From all the politicking and tedious negotiation, Archmund had expected something scarier from the gateway to Granavale Dungeon. Distant red flames. Echoing inhuman screams. The scent of sulfur, perhaps.

“Nothing special,” Mercy said casually from his side.

Archmund had to agree. Granavale Dungeon was an unassuming hole in the ground, rather anticlimactic given the explosive power of the Dungeon Storm. It looked like a regular cave, naturally carved into the surrounding gray stone. A cool draft wafted from the cave mouth, carrying a mineral scent and cave dampness.

“General Alaktor, give us a guard. Four should be enough.”

“Only four?”

“We’ll be scouting ahead. The corridors are narrow. Any more would get in our way.”

“Then why have them?”

“Once we see a bigger room the six of us can’t handle, we’ll call the rest. It’s a standard practice,” Mercy said.

“And then, I presume, we’ll use human wave tactics,” Archmund said. He couldn’t keep the contempt from slipping into his voice.

“Zankto! Wrest! Yald! Vurl! You four assist Mercy!”

Mercy glanced at the General as he called the names of their four escorts. They were excitedly gathering their equipment, so they only had a few more moments alone. They carried rucksacks outside of their Gemstone armor — there was no way that was comfortable — which had their provisions for their meal. Mercy, in contrast, only had a satchel covered in pouches.

Archmund had brought nothing.

“You still disapprove.”

“It’s a senseless waste of life.”

The men were approaching. They were on the younger side, likely in their twenties. Mercy leaned to whisper in Archmund’s eear.

“Even if was a waste — and it’s not — a single piece of Gemstone armor starts a commoner’s journey to becoming a Hero. A full set basically guarantees them becoming a legend. Would you deny that to them?”

“How do you keep them from killing each other for a full set?”

“Goddess, you are a horrible person. They teach you nothing out here in the countryside, do they?”

Zankto, Wrest, Yald, and Vurl had drawn close, but they gave no indication of having overheard. Each was clad in multiple pieces of glittering Gemstone armor, though none had a full set.

Mercy inhaled, eyes narrowed, before pointing at Zankto. “Granavale, touch his breastplate.”

Archmund looked at Zankto for consent, but got stony silence. Mercy sighed. “It’s my order. He won’t refuse. Do it.”

Archmund did and understood immediately.

“His magic… it’s in it. It’s like he’s Attuned to the armor?”

“Glad you can tell that much,” Mercy said. “Gemstone armor might be pre-formed, but it’s still Gem. And you can tell when someone’s using Gem that’s Attuned to someone else. It would be extremely obvious.”

“What if someone tried?”

“You don’t know— keep asking stupid questions and maybe I’ll show you.”

In his past life, Archmund had been raised to think there were no stupid questions, so this dismissal didn’t bother him much. It came with the territory.

“You’re actually… nervous about this.”

“What? Of course I am,” Mercy said. “I’ll breathe easy once we see how hard Tier 1 is. You never know at first.”

It made more sense, then. Mercy’s short-temper was from nerves or that natural fear of death, which wasn’t helped by having to babysit him.

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Mercy stepped into the cave and took a few exploratory sniffs. He nodded to the guards. “Guard him.”

The four guards took point around Archmund.

“What, you don’t need them?”

“I need them far less than you will,” Mercy said. “I am a veteran Dungeoneer. You are an insolent nine-year-old.”

“You’re barely older than me.”

“And yet I’ve lived twice your lifetimes.”

If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

With that, Mercy twirled and stalked into the cave, black cloak fluttering behind him. Archmund suppressed a chuckle. Oh, if only Mercy knew how wrong he was.

Then he realized that Mercy was fading rapidly into the dark of the Dungeon and scrambled to catch up.

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They examined each path, every branching intersection. Most were dead ends. For the few that weren’t, they painted an arrow of bright red to highlight the path forward. The guards were able to keep pace, though he could just barely keep an eye on Mercy’s backside.

“Wait. Can you slow down a second here?”

“I suppose it would reflect badly on me if you got injured,” Mercy said. He slowed down, but only barely.

The Dungeon was shrouded in darkness. “How can you see anything?”

“I have an Attunement,” Mercy said.

“Oh, come on,” Archmund said. “Do Attunements let you do everything?”

“Only for those of noble blood.” Mercy sighed. “I was hoping you’d be at least somewhat prepared. Not this frantic flailing. Didn’t you bring any sources of light? I suppose we’ll have to share our provisions with you as well.”

“You could have mentioned any of this during our multiple talks.”

“I thought you weren’t—actually, you’re right. This is entirely my own fault for assuming you were an imbecile, talking as if you were one, and then not treating you like one.”

If Archmund was mentally nine, this would have gotten under his skin, but he had been talked to sternly by bosses with the power to fire him, so really this was actually kind of quaint.

“At least you’re not a coward,” Mercy said. “Which will be a wonderful epitaph.”

Archmund pulled out his Ruby.

