Saturday morning, I went over to The Motionless Caverns, the dungeon located on the outskirts of Sharliya. It wasn't too hard to find, with a Guild building out front advertising it with a big, gaudy neon sign. There was a wooden marker commemorating the site where the final battle of the Chaos War was fought, at the mouth of this very dungeon. It would be very impressive if I hadn't seen pictures of twenty or so just like it from various dungeon sites across the Empire. Truth was, the final days of the Fifth Age had fractured reality enough that no one was really sure of the details, not the day after and certainly not 250-ish years later!

I parked and headed into the office, carrying a spatial bag with my armor inside. I saw Kade, Torrin, and Irgos there already, and a handful of other people I didn't recognize. They looked a bit scratched up, which gave the impression they were the previous party and had just finished, maybe?

I went over to join my teammates. "Good to see you made it," Torrin said. "You'll want to talk to the clerk over there, she'll get you registered."

I went over and spoke with a lady behind a desk. Looked to be 50 or so, human, short, with dark hair and surprisingly pale skin, enough to kind of make you wonder if she's really human or not. Not that I had much time to ponder such things; she looked up at me as I approached. "You with them?" she asked, gesturing towards my party with her head.

"Yeah, just signed on."

"Name?"

"Brad Webb."

"Party role?"

"Wizard."

"All right. Place your hand on the mana meter?" She gestured to a smooth stone plate on the desk. I rested my hand on it for a moment and felt it grow slightly warm. "All right, third level. Are you going to be taking any magical gear inside of third tier or above?"

Third tier?!? Did I look like I was made of money or something? "Just some armor, first-tier enchantment."

"Have you taken any physical, mental, or arcane enhancement potions in the last hundred days?"

What kind of a question is that? "None."

"Are you currently, or have you been within the last twenty days, suffering from any form of curse, hex, or debuff?"

"Again, no."

"Very well." She slid a small rune tablet and a stylus across the desk to me. It showed a waiver for me to affirm, stating that I understood that a dungeon raid is not inherently safe, I accepted the risk and waive all claims of liability against the Adventurer's Guild for any injuries I may incur during my activities within.

Yeah, whatever. According to their æthernet site they let kids train here. I signed, suppressing the urge to roll my eyes, and was presented with a second form where I acknowledged that the dungeon is the property of the Guild, that damaging, destroying, or attempting to steal the dungeon core is a felony, blah blah blah make sure to be on your best behavior in this anodyne, sanitized dungeon that totally could really put your life at risk, we swear.

"All right," she said once I signed the second one, pointing out a couple doorways as she began to recite some words that had a well-worn rote quality to them. "Equipment shop is to your left, changing rooms are behind me to your right. Your run will start in..." she glanced at her rune tablet, "forty-three minutes. Please be back here, equipped and with your full party, at least five minutes prior to that time." She gave me a little nod of dismissal, and I turned and walked back to the team, which had swelled a bit: Joanna, Kelamek and Apogee were here now too.

"Ampha said she couldn't make it today," Torrin said. "Patron stuff. Chris is out of town, I don't think you've met him yet? And Kayla should be here any moment."

I looked around. "OK, so what's everyone's role?"

Torrin nodded. "Good question. You already know Kayla, right? And which other ones?"

I nodded. "Bard. And I'm a wizard. Kade, monk. Apogee, summoner." I looked over at Kelamek. He already had plate armor on — had he driven over here wearing it? — and an axe slung on his back. "Kelamek, fighter."

Torrin nodded, looking impressed. "All right. Everyone else, sound off. Sword-and-board for me."

Irgos gave me a scaled smile. "Kineticist."

That left Joanna, who was standing off in a corner apart from the rest of the team. Like Kelamek, she was equipped already, wearing a long, deep blue robe that covered her from neck to ankles with runes of protection sewn into it in silver thread. "Abjurer."

"Wow, lots of variety there," I said. "One thing missing, though..."

"Yeah, Chris usually fills the Rogue role. This dungeon doesn't have anything that makes lockpicking or trap detection an absolute requirement, though, so we should be able to get by for a week without him."

