Edmund stood upon a bed of ash.

Woodlands stretched out around him, trees of all shapes and sizes littered the flat landscape, sparse enough to allow free passage, yet dense enough to obscure his vision more than a dozen yards away. No branch bore leaves, no bark dripped sap, no root remained unscathed.

Edmund looked out into a forest of charcoal trees. Whatever fire had ravaged them had long passed, its heat vanishing to leave only a pervasive chill that clung upon the unnatural breeze. A few green sprouts poked through the layer of ash on the ground, beacons of new life, shining spots of emerald in a sea of black and gray. None poked up more than an inch.

Already the woods had begun to recover from the chaos that’d wrecked it, but the forest had a long and difficult journey between it and any semblance of its former self. It was like Edmund in that way.

Gray clouds hung high in the sky above, the diffuse, shadowless light robbing the already-bereft landscape of what little color remained. The world looked flat, dull, lost in its darkness and the loss it had suffered. It was like Edmund in that way.

He kept his eyes peeled for signs of motion in any direction. None appeared. The forest kept its dangers in reserve, hidden by the distance and the charcoal trees, ready for the moment he showed weakness, for the opportune time to wield its suffering to lethal end. It was like Edmund in that way.

Once he’d scanned his surroundings to his satisfaction, Edmund made his first order of business kicking aside some of the ash at his feet, dusting it away to reveal soft and moist soil beneath. He’d not lack for sustenance.

That quandary resolved, Edmund set his attention to the path ahead, or rather, the lack thereof. No obvious trail led into the woods. In no manner did the Depths attempt to guide him one way or another, not that Edmund had any intention of following such a path had there been one. The floor itself seemed to welcome him with open arms, its lack of clear direction a firm statement that it didn’t care where he went. There would be danger no matter what.

Edmund evaluated his options.

The direct path, straight ahead, seemed at once the most obvious and the most perilous. It would keep him centralized, giving him a better idea of the floor as a whole, but he’d be open to attack from all sides. The fact that walking through the center of the woods likely meant getting to the exit faster implied he’d find fewer secrets and more monsters in that direction, as well as other delvers if the floor proved open to such encounters.

The sharper the angle he took as he set out, the less he’d see of the floor as a whole, and the longer it’d take him to reach the exit. The secrets, he figured, would be most likely to appear somewhere off center, yet not at the very edge. He’d still be vulnerable to attacks from all sides, if less so, but at least he’d be more likely to find secrets and less likely to find low-reward enemies.

The final option, as Edmund saw it, was to stick to the outskirts. By far the safest of the possible paths, if he stuck to the wall, he’d cut his potential angles of vulnerability in half. He’d be easier to surround, but harder to sneak up on. He’d, of course, have no idea what awaited at the forest’s center, and he doubted he’d find any secrets without delving into the woods themselves.

Even so, this third option appealed to him. He was in no hurry, under no pressure of time, and his cautious nature pushed him to take things slow. He’d go searching for secrets or exploring the forest itself at a later point. He could afford to take a loop around the floor and gather what information he could from the relative safety of the outskirts before exposing himself to attacks from all directions.

That was assuming, of course, that no monsters burrowed in the walls.

Edmund went left, keeping his dominant hand facing the exposed side. He held his spear in both hands, crossed in front of him, with the point facing the burnt trees. Every few steps he’d slam the butt into the wall, listening closely for any hint of hollowness or motion. He paid special attention to the ash at his feet.

It was a twofold curse. The gray blanket muffled the sound of footsteps—a boon his shadowhide boots already provided—which left him more vulnerable than normal to sneak attacks. The ash also blocked vision of the ground itself. Edmund knew any traps or ambushes would have to be at least partially visible, but the gray powder helped obscure them.

The good news—using the term ‘good’ loosely—was the set of footprints he left behind. Edmund didn’t care much about being followed. He expected anything or anyone with an interest in following him wouldn’t need obvious tracks to do so. Edmund, on the other hand, was no tracker. He couldn’t assume any monsters would’ve left a trail for him, but he’d utilize every vector of detection available to him.

He didn’t need tracks to spot the snake.

It hung in a tree some thirty feet from where Edmund stood, its body dangling and drooping in the spots between the branches that supported it. Pale gray daylight shone through it, bright enough that at first Edmund thought its skin translucent and its skeleton a silhouette before realizing it had no skin, and those bones weren’t darkened by their backlight.

They were the same black as the trees.

The charred skeleton seemed to notice Edmund at the same moment he noticed it, twisting and contorting its body around the barren branches and letting out a threatening hiss.

Edmund threw a Firebolt at it.

The moment the spell left his hand, two things happened. His left shoulder tingled with sensation, pins and needles running up and down the spot he’d placed his challenger’s mark.

The snake burst into flames.

The blaze erupted from within it, burning steadily and unnaturally as if fed by some invisible fuel source along the center of the snake’s body. Flames licked at its blackened bones, crackled sharply through the otherwise quiet air, wafted up between the gaps in its ribcage, its nostrils, its eye sockets. When the Firebolt finally hit, it simply vanished into the already ongoing inferno.

Edmund stood his ground.

The skeletal snake hissed once more, its cry louder, more piercing this time, carrying a distinct character of trapped moisture boiling away within burning timber. It lowered its head, descending from the treetop to the ashen ground. At easily twice the length of the tree itself, the snake didn’t fall so much as an inch as it made the controlled descent.

