Dungeon Entered: Isles of Darkness Challenge Type: Scavenger Hunt Difficulty: Advanced Place all seven Talismans of Light on their respective Altars of Light. The Altars will activate if the correct talisman is placed upon them.

Dungeon Entered: Dragon's Lair Challenge Type: Journey Difficulty: Advanced Encounter the dragon.

Dungeon Entered: Lair of the Dragon Challenge Type: Survival Difficulty: Advanced Survive against the dragon.

Dungeon Entered: Dragon's Hostility Challenge Type: Slaughter Difficulty: Advanced Kill the dragon.

"Now that I think about it," Keith said. "It no longer gives that 'you may take as long as needed' message. I suppose we've seen it enough, huh?"

"Yeah," Nathan responded, dismissing those four notices only to receive a fifth. "Hm. Looks like only the dragon is on the island."

"What?" Keith asked.

"Dismiss the Dungeon Entry notices."

Do not worry about other monsters, as they are not present on this island. Only the dragon is.

"Ah," Keith said, then looked out across the island. They could see for up to forty feet at that point. "I didn't fully think this through, Nathan. How are we supposed to see the dragon?"

"Find the first Altar of Light," Nathan responded. "Put a talisman in it. It'll come to us, no doubt."

"Right," Keith nodded.

He knew it was unlikely the dragon could damage the Altars of Light, or the Dungeon for that wouldn't exist. That meant they only had to worry about the talismans, but they doubted the dragon's flames could damage those to an irreparable state.

So the odds of losing their light once they turned it on was slim.

"Breezy," Nathan handed two talismans to his elemental. "Figure out which ones those go to and give us a layout of the island."

The wind elemental wiggled, then disappeared from their sight.

"While we're waiting on that," Keith pulled out a crystal orb and handed it to Nathan. "Don't look at it with your magic sight, Nathan. Just try to activate it."

"Why?" Nathan used his magic sight anyway. "When did you make that?"

"Could you please just do what I ask sometimes?"

"If there's a good reason for it."

"I had a good reason!" Keith said. "Just try to use it, okay?"

"When did you make it?"

"While you were sleeping," Keith told him. "Over the last few weeks. And the last few days, while we were preparing the other stuff for the fight against the dragon."

When they had reached the boat, Keith suggested that they take a few days to plan out their fight and prepare a few enchantments. Going into the battle with the dragon, they had a few more weapons at their disposal, and a plan for if things went south.

Nathan took the orb, wondering why Keith had worked on that there, and attempted to use it. Nothing happened.

"Try thinking of Samantha," Keith rolled his eyes.

"Right," Nathan muttered, then activated the orb while thinking about Samantha.

It took him a few minutes to get the hang of turning the orb on properly, but when he succeeded, he was greeted with the sight of Samantha, right where he had left her in reality, frozen in time as he went through the Dungeon.

The pair waited several minutes for information to come in about the island. It was arranged similarly to the one they suspected to be a farming island, except that the Illuminaters formed rings a little more than ten feet in diameter. The Altars of Light themselves were in the center of a ring of them, but the familiar said there was something different about those rings' enchantments, something it couldn't quite identify.

The land between the rings consisted of stone paths, while inside of the rings had one of three surfaces: solid stone, sand, or dirt. At the very center of the island, where the dragon rested, stood a ring fifty feet in diameter, with Illuminaters twice as tall.

"And the dragon isn't doing anything?" Keith asked.

"According to Breezy, it clearly knows he's there, but is just looking at him," Nathan shook his head. "Breezy thinks he knows we're here, too. He says the dragon is probably the same size as the one we fought in the Tutorial."

"How does he know how big that is?" Nathan asked.

"I told him."

"So it's a juvenile dragon?" Keith asked, then received an answer from his familiar. "My familiar says that dragon sizes vary by species, so I guess that's different. The one in the Tutorial must be a massive species to be that size as a juvenile."

"Breezy says this is a black dragon," Nathan said. "Probably around a century and a half old."

