As it turns out, the clothes inside the chest are a bit too small for me. I take a moment, looking over myself, and recognize again just how much my body has changed in the last few months. I’ve always been a bit bigger than the other girls in town, runs in the family apparently, but after becoming an essentia magician I doubt that I will be able to borrow clothes easily anymore. Still, despite the button up stretching across my back when I bend or move, it is far better than the bearskin I have been using for the last week.

Seeing the clean clothes–well, comparatively clean; they were still covered in a thin layer of dust inside the chest–brings my attention back to myself. Dried dirt and mud cakes my arms and legs, and I don’t even bother to look at how messy my face and hair has become. Rather than using the little water that I have remaining, I find that running my flaming hand over my skin does a decent job at searing away all of the grim. Sure, it leaves streaks of ash and soot behind, but it is better than nothing. Being immune to my own fire has more benefits than I first realized.

Inside the chest sit three field journals, mostly blank. One of the journals does appear as if someone had taken a bit of time to start filling it out, making comments about the structure the tent is set outside of and the investigations of a woman named Pienna inside the structure. Apparently, this woman was sent out a few decades ago to make an exploration of the abandoned structures in the valley known as the Passage, tasked with scouting out any that would be suitable to make into proper dungeons under the purview of the Willian Guild. She doesn’t describe much, only six pages of the journal have any writing, but she seemed to have been doubtful about the one that looms above me now. Apparently, it was just too far east.

I toss the journal back in the chest before putting the whole box in my inventory. I can never have too many chests. A gout of fire from my hand sears away the flowers on the stairs leading up to the top of the structure. Reaching the top, I find my first obstacle of the day. There is no doorway to actually enter the structure.

“How did that woman open the last dungeon?” I ask Galea.

“Magic,” she helpfully answers.

“Right.” A flash of fire burns away all of the growth on the outside of the ten foot cube of stone that tops the pyramid, showing me a bare and featureless slab of rock. The Bane Crystal falls to the ground at my feet, a burning hand changing taking on a greenish hue as I put my fire to the crystal. The same way that I cleared the path to the top, I pour a gout of green fire into the stone, my mana steadily dropping as a hole begins to expand on the surface of the stone, green dragonfire eating away at the rock. After five minutes of burning, a third of my mana depleted, and a speck of darkness is born through the stone. Another minute later and a space large enough for me to walk through is revealed; a darkened stairway leading deeper inside stands before me. “Just use magic.”

“If you master the door affix then you will be able to seal the dungeon once again,” Galea informs me.

I pause in the middle of replacing the Bane Crystal in my inventory. “There’s no such thing as a door affix,” I say.

“There could be,” Galea says.

Quirking an eyebrow at the strange spirit, I pocket the Bane Crystal and tread towards the stairway. “I have looked through my glossary of affixes more than a dozen times now,” I say, beginning to channel orange dragonfire in my hand for some light as I take my first step onto the stairs. “If there were such a thing as a door affix, I would remember it.”

“That glossary only covers basic affixes,” she says. “It wouldn’t contain something as advanced as a door affix.”

I plod down the staircase, holding up my burning hand to light the way in front of me. The ball of orange fire in my hand pushes back the darkness for twenty feet or so. The walls of the structure’s interior are covered with a mesh of green veins that peek in and out of the walls and floor. Ahead of me, a darkened hallway runs off into infinity. The air in here is damp, the smell of dust and decay tickling my nose.

“The door affix,” I say, shaking my head. My footfalls bounce off the sparse stone at my feet, mostly muffled by the flexing veins of green that I can’t help but walk on. “How could something like that possibly be an advanced affix?”

“There were other affixes not shown in the glossary,” Galea defends. The spirit crosses her clawed arms across her chest as she floats along next to me. “Did your book mention the Aurora Affix? No, but we know that it is a real one since we saw the Aurora Essentia with our own eyes. It also didn’t mention anything about the Dragon Affix either, and we know that is a real one as well.”

I stop, looking at the spirit, though she refuses to return my gaze. Galea is assuming that any magic that could form an essentia also could form an affix. Given that essentia are incredibly concentrated amalgamations of magic so potent that they are capable of leaving a mark on the soul, she might just have a point there. My reply is cut off by the sound of shuffling further up the hall. The dragonfire in my hand has long reached its full charge, and I hold up my hand to illuminate the dark just a bit better.

