The [cleric] looked at her and she didn’t avert his gaze for the first time: “If everything that the [Holy Order] knows is wrong, you say that you have additional knowledge, why don’t you start with what happened to Kedsel?”
Kiresula looked at him defiantly: “To understand what happened to Kedsel, we need to start with what is happening to the world and what the Holy Order doesn’t get. In this case, this is that the world is changing and the spell you use to see the status of others has been debuffed. Sometimes it doesn’t see new changes anymore, but for the person, these are visible. I assume that this is what happened to Kedsel because of the dungeon reward. The [Holy Order] lost their minds when Kedsel tried to explain this and they tried to drag her to the dungeon core. Afterwards, I have no idea what happened to her, but the dungeon of the bridge might. The [Holy Order] brought people there afterwards, including me. I led them to the end of the bridge and exfiltrated myself and then made a run for it.”
“Exfiltrated and made a run for it?” the [cleric] repeated in confusion, “these sound like the same thing.”
“Let me rephrase it: I used a Dungeon Escape ability and then ran on my very own legs. And so did the rest of the group: Mayana and K…Kerimni,” she explained.
He asked: “How did you gain that one? I thought that you would lose all abilities upon glitching?”
She nods: “You thought correctly. I obtained it after helping the Dungeon core. Well, you know what I mean.” She had explained her first delve after becoming a glitchling in great detail before.
“Can you prove to us that you have this ability? We cannot see it in your status.” He rubbed his chin.
“Sure,” she said, “just get me to the Dungeon of the Bridge. It only works there.”
The cleric shakes his head: “That sounds like an easy way to have you escape again! Can you do it with another dungeon?”
Kiresula smiled: “Maybe, if you have any dungeons that suffer from broken magic, I can see what I can do. But for the love of all deities, not something as hard as the Forbidden Dungeon.”
The cleric nodded: “May I come with you?”
Kiresula made a vague gesture: “I guess.”
Haina cast a few spells. Then he looked at her: “Come with me. We are going to the Dungeon of the Awakened Mind. It’s a simple dungeon that has been off limits for years for broken magic. If you can help with this dungeon, it will make you much more trustworthy in the eyes of the Holy Order.”
Kiresula nodded: “I would like to do that. I never felt heard with the Holy Order and if I can change that, I would appreciate it.”
Haina, the [cleric] looked at her with a serious expression: “If you think about anything funny, your friends will not see the light of day, understood?”
Kiresula breathed in: “I will certainly try, but I am not a good fighter… so I am not sure if this is feasible for me.”
The [Cleric] nodded: “It’s a puzzle dungeon, you can clear it without fighting.”
Kiresula’s face lit up. She loved puzzle dungeons. Giving her the chance to clear one sounded amazing. “Sure, let’s go! I love puzzle dungeons and I’ll be good!”
A while later, the [cleric] arrived at the dungeon with Kiresula and 7 [Holy Guard]s. Kiresula was tied to the [Holy Guard]s with thick ropes, but went ahead. One hand held a torch, the other one was free, moving too and fro as if she was feeling the broken magic instead of seeing it. While walking into the dungeon, she started doing Serenity and immediately, synthic magic rushed into her. She breathed in a sigh of relief. She had been on 5 Seren of magic for far too long. She slowly advanced and told Haina: “I am walking ahead here, trying to make sure that it’s safe. If any of the guards show any accumulation of broken magic, please tell me. Even if it is just 0.01 of a Seren. I don’t want it to become more.”
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The dungeon looked strange. It had a colourful aesthetic, with walls that showed colourful mosaics showing playing children. However, there were strange phenomena, like parts of the mosaic that were made out of large, square sections where it looked as if the dungeon was running out of patience to make a mosaic. Or out of magic points.
