Clearing the first two sections of the dungeon took us over thirty hours. Actually, clearing them had taken maybe ten minutes altogether; stripping them chewed up the time. Still, thirty hours were thirty hours, no matter how you sliced it.

I stretched my arms over my head, shoulders cracking. "I should open the house."

Mahya gave a grunt and yanked the last tree I had agreed to out of the ground. The roots came free with a wet pop, showering her boots in dirt. Yes, I was a sucker for puppy dog eyes and a pleading tone. I’d let her collect five instead of two.

"Why? Did you run out of juice?" she asked, brushing the dirt from her hands.

I shook my head, feeling the grime cling stubbornly to my skin. "No. But I’d rather rest and tackle a new section in the morning."

She squinted up at the churning sky overhead. It was the same heavy swirl of clouds that hadn't changed the entire time we’d been inside. "Morning?" she asked, her voice dry with disbelief.

I waved her off with a tired flick of my wrist. "You know what I mean."

We crossed into the safe zone that looked exactly like the first one, and had a quiet "evening" at home, a light dinner, with Al taking nonstop notes about all the strange plants he collected.

The next section was more ominous the minute we crossed the demarcation line. The ground shifted from packed dirt to jagged black rock, uneven and sharp underfoot. Narrow fissures cracked open between the stones, pulsing with veins of fire running just below the surface. In the distance, serrated cliffs towered over the valley, their dark silhouettes against a sky churning with thick clouds.

Lightning forked through the sky every few seconds, bright enough to light up the whole area like at noon. The bolts were thicker than before, branching out in a tangled web before slamming into the cliffs with enough force to rattle the air and send constant booms.

A dark pond covered part of the valley floor, its surface catching the lightning flashes and tossing back a warped reflection of the storm above. The air felt heavier, thick with the metallic tang of ozone and a faint bite of sulfur. But it wasn’t only the smell. The pressure on the psyche increased. Before, it was like a thin layer of wrongness around me—or more accurately, around my existence, my self-ness. Now, the thin layer had gained thickness and was pressing in, like it was trying to squeeze me down and make me occupy less space. Very unpleasant.

We stood and waited, looking up every time a bolt of lightning split the sky. But the only strikes that came down hit the far cliffs, and none of them deposited any monsters. We waited some more, the silence stretching. Still nothing.

"I think we are supposed to do something to trigger it," Al said, tapping his leg.

"Like what?" I asked.

"I do not know. We did not buy the information packet." He threw Mahya a nasty glare as he said it.

She just stuck out her tongue at him. "No spoilers."

"Settle down, children," I said, raking a hand through my hair. "Ideas?"

"Usually I am the one using the children moniker," Al said, straightening his posture like he was reclaiming his dignity.

I shrugged. "When the shoe fits..."

Rue padded over to the pond and stuck his front paw into the water. The thickest lightning bolt so far slammed down and hit the surface, and him. My heart froze. The strike traveled straight through him, and all his fur stood on end like he’d been, well, electrocuted.

I rushed over, cast Diagnose, and let out a relieved breath. He was fine. Just looked like someone had tried to turn him into a giant pom-pom.

We waited, but there were still no monsters. I walked over and stuck my hand in the water. This time, lightning didn’t hit. My senses spread through the water, and I became one with it.

Hello there! What do we have here?

Under my control, a water bubble lifted a giant octopus from the water. Maybe a kraken? It was enormous, with thick, rubbery tentacles and a body the size of a small house. Jagged, bony ridges lined its arms and pointed in every direction. Its skin was a dark, sickly gray with black swirls, and it had too many eyes. Definitely not one of the regular multi-legged critters.

Dreadmaw of the Abyss

Level 10

"Calamari!" Rue exclaimed.

Mahya immediately took out a sniper rifle and checked the scope.

"Wait," I said, raising a hand. "I want to try something."

I focused on the water bubble around the dreadmaw, forcing it smaller and smaller. It was like trying to crush a balloon made of stone. Every bit of progress felt like dragging a mountain uphill with my brain. Sweat broke out along my back, and my teeth clenched from the strain. The bubble shrank, squeezing tighter until the dreadmaw started thrashing inside. I pushed harder, past some invisible threshold, and the thing exploded inside the bubble with a wet, messy pop.

