“So, that happened?” Jerry, one of the locals, remarked after their mother’s sudden and quite rapid exit from the house she had conjured. Luna wasn’t quite sure what to make of it, though she could readily form some hypotheses and draw conclusions from them, but without a somewhat reasonable starting point, those ideas were bound to be flawed.

“It did, though I’m not quite certain what ‘that’ was. But let’s focus on the scrying mirrors so we might be able to figure out what happened down there and what will happen next,” she argued, looking at the various people who had joined her mother and her in observing the group that went into the dungeon.

General noises of agreement had her relax back into her chair, keeping an eye on these wonderful mirrors even while her mind was going over the oddity her mother had displayed. She knew of Lenore, her mother’s familiar from another world, but she wasn’t certain why the appearance of the familiar, or at least a shadow of it, would cause her mother such pain. And the pain had been obvious to anyone who knew her mother, even if she had tried to hide it on instinct. Not showing weakness and all that.

Before Luna could continue ruminating on this particular oddity, events within the dungeon took her attention. The Lindwurm lay slain, its body frozen and shattered into numerous pieces, causing the lava within its pool to recede, revealing an odd core to the group down there. Oliver and Angelina were studying the core while the other three were examining the loot they got from the Lindwurm and checking out the rest of the chamber, looking for any further clues to complete their run through the dungeon.

This continued on until Harry got impatient with their lack of progress and decided to do something hasty. Namely, he decided to hit the crystal that had been submerged in the pool with his strongest attack, causing it to shatter into countless pieces, which rapidly turned into motes of light and started to fade away. While the group stared at their rash comrade, too shocked to even start berating him, the ground began to visibly shake beneath them, causing them to stagger. As that was happening, the wall of an alcove they had examined before crumbled, revealing a new tunnel.

Trapped underground within an earthquake was a bad place to be, so they decided to use this new tunnel, hoping that it would lead them to safety and started to run. It didn’t take long for their run to reach an end when the tunnel they were in opened up, revealing that they were standing right above a somewhat familiar staircase, namely, they had somehow returned to the massive steps that had led them into the dungeon in the first place. Just how that worked geometrically, nobody was able to answer, but for now, their entire focus was on getting out of the dungeon. Their urgency was easily explained by the fact that the ground continued to shake, while dirt and dust rained down on them, as if the dungeon was about to come crashing down on them.

Luckily, once they were on the staircase and could see the sky above them, their urgency faded away a little, though they still wanted to get out of the area as quickly as possible. Working together made climbing the stairs fairly simple, and soon, they got out of the hole they had been in. Outside the dungeon, the ground wasn’t shaking, and their fears started to fade. Which, in turn, meant they had the mental and physical capacity to berate Harry for his rash actions, at least until the exhaustion from the dungeon run caught up to them and they had to be helped into the house, where they promptly collapsed.

It was late in the morning, almost noon, on the next day, when the entire group, escort and dungeon runners, were rested to the point that they were willing to brave the burned land and return to the village. During the night, the guards had noticed that the burned land had been oddly placid, but nobody was willing to risk that placidity being some sort of ruse, which could cause them trouble on the way out. It would be quite shameful to manage clearing a dangerous dungeon, only to be careless on the way back and get yourselves killed by your hubris.

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So, the entire group was moving slowly, forming a defensive cluster around a central core and taking all necessary precautions. However, Luna was the only one who wasn’t vigilant, who didn’t focus on potential dangers. Instead, she was reaching into her bag every so often, and those with sufficient sensitivity to magical activity could feel her use some Astral Power almost constantly, though what she was doing eluded them. If there had been somebody with a better perception, someone like her mother, that person would have noticed Luna dropping various kinds of seeds infused with Astral Power on the ground as they moved. Those seeds would soon start to germinate and sprout, using some of the power infused into the burned land to become something new. Life sprouting from the ashes of the old was, after all, one of the precepts inherent to the cycle of life.

Amusingly, the longer their trek continued without any incidents, the sharper their vigilance became. The entire group was accustomed to having Bitumen and other beasts jump at them with little to no warning, and now, as they travelled through the burned lands without anything happening, their instincts were screaming at them that an attack was inevitable. That it was just around the corner, or rather, that it was hidden in the ground just beneath their feet. Due to that, vigilance turned into paranoia, and what would have only warranted a closer look at other times was now preemptively attacked with whatever ranged weapon was available.

Hopefully, this hypervigilance would eventually dissipate or travelling could become seriously troublesome. At the same time, Luna could recognise a few patterns she had observed in her mother, meaning that this might simply be a result of too much exposure to danger and stress without the comfort of a safety net, like the one she always had with the knowledge that either her mother or dear Silva were nearby and would make sure nothing bad could happen to her.

Eventually, one of the outer guards announced an incoming aerial object, a call somewhat unusual in the burned lands. Nothing had been flying in this area, thanks to the clouds of smoke and ash choking the air, and even now, after these clouds were largely gone, that hadn’t changed. So, a bird flying over this area was unusual, though it only took Luna a second to recognise that type of bird as one of her mother’s constructs.

When she announced that, Angelina immediately dropped to her knees and started to quietly pray, her experience in the dungeon having fundamentally changed something within the young woman. She, as she had described it, had been touched by the divine and was now longing for that touch, describing it in ways that made Luna profoundly uncomfortable. That was, at least to some extent, her mother the woman was talking about, speaking with a fervour bordering on fanaticism.

To everyone’s surprise, the bird suddenly wobbled in the air a little and stopped its descent, continuing to circle above them for a bit until it went into a somewhat uncontrolled dive, flying towards Luna. Just before the falling construct could hit her, it turned into a tablet made from ice, with a message engraved into it.

The message, addressed to Luna, was quite simple, telling her and the rest of the group that her mother was okay, just temporarily unavailable. It asked that they head back to the village and report in, deal with any outstanding issues and then, once that all was accomplished, meet Hecate back at their original campsite. In smaller letters, it also asked Luna to ensure that no followers of the Pale Lady were able to accompany them. That part was even underlined, making Luna curious about what was going on there. Undoubtedly something weird, or maybe it was simply a case of her mother being uncomfortable about being an object of worship, feeling it was too close to romance or something like that.

Regardless, the message had been received and the entire group continued on their way, even if Angelina was strangely subdued when Luna didn’t allow her to read the message delivered by the raven. Somehow, Angelina considered it a divine revelation, with the raven acting as a messenger for the Pale Lady, and she should be the one to receive it, as a devout follower of the Lady. That, if nothing else, drove home why Morgana didn’t want to have someone like her accompany the group and Luna made a mental note to ascertain nobody could follow them. Who knew how far a fanatic like Angelina would go to get the attention of their target?