Kiresula clambered into the hole fully, no small feat when it was at an awkward height and barely tall enough for Kiresula to get in there by crawling on her belly. She didn’t see anything, but she smelled this place. There was a smell of stale air, of libraries, of catnip. Only when there was slightly more space, she cast [Illuminate].

The spell barely changed a thing: The walls, ground and ceiling were made of the same light absorbent material as the area around the core of the dungeon of the bridge. She had to navigate by feel. Unfortunately, this was easy given how little space there was. She shouted at Mayana not to enter as the place was too cramped for anything. Feeling ahead of her, she realised that the dungeon must have stuck to having two routes: To the right, she smelled catnip, to the left, library smells, She realised that the path ahead of her forked and that the resulting passages narrowed. The catnip smelling one more so than the bookish smelling one. Kiresula imagined that this dungeon wanted cats to delve in the dearth of human delvers.

She took the left passage. Combining [Icy Terrain] and [Freedom of Movement] made movement far easier. Kiresula now slid over the ground without its unevenness and rough texture slowing her down. She still made sure not to be too fast as even elderly, chronically underdelved dungeons might hold secrets.

For 3 grains of time, there was nothing but the claustrophobic passage with reasonably smooth walls. She had to re-cast [Icy Terrain] several times as she progressed. Then, she had to stop herself rather abruptly by dispelling [Icy Terrain]. There was something that felt incorrect. There was a square shape in the wall. With all the seemingly natural shapes, it stuck out like a sore thumb. Kiresula cast [Illuminate], but the stone material remained black as if eating all the light. Feeling the square, she realised that it could open. She just had to pry it open without any tools but her own body. Sometimes, she was able to get the thing to move, but only slightly. Her fingers hurt from the process. Often, she managed to finagle a gap open, but then had been unable to capitalise on it as it seemed to close again when she tried to extend the opening. In her desperation, she even knocked on the door and commanded it to open in what little she knew of Je-ashvehanu. She even tried to do so in Ancient Imperial but failed to do so, instead telling the door to go away. Or called it a git.

Nothing worked.

Kiresula felt pretty uncomfortable in the narrow passage, but forced herself to breathe slowly, to do mental and verbal repetition for calmness, to think. Eventually, she checked the system resources about spells, as she felt brute force as well as patience had failed to work and the darkness around her at least had an utter lack of distractions. About 10 grains later, she understood how the green system handled spells: There were basically three kinds of spells: So-called inherent ones, that come with level ups. Rewarded ones that come from dungeons and other reward scrolls. And last but not least, there were spells that the system referred to by a frustrating amount of synonyms: Free spells, assignable spells, point-based spells and many other terms. It took Kiresula an enragingly long time span to understand it. Points could be gained by several factors, mostly level ups but also from gaining a class but also from increasing a class rank and a few other factors that she didn’t understand but that seemed to become relevant above level 256. So far, she had used one point for [Icy Terrain], but did so the hard way. The spell list had many spells with their point costs. She initially had not understood this, thinking that these would be available at higher levels. That was not the case. Even the most powerful spells would be available as early as someone could spend the points. She knew that she should choose a spell that was useful in the current situation, that she was in a dungeon, a terrifyingly narrow one at that, in the darkness, trying to open something that she felt was important, but she saw the one spell she wanted to have. The one that she could not look away from. She should not choose it, it would be wrong, she needed to get out. And yet, the siren call of the spell was just too much. It was what she had been yearning for since a kid and what she had painstakingly gained as she became an [Ice Mage], what she lost as a glitchling and what now, was in front of her mental eyes. She should be strong, wait until level 6 or maybe 8, depending on which spell she would choose. But that hurt her. At that moment, having something in her hand, that she strived for and to give it away… that hurt in a place deep inside her metaphorical soul. But she needed to do it. To be pragmatic. She had to do it.

Spell learned: Conserve Comestibles

Or not.

There was a feeling of warmth in her soul. A feeling that something had slotted into a hole in her soul that she had been quite aware about. She basked in the glow, the warmth, the completion of an important goal.

Then she realised just in how much trouble she had gotten herself and cussed her impulsiveness. This spell would not help her one bit in the current situation. And she was still in a hole. In a dungeon. In the dark. Despite the [Illuminate] spell. Her momentary feeling of contentment slowly seeped away and her heart rate increased again. She cussed. She felt trapped again. She needed to find a way out and she needed to do so badly.

[Sunlight]!

She casted the spell in frustration of the dark. She felt blinded, not able to see, but when turning away, not seeing anything but herself. She looked at the square, used her hands to try to get into that square. She felt that there was a groove that she needed to somehow get into. She cussed again, then she had an idea: She moved the [Sunlight] into the groove. Then she cast [Spherical Vision] in order to get a better idea of how the shape looked. The problem was that this put her in a bad state of either being exposed to blindingly bright light or complete darkness. It was painful and even squinting didn’t help as the vision was magical, not ocular. It did allow her though to form a mental image of the structure and made her realise that that the groove actually was not one groove but two closely adjacent ones. And trying to open the square by opening both of them didn’t work. Kiresula needed to get her fingers into the same groove, which she managed to do by moving [Sunlight] in the groove between her hands and then seeing the light hitting the sides of her fingertips. This time, it opened with a click.