I brought the bubble toward me, planning to turn the dreadmaw into a crystal, but halfway there, it broke apart into motes of light. When the bubble reached us, ten mithril coins clattered to the ground.

"Where did you encounter such an intimidating creature?" Al asked, frowning as he inspected the still-damp coins.

"I didn’t," I said.

He turned to Mahya, eyebrows raised.

She threw up her hands. "Don’t look at me, I had nothing to do with it."

"There were those tree swinging ones in the Occurrence that you didn’t like confusing," I pointed out.

Mahya shook her head firmly. "Nah, they didn’t look anything like it. I’m not responsible for this one."

Rue let out a long, theatrical sigh, both physically and telepathically. His ears drooped, and he lowered his head in pure despair. "John give Sanctuary Rue’s calamari," he said mournfully.

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We stared at him.

"Your nightmare is losing calamari?" Mahya asked, eyebrows raised.

Rue nodded solemnly.

My dog, the drama queen.

I stuck my hand in the water again, but this time the pond was empty. No monsters, just dark, sluggish water. Around us, there were only cracked rocks.

"Let’s continue," I said, drying my hands off on my pants.

"Wait," Mahya called out. "Check the rocks for ore. We specifically paid for ore as part of the resources."

I sighed and floated up, flying low over the jagged rocks with my mana sense pushed out to the max. The rocks did contain ore. But, of course, the ore was along the seams with the fire. Why make anything simple?

For a moment, I thought about asking the fire to go out along the rocks, but I shook my head. It looked more like lava than simple fire. And with my poor control over the earth element, I didn’t think I’d be able to do anything useful. Instead, I took a picture to capture the full fiery effect.

image [https://i.imgur.com/yeZAIb5.jpeg]

Next, I touched the water, spread myself through the whole pond, and blasted all the hot spots with streams of water. It took a while to put out all the lava, and even longer for the steam to clear. But when I checked again, there was no more fire, even deeper down.

I dusted off my shoulders with a satisfied smile.

Mahya snorted and elbowed Al, who actually chuckled.

"You did the hard part," Mahya said, tossing a wink over her shoulder. "Sit down. Enjoy the view."

Al nodded, pulling a pickaxe from his Storage.

I dropped onto a nearby rock with a grunt, looking out over the cracked ground, the steaming rocks, and the empty, sad little pond. Yeah. Some view.

It took them quite a few hours to collect all the ore, and I had to fly overhead a few times to point out the pockets they missed, but finally they were done. We had a late lunch—calamari, of course, to help Rue overcome his nightmare—and then continued to the next area.

The next area was the nicest one so far, at least in my opinion. It was still spooky in its own way, but also beautiful.

"Nice," I said, taking it all in.

"Of course you like it," Mahya said with a smirk. "You match."

I gave her an eye roll.

The ground was covered in thick, purple bushes that reached up to my knees and stretched as far as I could see. A narrow stream cut through the area, winding between the low hills. The water was dark but clear, with small patches of glowing blue scattered along the banks like tiny lanterns. On either side of the stream, clusters of short trees stood spaced out across the landscape.

In the distance, a mountain rose into the sky, and above it, the clouds spun into a tight spiral that kept changing shape. Lightning hit constantly, flashing white and purple across the heavy sky. The air carried a faint metallic scent, and there was a constant buzz at the edge of my senses. And, of course, the heavy, oppressive pressure on my mind grew even worse. Before, it had felt like a thin coating of sleaze over my thoughts. Now it was more like a thick crust. Still bearable, but definitely getting more than uncomfortable.

Of course, I took a picture.

image [https://i.imgur.com/55kUbim.jpeg]

We used machetes to clear a path through the purple bushes. They were too dense to walk through normally. About twenty meters in, the first lightning bolt slammed into the ground.

"Pims!" all of us exclaimed at the same time.

I wasn’t the only one smiling. It felt like meeting old friends. Sort of.

All six pims were level 11. In honor of my swords getting reforged and fed mana, I pulled them both out. They felt different now. Before, they had been comfortable. Now they moved with me, not just as extensions of my hands, but as part of who I was.

Mahya blurred past me, already cutting into the first pim. The monster barely had time to notice her before it dropped. Al followed close behind, shield up, taking a hit on the edge before slamming his sword into the second one’s midsection.

Rue darted in and out, his jaws locking onto the third pim’s throat with a crunch. He shook it like a toy and flung it aside. I moved in on the next one. We cut them down in less than two minutes, dug up the crystals, and moved on.

