Kiresula tried to be as sneaky as she could as she approached the research chamber. In it, she heard the poison mage pace to and fro, murmuring and muttering to himself. She tried to quietly open the door but as soon as she touched it, there was an earth-shattering ruckus: The door shouted: "Intruders, intruders!" and made a bugle sound. Throwing caution into the wind, she opened the door, just to see that the poison mage was doing the same thing simultaneously.

The person was handsome, if men were what you desired, even Kiresula was able to realise this: He was tall, slim, having blond hair, piercing blue eyes, delicate facial features and was clean-shaven. He had the lean muscles of a dancer. He was dressed in a black garment that she only knew from period plays: a kind of toga that was secured with a clip that looked like a foxglove flower. Kiresula cast [Sunlight] behind herself, blinding him and giving her a better view. Meanwhile, the mage tried to cast a spell himself. It was unlike any spell she ever saw. She assumed it was just as ancient as the dungeon was. She dodged whatever it was, but saw a glowing light whizz past her. Just as she moved to the door again, she was hit by another of these things. She felt it hit her face and all of a sudden, her entire face hurt terribly. She could no longer see. Her eyelids refused to open. She screamed in pain.

Her Elemental Awareness still allowed her to give some ideas as to where the mage was located and she cast [Spherical Vision] which allowed her to still see what happened around her. She was still getting used to using it in combat, but it beat fighting with just the traces of her Elemental Awareness.

The Giant Rat rushed past her and tried to bite the mage into a sensitive part of the anatomy.

The mage threw these strange, watery blasts at it and the substance covered its fur, sticking to it and seemingly paining the huge murine immensely, but not stopping its relentless attacks.

As the mage took a step back to evade the boss monster, the rat was able to fully enter the room, knocking over a table with glass implements as it did so. This gave Mayana the ability to rush through the door and slash at his extremities with her blades. Kiresula assisted her by throwing [Bite of the Elemental Beetle]s at the projectiles which would lose integrity and fall to the ground and disperse there.

She was hampered by the [Sunlight] in her current shape. It shone from behind and was blinding to that part of her [Spherical Vision], but she didn't care, what she wanted to see was not in that direction. It was annoying and hurt her vision, if not her eyes, but she was past caring about that. It was one of the persistent pains in this battle. She jumped over the ground where the liquid was seeping into the floor and used a [Fire Strike] onto the face of the mage. She then dodged his own fists and used a series of [Fire Strike]s into the arms and hand of him. When he moved his hands and started speaking, she conjured a [Bubble] and moved it into his face.

For a moment, his eyes widened in shock, then the spell fizzled out.

She kept the [Bubble] up as the mage tried to weasel out of the water. Mayana slashed at him as he tried and his movements were more and more uncoordinated.

He threw himself onto the ground and took a breath. Then, two things happened almost simultaneously: Kiresula went down onto the ground keeping the [Bubble] up and tried to keep it in his face – and the giant bat biting the most sensitive part of his anatomy with gusto. And the other rats scurried to the body and while the poison mage tried to move his body from a straight position to a curled one and a straight one over and over again, while Kiresula tried to keep his face in the bubble.

Mayana saw this happening and stepped onto the head of the mage and then went into a crouched position. Her blades slashed at the exposed arm and the neck of the mage.

The mage's struggle eventually lessened and lessened. But that was not the end. When Kiresula's magic ran out, her [Bubble] dispersed and water gushed onto the ground. She didn't have the magic to empower her strikes with an element and instead just beat him over and over again. The mage first breathed loudly but soon tried to speak and move his hands again. Kiresula was exhausted, out of magic and her [Spherical Vision] was about to run out. In a moment of sheer panic, she shoved her fist into his mouth. The mage bit on it, hard, but Kiresula held firm, screaming through the pain, but not daring to move it. Her entire right arm was in pain and she realised that the last attack of this mage might have been a venomous bite. She cursed at him in terms that she never would have said in any less dire situation, but eventually, the creature's bite strength weakened and then it dissolved into magic.

The surviving group sagged to the floor. For a while, there was nothing but panting and in Kiresula's case, futilely trying to wipe the by now hardened gunk off her face. That stuff seemed to be glued to her face now, keeping her eyelids shut. She couldn't even feel her fingers through the material. As she tried and tried to get it off, she started to feel first worried and eventually frantic. Mayana was the first to notice: "Glueballs? Is that what the balls were? That's some nasty stuff!"

"It feels like it, yeah! Do we have any kind of antidote or solvent? I feel all of us got hurt in some way. And I feel like all attacks by this mage were some kind of poison, venom or other irritant." Kiresula responded, holding the upper half of her face in her left hand.

Mayana nodded: "We need to find any antidotes we can find! Do you know where we can find anything that can help us right now?" The last sentence was directed to the largest rat.

The rat squeaked and scurried to and fro in the room until it reached an elaborate trap door: An exit to the rest area. It pawed on the ground of the exit and kept on squeaking loudly and incessantly.

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Kju asked: "You think the dungeon can help us?"

The rat just shrugged.

Kiresula could have strangled that smug rat, but she knew just how much of a bad idea that was: "Can we trust the rat?"

Kju asked: "Can we trust anyone here? The entire situation reeks!"

Mayana looked at him: "It is clear that we cannot justify distrusting her. She led us to the mage."