Edmund’s mind raced with possibilities.

He faced a lone opponent, so Focus would double the damage of his various spells, but as he’d already seen, Firebolt wasn’t exactly effective against a foe already aflame. Magma Fissure would certainly kill it, but the snake’s sheer size combined with its ability to support itself from any part of its body meant actually getting the damn thing into the fissure would pose a challenge. If he could get the angle perfect while the snake’s body was straight, in theory he could—

Edmund shook the idea from his head as he watched the snake’s approach. At no point in its motion was the skeleton’s body completely straight, meaning no matter how well he aimed his Magma Fissure, some part of the beast would always remain on solid ground.

That left Smoke Lash.

Edmund diverted his focus down that particular channel in his mind, and the familiar dark tendrils began to coalesce around his right wrist. With a flick of his arm, he cracked the ethereal lash as a whip.

Four of the beast’s ribs snapped clean off. Another two saw chips fly off into the ash, while a web of cracks stretched along another.

The snake reared up and hissed once more, stretching its jaw wide to bare flame kissed fangs.

Fangs made good targets.

Edmund’s whip cracked again, this time taking a chunk of the creature’s jaw along with its left fang. It recoiled, jerking its head away from the source of the blow, but it didn’t stop. It hastened.

Edmund let the Smoke Lash dissipate and leveled his spear, stepping away from the wall to leave himself room to retreat if he needed it. He lowered his stance and pushed away the ash at his feet, kicking up a small cloud as he planted himself on the more solid earth below.

The beast stopped some ten paces away, its head suddenly ceasing in motion as the rest of it caught up, looping around in a tight coil. Edmund readied himself to dodge.

But the snake didn’t lunge. It didn’t dart forward. It didn’t try to sink its teeth into Edmund’s fragile neck. It reared up, it opened its jaw wide, and a jet of flame burst from its mouth.

Edmund dove to the right.

Waves of heat washed over him, but they didn’t draw his focus. His palms stung as they scraped against the ground on which he caught himself, but they didn’t draw his focus either. The snake reared up once more, hissing taunting at Edmund, but that too failed to draw his focus.

Pain drew his focus.

Fiery agony the likes of which Edmund had never known exploded from his left foot, dominating every sensation, every feeling, every thought that might’ve hoped to compete for space in Edmund’s mind. He glanced down to find the outside of his left boot smoldering, melted by the flames and now stuck to the skin of his foot, continuing to burn it even after he’d escaped the onslaught.

Edmund rolled to the side in anticipation of another attack, his mind locked in a battle of its own as he fought back the fog of agony that threatened to cloud it. He had to get up before the—fuck, that hurt. Maybe if he kept his distance and whittled it down with—Thrax, I need healing!

In mirror to the haze across his mind, smoke began to crowd the corners of his vision. It was thin and faint at first, but the tendrils grew along his periphery, following the jerking motion of his head and eyes to forever frame the world around him in smoke.

It’s not real, Edmund told himself as he fought to reject the pain of his injury.

Oh, but it was.

It doesn’t matter, he tried.

Oh, but it did.

“It’s. Not. There,” he spoke in growls through gritted teeth.

And then it wasn’t. The pain vanished. The panic faded.

There was only the smoke.

It tightened around his vision as he pushed himself to his feet. It fell upon the world like nightfall, enshrouding anything and everything in its darkness even as the tendrils twirled around Edmund. He took a step forward, a veil of smoke dancing about his wounded foot as he put weight on it. He kept walking.

The snake coiled back, its flames sputtering and withdrawing at Edmund’s approach. The air was stifling, thick with smoke and soot and death, but Edmund breathed it in deeply. It parched his throat. It burned his lungs. It sustained him.

The beast reared, unhinging its jaw as the faltering inferno within it surged for one final, terminal blaze. It never got a chance to strike.

A cord of smoke smashed the side of its head, shattering its skull into a thousand pieces. Edmund watched with cold eyes as the snake collapsed to the ground, and its flames died out.

He didn’t remember casting the Smoke Lash, but as he glanced down at his hand he saw the telltale tendrils of smoke twisting around it, thicker and more substantial than before, but distinctly the same. They dissipated beneath his gaze.

It all did.

By the time Edmund collapsed to the ashen ground, the smoke retreated, his vision returned to normal, and the world around him earned its clarity once more. Then the pain returned.

It tore through Edmund like a dragon on a rampage, one he knew he couldn’t allow to run free. He grit his teeth and forced his arms beneath him, pushing himself upright. On his hands, he dragged himself away from the fallen snake and towards the wall, something to lean against as he worked. Perseverance, essential as it was, had put him on a clock.

He couldn’t let his foot heal with the leather still melted to it.

He drew Scorpion’s Sting, his only blade, and prayed its poison wouldn’t affect him. He didn’t know if it was possible to poison himself, nor if The Island would protect him from the weapon’s potent bite, so he’d have to be careful. He slipped the tip of the sword into his boot and got to work.

He started from the top, slicing a line down the length of the boot on the side opposite the burn. He tried as hard as he could to keep the motions smooth, to work as far as possible from the site of the wound, but every move he made sent fresh agony washing up his leg. Still he cut. Still he worked.

When he reached the sole he turned his blade ninety degrees, cutting along the inside of his foot to form a T-shape. Every inch he cut he paid for in pain, the leather tugging against his burn as he worked with excruciating care to be sure he cut only his boot and never his skin.

