimes. An endless void full of nothing but silence and stillness. Sometimes there were things there, but they never meant anything.

This time, there was something. A light. A soft light that pulsed like a heartbeat. I knew this light.

It was my dungeon core. The blurry light solidified into something more familiar. The round jewel I carried so close to my heart for so long, until it was injured, or whatever it was that happened to it when it encountered the Anomaly Core. I had a pang of guilt about that, despite the events that unfolded being beyond my control.

I could feel its presence touch me, a comforting feeling. I could feel something, some kind of emotion. It was hard to describe the mind of a dungeon core being so deeply alien, still after all the time I spent with it.

It was comforting, grateful, but also sad. I saw it pull away from me, the light shrinking into the distance. There was a rumble of thunder. A flash of cold light, like a thunderbolt deep in a storm cloud. I saw a tiny light in that void. And then another. More appeared dotting the depths, each light like that of a dungeon core. In the furthest reaches of the darkness, there was a dull glow, growing brighter. It dwarfed all the others, like the sun hanging in a sky full of stars. It was a dungeon core, but infinitely vast.

My mind recoiled even trying to perceive it. I felt pain again, in my body and my mind. It burned, like every nerve was on an unspeakably hot fire. I felt as though I was drowning, but instead of my lungs, it was my soul. I let out a silent scream, that unknowable void swallowing any sound I could make.

It was then I recognized the feeling. I wasn't drowning, I was healing. I could feel mana within me again. It flowed into me in a torrent unlike any I had felt before, like all the mana I had been lacking all this time tried to return all at once. I tried regulating it, forcing the excess out of me, trying to drain it off.

The light before me was pulling my mana away from me. I was hungry, and it saw me as little more than food. I could feel it pulling my mana and my soul. My soul remained anchored, like a boat tied to a dock, refusing to succumb to the storm. The pull strengthened, but my soul stood resolute, refusing to be drawn in. I struggled, I fought, I refused to surrender!

I was hitting my limit quickly. One person was never meant to handle this!

It was too much! I couldn't-

Something struck my face. Hard.

I sat up with a deep gasp, breathing in the harsh, cold air, burning like frozen razors inside my lungs.

"Oh thank the gods! You're alive! I thought I lost you! You big stupid beautiful idiot!" Eira's eyes were full of tears as she embraced me hard enough to make it difficult to breath.

"Can't breathe! Need to breathe!" I gasped while tapping her on the back.

"Too bad! Don't go doing anything like that ever again!" She released me, and the next thing I knew, she was kissing me deeply. I loved it, but it was not helping the breathing situation.

"Let her get her breath and get up! It's freezing out here and I don't want to be out here longer than we have to!" I could hear Cori a short distance away.

I blinked a few times to get a feeling for my bearings.

Everyone was here. Cori, Eira, Myth, Smitty, Helena, and even Mariana. I was sitting in the snow, and my rear end was numb with cold. In fact, most of me was deeply cold.

"How long have I been napping?" I asked, my voice slurring a little bit. I was still feeling intensely groggy.

"Long enough! What the hell happened in there?" Helena crouched down and looked me in the eye.

"Tricked the lich into opening the containment vessel. Dungeon core ate it. Just slurped it right up. Tried to eat me too, I think," My mind snapped to sudden clarity from a stab of sheer panic. "The core? What happened to it? Did it work?"

"Best as we can tell, yes. The core stabilized. It formed doors and sealed any holes in the wall to boot." Helena pointed behind her.

The ruin that had once stood there was changed. Still a ruin, but more solidly built now. Did dungeons repair themselves externally, too?

Eira helped me to my feet and supported me while I got my bearings. I felt so very dizzy, and it was taking all my energy to keep from passing out again.

"So what does this mean, teach?" Myth interjected.

"Can we go in?" I asked, remembering my promise to headmaster Walther to map the dungeon after it was formed.

"Are you sure you're up to that? Whatever happened really took it out of you. I don't want you getting hurt again." Eira's grip on my shoulder tightened.

I understood how she felt. I didn't want to get hurt again. Seeing the fear and concern on her face hurt my heart.

I had to know, though. I had to be sure the core was safe, that our mission was done. It wouldn't do to go through all of that trouble only for the mountain to disappear in the wrathful fire of the Chaos Dragon, birthed by our failure to save the core.

"I have to see this through. Please, everyone. I need to do this." I forced myself to stand straight. I couldn't let them see how weak I truly felt. I wanted nothing more to collapse and sleep for an aeon.

"Give us a moment, Alta. You just rest for a moment. Eira, get her some water and something warm to drink." Helena instructed. She and the others huddled around and talked in hushed tones.

Eira took me over to a stray broken wall that was sheltered from the wind, and sat me down. I didn't want to admit it, but I was grateful to sit back down. I felt weak. So very weak.

"Here you go, sweetie, you have a seat. Give me a second, I'll make some tea. Drink that water slowly, ok?" She said, giving me a gentle head pat. It felt nice and comforting.

I sipped from the water-skin that she handed me, and watched as she tried to make a small fire. She tried striking flint and steel, to no effect.

"Stupid little things. I hate using these. I wish there were spell songs that let me light fires." She growled with frustration.

"Let me help," I said. Without thinking, I held out my hand, focused on the pile of sticks and tree bark, and pushed my mana into it, setting it alight. "There you go! Fire."

Eira just stared at me in shock for a long moment. I was confused by her reaction. It was an easy enough spell for a Sword-Witch.

It slowly damned on me what I had just done. I used magic. I used mana. And I didn't even need a spell poem to concentrate on.

My mana was back.

My mana was back!

"My mana is back!" I shouted with glee.

"Your mana is back!" Eira embraced me, and I deftly kept from spilling the water-skin as she did so.

I was too excited to concentrate on the reservoir, but I could feel my mana flow through me once again. It was like having a full stomach after starving, like the first sip of water after a journey through the desert.

The dungeon mana that had stuck inside me the whole time like a splinter was gone, too. There was no sense of the presence, however tenuous, of the dungeon core either.

It really was separated from me. It was a strange feeling. I was glad to be fully freed of the alien presence, but I had also become so used to it over these months that I didn't really notice it until it was finally gone.

I stared at the fortress before me. I had to be sure.

The others jogged over to join us, and I excitedly told them what happened, and showed them my fire lighting, my light orbs, and even my barrier spell had returned. What's more, I didn't need to use the poems.

Everyone was excited and congratulated me, except for Helena. She just smiled and nodded at me, but I could tell there was something concerning her.

"Congratulations on your recovery, Miss Marchesi. But to more important matters, we all agreed. We'll check the dungeon with you. We need to map it." She said, the concerned look on her face deepening.

"What's wrong, professor?" I asked, my mood dampening at her expression.

"We have to face the fact that the dungeon eating the lich just cranked this dungeon's difficulty level higher than we could hope to deal with. We just don't know enough about how monsters and bosses are chosen. We might not be able to handle this. Are you sure you want to try?"

"I have to. That core is my responsibility and I need to make sure its not going to, I don't know, explode or something." I shrugged before standing back up.

"Alright. Since we're here anyway, let's do this. We'll get this done and still have time for shopping and getting our hair done up." Helena shot me a thumbs-up.

"Ugh, don't remind me. I hate salons." I groaned as I drew Ice Moon and made my way towards the fortress.