Kju shook his head: "That rat is no she. That rat is a he. I have seen that much with my own eyes during two battles. That is why I do not trust it to actually be the daughter. I mean, he could have switched these things but…"

Kiresula asked: "He would have relished talking about that in his little diary of horrors, wouldn't he?"

The rat squeaked more insistently this time. It pawed the ground.

Kju said: "I didn't really get injured, so you stay here while I have a look around, what do you think?"

The others nodded, while the rat positioned itself in front of Kju, who jumped over the creature with a jump that was quite obviously assisted by his secondary class.

That was when things turned dark for Kiresula. Her spell had run out of the initial magic and with her magic sitting at exactly 1 Seren, she could not extend it. "Mayana? Can you hold my hand?" she asked.

Mayana moved towards her and held her: "We find a way to solve that issue, trust me on that one. You fought really well despite being blind. Was it all elemental awareness?"

Kiresula gave a tired smile: "It was [Spherical vision] as well."

Mayana sounded surprised: "You fought looking at your own [Sunlight] the entire time?"

Kiresula nodded. "I kinda had to."

There was a pause in which Mayana squeezed her hand more tightly and they both sat together in mutual understanding.

There was a scuffle from the direction of the trap door. Mayana unbiddenly narrated what she saw: "The rat tries to shove Kju and he shoved it back. It really doesn't want him to get into that particular cupboard! Oh, now he threw the rat a few paces away. That was some good gravity manipulation. He is looking into the drawers of the desk. What is that noise? That squeaking is not from the rat. Yeah, he is looking into the drawers right now, holding papers in his hands and skimming them. I am not sure what he is looking at right now."

Kiresula started to do Serenity frantically to regain some of her magic. Being at the end of her magic made her feel miserable. Working through the pain also made her feel miserable. She had to force herself not to panic, not to be afraid. She breathed in and out, moved her mind into the patterns of the process, kept a time between the rise, stable and fall segments. Only after a few repetitions, she realised that she didn't pay attention to Mayana for a moment. As she divided her attention, she learned that Kju had found a rat cage containing one ornery rat. It looked angry and even bit at Kju a few times. Eventually, Kju opened the cage, as he said: "I don't like this critter but I don't want it to starve now that the poison mage is no more! So I will let it go."

As soon as the cage was opened, the rat jumped out. Then, Mayana gasped: "It turns into a woman!"

A different voice assaulted Kiresula's ear. It sounded like that of a young woman: "You killed my father‽ Did I get that right‽"

Kju responded: "We did. His crimes against civilization are numerous! It was what he deserved."

The woman made sobs that indicated she was crying, after an uncomfortable moment, it was clear that these were happy tears. "I cannot believe it! Finally this petty tyrant is no more!"

A male voice shouted: "Not so fast! I will not let the legacy of Khalakh, the mage of poison, fall to his feeble daughter Tsene! Me, Hajjha, I am the true successor!"

Kiresula gasped. The giant rat had been a traitor all along‽ It seemed inconceivable to her. The giant rat had fought on her side against the mage.

Mayana explained to her: "The rat has turned into an ugly human."

She was interrupted by the mage who shouted: "I am not ugly!"

There was a kerfuffle. Kiresula could only notice that Mayana got up and then she heard the sounds of a brawl. When she heard the sound of a spell about to be cast, she also stumbled to her feet and then tried to move to the location of the male voice. She was rather blind in doing so but could see a fire in her elemental awareness to allow her to move. From its small size, and its distorted shape at the top, it seemed to warm some kinds of instruments, and probably located in a fireplace, but more importantly, it provided a location for her. A clear point to orient herself by. She found something warm and cloth textured and pushed it over, hearing a shout from a male voice. She went down with him and used her hands to try to find this person's head, while tolerating getting slapped and hit, even kicked by him. She had no magic, but once she had found this man's neck, she strangled him. He bucked like a wild animal and eventually, she fell off of him, but her hands never left his throat. She heard spells being cast, felt her body and his body rocked, but she didn't care. This was a monster. Not just on so far as it was a monster of the dungeon, but also in the stories of the era. Hajjha the terrible was one of the worst mage-kings in the history of this country. Not only did he get the country involved in many wars, but he was a tyrant who used fear and poison to ensure the loyalty of his subjects. He used magical poisons that were inert as long as the subject behaved, but when the mage-king was displeased with someone he could grant that person, even from the other side of the kingdom, a slow and painful death.

She concentrated on nothing but holding this man down, but could not help but hear the shouts among the others. She didn't pay them any mind until she realised that the Mayana was arguing with the daughter, Tsene. "Don't waste your magic on her! It won't change a thing!" – "I cannot let her remain in that state!" – "If you want to help her, handle her face! She's been covered in some terrible stuff! She cannot see!" – "That thing seeped into her skin, I need to use a healing spell!"

Kiresula spoke: "If you have anything that works on glitchlings, sure!"

The woman responded: "Of course it works with the blue system. I am aware that the time of the yellow system is drawing to a close with all the incoherent magic around. It cannot survive this onslaught for long."

"Green system, not blue or yellow, I am sorry," Kiresula spat out as she was taking another hit by a flailing limb of the mage.

There was a gulp, then a much more timid question: "Can I try to dissolve the glue instead?"

She nodded. Then, her face was immersed in terrible pain.