Wait, he thought a rogue was the obvious hole in this party lineup? "Umm... actually I meant divine magic. We really gonna go into a dungeon with no healer to patch us up?"

A few people started to snicker at those words. I looked back and forth between them. "What?"

"We have no dedicated healer, young one," Irgos pointed out. "But there are always LFGs we can have our choice from."

"I'm sorry... LFGs?"

"Freelancers," he explained. "People who come here alone and looking for a group to join, thus the acronym."

"Got it."

"All right everyone," Torrin said. "We've got about half an hour. Get changed, pick up any supplies you need and meet back here."

Right as he was finishing, I heard a low rumble and the world trembled slightly. A book on the edge of the receptionist's desk fell to the floor with a loud thump. But then it stopped as quickly as it had begun.

Was that an earthquake? I stopped myself before asking such an obvious question out loud. "Woah. I'd heard you get earthquakes from time to time out here, but never really thought I'd be in one!"

Everyone else seemed pretty blasé about it. "Yeah, they happen," said Kade. "Part of the fun of living in Chitothia." No one seemed to think much of it, so I figured I shouldn't either. I headed off to the changing room door, followed the Men arrow, and found myself in a locker room. Picking a locker, I donned my newly-enchanted leather jacket, trousers, gloves, boots, and helmet, then headed back out and to the equipment store, just to see what they had in stock.

Ugh, was I ever glad I had picked up my own armor beforehand. Everything here cost about three times what it was worth! Armor, weapons, enchanted jewelry, a broad variety of potions, and all sorts of knicknacks from rope to lanterns to lockpicks. Not a one of them reasonably priced either. They even had a collection of plain, unenchanted wooden staves, enormous ones, had to be ten feet long if they were an inch. What possible use could anyone find for such an unwieldy weapon?

I didn't really want to buy anything — certainly not at those prices! — but in the end I figured better safe than sorry and picked up a healing potion. Cost me twenty platinum for a bottle I could have found at the corner pharmacy for six, but I guess they can get away with that when they're two miles from the nearest pharmacy. Bleh.

Kayla had arrived by the time I got back out, and she'd gone full-on cosplayer! A chainmail vest that looked more decorative than functional, over a white peasant blouse that was significantly lower-cut than anything I'd seen her wearing to the office. Green trousers tucked into thigh-high leather boots. A guitar slung across her torso, a dagger sheathed at each hip, and an honest-to-goodness fancy green hat with a big peacock feather sticking out of it!

Ohhhh gods. I was going to be going into a dungeon with someone dressed like that. I wanted to just curl up in a corner somewhere and die from sheer mortification.

She was talking with Kelamek about his battleaxe, looking entranced by the intricate etchings in its blade. "She was my father's axe, accompanying him in many a dungeon, and his father before him as well!"

"Wow! A legacy weapon? Does it have a name?"

The dwarf gave her a broad grin. "We call her 'Cuddles.'"

Kayla busted up laughing at that. After a minute she turned and saw me. "Hey Brad, you made it! Nice armor!" she said, crossing towards me.

"Thanks. So this is yours?"

She nodded.

"Uhh... aren't you a bit..." I waved my hand in vague little circles, desperately trying to think of a way to broach the subject without directly mentioning all the cleavage on display, "exposed?"

She grinned at me. "Joanna takes care of the protection. This is just to look good!"

I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. "All that talk about getting good armor, and it's not something you even take seriously for yourself?"

She just giggled. "Relax! We'll be fine in there!"

I tried not to fume too much at the way she'd pranked me. One by one the rest of the team came out, all geared up much more reasonably than Kayla. None of them gave the door to the equipment shop so much as a second glance. Lesson learned I guess.

When everyone had come out, Torrin said "all right, now we just need a healer. Let's see if we can find any among the LFGs."

A tall figure covered in full-body armor with a kite shield strapped to one arm and a heavy mace at their hip was just stepping away from the registration desk as he said that. The warrior turned toward us, revealing the hammer-and-sunburst crest of Meþas emblazoned across both the breastplate and the shield, and icons of the sacred icosahedron etched into each pauldron. "Excuse me, did you say you need a healer?" came a surprisingly feminine voice from behind the helmet's closed visor.