The first thing that I notice as the slow plodding sound begins to approach are a set of blue eyes glowing in the dark, three slit orbs carrying a clear malevolence. The approaching creature comes into view, its form so odd that I momentarily lose my focus. What comes walking out of the dark appears to be a horse made of plant matter, its body a mix of gray and green flesh with strange bark-like growths. Its head has three blue eyes situated beneath a budding flower; out of which grows a foot long horn made of some green crystal. Its feet end in four claws that clack against the floor with each step that it takes, its movements more like a feline than a horse.

Mold Tender(Level 32)

“I hate it.” Without giving it much consideration, I launch my fully charge ball of dragonfire at the monster. The fire streaks across the short distance, the resounding explosion engulfing the monster in orange fire. The shock of the explosion in the enclosed space pops my ears, and as the monster in front of me wails and collapses to the ground, I crouch, trying to massage my head.

“After observing, I have a better option for dealing with those monsters in the future,” Galea says, floating into my vision.

“You don’t say.” My head pounds. I stand, letting my recovery take care of my head and ears, watching the smoldering corpse of the monster on the ground.

Just as I am about to find something sarcastic to say to the fey spirit, a lash of green flesh flies out of the darkness towards me. The tendril is fast, but I am faster. I sidestep the tendril, but three more fire out of the darkness to join the first. I manage to fling a Dragonfire Bolt down the corridor before one of the tendrils snags my ankle, putting a crushing hold on my leg. As the tendril jerks back, my bolt of fire continues down the hallway, illuminating a dozen more of the monsters lurking in the dark.

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My head hits the stone as the tendril jerks me forward, a flash of white blotting out everything for a moment as I am dragged away. Fire is already pooling in my hand, and I kick at the thick length of flesh fitted around my ankle, but I am not strong enough to knock it off.

Sliding into the dark, my movement slows. A gout of orange flame leaps away from my hand, igniting the monster that has ahold of me before it can bend its weird mouth down to attack. Fangs dig into my shoulder from behind as I burn the tendril away. I scream, trying to curl away from the monster looming over me, but its serrated teeth tear into the muscle of my shoulder, holding me still.

Another of the monsters in the dark snags my already wounded leg with its teeth, trying to dig into the leather of my boots, just failing to puncture skin. A dozen more tendrils snake out of the dark, wrapping around my arms and legs as the two monsters biting onto me start pulling in opposite directions, lifting my body into the air as they try to tear me in half. Blood flows out of my shoulder as I scream, trying to turn my hands to point at the monster biting into my shoulder, but the tendrils around my arms hold my hands away.

I am blind in the darkness, a dozen grips on my body pulling me in different directions. My hip pops, the monster on my leg pulling hard enough to dislocate the socket. Two more of the fleshy tendrils wrap around my throat, choking the air out of me. I struggle in flashing orange light, fire exploding away from my hands. One of the hidden monsters in the hallway screams as dragonfire roams over it, flames burning its body like dry kindling. In the flashing light I see the monster tearing into my shoulder, feel my hot blood running down my back, see its uncaring eyes staring down at me as it tears into my flesh.

An image flashes through my mind, Macille being eaten alive by the Desert Spearman. Even the memory darkens as the monster's lashes around my throat choke my consciousness. I try to scream, the sudden change of circumstances igniting a hate inside my chest as hot as my fire. Ozone burns through the corridor, another of the monsters catching fire by an errant spout of flame, but the two monsters that bite down on me continue to tug. Another snap in my leg, some muscle tearing away from the bone pushes my outrage over the edge. No air escapes my lips, my wail of indignity silent, but my breathless scream changes into a plume of orange fire.

Astonishment flashes in the three eyes of the monster biting into my shoulder as fire spreads over its body. It releases my shoulder, and my body sags for a moment, still suspended in the air, until the flame from my mouth burns away the tendrils wrapped around my throat. The monster bucks and backs away, screeching as it slams its body into the walls of the corridor, trying to douse the flames.

I suck in a breath of cool air before choking out a gasp. I watch, upside down, as the monster, my blood still dripping from its plant-like lips, thunders through the corridor burning and blind. My head hits the ground again and I am moving, the monster biting down on my leg dragging me further into the dark. The lashes around my hands still hold me away from burning the thing to bits.

