The carriage stopped at Milaikalesa. The glitchlings left and Haina followed. They walked towards the dungeon that was about a dozen grains of time away from the village. Kiresula, Mayana and Kju talked about ways to solve the issue of goblins or kobolds that were several times stronger than they were. Eventually, they reached the area near the dungeon. Haina pointed ahead and said that the entrance was ahead, but that guards protected the place from any delvers. He then showed an artefact that looked like a brooch. Mayana whistled approvingly. “These are some nice enchantments. It’s for invisibility, yes?” she asked, reading the enchantment with practised ease.

Haina nodded: “It’s supposed to be, but it isn’t really. It makes people less easy to spot, but not quite invisible. My idea was that one of you feeds the brooch with your magic and then I go to the guards and make an unholy ruckus to distract them. While they are distracted, you can sneak in.”

Kju looked at him seriously: “How do you get in?”

Haina shook his head: “I don’t. I wait for you outside to get you out eventually.”

Mayana spoke strongly: “No. You come with us or that dungeon defeats us before we can get to the core.”

Haina opened his eyes in shock: “Then how in the green hills of fair Anadolu do you expect us all to get in?”

Mayana smiled: “I know folks who ran this thing when that officially wasn’t allowed. I know means and ways to get in, trust me on that…” She looked at Kiresula: “This will be a lot like your first run of the black cat dungeon. Are you okay with that?”

Kiresula nodded: “I am, yeah. It’s not pleasant, but I can manage.”

Mayana nodded and smiled: “Anyone else claustrophobic?”

The others shook their heads.

Mayana nodded: “Grand. Follow me!”

The enchanter then went towards the entrance of the dungeon which looked like a flat portal, but then waved at the guards and turned to the left. She led the group into the forest until she found a foxhole. “So, what most people don’t know is that this dungeon is actually underground and you can dig your way in. Kirey? Can you go first?”

Kiresula nodded, crawled into the foxhole and then, when it stopped going downwards and instead went parallel to the ground, she cast [Move Soil] to continue to dig downwards. Digging with this spell still seemed strange: It didn’t move the soil itself, but it made her feel like her hands were like the long, webbed paws of water monsters, but all that extended over the area of her normal hand was intangible except for soil, which this spell could easily move as if she was using a huge shovel. She kept on digging until she felt her hands reach into empty air. She looked downwards and saw a huge area, lit up by a bright light. This was the dungeon! She tried to estimate how far away the ground was, but it seemed difficult. Closer to her were a strange kind of trees (probably the dungeon’s idea of palm trees, as her [Botanical Awareness] seemed to class them as such despite looking quite different) that seemed to have a huge crown of leaves on the top, but no branches of any kind, just a thin stem. She called out to the others: “Here it is!” Then she tried to drop into the middle of one of these crowns.

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She didn’t quite manage to do so, but was able to hold on to the tree trunk and slide down. As she did so, she noticed the notification symbol and checked her notifications.

Class Achievement: Entered a dungeon via a hidden passage. This gives you experience in your Seferian Mage class.

Class Achievement: Entered a dungeon via a passage you created. This gives you experience in your Seferian Mage class.

Class Achievement: Reached Level 8 of your Seferian Mage class.

60 stat points assigned, 5 free stat points.

New Spell: Find Plant.

Due to your secondary class, you also gain the spell: Adapt Plant Trait

She checked the spell descriptions. [Find Plant] could find a plant that either fit specific qualifications or alternatively were of a specific species. The [Adapt Plant Trait] spell allowed her to take on traits of nearby plants temporarily. She could immediately see how these spells needed each other. One helped to find plants that had thorns, or poison, the other to use these traits for battle. She looked around and saw Mayana descending as well. Out of sheer protective urge, Kiresula cast [Enhance Ability] on her Fortitude. She looked at Kiresula, raised an eyebrow and Kiresula nodded with a loving smile.

Mayana rubbed the area between her legs that was sore from the descent and then looked around. The others followed more or less gracefully. In Kju’s case, far less gracefully, but he slowed his fall until he could hold onto a smaller tree.

A dark snarled voice suddenly came from under them: “You humans!” A grey kobold crawled out of a hole in the ground, a foxhole, both in the sense that it was a place where a combattant was hiding and that it was a hole for a creature with more fox-like than dog-like face.

Kiresula smiled: “Hello, kobold. You want our help in the battle against the goblins?”

The kobold nodded: “Human help!”

Mayana asked: “Goblins where?”

The kobold pointed in a seemingly random direction.

Kju asked: “How far away?”

The kobold shrugged.

Kiresula asked: “How many are you?”

The kobold whistled and about a dozen kobolds appeared out of other holes in the ground.

Haina shook his head: “This won’t work. You are too easily seen here!”

The kobolds looked confused. One of them asked: “Where go?”

Haina pointed forwards, into the direction where the goblins would come from: “There. High grass! We make new trenches.”

The kobolds shook their heads: “No time. No dig thing!”

Kiresula adjusted her clothes and said: “I can dig with spells.” She turned to Mayana and asked: “Can you help with the equipment of the kobolds?”

Mayana looked at the weapons of the kobolds and wrinkled her nose. “They barely hold one enchantment.” She paused for a moment: “But they might hold a regular one and a synthic one.”

“Someone’s still level 42!” Kiresula encouraged her. “And 6. And 1!”

The ground started walking to the grasslands. Mayana seemed to be flattered initially, but then, something seemed to inspire her. As Kiresula dug traps and trenches, Mayana enchanted crude blades and even wooden clubs with enchantments that worked between both her synthic and her regular class.

Just as the group took a breather, they received another message:

This was rude! Breaking into a dungeon is not nice, so won’t be either. Enjoy the quintupled amount of opponents!