“We should turn back.” Alex repeated herself, she'd been doing so for near half a day before they finally turned to listen to her. Their eyes were dark, her companions, still processing the shock of all that had occurred.

She'd seen men killed before, but corpses would be cleansed by magic. This, the sword work, was a bloody and disgusting thing.

“He needs us. He must've descended... And now he is alone.”

At first, she'd thought he'd just intended to take care of the dead in the northern way. By burning. It suited his inborn element, that being fire. But even after several hours only a short while down the road, he had not followed. Despite calling him on his communication amulet, all she experienced was static and interference.

“I...” Iscari was ashamed. He, a primus, had always been weak at the sight of blood. It was pathetic, self loathing welling up inside of him. “What if something happened to him!? He hasn't caught up!”

He panicked. Tyr was weak of the flesh, apparent immortality or not, but Iscari cared for him too much, filled with worry. For his naivety, for his steady hand, for the man that put everything toward effort and, in his mind, never took anything for granted. A great source of wit and wisdom, the two more important qualities in a Varian man. For the first time, Iscari truly understood Tyr's burden. Octavian had always said that Jartor's line was not to be trifled with, and this proved it. Men of Haran. Men with steel in their blood. And Tyr was sharper than all of them, but the sharpest edges dulled the fastest.

“He will be fine.” Sigi remained as stoic as she could. She'd been surprised at the death, but it hadn't scarred her as it had the others. Killing was easy. It was staring at the death in front of her to consider mortality that was hard, both of others and of the self. Of all people, Tyr had said that. So many times he'd said that and she hadn't listened. That there was always a cost, and she called him weak for it, feeling that cost now. She could still see them. Looking back up at her with those stilled eyes of theirs. “Still... I agree with you. Let's return.”

Astrid was silent and ashen in the face. She'd never seen a man killed. Her father wouldn't allow it, always referring to her as his 'flower'. Pampered from birth to become the woman she was today, she struggled with the consideration of life measured against death. None of them blamed Tyr, they'd willfully fallen into a trap – and he'd saved them. Without him, she'd be a slave – or worse. A toy for some noble waiting for her father or another to save her. Worthless. She hated herself for how weak she'd been, feeling a fierce conviction to change. But what she hated the most about it was... She wanted to see it again... Wanted to do it. She withheld these compulsions from the others, but couldn't get them out of her head. What it would feel like to throttle a neck until the body it belonged to submitted...

“But...” Iscari panicked again, his anxieties clawing at his insides. They were all pampered, overly privileged youth, but he was most certainly the worst. He'd never been alone, never been in charge of anything, studies were one thing – but doing was another. Everywhere was worn paths through the forest. “Where do we go?”

Separated, even by a matter of twelve hours, here in the dark and with no sense of direction between them – they were lost. If Tyr was good for anything, it was his ability to read both map and compass. That and the tents, which only he had brought. Naturally, they blamed themselves, a lesson, but the former hadn't considered for a second that they'd be truly lost without him.

–

Kikibon's words had been wise. Tyr found himself having descended three additional levels without need of drawing his sword. It was a good thing. Ogres were a monster he was aware of, and one he didn't fear – but chimeras were a different story.

There was no 'chimera' in the singular. They were warped things of magical artifice, a forbidden art in the study of anima and one of the first lessons he'd learned at the academy. Dangerous, unnatural creatures, fel alchemy responsible for them. One of the universal laws of magic was that creating life of their own, or influencing it beyond structured bounds was the peak of taboo. And this place was crawling with them for some reason.

Below were much more manageable opponents. Tiyanaks. They were shapeshifting creatures capable of reading the minds of men. That which was most important to you, they'd become. All of them looked like his mother, but he butchered them without hesitation. Their unique brand of magic was incredible in its detail, too.

Ever time he killed one, he thanked it for reminding him what she looked like. He'd never grow tired of it, wanting to stay here even longer.

“Are you a tiyanak?”

“Yes!”

CRUNCH.

The thing about them was, they could not lie. He'd read it in a book once, and it seemed to be true. Once asked, they would screech and deform, their faces melting away like wax. Attempting to bury their wicked claws in his guts. Bizarrely, some of them were the toddler version of what appeared to be himself. Differing in age from creature to creature, all the way up to the age of twelve. Either that or his mother. The problem was, and how he'd avoided the trap initially, was these creatures must've been fans of the scholar Oedipus. If one, uh... Understood what he was getting at. Seeing more than he'd ever bargained for from his dear mother.

