Every time Cadoc said something like that, I got slightly worried. It was too ominous, too violent.

Right now, he’s working with me because he doesn’t know me. That’s simple enough. But once he does know me, he’ll leave. And if he doesn’t leave - well then he’s trying to take advantage of me, somehow. I wasn’t born yesterday.

“Or something,” Cadoc continued. “Without mana - and without a weapon - I am worthless, powerless. We have to kill something so I can absorb its mana.” He brought his hand down in a chopping motion, to accentuate his point.

Is that what happened the other day? I killed the coyodillo, and absorbed fire mana from it?

“Once we do that,” Cadoc said. “Then I’ll know what I’m working with. Even if I’m a body-mage like you, it’s better than nothing.”

Is being a body-mage that bad?

“Does the power you get depend on what you kill?” I asked.

Cadoc snorted. “And I believed I was clueless. I apologize, Miles. I’ll have to keep reminding myself that magic is not native to your land, though I still struggle to imagine such a thing. Yes, what you kill will determine what mana you absorb from it, but it will not determine how you can use it, which you are born with. All living creatures have mana, and many - probably most - have more than one type. I think perhaps you can choose the type you want, in that case, but I’m not sure. No one taught me these things, you understand. I picked up what I could from overhearing conversations.”

“Can you get mana without killing something?” I asked. I don’t mind killing some monster, not really. It felt so unreal last time that it was hard to be fazed by it. But that was back when I was shooting at a monstrous coyote, one who walked off and died where I couldn’t even see it. Without a gun, if I had to be up close and personal… well, that would be different. And much more dangerous. Maybe RENA could make an exception, and send me another gun? I doubt it.

“Yes. But that requires items that we do not have, nor could we afford them. There are potions that can do it, for instance, but a couple of slum-dwellers outside the walls aren’t getting one without stealing it.”

“Could we steal it?” I asked. Thievery seemed like a good way to make money. Morals are less important than survival.

Cadoc grinned a coy grin. “I am not above robbery,” Cadoc replied. “If you cannot keep it, you do not deserve it. But how would we accomplish this without weapons? No, it would be better to kill, first.”

“How are we supposed to kill without weapons?”

“There are ways. Besides,” he pointed at the baseball bat strapped to my pack. “You have that club. That will help.”

I imagined Cadoc strangling a coyodillo while I beat it with a bat. Then I imagined a pack of coyodillos, roasting us.

“I’m still not convinced we shouldn’t rob someone first, but let’s say we get your mana first. Does it matter what we kill? We should probably kill something weak. Something small.”

Cadoc shook his head. “No, it doesn’t particularly matter, just that if we kill something weak, with a useless type of mana, then my magic will be weak and useless.”

I sighed. This was a lot to keep track of, and I felt like it was being dumped on me all at once. “Well, what kind of monsters live around here? I’ve already met those armored flame-spitting things, and I vote we pass on that one.”

“What, an aryote?” he asked, and I couldn’t believe that the name this world had for them was so similar to the name I had given them, and yet so much worse. “A pack of those would burn us to a crisp. Did you kill one? Is that how you got your fire mana?”

“Yeah, but that was when I had my weapon. I don’t want to try it again, now.”

Cadoc nodded. “Agreed. An aryote would burn up your wooden club in an instant, and your fire mana wouldn’t do anything. Still, it’s impressive you were able to kill one.”

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“Lucky, you mean. What else lives around here?”

Cadoc brought his hand to his chin, staring off and thinking. “Well, there are basurds, south of here. You entered from the South, yes? Maybe you’ve seen one? Big, hairy and white, with two spears for tusks.”

I winced. “Yeah, I’ve seen one. Isn’t there something smaller?”

Cadoc laughed. “Right, yes, smaller. A bear is slightly smaller, I suppose, and they sometimes get interesting mana. A wolf is smaller. A hoop snake, perhaps?”

I shook my head. “There is no chance we’re killing a wolf or a bear. What’s a hoop snake?”

“They don’t have those in your country, I suppose? Imagine a normal snake - you have snakes, correct?”

I nodded.

“Well, imagine a normal snake, except the size of a man, and with the habit of putting its tail in its mouth, forming into the shape of a wheel, and rolling around like that. Sometimes they have fire mana, too, in which case you end up getting chased around by a flaming wheel that wants to eat you whole.”

“And you think we can kill that?”

He shrugged.“You asked what lived around here. I am only telling you.”

I sighed. “Don’t you have, I don’t know, mice? Rabbits? Fish?”

“Of course we do. But we would have to kill thousands of rabbits or mice to get enough mana. The mana in regular animals is very low, and hard to utilize. Otherwise, every butcher would be a mage.”

“So why are we talking about animals then?”

“We’re not. When I said a bear, I meant a monstrous bear - a bear that has been corrupted by a certain type of mana. That can happen to any animal.”

“Any animal, like a rabbit.”

He paused. “Hmm. Well you’ve got me there. I suppose it’s possible. I’ve never seen it, though.”

“Have you ever seen any monster?”

Cadoc’s face darkened. “Many. When I was a child. But I will not speak of that now.”

What’s that about?

“Well, how does an animal get corrupted? Couldn’t we just catch a rabbit, and make it corrupted?”