With a deep inhale, power builds in my chest, erupting out of my throat in a column of fire thicker than anything I can conjure with my hands. The monster biting into my leg doesn’t even have a moment to respond before its body is engulfed in dragonfire, the writhing flames carrying away the sound of its death. I fall, pain pulsing up my leg as the Mold Tender stumbles away from me, making it two steps before it collapses on the ground in a burning heap. I roll, ignoring the shooting pain in my hip as I push myself to my knees, counting on my high recovery to take care of my injuries as my eyes scan the corridor. Five of the monsters burn on the ground, only two of them still alive, if only barely.

Pain is the furthest thing from my mind as I push myself to my feet, gasping as I feel the joint of my hip snap back into place. My hands pump, fire leaping forth, missing far more than I hit, but I can’t bring myself to care at the moment. In the narrow space of the corridor, the remaining seven monsters try to dodge the deadly blasts of fire, each sending two tendrils to snake down the hallway and try to snag me again. I don’t dodge this time, electing to continue pouring fire down the hall, overpowering the continuous assault of tendrils with destruction and fire. My steps are weak and faltering, but the Mold Tenders inch away, their vine-like tendrils turned to ash each time that they attempt to send them in my direction. Fire claims them one by one, my unchanneled Dragonfire Bolts not enough to kill them with a single hit, but I take no care in conserving my mana as I continue my march.

The monsters have nowhere to go, no home to retreat to as I march down the hallway back towards the entrance. They fall, their odd screeching spurring me to continue my burning advance. Finally, all of the monsters lay burning in the hall, the remaining spans of their lives counted in seconds as the fire consumes them. I stand over the last of the monsters, my blood slowly dripping from its charred face. It stares up at me, one blue eye still left unburnt.

“You want to eat me!” I scream down at the monster. Fire still burning in my hands, I grab its head, pulling it up to reveal the monster’s neck. Barbarism overcoming me, I sink my teeth into the flesh of the monster’s neck, feeling bile rise in the back of my throat, the monster inedible. I don’t care. I scream as I bite down on the monster’s neck, flame pouring from my mouth, erupting and overtaking the body of the creature as it wails and dies. I only stop when I feel its weight break away, leaving me with a mouth full of ash and cinder.

My breath comes ragged, but my body starts putting itself back to together, muscles in my legs sewing themselves back to the bone while the skin in my shoulder knits itself together. I stare down at the unrecognizable husk of black ash before me, the corridor more than illuminated by the burning corpses around me. My breathing evens out, and when I look to the green line in my vision, I find that not even half of my healing points have been spent. Less than half a minute later, I stand in the burning hallway, the only sign that I had ever been in danger the blood soaking into my new shirt and the sweat standing out on my skin.

“Galea,” I say, not bothering to speak in my head. The spirit appears in front of me, worry standing out on her face.

“Are you alright, Mistress Charlene?” she asks, cutting off my thought.

I look myself over, adjusting my clothes. “I just got these,” I mutter. With a flick of my fingers, a canteen falls into my hand. I don’t have much water left; I’ll need to make it back too the river soon. I take a swig of water, swishing it around in my mouth to clear out the ash before spitting it onto the charred remains at my feet. The peaty taste that lingers on my tongue isn’t all that unpleasant. “I’m fine,” I tell Galea, trying to remember what I was going to ask her before.

“These creatures appear to be rather dangerous for their level,” Galea comments.

“I underestimated them,” I say, nodding. “I guess I was a little careless. Everything that my fire has touched for the last few days has died almost instantly. Best not to become too cocky.”

“Would you like to take a break before heading deeper within? There is also the chance that more monsters will be approaching even now.”

I take a moment to look at my energy levels while depositing the canteen. My mana is the worst off, but with the numbers so high now, I can watch my mana reserves refill in real time. “Is taking a break here what a person trying to outwork all of her peers would do?”

“No?” Galea ventures, though she doesn’t look too happy about my decision.

“Let all of the others take rests after fighting and suffering injuries. If I fall into that habit, then I might start wasting my greatest asset. I am a recovery specialist. If I don’t have any teammates around to slow me down, why should I allow the monsters to do so?”

“That is certainly…bold, Mistress Charlene.”

“You know what they say about boldness.” I turn, calling my fire to my hand.

“There are many idioms about boldness,” Galea replies.

“Well then, pick your favorite.” I fling a bolt of fire down the hallway, watching it sail away from me for more than a hundred feet before splashing into a stone wall, smoldering embers made from the vines covering the walls. I begin to walk, Galea floating along next to me. “I remembered what I wanted to ask.”

“Yes, Mistress?”

“What would dragonfire with a Door Affix even look like?”