Torrin smiled up at the imposing figure. "A sister of the Builders is always welcome in our band, Miss..."

A brief moment of dread washed over me as I realized who it had to be. With my luck today, it almost certainly could be no one else but, "Felicity Ellis. Pleased to meet you." She lifted her visor and gave everyone a smile. "Paladin, fifth level."

That got some raised eyebrows from the group. "You're a combat veteran?" Kelamek asked.

She nodded. "Missionary. Recently returned from three years in Lutreron." Then she looked straight at me. "Wait... Brad, right? Is this your party?"

"You know our new healer?" Torrin asked me.

Felicity nodded. "We met at church!"

That earned me a wary look from Irgos. "So we have two Meþasites in the party?"

Kayla gave him an exasperated sigh. "Chill. It's not like they're going to freak out on you just because you're Evil." He is? I didn't know that... She glanced over at the two of us. "Right?" she asked, her tone making it just a formality.

I shrugged at her, and Felicity said she had no problems with any party members who didn't betray her. Kinda sounded like there was a story there, but I wasn't about to ask.

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"Sounds like there's a story there," Kayla said, because of course she did. "I'll have to get it from you sometime."

"But not right now," Torrin cut in. "Welcome aboard, Miss Ellis. We're right about to start, so any moment now..." Right on cue, a chime rang out. "And here we are. All right, everyone off to the entrance!"

Everyone turned and filed outside. They seemed to know where they were going, so I followed along. We made our way out behind the building, down a path that led to a staircase cut into a hillside. Torrin looked at us. "All right, everyone ready?"

No. I really, really don't want to do this. But it was too late to back out now. We all nodded and he led us inside.

The first room was clear, bare stone walls, no threats in sight, with the staircase behind us and a hallway to the left leading deeper into the dungeon. "All right," Kade said. "Just for the benefit of those who haven't been through here, the dungeon has four levels, plus the boss room. They're based around the classical elements, and populated principally by minor elementals. First floor is Earth, then Water, Air, and finally Fire. The boss is a large, bestial elemental that randomly combines aspects of three of the four elements. Most of us have been through this several times already, so just follow our lead and we'll all be fine." The felyn looked around at everyone briefly, then added, "form up!"

Torrin stood to the left of him, Kelamek to the right, with Felicity anchoring the right side of the front row. The rest of us casters got behind them, with Irgos on the left, then Kayla, me, and Apogee. Joanna stood at the rear, trying to stay back from the rest of us. Considerate of her — I'd been whammied by her aura once and didn't relish the thought of another hit from it — but it kind of made her feel a bit less of a part of the team. I just hoped she'd be able to participate well from there... and that no monsters would ambush us from behind!

Joanna cast a quick succession of shielding and protective spells over us as we made our way down the hallway. After twenty yards or so it opened out into a much larger room, filled with about a dozen stony creatures that looked kind of gorilla-esque in their basic form: big all around, bipedal but hunched over, really thick, powerful arms and legs. Oh, and made of stone with big spiky ridges protruding from their upper arms and across their shoulders. So not quite gorillas, but... yeah.

"Open fire!" Kade called. Three of the elementals started to lumber towards us, and the team reacted immediately. Irgos did something to cause one of them to stumble and sprawl headlong into the ground in front of Torrin, who made his blade crackle with lightning and carved off half of the elemental's arm, then began hacking at it before it could get up. Kayla strummed a harsh, dissonant chord on her guitar, shaping and amplifying it into a blast that vibrated one of the elementals apart into a shower of pebbles and loose earth. Apogee conjured up some bizarrely fluffy creature that looked like a neon-green yak the size of a deer. It charged the third elemental, blindsiding it and trampling it, and once the monster was down Kelamek stepped up and chopped off one of its legs with Cuddles.

I... kinda just stood there, frozen, no idea what I should be doing. Kayla gave me a semi-gentle-ish nudge with her elbow. "Hey, come on, we're counting on you here. Get your head in the game!"