He didn’t look up from his work, keeping his ears open for signs of danger while his eyes focused on the task at hand. The trouble was, even though his sigil of the azure apprentice enhanced his hearing, some things could move silently, until they didn’t.

“I was wondering when you’d catch up to me.”

Edmund dropped his sword and jerked his arm up, tendrils of smoke already coalescing around it as he cast his Smoke Lash. He let the spell slide away as he recognized the figure before him. “Amelia.”

The dungeon had taken its toll on her. Two scars stretched across her neck, just barely missing her throat. A patch of hair the size of a fist just above her right ear stood significantly shorter than the hair around it, as if shaved by a razor while the rest was left to grow. Edmund guessed it’d been torn out. The pinky on her left hand reached a half-inch shorter than it once had.

Most of all, her face had changed. Her eyes had sunken back, a hardness clinging to her gaze to replace the sense of plucky hope that’d once been there. Wrinkles had formed between her eyebrows, remnants of a scowl that never quite left. Her superiority, her command, her overconfidence had drained away, sapped by the endless onslaught of the Eternal Depths. In their place was exhaustion, determination, and quiet comfort not in her training, but in her experience, and in her ability to push through difficult situations.

Where once had stood a princess, now stood a delver.

“You look like you could use some help.”

Edmund looked back down at his foot. “Burned. Gotta remove the leather before it heals.”

“The first step,” she spoke in a patronizing tone as she knelt down and pulled a knife from her belt, “is to use the right tool. Preferably one that isn’t poisoned.”

“How did you know this is—” Edmund cut off as she sliced cleanly through the leather, completing the cut in a single motion, his words turning to a pained growl through his teeth. He grunted in disapproval.

“That was the easy part. I still have to—”

She yanked without warning, tearing partially-healed flesh away with the melted leather. Edmund didn’t even manage a curse or a scream or anything beyond a sharp gasp for air followed by a sharp grunt through gritted teeth.

She winked at him. “Twice now I’ve had to patch you up.”

“I was handling it,” Edmund countered. “And I would’ve been immune to that poison on the sixth floor if I’d been alone.”

Amelia glanced down at his wounded foot. “Can you walk?”

“Give me a minute.”

She nodded, moving to sit at his side. Her shoulder touched his, the contact deafened by the layers of armor between them, yet meaningful nonetheless. A minute passed. Then another. “So,” Amelia finally said, “what’d you get?”

“Hmm?”

She pointed at his burn. “Whatever gave you that was no ordinary mob, both ‘cause none on this floor use fire, and because I know you wouldn’t get hit like that by a normal monster. So how’d you find the boss, and what’d you get?”

“Not so lucky,” Edmund said. “It’s a delver’s mark—the challenger. I get better loot, but dungeon mobs near me are stronger.” He pointed to the indent in the ash where the corpse of the snake had once lain. “Made that thing shoot fire.”

Amelia blinked. “You have a mark already? Of course you have a mark already, and a shit one at that. Are you trying to get yourself killed?”

“I want you to look at where we are, Amelia, and reconsider asking that question.”

She exhaled. “Thanks for letting me know. I’ll have to be more careful around you.”

“If it’s possible to be more careful with me around, you’re not being careful enough when I’m not.”

“Are you going to try to convince me to leave, again?”

“No.” Edmund sighed. “If all those kingsguards couldn’t, what hope do I have?”

“You saw them, then?”

“Of course I saw them,” Edmund said. “They’ve practically annexed the tenth floor. I just wonder how long you think you can evade them.”

“As long as it takes.” She shrugged. “They won’t chase me any further than the twentieth floor, so once I get that far I should be free of them.”

“They’ll hire delvers. You know they will.” Edmund shook his head. “And as long as it takes to do what? You already have money and power, what do you need this place for?”

“Before she met my dad, my mom made it to the forty-eighth floor. I wanna make fifty.”

“Bullshit,” Edmund countered. “You’re not risking your life here so you can compare yourself to your mom.”

“Oh yeah? And why are you down here, then?” Amelia grinned. “And don’t tell me it’s because you’re desperate. Desperate people don’t go it alone.”

Edmund opened his mouth to speak, but no lie came to mind and the truth felt hollow on his lips.

Amelia smirked at his silence. “That’s what I thought.” She turned to face him, all humor gone from her voice in favor of sincerity. “Here’s the secret, Edmund. Nobody’s got a good reason for being here. Not really. It’s greed and bloodlust and hubris, all the way down.”

“You forgot insanity.”

“I didn’t forget. Insanity’s a given. Insanity’s the prerequisite. You’ve gotta be insane to step in the door, and even more insane to stay once you realize what this place really is. We’re all insane, Edmund.”

The words washed over him like a hot bath, drawing the hidden tensions and stresses away and banishing them to oblivion. He soaked in it, relishing what it was and what it meant until he could come out, if not clean, then cleaner. By the time he finally spoke, his foot had long recovered. “We should get back to it.”

Amelia slapped her thigh. “I have a better idea.” She pushed herself to her feet, reaching into her pocket and pulling out the key to her portable camp. With a casual flick it flew through the air and a wooden doorway appeared. “How long has it been since you’ve had a hot meal?”

