The entrance chamber was as Cerise had last seen it: a simple space carved out of the surrounding rock, sized to comfortably hold ten fully kitted delvers. Vines grew along the stone, and soft yellow light radiated from the walls.

The vines whispered a joyful recognition. «Twice Blessed is back! What happens today?»

Cerise bowed. "We come today to delve, to train our skills and earn prosperity. I thank you, Dungeon of the Sea Crest, for these opportunities."

Mykhal, followed by Jaxin, bowed and repeated the thanks. Daisy, coached by Tatara, nickered, «Thanks for stomp-stomp play!»

In Beast Speech, Tatara chirped, «Hi, Stony! Hi, Breezy! I can't wait to see what delving is like!»

A sense of welcome more than any words came back.

They passed through the archway into the dungeon proper. Mykhal, as their [Scout], led the way.

"Before the closure, the first floor was a ring. You had to go around the ring and find at least two key stones. The more keystones you collected the better the rewards from the boss fight," Jaxin reminded them. "That much normally won't change until the dungeon has ten floors, but normally dungeons don't have Aegis Avatars, so stay alert."

Mykhal raised a fist, their hand signal to stop. "Tatara, what do you sense about the floor with your Geomancy?" he softly asked.

Tatara fluttered over and landed on Mykhal's fist. A faint purple aura haloed him for a moment before he said, "Hollow. I can walk over it, maybe Cerise, but neither of you. How did you notice it?"

"The stone sounds different," Mykhal answered. "I'm going to break through so Daisy sees what she needs to jump."

Cerise clucked her tongue. "Let's not. On this floor, that might be safe, but Tatara learned nesting traps in the egg. Let's try to treat all traps as carefully as we'll need to deeper down."

Jaxin glanced at the dire horse. "If she breaks a leg, can you heal it?" he asked.

"Yes," Cerise said, confident of that.

"Then, okay by me. Mykhal, you're our trap finder. How do you feel about that?" Jaxin asked.

"Good habits are better than lazy one." Then Mykhal traced a dab of light at the near edge of the hollow stone and where he and Tatara agreed was the far edge.

Mykhal looked for a combination trap, found none, and then looked far enough ahead to make sure they could all fit on the other side. Meanwhile, Cerise explained the trap to Daisy, and why she needed to jump over the space between the two glows.

They found no other traps before entering the first room. This one had rocky ground and fungal growth all over. Mushrooms and lichens, of course, but also molds on the walls and ceiling, and ones that resembled living stone.

Cerise had her Triage Aura up and quickly pointed out the dire hedgehogs, monstrous ones that could and often did enjoy rolling on their spines. Few developed the barbs common to porcupines, but they did frequently gain blade-like edges of keratin on their spines and elemental varieties gained their own interesting quirks.

"Keep your eyes open for insects," she added. "My skill doesn't always detect them."

"I shall Scourge the Flies and the Ticks!" Tatara declared.

Jaxin and Mykhal were skilled enough with their weapons that Cerise only needed to use her staff once to keep the hedgehogs back before they were all defeated. Then Cerise and Mykhal harvested a goodly amount of the mushrooms and samples of the molds.

"There aren't any commissions for the mushrooms," Jaxin reminded them.

"And no telling what Mama can cook with them, either," Mykhal told him.

"Good point. Should I help gather?"

Cerise said, "If your Herbalism is into Intermediate, sure. Otherwise, gathering the fattest of the hedgehogs will be good."

"For cooking experiments?" Jaxin asked.

"And their spines. I want to see if I can find something to make potion injectors with, since none of the [Smiths] I've met think they can make hollow needles smaller than a grain of rice."

"These won't be hollow," Jaxin said.

"I know, but I'm hoping I can hollow them out and still have a useful injector."

Mykhal shook his head, but stayed silent.

Jaxin selected a pair of hedgehogs and stored them. Then he moved the remaining corpses far enough from where Cerise and Mykhal were gathering, with Daisy snuffling beside them, for the dungeon to reclaim the bodies. Left behind were two small coppers and a small mana cryst. He collected the loot and Mykhal started scouting around for a keystone. They didn't find one, and so pushed on to the next room.

The floor was below their skill levels, and so they focused on training tactics with Daisy and Tatara. There were fifteen fighting rooms with hedgehogs, snakes, giant scorpions, hook-beaked cracids, and silver-backed badgers. The first five rooms introduced the creatures in homogeneous fights, but the next ten mixed and matched the creatures in ways that saw them covering their individual weaknesses to a greater and greater degree as they continued on. Each tunnel was trapped. Pit traps like the very first were the most common, but snares, trip lines, and a dead fall also appeared. The last two tunnels had a second and a third trap, respectively.