Dungeon Achievement: Sihirsel dörtgen / Skeveru stahiri

The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

You found the dungeon's secret storage. You gain class achievement in your Seferian Mage class.

She found a tiny scroll inside of the compartment inside of it. As it opened, she felt the area abuzz with broken magic. Taking the scroll, she moved the [Sunlight] spell around to look at the black material and see if there was another secret. She didn't find anything, even after a while. As such, she just used Serenity to handle the broken magic.

With this secret resolved, she dispelled [Sunlight] and instead moved forward with [Icy Terrain]. A while later, there was another segment, this one a pentagon.

Kiresula stopped again, used [Sunlight] and [Spherical vision] again to finagle it open and once again got a scroll, this time however no achievement. And once again, there was a blast of synthic magic. And once again, Kiresula examined the compartment. She was almost ready to call it quits, when she noticed a hexagonal shape slightly embossed into the back wall. There was a thin gap around it, but her control didn't allow her to move the spell into it. Her [Sunlight] was good, but not this good. With the realisation that if the dungeon wanted her dead, there were easier ways, she tried to press the indentation.

With a click, the back wall opened and found another scroll. And a notification:

Dungeon Achievement: Sihirsel beşgen / kauru-de stahiri

You found the dungeon's secret storage. You gain class achievement in your Seferian Mage class.

She checked the scrolls, they were made out of a really thin material that reminded her of silk, just made from paper. They contained no text, just lines. Some straight, some angled and some, for a lack of a better term, squiggly.

Just as she was about to roll them up, she realised that [Sunlight] shone through them, but not through the lines, curves and squiggles. After an embarrassingly high amount of attempts, she saw the message: "Kazansan kazanacağım. Eeluiki nkah, shehkeeuiki."

She had no idea what this meant. She tried to pronounce the Ancient Imperial, but it either did nothing or her pronunciation was too far off. She shrugged, rolled up the scrolls and crawled on her way.

A while later, she reached a slightly higher part of the tunnel that was made out of more normal, greyish stone. When she felt the different texture, she immediately cast [Illuminate]. That took the veil of darkness and threw the square room, about as wide and as long as she was tall. The ground was even and in the middle was sandy and separated from the stony ground by what looked like a rope, shiny in spell light. Approaching it, she realised that it was part of the floor. The height of the ceiling was enough to rise up from worm stance to salamander stance but not to sit up. As she moved forward and put an elbow into the sand, she heard a gong, kinda like the one Mum used to call for dinner. A message appeared:

Son Kavga: Seviye 1

Kajeeji luné: Heven 1

Suddenly, a beetle, looking like a blue ladybug, scurried towards her. Confused as to what exactly happened, she looked at it. It stopped in the middle of the room and stood there for a moment, then, a spray of water hit Kiresula. She inspected the strange insect: "Idea of a beetle. The dungeon's boss was beefed up with magic." She whacked the beetle with her hand and it expired with a satisfying crunch.

It dissolved. Then the sound of a chime was audible and then another message appeared:

İyi! Seviye 2!

Veka! Heven 2!

Then, a seemingly normal ladybug appeared. Kiresula inspected it and received the same message as before and smacked it with an open hand.

Then she made an involuntary scream of discomfort. The thing burned her hand and it felt like reaching into a candle.

Realising that her hand would cover any attacks due to the beetle's size, she cast [Spherical Vision] again. Now she was able to smack the beetle and heard it crack.

Another chime, another message:

Çok iyi! Seviye 3!

Veka al! Heven 3!

The next fights were rather similar and short: a green beetle with some weird spores that made you sneeze, a yellow beetle with electric powers, a light blue beetle that blasted her with wind, a brown beetle that threw dust and was sturdier than a normal beetle.

Then, as the 7th challenge, a mouse that seemed to have all of these powers as well as a nasty bite. As she didn't have any attack spells or any weapons, she hit the mouse repeatedly, got bitten several times and eventually, grabbed its tail and flung it against the ceiling repeatedly. Then it dissolved and the chime was louder. Another message appeared:

Harika! Kazandın!

Dakhy! Eelliuiki!

Then, another message appeared:

Dungeon Achievement: Galıptın. Eella-uiki. You defeated the final boss. Dig the sand to claim your rewards.

Clearing this Dungeon for the first time gives your class progression in the Seferian Mage class.

Kiresula felt conflicted: happy to have won but at the same time ashamed of the easy victory. Digging into the sand pit revealed a wooden scroll case. Except when examining it, it had no opening mechanism. She decided to wrap the other scrolls around it, so it would not take up too much space and to crawl further. As soon as she left the ring room, she smelled catnip. And an old book smell.

"Mayana?" she shouted as she crawled towards the exit.

"Kirey‽" shouted a distant voice.

Kiresula crawled as fast as possible out of the hole. As soon as daylight hit her eyes, one last message appeared:

Goodbye! I enjoyed your delve! Sorry for not speaking your language earlier. I had not been delved in a while.