“Too long,” Edmund said, standing. He paused, staring at the entry to her tent. The last time they’d met, she’d insisted he take a bath before setting foot inside. He looked down at himself. While his new cuirass might’ve soaked up all the blood, there were plenty of ways to become a mess without a layer of blood. “Don’t you want me to—I’m covered in ash.” He looked up at her. “You’re covered in ash.”

Amelia swung the door open and looked back over her shoulder at him. A slyness tilted her voice. “I guess we’ll just have to clean ourselves up.” She flashed a smile and turned away, her hands reaching up behind her back to unbuckle her armor as she stepped into the camp.

For a moment Edmund stood there, his heart racing as he caught her meaning. In under a second he caught ahold of himself, made his decision, and began unlatching his own armor as he followed her into the tent.

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

Edmund stood alone.

The crowd milled about and behind him, some whispering amongst themselves, some locked in tight embrace, and yet others standing as Edmund did, unblinking and alone. To a man they wore gray, not the dark gray of a looming storm, nor the pale gray of a winter sky, but the grayest of grays, so lacking in vibrance that no words of tone and hue could quite describe it.

The color of ash.

There were other children in the crowd, some up in their mothers’ arms and others standing tall, a sibling or parent or guardian’s hand clenched in theirs. Edmund’s hand held a wooden dragon.

The toy’s carving was rough, its edges unsymmetrical, its scales unevenly sized. Its left wing had broken off entirely, leaving behind what had once been a pointed edge but since smoothed to a nub. Edmund ran his finger over that breaking point, lamenting that it’d lost its sharpness.

The glow of the fires warmed his face past the point of comfort, toeing the line towards painful. Edmund let it. The heat parched his throat, forcing him to swallow uncomfortably every few moments. He did. The smoke dried out his eyes, irritating and inflaming them until tears dripped down his cheeks. He refused to look away.

Four effigies lined the square, the mother, the father, the daughter, the son, crude, wooden representations of that which had been lost. Edmund watched the flames consume them, his face too warm, his throat parched, his eyes red and watering. Something was wrong. It wasn’t supposed to be like this. It should’ve been—

His gaze drifted off the pyres themselves to the black smoke that drifted off of them, the four tendrils that swirled together to become one as they reached for the heavens. Reach as they might, they’d never arrive. Edmund tracked the column of smoke with his eyes, following it as it went up and up and over his head and through the sky above and behind him.

He spun, his heart suddenly racing with unwelcome panic. No. No, no, no, no.

He followed the smoke, watching as it arced overhead, escaping the earthly confines of the burning effigies, rising to the heavens only to fall once more, to turn back and drift into a dark hole in a hillside. The Depths drank it in, all-consuming and ever-hungry.

Fear and desperation took hold in Edmund’s mind. His ears rang. His heart pounded. Pain erupted in his thumb as he pricked it on the jagged edge of his dragon’s broken wing, sharp once more. He spun back around, frantic for one last glimpse of the burning effigies, but the fires had done their job, and all that remained of the mother, the father, the daughter, and the son was the black smoke billowing through the sky. Only the smoke.

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Something shifted to his left, but it vanished into the smoke. There was only the smoke.

His name echoed in the distance. Someone was calling him, but it too faded in the shadow of the smoke. There was only the smoke.

There was only the smoke.

There was only the smoke.

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

“Edmund!”

Amelia’s voice came in conjunction with a comforting hand on his bare back. The warmth of it felt unbearable in his sweat-coated state, but he didn’t pull away.

“I’m okay,” he breathed. “I’m okay.”

“Okay? You were screaming.” Amelia waved her other hand, and gentle light coaxed its way into the tent, casting the luxurious bed in the dull tones of predawn. “What happened?”

“Nothing,” Edmund said, refusing to let his eyes drift over her similarly undressed form. “A bad dream. One I haven’t had since…”

“Since you set foot in this place,” she finished for him. She took a deep breath, holding it long before she let it out. Whatever thoughts ran through her mind were a mystery to Edmund. “Are you gonna be okay?”

“I—yeah,” he eventually said, leaning back in bed and finally looking her in the eye. “I’m okay.”

“Good,” she said with a smile, patting him on the top of his thigh as she cut the conversation abruptly short. “Let’s have some breakfast and get to work.”

He lingered there for a moment, allowing himself to fully take in the softness of the sheets, the warmth of the blankets, and, yes, the beauty of Amelia’s unclothed body. He smiled, not a grim thing nor a mask for the benefit of others, but a gentle curve to his lips, a minuscule upturn of the corners of his mouth, belonging to him and only to him.

Then Amelia disappeared behind the screen where they’d left their armor, and the moment passed, and Edmund’s face resumed its customary scowl. He pushed himself out of bed and followed her behind the screen and went through the motions of getting dressed and rustling up something to eat. It’d been precious, he decided, while it’d lasted, but for now he could focus on one thing and one thing only.

Amelia was right. It was time to get to work.

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

“So,” Amelia greeted him as she joined him out in the dungeon proper and collected her portable camp, “how does this mark of yours work?”

“It’s pretty vague, but everything is down here.” He shrugged. “It empowers nearby monsters, and I get better loot. I assume you’ve seen those undead snakes before. When I saw it, the mark tingled and it burst into flame and started shooting fire.”

“Is it the same buff every time?”

“No idea, but if I had to guess I’d say monsters of the same species get the same buff, so another snake would be on fire again but something different would get something else. Still need to test it.”