Seven more pims came next, level 12 this time. Then eight at level 13, and nine at level 14. Each wave was faster and the pims were harder to cut, but it also proved how much we had all advanced. Well, maybe Mahya less so. I still could hardly see her clearly when she ran or jumped; she blurred too much. But Al and I had definitely progressed a lot. We mowed through them like a scythe through a wheat field. Rue and Mahya even developed an interesting strategy. He grabbed the pims by their feet and flung them toward her, and she cut them down mid-flight.

When the last batch appeared—ten pims, all level 20—the air crackled around them and their speed was close to Mahya's. For the first time, I had to switch tactics, and use lightning. For a second, I worried the pims would be immune because of the location. But the first bolt slammed into the lead monster, and it went down smoking. Barbecued like a good little monster.

The last one turned into motes of light and dropped a sword. A shitty sword. Mahya grabbed it for melting.

Al harvested an insane amount of the purple bush. Thankfully, Mahya only looked at the trees for a couple of seconds, shook her head, and left them alone. I let out a quiet sigh of relief. For a minute or two, I was seriously worried she’d start dragging a sample of every tree we encountered into my peaceful lakeside village.

The next section was even more beautiful than the purple one. Or more accurately, the view of the land wasn’t much. It was mostly dry, cracked ground stretching in every direction, broken only by a few patches of yellow and orange trees scattered here and there. The real beauty was the lightning effect on top of the mountain.

A thick bolt of lightning shot straight into the sky from the peak, bright enough to leave afterimages in my vision. More bolts branched out from it, spreading across the dark clouds in jagged lines. Around the main bolt, a ring of fire or energy burned in the air, pulsing slowly like it was breathing. The whole thing lit up the mountain and the ground below it, throwing sharp shadows across the rough landscape. The air smelled even sharper here, full of ozone and heat, and the pressure on my mind twisted a little tighter, but it was worth it just for the view.

The monsters here were another tentacled variety, and again, a shared "nightmare." They were the same creatures we encountered in the old dungeon in the mushroom valley in Lumis that shot darts of black mana.

This fight was even easier than the level 1 jurbers. Or, maybe not the easiest, but definitely the one that took the least amount of physical effort. The monsters started with six at level 21, then seven at level 22, eight at level 23, nine at level 24, and finally ten at level 30.

Why was it the easiest fight? Because we had the Solar Flare single-use scrolls. In the past, Mahya had said that light mana was the best counter to dark mana, and she was right.

Solar Flare

Releases a burst of intense sunlight, blinding enemies and dealing radiant damage. Good for disorienting enemies and inflicting damage.

The first two batches only needed one scroll each. The second two needed two scrolls. The last batch, each monster needed a personal scroll of its own. We had to jump and fly all over the place to dodge the dark mana darts—they were firing them like automatic submachine guns—but the minute a scroll was ready, it was bye-bye monster.

The only regrettable part was that the scrolls erased them from existence, so we only got the crystals buried in the soil. No double-dipping for Al this time. And of course, Mahya dug up two yellow and two orange trees for my future lakeside paradise. I just shook my head and sighed, making a decision that if we ever manage to create it, I would argue then about the tree placement. At least orange and yellow trees looked more natural to my sensibilities, like autumn, not like dungeon aesthetics.

image [https://i.imgur.com/IdjdD44.jpeg]

We had been fighting and gathering for at least two days straight. It really drove home one big difference between the dungeons in Zindor and the high-mana worlds besides the safe zones: the dungeons here were massive. Not quick in-and-out runs.

I suggested another break, and no one argued. To help deal with the mental pressure, I cooked comfort food: thick stew packed with root vegetables, chunks of dungeon beef (a nod to the location), and enough herbs to make the whole house smell like a kitchen instead of a battlefield. I also made a fresh salad with a selection of vegetables from Zindor, Lumis, and Liliatas, tossed together with a basic vinaigrette. Rue found it suspicious but ate it anyway, grumbling the whole time about the salad not having enough meat.

For dessert, I threw together simple fried dough balls coated in honey from the edible dungeon—again, my homage to the location. They weren’t fancy, but after two days of fighting, they tasted like heaven.

All in all, this dungeon run was interesting, and fun in a strange way, if I ignored the constant psychological sleaze hanging over everything.