He cupped his left hand in front of himself, letting the tetrahedral Ruby float above it, and let the slimmest trickle of his magic into it, emitting a comforting orange light.

“You’re good for something after all.”

Was that approval in Mercy’s voice?

Archmund understood. He really, really did. Mercy was on a routine Dungeon subjugation or whatever jargon they used, when the adventurer’s guild made a mess, the local Lord whined about long-term economic prospects, the local lord’s son started crying about his dead mother, and then to top it all off he’d been handed an escort mission of that same son into an extremely dangerous Dungeon. So Archmund could excuse a little snippiness. Honestly he was more concerned about how quickly everyone had just let him go for it.

He frowned. “This… looks like a cellar.”

Now that he could actually see, Tier 1 of the Dungeon could have been indistinguishable from Granavale Manor’s wine cellar. The walls and floor were made of stone and lumber and compacted dirt.

Mercy kept moving as he spoke. “Tier 1 of any Dungeon looks ‘natural’, like it could be part of the upper world. That means caves, basements, or cellars. Every one I’ve seen reflects the local world. It’s the subtiers you have to worry about.”

“Subtiers?”

Mercy stopped at a keg of wine and opened the tap to fill a flask. He held it up for Archmund to smell; it was wine.

“In the highest part of a Tier, everything still makes sense. Corridors and rooms look like they could actually be part of the outside world. Books will be readable, food will be edible, and drinks will be real. See, this is wine.”

He wafted a bottle under Archmund’s nose.

Archmund didn’t remember the socially acceptable drinking age and wasn’t sure if this was bait. Thankfully, Mercy pressed forward instead of testing him.

“Get a bit deeper into the middle subtiers, and things stop making sense. Books will be smeared text, food will be made of sand, and bottles will have urine or whale oil. And at the deepest subtier, before you move to the next Tier, it’s real but creepy. The books are in ancient languages, the food will be rotten, and the bottles will be blood or vinegar.”

“That’s… odd. Why are Dungeons like that?”

“Go join the University of Imperial Mages if you want to find out. I just loot the things. Grab as much food as you can carry, we don’t want to be caught without as we go down.”

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A corridor leading to more rooms resembling wine cellars. A corridor leading to storehouses with nothing valuable in them. A corridor leading to a room full of chests — but they were filled with empty glass bottles.

“Is any of this stuff real?” Archmund asked.

“It’s safe to eat. It’s safe to use.”

“But where did it come from?”

“The Dungeon Storm did it, I think. If you really want to know…”

“Join the University of Imperial Mages. Yeah, yeah.”

Another wine cellar. An empty stable. A dining room.

“Stop,” Mercy said.

“Is this it? Do we call the others, milord?” Zankto said.

Mercy shook his head. “Not yet. I don’t think it’s time. What do you make of this, Granavale?”

He could guess many things about it. The dining room looked similar to his own as opposed to any grand ballrooms. Perhaps the restless dead had been influenced by their proximity to Granavale Manor, or perhaps his own ancestors were among them? But if he said any of that he would look like a psychotic overthinker.

“The, uh, restless dead wish to feast once more?”

“I meant tactically.”

Mercy pointed into the room. “Suspicious darkness under the table. Suspicious darkness on the chandelier. Five exits not counting the one we’re in, all cloaked in—”

“Suspicious darkness.”

“Good job at matching basic patterns.”

“Thanks, I heard that’s what intelligence really is.”

One of the guards — Vurl, if he remembered right — suppressed a snort.

“All told that’s enough darkness for ten Monsters, but this high up they should be fairly weak.”

“Should? This seems ripe for tragic overestimation.”

Mercy’s face froze for a second before the cool, collected mask resumed. “I’m sure. Even if it was twenty, I could take them if I was alone. It’s you I’m concerned about. Men, keep him from killing himself.”

Mercy drew a different Gem , cut into a dodecahedron, from his black robes. It glinted yellow in the light of Archmund’s Ruby — probably a Topaz.

“What are Monsters, anyways?” Archmund said. “If they’re the restless spirits of the dead, why aren’t they just ghosts?”

Mercy didn’t seem to hear him. All his focus was completely on the Topaz. Archmund realized that the soldiers were covering their ears, so he did the same — a sonic attack?

Then the hair on his head stood up (it felt so odd, realizing that in the past he would’ve had hair on his arms and legs too).

With a dramatic buzz, somewhere between a bee and a jackhammer, a violent discharge of electricity, brilliant white, arced from Mercy’s Topaz onto the chandelier, lightning streamers breaking away to shatter the dining table and strike at the shadows in the exits. The air smelled of ozone.

Three small round objects fell from the chandelier. Archmund wouldn’t have even noticed them if not for some hidden sense he didn’t realize he had.

The remaining shadows did not rest. They pulled together, pooling into six dense masses. They condensed further and further, taking a more and more defined shape.

Six rotting skeletons, the flesh sloughing off their bones, stood before them.

“Those,” Mercy said, “are Monsters.”