They collected nine keystones all told and carefully fitted them into the boss room door. It swung open, revealing an arena. The floor was hard packed dirt with a layer of sand. The lines of mana that had lit the tunnels before this branched out to create an effect like living lightning flashing across the ceiling.

They entered the floor boss's arena, and the door behind them closed. A portal at the opposite side of the arena opened, and a boar about half as tall as Daisy stepped out into the arena. The portal closed behind him.

«Defeat me to earn the second floor key,» the boar squealed his declaration.

«What does that do?» Cerise asked.

The boar stopped his swaggering steps and swiveled his head to look at Cerise. «You understand me?»

«Well, yes.» Wasn't that obvious with her talking in Beast Speech?

«That's--. Sorry, no one's ever understood me before. The second floor key will let you take your group directly to the second floor. Each combatant will get one.»

The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

«Even Daisy and Tatara?» Cerise asked.

"Ah, what's happening?" Jaxin asked.

Tatara translated, while Cerise waited for the boar to answer. When Tatara was done speaking, the boar said, «Yes. You only get the key the first time you defeat me, so guard it well. The champions of the lower floors will grant you additional key fragments that fit into my key. When the dungeon grows another floor, you will need to defeat the champions of each floor once more.»

«What happens to you when we defeat you?» she asked.

«So sure you will?» the boar snorted in amusement. «It feels to me as if I sleep to wake once more, fully restored.» He then cocked his head to the side, one ear perking up. «And I may not say more. But I do assure you, I enjoy the contest of battle. Shall we?»

«By all means, Mister Boar,» Cerise said, then warned her team, "Fight's on."

The boar resumed his advance.

Neither Mykhal nor Jaxin had found the time and tools needed to work with the materials the classing room had given them, and so were using the gear they had had since before arriving in Sea Crest Dungeon Village. For Mykhal, that meant the bow he had purchased in Va'Velton and arrows with barbed metal arrow heads. His back up weapon was his shortsword.

Jaxin's main weapon was a spiked hammer. The handle was as long as a typical sword blade and the hammer head not much bigger than Cerise's fist, with three spikes on the back of the hammer head and one protruding a hand's width from the top of the war hammer. The high human danced carnage with the weighted metal club and it was no different this time.

The boar reached the center of the arena and charged. Jaxin used a taunting skill that flared his mana, and Tatara took advantage of that to use Geomancy to break the boar's charge by softening the ground three bow lengths from Jaxin. Meanwhile, Mykhal got two arrows shot off. One stuck in the boar's shoulder and the other left a bloody furrow over his right eye.

Cerise waited until the boar's charge took him just in front of the softened ground before firing off a Paralyze at the boar. It only partially succeeded, but it was enough to throw off his recovery, so when he hit the ground that wasn't as firm as he expected, he fell, with a horrible cracking noise of breaking bone echoing in the room.

Reflexively, Cerise use Pain Block on the boar. He still squealed from the fall and the brief flash of pain, but the boar only felt the wrongness of his body as Jaxin smashed his knees and landed the killing blow to the back of the boar's skull, crushing the top two vertebrae.

Jaxin looked with surprise at the felled floor boss. "That went much smoother than I expected. Good job with the ground, Tatara."

Mykhal reclaimed his arrows. Jaxin moved over to stand with Cerise. She was feeling disturbed by the fight, and the gore on Jaxin's hammer seemed particularly distasteful, so she cleansed the weapon and offered to cleanse Jaxin of the blood splatters.

Two doors opened, a chest pushed up in the center of the arena, and the boar's body disappeared, leaving behind five ivory pendants. Cerise collected them and distributed one each to Jaxin and Mykhal. To Tatara, she asked, "Do you want me to hold on to yours?"

"Please, my chosen. Now, what's in the chest?"

Jaxin was already heading over, along with Mykhal. They opened the lid and Jaxin laughed.

"What?" Cerise asked.

Mykhal pulled out a set of centaur leg guards.

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«Do you think she'll like them?» Core asked.

Wisp said, «Watch and find out.»

They watched the Twice Blessed smile, but then her smile collapsed and she started crying.

«What's wrong?» Core asked. «Why is she crying?»

"Cerise? What's wrong?" their [Scout] asked, coming over to pat her arms.

"I don't --." She started, then stopped to rub the tears from her face. "I don't feel good about killing Mister Boar. I know we're in a dungeon and that's the way of dungeons, but he was well spoken and--. It just feels wrong."

Tatara fluttered over and landed on her head. «He's not dead. Not like a creature unbound to the dungeon. Defeated, yes, but you heard him say he'll wake back up in a body that never was harmed. This, fighting like this, it's a game for the champions. You won and in just a little bit, he'll be back and eager for another round.»

"You promise?" the Twice Blessed asked, sounding very young.