“Does it work on bosses?”

“No, it—” Edmund stopped. “Son of a bitch. I don’t know. When we were talking about it, the point was to make the regular mobs more of a threat, not—Thrax. He fucked me, didn’t he?”

Amelia furrowed her brow. “You’ll need to test that. Carefully. Who fucked you? How did you get that thing?”

“The dungeon,” Edmund growled. “It was a gift from the dungeon, framed as a solution to… nevermind.”

“Are you talking to the—”

“It doesn’t matter,” Edmund cut her off. “You’re right; we need to find a safe way to test if it works on bosses.” He glanced down at her. “You wouldn’t happen to have one in mind, would you?”

She winked. “In fact I do. Found it a few days ago, been camping down here while I put together a plan to take it out.”

“I was wondering how I caught up to you,” Edmund said. “You’re taking it slow. That’s smart.”

“That’s survival.” She grinned and beckoned. “C’mon, I cleared out the mobs between here and there. Anything there’ll be a fresh spawn and unable to aggro.” She picked her direction and set off.

Edmund followed. He kept his eyes peeled for traps and monsters as they walked, trusting in Amelia’s ability to clear the way, yet unable to stop himself. Still, the relative freedom from his customary paranoia allowed his mind some leeway in which to wander. It landed on Liam.

Had he set this up? Of course he had. Liam set everything up; it was his nature. The question wasn’t had Liam maneuvered things to put Edmund and Amelia together—that was a given. The question was if Edmund cared. That would be up to him to answer.

He cast his thoughts back to his last conversation with the obnoxious dungeon, when he’d bequeathed the challenger’s mark. Liam had said he wasn’t changing the deal, the original deal which would’ve had Edmund on floors with more difficult base mobs. Theoretically that meant the mark shouldn’t affect bosses.

Sensing the trap, Edmund recalled the exact words.

Edmund glared at him. “You want to change our deal so you don’t get bored?”

“Not change it. I’ve got a workaround.”

Thrax, Edmund cursed to himself. Liam hadn’t said he wasn’t changing the deal. He’d said he didn’t want to. Did that change anything?

Another part of their conversation popped into his head, specifically the bit about removing the mark. Liam had said he could take it off at any time, but that it’d never come back on. Edmund supposed if it did empower bosses, he could always just remove the damn thing. He wondered if removing the mark would remove its buff from a still-living monster.

The more Edmund thought about it, the less he felt like he’d been duped. He’d have to wait until they reached the boss to test that part of it, of course, but tricking someone into donning a mark they could remove at any time didn’t feel like much of a trick.

Regardless of whether or not the challenger’s mark worked on bosses, Edmund and Liam were going to have a long chat about it once Amelia was gone.

Edmund noticed, as they walked, that while his bare foot kicked up tiny clouds of ash with each step, Amelia’s stride disturbed no ash and left no footprints. He wondered if that had something to do with Agility and its confluences or if she bore some enchantment to that effect. Neither would’ve surprised him.

He’d also noted that while her body bore a great number of scars from her delve so far, her armor remained untouched. The flexible leather must’ve had some self-repair enchantment on it, similar to that of his crystal cuirass. She must’ve been the only delver in the place to make it so far without upgrading a single piece of armor for the simple fact she’d come in with some of the best Harrowed’s Hearth had to offer. It’d kept her alive.

“This floor is bigger than it looks,” Amelia whispered to him as she led the way. “A lot bigger. As in, potentially bigger than the hubs, bigger.”

“I didn’t think you’d spent much time on the hub floors,” Edmund said. “Too many people around, too easy to get caught.”

“Which is why I couldn’t go waltzing through the easy exit. You know, the one where all the people are?”

“Makes sense. You were saying this place is huge?”

“Right,” Amelia said. “Over-a-week-to-fully-explore huge. The good news is, I didn’t have to. The monsters leave tracks in the ash.”

“I noticed.”

“I’m sure you did. What you might not have noticed, is that there are tracks all over this place, and they all lead the same direction.”

Edmund nodded. “Towards this boss of yours.”

“Exactly. I think the mobs are all spawned towards the outer edges of the level and they work their way in. Not to the center, but to…” She paused as she reached a trio of trees that had grown together, their blackened trunks forming a wall between them and the clearing beyond. “Right here.”

Edmund craned his neck to peer through the spot where two of the conjoined trees grew apart. His Madness gave him a name for what he saw.

Charbone Colossus

The thing’s name bore the crown as the other bosses Edmund had come across. It stood some fifteen feet tall, humanoid in general shape but different in details and scale.

As the name implied, blackened bones made up its body, stacked together like bricks rather than anything resembling a natural skeleton. Skulls sat atop femurs rubbed against pelvises attached to ribs in a chaotic jumble of bone. Together they formed a dense mass in the general shape of two arms, two legs, a torso, and a head, all several times as large as Edmund’s.

More disturbing were its other limbs.

Four skeletal snakes extruded from its back, each snapping its teeth and moving independently of the others, each a spitting image of the one Edmund had fought earlier. He set his jaw. It would be a difficult foe, but a few ideas already spun about his head, as they did Amelia’s, he was certain. As long as his mark of the challenger didn’t empower it, they’d be fine.

The thought sent his focus back to the mark on his shoulder. The image of two crossed swords behind a golden crown popped into his head as he remembered what it had done to the lone snake and imagined what it might do to the colossus.