Tyr had buried any regret otherwise and reached acceptance long ago. If he hadn't, they'd have eaten him alive. There were a lot of them, and their life force was strong, but they wouldn't listen to reason. He killed them all. Creatures who wanted to lap at his blood and dance on his corpse. Unlike other 'monsters' – such as kobolds, goblins, and kappa, their souls were blank and empty. Only shadows lay there, and he had no interest in communicating with such things. They disgusted him. They did not deserve to live.

He didn't know how deep he was now. With the shortcut offered by the kappa elder, it was unclear. He descended through pits of yet more water, swimming at times, until the caverns became a winter wonderland. Brightly lit, almost uncomfortable cold, but a bit familiar at times. There were bits and pieces of abandoned structures of strange and great artifice. Half of what appeared to be an underwater city laying in a forest of runed pillars. It reminded him of the kobolds, wondering what Luk and the gang were up to.

Probably still eating mushrooms and dancing around the fire. He chuckled. It offered some clarity of thought. Tyr had friends after all, and they were among them. He just hadn't considered them as such, what with his identity as a human. He hoped they were alive and well. He cared, and that had to mean something.

Deeper and deeper he went, and as he did – the mana grew thicker. Mana was atmospheric. Typically found at the peaks of a mountain. That was why mages built towers – but dungeons were an apparent exception. Here, the world energy and mana sat in a perpetual struggle for dominance beyond the natural. It gave him an aching headache, but he was so close to his goal – soldiering on.

The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

Stranger too, monsters were not as nearly common as he'd though. Perhaps that was the reason why no great investment had been given to the place courtesy of the guilds. A few giant ants were all that laid in the lower halls. Unnatural, like two worlds were cut in half and glued together without a care for precision. Not the ants, but the floor plan itself. Of course the ants were unnatural, but they were no great challenge. Their mouths were no larger than a grapefruit and even when they sliced him up they didn't possess the intelligence to take care of his arms. He beat hundreds of them to death with his bare hands before they learned to avoid him.

On one side, were the yawning caverns, and on the other – a structure not dissimilar to the towers basement. Wards long ruined by the erosion of the water seeping through the rocks, detritus and various bones and skulls littered the floor. Some were human, but most were just prey animals. The og sized hairless rats and eyeless crabs that he'd seen.

Tyr found nothing interesting in the rougher side of the cave, trekking into the half-lit bowels of the artificial structure instead. He found tables and work stations with tools frozen to their surface, unable to be removed. Enchanted suits of armor that he roasted before they could animate themselves and attack him, not a speck of rust on them despite the ages gone by. His fire wouldn't burn them either, but he thought it was better safe than sorry. Animated or not.

As he thought, this place was picked clean long ago, but the crystals had to be somewhere. The mana was thick enough to set his nerves on edge and cause him a dull pain in both head and gut. Not so easily ignored, it burned at his skin like a sunburn, only to be healed a moment later. Radiation from the torrent of conflicting energies. The more it hurt, the closer he was to the core and therefore to the goal, so that's where he headed, only donning his armor for some modicum of protection when the pain became too fierce to bare.

Like walking through molasses, he felt the burden ease slightly as the comfort of steel plate and chain encapsulated him.

Shit. He found it. 'It' being a nondescript chunk of fist sized crystal embedded in the wall. It was a dead end. Pure enough for his uses, but altogether – not worth the trip. Scrawled on the wall in what appeared to be blood – it said:

No answers. The gods have abandoned us. No answers here. Eyes.

The rune for 'eyes' was everywhere, drawn in a spirally pattern over and over again until it covered the wall. Eerie, but Tyr had never been superstitious. The remains of men strewn about the ground alerted him to a trap. That was all.

Ridiculous. He clucked his tongue at their foolishness. Clearly, this was a trap, it was so obvious. This was not an organic deposit of the stuff, it was mounted into the cleft in the wall by human artifice. Thankfully, he was immortal.

Tugging it free, he'd regret his confidence as the wall split open, sending him falling through a yawning abyss straight into a pitch black pit. A free fall that carried him down for minutes on end, wondering if his immortality extended to striking something at terminal velocity. A mage, even a good one, would find it difficult to fly in such dense mana.