"I promise," Tatara said, switching to human speech. "Now, are those cuissards not beautiful or what?"

The Twice Blessed wiped away a few more tears and went over to the chest, the dire horse guarding her back still. She inspected the armor and her smile was a happier thing now. "The wave patterning in the color of the scaling is beautiful. Let's put them on Daisy now and see how she maneuvers with them on."

«Well, how ... that's--. No one has ever cried for my champions before,» Core said, trying to figure out how e felt about that.

«Tender heart she's got,» Wisp said, musing more than anything else.

Avatar asked, «Why did you open the classing room?»

Core said, «I didn't--. Oh. I guess I did. Um. I generally get a feeling when to open the door and heeding the feeling is pretty much thoughtless on my part now.»

«Interesting,» Avatar drawled.

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There were also coins in the treasure chest, five large coppers.

Jaxin said, "The dungeon seems to be treating your tamed as seriously as you do. That seems reasonable to me. Have room in your pack to carry their spoils?" He directed the last to Cerise with a pleased smile.

"If you're sure, but we'll hold to the commission sharing contract," Cerise said.

Mykhal nodded. He looked to the two doors, then headed off to go investigate the routes. Cerise and Jaxin, with the newly armored Daisy guarding their rear, moved toward the doors as well. Tatara had resumed his perch between Daisy's ears.

Mykhal had looked into each doorway by the time they caught up to him. "That one to the left leads into the holy place, and to the right is a downward tunnel with an ornate door."

Jaxin looked around them. "Who leveled up?"

Mykhal and Cerise checked their profiles to be sure then shook their heads. Tatara nickered to Daisy, «Give up an apple in that room and you'll be able to get more apples for yourself later.»

Cerise's head whipped around. "What was that?"

Tatara asked, «You didn't think holy places were only for the Elevated races, did you?»

Cerise held up her hand to forestall the questions she knew Mykhal would have, and suspected from Jaxin, while she took a moment to wrap her head around this shift in her reality. When she dropped her hand, she addressed Daisy. «The room beyond this door is a special room. In it, the voice of the world can help you become stronger, to make things you like and to grow. The voice of the world is the biggest horse in the herd, and will only help if you show you respect that.»

Cerise pulled an apple from Daisy's panniers. Slobber began to gather at the corners of the dire mare's mouth. «You are going to show that respect by holding this apple in your mouth -- not eating it! And thinking of how you can grow to become the best horse you can think to become. Then you go in and put the apple down in the middle of the room and step back.»

«But! Apple!» Daisy protested.

Cerise ran a soothing hand up and down Daisy's neck until the mare blew out a gusty breath. «Not fine.» Cerise held out the apple. Daisy carefully lifted it from Cerise's palm with more lip than teeth, and slobbered some more while she stood with closed eyes for a moment.

Then she walked into the classing room, the holy place, and set the apple down in the middle of the room and stepped back.

Cerise gestured for the rest of their delving team to step back, too, at which point she explained what was going on.

Jaxin stared at her a moment before asking with disbelief, "Your horse--. Your horse is getting a class?"

Cerise turned up her palms and shrugged. "Just because we get classes in holy places doesn't mean that's all that holy places do. And the requirement for space makes a lot of sense if humans aren't supposed to monopolize the holy places."

Mykhal chuckled. "I thought I was used to the weird that trails in your wake, but you always find something new." He hugged her.

Not even a rush mark later, Daisy emerged. Cerise fired off an Appraise and felt Inspect skills from Mykhal and Jaxin rolling out beside her.

Name: Daisy of the Delving Lights Herd

Race: Dire Horse

Strata: Companion

Class: [Guardian] Uncommon, Novice

Health: Moderate, Full

Stamina: High, Full

----------------------------------------

«What kind of apple was that?» Core asked, mana flooding in from the sacrifice.

Avatar said, «Sacrifice is not about the object, but how much is invested in offering it. You saw the effort of will needed for the dire horse to set down the offering and step away from it. That is where the power here comes from, and you are getting a fraction of that converted into mana. I would suggest you start planning your eighth floor. But for now, pay attention. The Twice Blessed is about to enter the holy place.»

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Cerise went through her gear and found her first surgical needle. It may have just been a finger long steel stitching needle, but it was the first she had used for surgery. She didn't really want to give it up, but Cerise felt the need to offer up a token of respect and gratitude as if she had known she would be standing for her mare. The needle was the only thing she felt was acceptable.

She barely laid the needle down when the voice of the world overwhelmed her.

You have unlocked the following class advancements. Please indicate preference:

→ [Arcane Healer Initiate] (Rare)

→ [Surgeon] (Unique)

→ [Restoration Mage] (Epic)

→ [Druidic Healer] (Epic)

→ [Mortal Sapling of the Silverwood] (Legendary)