"He knows dragons?" Keith asked. "Earth doesn't have very many."

"Erm," Nathan frowned as he communicated with his familiar. "Apparently, he's taken a vacation to a world filled with dragons. Spent around a decade there before coming back."

"I thought you were forcibly returned to your home world by the universe long before such a time?" Keith asked. "Didn't Ichtvar say that?"

Nathan nodded, asking his familiar how that was possible.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

"He doesn't know how Breezy managed to do that," Nathan informed Keith. "But says he's fully-aware of Breezy having done that a few decades ago. Breezy responded in gibberish."

Keith snorted at that. If Nathan didn't understand what Breezy said, either it was made-up words, or it was real words, but Nathan didn't have the capacity to understand what they meant when strung together the way which they were.

They returned to waiting for the wind elemental, which made two more trips out to finish lighting up the island. Once it finished and they completed the main Dungeon, the pair began walking towards where the dragon was, cards and marbles in hand.

Their last few days of preparation amounted to enchantments on those, creating more bomb-type items. With Keith being able to draw on Nathan's mana, he was able to set even stronger enchantments, and the two were hoping it was enough.

When they finally reached the dragon, it just stared at them, which was not what they were expecting. It seemed to be lacking aggression entirely, in fact. The creature seemed both resigned and relieved.

"Finally," it muttered, and Keith frowned and looked at Nathan.

"What was that?" He whispered as Nathan began to answer the question.

"He said 'finally'," Nathan said, then cleared his throat. "Is that 'finally' as in 'finally, those annoying pests are here'?"

"No," the dragon grunted, fixing its gaze firmly on Nathan. "I was not aware you could understand my tongue, but I see now you're a demigod."

The dragon stood and stretched, before taking several steps around, and Nathan glanced at the center ring of the island, which was a grassy patch. It reminded him of something else, which annoyed him.

"Yes," Nathan turned his gaze back to the dragon. "I am a demigod. And you are a dragon, yet you seem… passive."

"I was born into this world of darkness long after it began to die," the dragon chuckled. "It is not possible for me to simply die, though."

The dragon stretched, raising its head into the air as high as it could with its hindquarters on the ground, tail stretching out behind it.

"But I am too prideful to simply allow you to kill me," the dragon told them. "As much as I would like to die now. The food is poor or nonexistent, creatures born from the System rather than actual beasts. My father told me tales passed from his father and his before him, back to the disaster. Tales of meat that smelled and tasted beyond anything we have here."

"The disaster?" Nathan asked.

"Enough talking," the dragon stretched out its wings. "Prepare to fight me until we are dead!"

It inhaled, and as it opened its mouth to not doubt exhale flames, Nathan threw his hand forward, throwing a handful of marbles right into the dragon's maw before it could react to the sudden movement. Nathan grabbed Keith and jumped back just in time for the marbles' enchantments to trigger, exploding.

"Word of advice," Nathan said as the dragon choked, its Health completely gone. "Since you've probably never had a real fight before, but don't open your fucking mouth right in front of your enemies. It's a fucking obvious weak point."

The dragon continued to hack and choke, writhing on the ground from the damage inflicted upon its insides.

"Not that it would matter that much," Nathan grunted as Keith finished his spell, raising his staff into the sky. "Since it's hard to recover when a bomb goes off in your throat. Consider yourself lucky dragons are as resilient as they are."

Keith brought his staff down, slamming its butt into the ground, and when he did, a thunderclap echoed out. At the same time, a fist of wind and lightning slammed onto the dragon's head, and Nathan threw another trio of bombs at it. The dragon, still suffering from the first bomb, did not see the attacks coming.

The trio of bombs blew up along its side as the fist of wind and lightning slammed into its head, and as the dragon opened its maw again to wail a raspy song of pain, Nathan threw a quartet of cards into its mouth, both of which blew up moments later.

"It's dead," Keith said as Nathan went to throw another couple of cards. "Why did you-"

They blew up.

"Oh," Keith snorted. "You already activated them."