There was a limit to the benefit one would get from atmospheric mana, before it became too much to wield. Like a hammer forged too large for the human hand. Their magic was one that required clean logic, and mana turned all logic upside down on its head, and back again. Science and magic did not fit as well as humans thought they did.

Ether that defied the natural order. One moment, it was down, the next – it was up, Tyr felt his stomach lurch time and time again as even gravity itself was warped by the press of energy. Sending him careening in every possible direction through the blackness. But for some odd reason, he never hit any walls or ledges. Just being tugged around every which way, seeming at random.

Until he stopped.

'Stopped'. As in he hit the ground in a belly flop, flattening against the stone and left groaning in mindless agony. Every bone in his body was broken. Tyr was beyond sure of it. The sensation of his organs 'reinflating' was a bizarre one, the heat of his body setting stark contrast by the coolness of the stone he'd landed on.

My brain not work so good. Tyr thought, as the selfsame organ began to reconstruct itself inside his battered skull. So much damage took near ten minutes to heal, one of the most uncomfortable periods of time in his life. Worse than dying, he'd have preferred raw torture rather than sit through that. Bones and muscles he hadn't even known existed were pulverized in the process. A literal human pancake, far worse than when Iscari had struck him. And that was something. Iscari had moved so fast that he'd broken the sound barrier, but this... This just... It sucked.

The finishing touches of reconstructing his body were hastened by mana. Tyr felt the fire in him begging to be set free, letting the sacred flame encompass his body and cursing himself for a fool for not using it all the time. Elemental infusion was a study as real as any other, and a component of both transmutation and enchantment. It came naturally to him, providing the energy necessary to regrow those parts that had been mulched beyond repair during his fall.

Two, in particular, he made sure to check, sighing in relief. As always, he was perfectly fine, made anew – only the trauma of the pain and sweat covering him all over. But it did leave him famished, all things had a cost. Looking around, it appeared not so much a trap but an elevator of sorts, the platform on which he'd landed, cut from the surrounding stone and fused together. Some piece of it must've broken over the ages, no longer working as it was supposed to.

Eating a meal of waterfowl and salted venison right where he'd landed, Tyr observed the facility. These, in particular, were perfectly preserved. Not a scratch lay on the ocher stone the place was constructed of, barely a seam between them. Not made of common brick, it was as smooth as glass. Similar to the Orik city in its mastery of all things constructed, far different in its aesthetics. Perhaps the same technique to prevent the weathering through an enamel barrier, but the runes alone marked this as a place built by man. Tyr could read them just fine, albeit struggling a bit with some of the changed time would affect on any language.

As to what mage had dug out such an impressive structure, he hadn't the faintest idea. A mage beyond what one would find in any of the kingdoms. The only imperfection were the dark spots on the stone that belonged to corpses long turned to dust. Why they had fallen while the others had died above was a good question, one that Tyr didn't care care to answer.

No longer confident in facing any traps, he was careful in his approach. Throwing stones bathed in sacred flame bait any potential arrays, but finding none. Wards were all around, overlapping in a manner that defied his understanding. It was, to be blunt, a work of incredible beauty and artifice. All of those wards were linked together like chain mail to create one titanic array enveloping the facility. Hundreds of them, maybe thousands, which shouldn't be possible... Whatever long gone mage that had built it was wholly unconcerned with trespass.

Every room had a purpose. Not as labyrinthine as what lay above, easily navigated and rather cozy compared to the scale of its other levels. Naught but an operable bathing facility, forging room, living quarters, a room of what purpose Tyr did not understand – with a door twice as tall as him at the end of it, and a humble study full of books and contained artifacts of all kind. All in all, it wasn't unlike the independent apartment suites that existed in the academy. The original denizen of this place had surprisingly humble and utilitarian tastes than one might expect given the massive scale.

A plinth lay at the center of the library. One tome stood apart from the rest of the overly crowded shelves, segregated from all the rest. Bound of leather that appeared eerily similar to human skin, on it's cover was printed: The Confessions of Ellemar.

Tyr snorted. He'd just finished the last one, and whatever cracked mind governed the universe had already guided him to another. He'd still have traded it for the mana crystals, though.