On cue, it began to tingle.

“Shit,” he breathed. “My mark activated.”

“So it works on bosses? You’re fucked?”

“I can take it off,” Edmund said. He squinted through the gap in the tree, watching as each of the four snakes on the colossus’s back burst into flame. “But I think I activated it.”

“It’s optional? And you chose to empower the boss?”

“Better loot.” Edmund winked at her, opting not to mention he’d done it accidentally. He filed that little tidbit away for later, noting he’d have to be careful not to think about the mark when he didn’t want to activate it.

“Alright,” Amelia said, clapping her hands together. “Here’s the plan.” She patted the scabbard of one of the knives strapped to her lower back. “I’ve got a blade oil that purges undead, but it only works if I can land a decent blow on a critical spot. Given how big that thing is, I’m going to need backstab damage too, which means—”

“You have to get through those snakes,” Edmund finished for her. “And I’m the distraction.”

She smiled and patted him on the shoulder. “That’s what you get for wearing plate armor and taking Perseverance.”

“Okay. So I get its attention, make it stumble a bit, and you get in and land the killing blow?”

Amelia winked. “See you on the other side,” she said, turning to stalk around the outside of the clearing. Edmund waited until she’d been out of sight for a few minutes before leaping to action.

He stepped to the side, away from the cover of the charcoal trees and into clear sight of the clearing and the monster within. It roared, its bone-crafted mouth letting out an inhuman discordance of noise in the same moment as the four snakes on its back unleashed a chorus of dissonant hisses.

Edmund bellowed back.

For all the show, he kept his eyes peeled for signs of attack, darting back and forth from each of the snakes for even the hint of an incoming fire blast. He didn’t enter the clearing, refusing to move more than a few feet from the ready cover of the conjoined trees. As if recognizing his ability to dodge, the colossus didn’t bother with ranged attacks.

It moved closer.

Edmund held his ground, holding tightly to the scowl on his face. He counted the seconds between strides, watched with practiced care how the monster shifted its weight with every step. He suppressed a grin.

The colossus might’ve been bigger. It might’ve been sturdier, healthier, and far more deadly than the snake he’d already fought. Thrax, it had four of the damn things on its back, but it had one disadvantage to a simple snake.

It stood on two legs.

Edmund waited until the thing reached the precise center of the clearing, counted down in his mind until the exact moment the monstrosity took the weight off its back foot and onto the one in front, and made his move.

A great and terrible crack echoed through the cool air as the earth itself heeded Edmund’s will. Like the jaws of a beast it opened up, just wide enough to swallow the monster’s foot. The lava did the rest.

Through the spell-driven haze over his mind, Edmund watched with something resembling awe as his Magma Fissure consumed the blackened bones. He’d expected to take the thing’s foot, force it to limp around or, with any luck, fall over completely.

He hadn’t expected his spell to destroy its entire leg.

The colossus plummeted down into the fissure until the width of its pelvis stopped it, droplets of magma splashing into the air and solidifying into pebbles as they fell. It roared in pain as it caught itself on its palms. All four of the burning snakes turned to face Edmund.

He fought back the impulse to leap for cover. Already an unnatural darkness crept towards the monster’s right, concealing a certain princess with an anointed dagger. Edmund had to keep the beast’s attention as long as he could.

He almost stumbled as he cast the Smoke Lash, depleting his mana reserves to the point of near stupor. That didn’t matter. His job was almost done.

With a swing of his arm, he sent his lash into the clearing, whipping brutally across the nearest snake and taking its jaw with it. It hissed with rage and fired back.

Edmund leapt for the safety of the trees, ducking behind the charred oaks. Unlike his previous encounter with a fire-breathing snake skeleton, he escaped with his feet unburned, his remaining boot intact, and no leather melting into his skin.

The same couldn’t be said about his barkbreeches.

The good news was that they weren’t crafted of leather. They didn’t stick to his skin to continually singe him because, thankfully, they didn’t melt. They burned. The bad news was that vulnerable to fire damage, meant vulnerable to fire damage.

Edmund batted at the flames with his bare hand, but they spread faster and over a greater area than his hand could manage. Moments later, the pain began.

It started slow, like a sense of feeling just a bit too warm for comfort. But the warmth grew, and it grew, and it grew, until warmth became heat became fire, until discomfort became pain became agony.

Edmund gave up on batting out the flames and changed course.

He slammed his legs down onto the ground, hopefully keeping their undersides unburnt as he got to work scraping the ash off the dirt around him. He piled it onto the blaze, gritting his teeth past the pain as he buried the flames. Slowly, bit by bit, the burning stopped, the flames died down, and the pain faded away. Moments later, a chime echoed through the air. He pushed himself to his feet.

Amelia found him like that, covered in ash from the waist down, with his barkbreaches burnt to shreds. She looked him up and down. “Well fought.”

“You got it?”

She grinned. “You heard the chime, didn’t you?”

“Any loot?”

“Not here,” Amelia said. “That wasn’t an optional—”

She cut off abruptly as Edmund raised a finger to her lips. He scowled. “Do you hear that?”

“Hear what?”

In the newfound silence, a set of distant voices reached Edmund’s ear. One in particular spoke with clarity.

“Sweep the floor!” it commanded. “We don’t move on until we confirm she’s not hiding out here.”