"I should've punched it once, shouldn't I have?" Nathan asked the mage. "I only received the completion notices."

"Probably," Keith shrugged. "If that dragon hadn't let us get so close and opened its mouth with us right there, that fight probably would have gone a lot differently."

"Yeah," Nathan examined the remaining marbles. "We probably would have needed to go through all of these. We only had four cards, though."

"Yeah," Keith said as Nathan safely stored the bombs back into a storage card, which he slipped into his back pocket. "Did you see the new notice?"

"Yeah," Nathan rolled his eyes.

There is one final Dungeon that can be completed in the Isles of Darkness: Isles of Darkness. It involves searching for and planting a Seed of Life. Do you wish to undertake this Dungeon? If not, you will be returned to the Fields of Choice after fifteen minutes. A unanimous vote must occur in order to undertake it. Yes No

"Should we?" Keith asked. "The Seed of Life will no doubt be on this island, and we already know where to plant it."

He gestured to the gassy patch, the only thing that could possibly match up with the known locations for planting a Seed of Life.

"Let's," Nathan said. "It's an extra fifty-percent, and we're at twenty-nine Dungeons, so it will give us that third bonus, if it exists."

Keith nodded, then they accepted the Dungeon.

Dungeon Entered: Isles of Darkness Challenge Type: Scavenger Hunt Difficulty: Advanced Located the Seed of Life.

Nathan unbuttoned his shirt and let Ichtvar out, sending the phoenix off to locate the Seed of Life with the wind elemental. An hour later, they returned with it, and Nathan took it, the stage change notice appearing.

He walked over to the center of the grassy patch and dug a small hole, dropping the seed in. As per the instructions, he damaged himself until he lost all of his Health, then he cut into his arm and bleed into the hole until the Dungeon Complete notification appeared.

"Huh," Nathan said. "No monsters this time."

He was rather relieved about that, due to the horde that attacked during the Sandcastle Kingdom Dungeon. They could take it on, he just appreciated not needing to.

"Probably because there weren't any here," Keith said.

"There were a lot more invading than I'd thought would fit into the Sandcastle Kingdom," Nathan shrugged. "Finally. We can leave and go back to Samantha."

"Extended Survival Challenge first."

"But you already made the orb."

"I made one that works in an alternate dimension," Keith said. "Not one that works in a fabricated dimension. We don't know if there's a difference. And there's other stuff we want to create, remember?"

"But we'll be coming back with Katie, and again after-"

"Nathan," Keith said firmly. "We are going into an extended Survival Challenge. And I'm going to teach you stuff while we're in it."

"You're already teaching me magic and enchanting," Nathan told Keith. "It's nothing new. And don't try teaching me academics, you'll just get a headache."

"You're average," Keith rolled his eyes. "And that's not what I was going to teach you."

"Then what?" Nathan asked, then called his familiars back into him, in preparation of returning to the Fields of Choice.

"You need at least a few lessons," Keith said. "On human interactions."

"But I'm not human."

"You live among them," Keith rolled his eyes. "It'll help you piss off less people and get more to like you."

"I'm liked by more people than I want to be," Nathan muttered.

Keith snorted at that comment, but said nothing else as they waited for the time to pass. When it did, Nathan watched as Keith disappeared.

While he remained behind.

"Dammit," he muttered, checking his Item Box and Card Box.

The green pearl he had stored in his Item Box was missing, and when he pulled out his storage cards and activated the one that had a green pearl in it, the pearl pulled out.

"This is your fault, isn't it?" He asked.

Nathan sensed something behind him and turned, finding himself face to face with a winged, naked demon resembling those of the Tutorial and extended Survival Challenges, the demon ranked at ***-1, which he assumed meant it was very powerful, its tail flicking to the side a couple of times.

Guessing that it was sent to kill him for fucking up the System, designed at a stronger level and power than they knew he could handle, Nathan attacked as the demon opened its mouth, probably to spew flames or acid or something. He didn't care.

If he was dying, he was dying fighting.