Cadoc’s face turned quickly to confusion. “Make it corrupted… huh. Perhaps. I wouldn’t know how, though. I believe it’s less predictable than that. You’d be better asking an expert about that one.”

“Know any?”

We both laughed.

“Well, I’ll tell you what I do know. There are certain places, rich with mana, which corrupt their surroundings, including animals, items, the environment, even human beings. Corrupt might not be the best word. The effect isn’t always negative. Influence might be more accurate, but most people say corrupt, anyway. These places can be as small as some unlucky sod’s basement, and as large as an entire country, if rumors are to be believed. The smaller ones are usually called dungeons - which is a bit of a misleading name, since they can be forests, tombs, abandoned towns, or just about anything else. They tend to be isolated in some way, but even that is not set in stone. The larger ones are called labyrinths.”

I feel like I’m having a videogame described to me. I kind of wish I had played more RPGs, instead of strategy games.

“So monsters come from dungeons?” I asked.

“Right,” he said. He made motions while he spoke like an excited professor. “Dungeons, over time, become absolutely infested with monsters. The closer to the center, what is called the ‘core’ of the dungeon, the more corrupted and more powerful the monsters are. The average person avoids these places, as they are incredibly dangerous. Even just living nearby can be fatal, and if a dungeon appears nearby, most people simply leave. The monsters from the dungeons have a habit of wandering far afield, and if they don’t kill you, there’s always the risk of being corrupted yourself. Of course, anyone with a spine would go in and destroy the dungeon’s core, which would solve both problems. But spines are a rare commodity.”

“They just appear out of nowhere? Why? How?”

“I have no idea, friend,” Cadoc said. “But the point is, dungeons are full of very powerful magic, valuable items, and so on. So while the cowards flee from them, the bravest seek them out. They see them as splendid ways to obtain power and riches.”

I furrowed my brows. “You want us to go into a dungeon, is that it?”

Cadoc chuckled. “Now that you mention it…”

“And just how dangerous are these places?”

“Dangerous? Well, I suppose… it depends on the dungeon, of course, but even with weaker ones… maybe a quarter of the people who enter them die? That’s just a guess based off of what I’ve heard. Most people talk about the really dangerous, exciting ones, full of the best treasure and such. With those ones, almost no one returns.”

Oh yeah, great. Chance of survival between 75% and 0%. Cool. And these are professionals dying in these places? Yeah, I don’t know about this.

“There’s a fine line between brave and stupid,” I said. “And this sounds stupid.”

“I respect your opinion,” Cadoc said, although usually when someone said that, it meant the opposite. “But you are a foreigner. This is the best way.”

“Then why didn’t you do it before, yourself? Why wait until I came along?”

“You spoke of a line between bravery and stupidity? That is the line. No one enters a dungeon alone, if they want to survive. Of course, there are suicides. Dungeons are a favorite spot for killing yourself.”

They sound like wonderful places, I thought, rolling my mind’s eyes. “There’s no better way to make money? I’m still leaning towards robbery.”

“Nothing beats a dungeon. Besides, I know about a little one that popped up nearby. Safe as can be, nothing to worry about. It’s only still around because it’s too new, and too small for a serious dungeon hunter to seek it out. It’s perfect. And it’s not like we need to clear it out. We just need to kill one monster near the entrance. We might not even need to go inside.”

“You’ve made up your mind,” I said. Cadoc was exhausting. I’d known him for all of an afternoon and I already felt myself being swept away into his plans.

Cadoc nodded. “I understand that you lost your weapon. But this is the first step to power and wealth. If we die, so be it. It’s better than wasting away here.”

“Some of us enjoy being alive, believe it or not.” Enjoy? Have I been enjoying life? There’s a question. But I can’t just turn Cadoc away. Not until I have someone to trade up to. And damnit, Tom would go. I hate you, Tom. Making me do stupid shit like this.

“What if we don’t go?”

“If we don’t go, it will be months from now before we either find someone rich enough - and yet dumb or weak enough - to be able to be robbed without magic. Maybe I’m being too pessimistic, but good luck finding a man of such wealth outside of the walls. Or, we spend just as long wandering around, hoping to stumble upon a monster just outside the best-defended city on the map.”

I sighed. “Fine. But at the first sign of danger, we run, alright? We’re going so we can get mana, not so we can die a noble death or some BS like that. And after this, we’re robbing someone. I don’t care how bad the magic you get is. I need money. If you get the power to turn your skin green, that’s that, and we go figure out how to use that to rob someone. I know I know, ‘itll take months,’ I don’t want to hear it. We’ll put out heads together and figure it out. So no do-overs, no ‘woah, look, if we go a little further, I can get even better magic,’ none of that. In, out, gone. Agreed?”

Cadoc beamed at me like a little kid who had just convinced his parents to get him ice cream. “I knew you would come around. It’s decided.” He looked around, as if just now noticing where he was. “And it’s still early, yet. If we leave now, we should be able to make it before nightfall. We’ll make camp near the dungeon, and start our attack tomorrow morning.”

“Isn’t that an incredibly dangerous spot to set up camp?”

“Why? Because a wandering monster might attack? We’re looking for trouble, Miles. It would be perfect if that happened. Besides, we’ll sleep in shifts.”

I was regretting my decision already.