Amelia’s eyes shot open. “Kingsguards!” she hissed.

Edmund nodded, pulling his hand away and speaking under his breath, “You need to get off this floor.”

She nodded, eyes darting downward as she calculated for a moment before coming to the same conclusion. “This way. Path is clear.”

Together they moved swiftly and silently through the ashen woods, charting a course past freshly-respawned mobs that couldn’t aggro. Edmund dragged his feet as much as he could, hoping to disguise his footprints as a trail left by one of the snakes, but he doubted the efficacy of the tactic. Amelia, of course, had no such concerns. She didn’t leave bootprints to track.

Amelia hadn’t lied—the place was huge. It took some thirty minutes before the far wall came into view, and another ten to spot the actual exit. That was a good thing. The distance would give them more time before the kingsguards could catch up.

Edmund made a beeline for the loot chest next to the door, the first he’d seen to be constructed of platinum. He swung it open to find three items, two of which were clearly intended for him.

Blackbone Boots

Provides major protection against fire, death, piercing, and blunt force damage. Vulnerable to ice damage. Highly vulnerable to holy damage. Increases agility.

Blackbone Leggings

Provides major protection against fire, death, piercing, and blunt force damage. Vulnerable to ice damage. Highly vulnerable to holy damage. Increases constitution.

The boots and leggings alike seemed to be constructed of a dark leather base covered in plates and bars of charred bone. A few test knocks and a scrape with the edge of his sword confirmed the description’s resistance to piercing and blunt force, the latter of which he sorely needed.

Had Liam been there, Edmund might’ve asked for these exact two pieces to replace his melted boot and burned-up barkbreeches. Reaching past them, he grabbed the third item, a silver ring with an inscription in an unfamiliar language.

Scryshield Ring

Provides protection against scrying, farseeing, and location-tracking effects.

“This is for you,” Edmund said as he handed the ring to Amelia. “Should help keep the guards off your tracks.”

She slipped it on without question, glancing down at the loot chest. “Nice of the dungeon to drop two items I can’t use and one you can’t. Makes dividing the loot easy.”

Edmund nodded. “I get the extra piece because I’m the one with the challenger’s mark.”

“I’ve gotta get one of those.”

Edmund shrugged. “Ask and you shall receive.”

Without hesitation, Amelia turned her head to the sky and repeated herself. “I said, I’ve gotta get one of those.” She looked down at Edmund. “Like that?”

“I guess? You’ll have to check your next loot chest.”

“Figures.” With her other hand, she twisted her new ring around her knuckle. “How’d you know what this does? Most delvers don’t bother investing in an appraisal ability when they can just hire someone on the next hub world.”

“It does other things.” Edmund kept his answer cryptic. “Appraisal’s a nice extra.”

With that in mind, he shut his eyes to envision his constellation, the collage of grays and silvers and golds all fading behind Madness’s prismatic resplendence. He already knew which decision he was going to make.

A tier three Aspect remained available to him, but Edmund dismissed it outright because it didn’t include Madness. As powerful as another tier three might’ve been, he had no interest in leveling up low-resonance Aspects when other options remained open. Immediately his attention honed in on the base Aspects.

Aspects

1. Strength

2. Agility

3. Intelligence

4. Perseverance

5. Spirit

6. Endurance

7. Blades

8. Elements

9. Shadows

10. Deals

11. Crafts

12. Talents

13. Life

14. Order

15. Unity

16. Death

17. Chaos

18. Solitude

19. Madness

20. War

21. Wrath

22. Serenity

23. Peace

24. Mercy

25. Divine

26. Infernal

27. Eldritch

The list of common Madness confluences he’d purchased hung fresh in Edmund’s mind, guiding him as he focused in and made his selection.

Tier 1 Aspect: War - Gray+ Resonance

  Level 1 - Provides a severely limited increase to all damage dealt. Provides a severely limited decrease to all damage taken.

Edmund nodded in acceptance. War granted two boons, so it made sense that at level one with gray resonance both were severely limited. It matched up with what he’d expected given how Perseverance’s bonus had been singular and limited at the same level. Both bonuses would increase as he leveled it up, which he had every intention of doing. He hadn’t chosen War for War. He’d chosen it for what it’d make when combined with Madness.

Happy with his decision, Edmund reopened his eyes to face Amelia. “You’ve been on this floor a while. Find any secrets?”

“One. A trapdoor hidden under the ash. That’s where I got the blade oil I used on the colossus.”

Edmund nodded. “How thorough were you? Do you think it’s worth another look?”

“Not with the guards here. I need to—” She sighed. “You’re talking about staying behind on your own.”

“We can’t stay together.” The words stung on Edmund’s mouth, but he said them anyway. “I’m too invested into Solitude, and while that might get better as I level those Aspects up, it also might get worse. Maybe we could work through it, but with this…” He smacked the spot on his upper arm that bore the challenger’s mark. “It’s too dangerous.”

“Too dangerous for you to fight without Solitude, or too dangerous for me to fight empowered monsters?”

“Both. Neither. It’s—” Edmund exhaled. He didn’t want to bring up Liam. “It’s complicated. Can we just go with ‘I can’t stay with you but I’m really looking forward to running into you again?’”

Amelia stood there for a moment, staring up into Edmund’s eyes with a look that blended more emotions than Edmund even knew existed. She swallowed. “It’s okay you don’t trust me. I’m sure you don’t trust anyone. On the off chance you’ll listen, no, there aren’t any more secrets to be found. Not on this level.”