While this place was only a hallway to puzzle room one, as Haina assured her several times, she shook her head and drew the places of these larger segments into the sand. This reminded her of something. “Do you know Island-and-Coast script? This looks kinda like it. She pointed at the three levels of height: Three kinds of squiggles, three levels of height. And they are arranged on a line that can be seen on the floor between the two walls, here in a slightly lighter colour. This looks utterly like that script.”
One of the [Holy Guard]s nodded: “Good catch. If we assume the high one is a loop, like in ji, the low one an inverted one like in unu and the mid one an arc of some kind, then I can see it. Va kelda sheh. This is… pretty weird though.”
Kiresula raised an eyebrow: “Cause me to remain? Save me? Do I translate this correctly?”
The [Holy Guard] nodded: “Yeah, something like that. Maybe more like: ‘Prolong me’ or ‘prolong my life’ if we are looking at it metaphorically. I am amazed: You don’t look like someone who learns Je-ashvehanu. I would not have assumed you would understand this.”
Kiresula smiled: “I learned it recently. I still cannot write it, but I can hold a conversation if hands and feet are allowed to make myself understood.”
They had reached the end of the hallway. Before anyone could enter the puzzle room, Kiresula stopped them: “I see something here! Let’s not rush! Could you please help me up here?” she pointed at the block in the ceiling that looked like the dungeon had just given up making a mosaic, but the rest of the dark ceiling was smooth. Two [Holy Guard]s raised her until she could touch this segment. Then her vision became dark, she felt herself being accelerated upwards and she heard ropes breaking.
A few moments later, she stood in a playroom that looked as if it was in the attic of a house as the ceiling was slanted. Through two large windows, Kiresula could see grey skies, proving to her that this was just an illusion as outside of the dungeon, night had fallen. The room was filled with the warm sound of summer rain falling onto the roof. Kiresula looked around. There was a rocking horse, a few blocks with Je-shvehanu and Mainlandish letters on them. And a huge wooden structure that seemed to be a jigsaw puzzle. It was like a puzzle, except that it worked on rotation, not assembly to show its image. And some parts when rotating caused other parts to rotate as well or sometimes in opposite directions. She first mentally mapped the rotation dependencies. Then, she worked from these ones backwards until she was able to construct the image: A teddy bear hugging a child half its size.
After she solved this, she looked around. She saw no change to anything. As she looked at the statue, she was unsure if she solved it correctly, so she reached out for it – only for her arms to reach through it. As she investigated the bear, it had turned into an illusion. And in the middle was the core. She stuck her head into the illusion to see it: The core looked as if it was in a bad state: Its light was mostly colourful and glitched.
She spoke: “Last time, I saw someone like you, who was badly affected by broken magic, they could take things they needed to control it from trying to integrate me, which failed. Are you okay trying?”
The core spoke with a grandfatherly voice – albeit one of a sick grandfather: “Please… It is hard to control everything around all that broken magic… I lose more and more of myself… Please help.”
She reached out to the core. There was a feeling of pain in her and it swelled like a river during a flood. She concentrated on remaining on her feet, on remaining conscious. On not screaming, despite everything in her wanting to. Eventually, she couldn’t keep her composure and she cussed badly. Then she screamed. Her eyes teared up, her legs gave out and she fell onto the ground. Then the pain waned. She slowly regained her breath. The voice of the dungeon was audible. This time it sounded full and healthy: “This… is… better! I can see and use the… synthic magic! I can control it! Thanks! I am glad that you could help me. Maybe now children can visit again.”
Kiresula smiled: “You like children?”
It confirmed so: “Indeed. That’s why there is no combat in my halls. I want children to visit and give them rewards. I want to see them happy.”
Kiresula felt soft: “That is admirable!”
It responded softly: “Thanks! Now, you can take the hatch back down and once you finish the last puzzle, I am going to have a nice reward for you. As I am still new to the command of synthic magic, I need a bit of time to work on something.”
Kiresula smiled: “Of course, no Rush!”
She then opened the hatch and descended.