Conjuring the required stone to make a shelter was a lot harder than expected, though I probably should have. Usually, I simply pulled up stones from the ground below, either individual rocks or grabbing parts of the bedrock wholesale if the soil was shallow enough, leaving me with ample material to work with. Here, I was unable to do so, as the burned land was covered in the disgusting goop from the Bitumen, forcing me to expend a large amount of power to make do.

Afterwards, I was resting and meditating, trying to restore as much of my power as possible, a fairly difficult task in an area as dominated by Fire and Decay as the Burned Land was, but even here, the Astral River wasn’t completely corrupted. Not yet, at least, though I needed to filter the power I received, or I might make myself sick.

When I realised that Luna was outside, helping the group who’d delve into the dungeon with their last preparations, I swiftly conjured a formless construct. While I was well aware that it was unlikely to work, I still wanted to try and see if I could slip it into the shadows of one of the group’s members and have it move with them into the dungeon. That way, I might be able to support them, or at least have another way to observe if I were unable to channel my magic into the dungeon.

Keeping the formless construct together remained a challenge, even after linking it to a prepared frame. Even just sending it across the short distance to the group who was talking with Luna was a challenge but luckily, I could anchor it to the shadow of the group’s leader. From what I had observed, the guy led from the back, acting as a solid foundation for the group and allowing them to revolve and work around him. It was somewhat similar to the way Sigmir had acted on Mundus, protecting everyone’s back before moving in.

Through the prepared frame and the scrying pools linked to the amulets, I could watch the group start their descent into the dungeon, acting carefully and tactically. Observing them made me nod on occasion when I agreed with their tactics or frown if I considered their actions foolish or superfluous. A few things I saw made me curious and gave me an itch to explore the dungeon for myself, especially the way the air started to twist and waver when they looked into the darkness of the shaft the stairs were winding around but given that I could almost feel the heat through my scrying, I wasn’t about to try.

Then, all of a sudden, as they moved across yet another of these massive steps, the image from my scrying construct started to waver even more than usual until it flashed a familiar blue and the same colour usually reserved for the system’s notifications took over the prepared frame for a second before shattering. Not just the image, but the frame itself broke apart, and I could feel the construct dissipating, torn apart by the chaotic energies that separated the dungeon from the outside world.

From the way the frame I had prepared was shattered, I was quite happy that I hadn’t tried to keep it linked to myself. Otherwise, I’d likely have a serious headache now, or maybe the consequences would be even worse. Regardless, it was obvious that this particular experiment hadn’t worked.

Luckily, the amulets I had created continue to send the images their wearers were seeing to the water mirrors they were linked to, allowing me to observe the group’s progress deeper into the dungeon.

The initial challenge they faced was fairly simple. The high steps, just high enough to be hazardous when jumping down and difficult to leap back up, but not so high that they couldn’t be overcome, were an interesting challenge. Sure, with sufficiently high attributes, they were trivial, but even high attributes weren’t a perfect defence. It was always possible that one might land badly on the uneven ground and twist an ankle, creating a liability that would likely last them throughout the dungeon.

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The constant stream of enemies attacking while they made their way down the stairs, never enough foes to be overwhelming but a serious threat if ignored, made the entire thing even more interesting, as it forced attention in multiple directions and added urgency to the climb. Again, not deadly in its own right, but exhausting and easily capable of leaving wounds and injuries that would last the group a long time.

Next, after that gauntlet, came somewhat standard dungeon fare, a few encounters with Bitumen and some strange crab monsters coming from the walls and floor, nothing overly interesting but sufficient to challenge the group and sap their stamina, especially with the heat.

By now, Luna and a few of the locals had joined me in watching their progress. There was a certain amount of surreality to the whole thing, as it felt a little like watching a movie before the change, only that everyone involved knew that the ‘movie’ was reality, not fiction. As such, I noticed people slipping into an excited state, as if they were just watching a movie, only to flinch back when realising that their comrades were fighting for their lives.

I might have made things worse when I decided to conjure a few Ice Chips for myself, occasionally crunching them as we kept watching. They were pretty tasty, but they lacked a certain something. The Ice Astral Power was a pleasant thing to consume, but its taste was a bit too simple. Maybe I should experiment with adding a few other elements into the conjuration, just to see what my magical perception would make of them.

But maybe it would be best to focus on the Dungeon itself and study how it was set up.

Large parts were pretty standard for a dungeon. No traps that I could see, but also no secret passages, though the lack of those could very well be due to the limited senses the people inside had. There might just be a hidden chamber in one of the rooms, especially towards the ceiling, where the group wasn’t able to search properly.

The closest they came to investigating the ceiling and higher areas within the dungeon was during their fight with the massive lava giant, the thing I immediately designated as a dungeon boss. There, the nimble guy they put up front did some fairly impressive acrobatics, using the walls and a few narrow ledges to climb up so he could get the boss with a steam explosion. Not a bad tactic, especially for a group without any real magical abilities on their side, especially given that it worked. But regarding the exploration of all three dimensions, that was about it. I was almost willing to bet that the guys inside missed something, somewhere. The dungeon was a little too straightforward for that not to be the case.

Finally, they reached what I immediately suspected ot be the boss room. Multiple plinths, just waiting for people to place things on them with an ominous pool of lava just behind them? It screamed boss room, and I was soon proven correct when the guys inside placed the various tokens they had received, only to be faced with the boss. A part of me was deeply annoyed at the pathetic mockery of a dragon they had to face, a roasted worm without wings was far from a dragon and yet, I could almost see the tales this would spawn.

The group fought bravely and quite smartly, doing their best to negate the roasted worm’s advantage without sacrificing their own health. Still, it became pretty evident that they didn’t have the magical punch to overcome the beast. They were physically capable, sure, but they were also punching outside their weight class, and that was coming to bite them now. Literally.

During their desperate fight, when the girl took a step back and started muttering under her breath, too softly for us to hear more than a few fragments, I noticed something bizarre. While the amulets couldn’t pick up her voice, I somehow heard what she was saying, not with my ears but somewhere else. I could hear her beseech the Pale Lady for help, and, just as I was trying to figure out how to accept, I suffered a sudden headache, as the mental equivalent of the high-pitched noise one might get from microphone feedback was jammed into my mind.

But even without my cogisant help, I could feel something flow elsewhere, only for that headache to intensify as a familiar form took shape within the dungeon below. Recognising Lenore was simple, even if it was merely a shadow of her actual being, and watching her use a variant of a spell I liked to use while I was on Mundus to great effect while announcing herself to the world brought a smile to my face, even as my headache intensified.

My headache started to fade as the construct within the dungeon did, but the questions this brought up? Those were numerous, and with every moment I had to think about it, more were added to the list.