Edmund cocked a questioning eyebrow.

“What? You’re not the only one with an information-gathering ability. Agility, Talents, and Shadows makes The Hunter. Helps me find—and fight—rare bosses and other secrets. This floor’s clear.”

“Okay,” Edmund breathed, forcing himself to believe the words. As much as he wanted to double-check, a part of him felt that would be betraying Amelia’s trust. He didn’t want to do that. “Thank you.”

“Thank you,” she countered with a smile and a wink. “For your help and your—ah—company.” She turned and moved to the exit, pausing just before the darkness between levels to look over her shoulder back at Edmund. “Good luck. Try to stay alive until I run into you again.” And with that, she was gone.

Edmund felt himself deflate somewhat in her absence, as a weight lifted from his shoulders and joy drained from his gut. Already the world felt more hostile. Already he felt more powerful and ready to face it.

He had a few options before him. He’d already decided to trust Amelia’s intel that no secrets remained on the floor, but he’d get some training in against the skeletal snakes, even with his challenger’s mark disabled on cleared floors. He could similarly justify leaving immediately, trying to maintain some pretense of keeping up with Amelia. There was still training to be had, but it wasn’t necessarily useful training.

But first he had to chat with Liam.

He opened his mouth to address the dungeon, to call down its avatar to bestow useful information surrounded by red herrings and mean-spirited jokes, but a series of words that echoed through the trees behind him stopped him short.

“Secure the exit! We don’t want her to slip away!”

Edmund cursed. The guards wouldn’t harass him—assuming they were noble or well-equipped enough not to bother trying to steal from him—but he didn’t know their numbers. If there was a full group of them, he didn’t want to risk a repeat of the sixth floor. The Eternal Depths didn’t take kindly to oversized parties.

Of course, the kingsguards surely knew that, and they surely had some plan for it if they intended to fetch Amelia, but it seemed too much of a risk. From incurring the dungeon’s wrath to harassing him to robbing him to simply preventing him from moving on, there were too many bad ways an encounter with the guards could’ve gone. Either way, Edmund doubted Liam would show up for a chat with a bunch of kingsguards hanging around.

So Edmund shut his mouth and shook his head and left his solitary boot and ruined barkbreeches on the ground for the dungeon to reclaim. He spared a thought for his challenger’s mark and the extra piece of loot it had granted. He breathed a whispered prayer for Amelia’s wellbeing and the hope he’d see her again.

Just as the first of the kingsguards rounded the final charcoal tree into sight and opened his mouth to yell him down, Edmund stepped into the darkness.

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

Edmund Montgomery Ahab, The Crimson Hand

Aspects Unlocked: 13

Tier 1 Aspect: War - Gray+ Resonance

  Level 1 - Provides a severely limited increase to all damage dealt. Provides a severely limited decrease to all damage taken.

Tier 1 Aspect: Elements - Gray Resonance

  Level 5 - Provides access to the Firebolt spell.

Tier 1 Aspect: Solitude - Red Resonance

  Level 6 - Gain increased constitution while fighting alone.

Tier 1 Aspect: Perseverance - Gray Resonance

  Level 6 - Gain health regeneration.

Tier 1 Aspect: Madness - Prismatic Resonance

  Level 8 - See beyond reality. Touch the unreal.

Tier 2 Aspect: Sorcery - Gold Resonance

  Level 1 - Provides access to the Smoke Lash spell.

Tier 2 Aspect: Obsession - Gold Resonance

  Level 2 - Gain strength and agility for each consecutive day spent pursuing your obsession. Gain mana for each consecutive month spent pursuing your obsession.

Tier 2 Aspect: The Recluse - Gold Resonance

  Level 2 - Empower the effects of Madness while alone. Lessen the effects of Madness while accompanied.

Tier 2 Aspect: The Island - Gray Resonance

  Level 3 - Grants resistance to over-time effects while in groups of two or fewer.

Tier 3 Aspect: Focus - Silver Resonance

  Level 1 - Doubles spell damage when attacking a single target.

Tier 3 Aspect: The Philosopher - Silver+ Resonance

  Level 1 - Ponder the nature of reality.

Tier 3 Aspect: The Rift - Gold Resonance

  Level 2 - Provides access to the Rend active ability.

Tier 4 Aspect: The Fissure - Silver Resonance

  Level 1 - Provides access to the Magma Fissure spell.

Delver’s Mark of the Challenger

Empowers nearby dungeon monsters. Significantly increases the value of loot chests you open. Slightly increases the resonance of Aspects you unlock.

The Crimson Hand

Grants minor resistance to piercing damage. Bestows ownership of the Dread Gauntlet of Kor’Ilinesh.

Trailblazer’s Sigil of the Azure Apprentice

The third step on the Path of the Azure Fox. Increases agility. Grants a single windstep. Increases positional awareness.

Trailblazer bonus: Sharpens hearing.

Trailblazer’s Sigil of the Rootmother

Non-intelligent Strethian lifeforms will treat you as an ally. Gain the ability to draw water and nutrients from fertile soil.

Trailblazer bonus: draw water and nutrients from all soil.

Cloudkith Sigil

Cloud-based lifeforms will treat you as an ally. Gain enhanced perception through vision-reducing effects.