Her chiding shouldn't have done much, but it actually kind of helped me focus. She was right; I was here to make a good impression on the team, and I wasn't doing that. Time to do better. More elementals were starting to move towards us, so I held up a hand towards the nearest one, balling it into a fist, charging up power around it until the elemental was within twenty feet, and released a lightning blast directly into its chest. The monster stumbled and cracks began to grow across its form as residual charges of lightning danced over its surface for a few moments. Felicity took advantage of its apparent disorientation, stepping up and giving it a hard backhand with her mace, shattering its chest and making it crumble into loose rock before stepping back into formation.

Kayla opened up on another elemental, quaking this one apart with another harsh chord like the last one. I could feel the hairs on my arm standing up. "You're really pouring a lot of power into that," I said. "Shouldn't you pace yourself?"

"No point in it! I can one-shot these earthen guys, but after that my sonic strikes are basically useless. So I go all-out on this floor, then move to the back row."

And she did. We spent the rest of the first floor about like that, the casters throwing spells into them and the front-line using their weapons, or bare fists in Kade's case, to put down anything that got too close. Five rooms of the same thing, over and over, before we reached a staircase leading downward.

Next level was Water. More of the same, really: boring, perfectly rectangular rooms connected by hallways, inexplicably well-lit from a formless source that seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere, except this time each room contained a raised catwalk over a flooded floor, two feet deep of water that would occasionally rise up into a seven-foot pillar of bestially-intelligent homicidal intentions.

Our heavy hitter for this floor was apparently Apogee. He called up a steady stream of vacuum spirits, floating spheres of crackling power that would fly into an elemental and implode, causing it to suck itself inward, then explode outward in a heavy splash of now-inert water. Thankfully Joanna was able to conjure a Mass Umbrella Shell so we didn't all get drenched. I focused primarily on ice spells, freezing them solid so Irgos or the frontliners could shatter them. And on we went to the third floor.

Joanna pulled a bundle out of her spatial bag and handed it to Kayla, who came up and passed out thick rubber galoshes for everyone. "OK, you all know the drill." I didn't, but it was easy enough to intuit: an insulating layer over your boots so lightning attacks couldn't ground out through you. Once we all had ours on we proceeded forth into the sequence of rooms. Still more predictable, clean-hewn rectangles, but these rooms were covered in dust and loose scree, piles of which would occasionally be swept up into animated whirlwinds that charged suicidally towards us.

Surprisingly enough, Irgos was the star of the show here. He was able to use his powers over motion to still the winds as they picked up. Only briefly, but it only took a few seconds for all the dust and rock to fall to the ground, causing the elementals to lose cohesion. Apogee called up a hellhound that would harry the elementals with its flaming breath, and I followed his example, using fire bolts to disrupt their air currents and cause them to fall apart. The only hitch came when another quake hit, rumbling a bit harder than the previous one but still not all that strong. It made us miss a few shots, but all that did was slow us down a bit.

At the stairway down, Kade turned to me. "Brad, this floor's your time to shine. You're the only one we have who can pull out heavy water streams."

"So what did you guys do before me?"

Irgos snorted. "Harvest buckets from the Water floor, lug them all the way down here, and make me shape them."

Kade shrugged. "That and whatever water- or cold-based beasts Apogee could conjure up. And a lot of healing." He looked over at Felicity. "We haven't had any injuries yet, but that can easily change from here on in. Be ready." Her face-concealing helmet gave a nod of acknowledgment, and we headed in.

Heat washed over us as we walked into the Fire floor. It was like an oven in there, had to be over a hundred degrees! I broke out in a sweat instantly, and felt severely sorry for the party members in heavy armor... for all of ten seconds or so. Then Joanna laid a Mass Endure Elements over us and it all got much more tolerable.

These elementals were vaguely naga-esque in shape, with arms, a head, and a torso all balanced atop a long serpentine tail of flames. I started throwing water at them to quench their physical forms, but some of them started throwing fire back! None of the previous elementals had used spells or element-shaping techniques.

Luckily, anytime a firebolt came at someone, Torrin or Felicity was able to step in and turn it with their shields, which Joanna had made sure to ward up. Kade got his gi a bit scorched at one point, but Felicity was there to soothe the injury with her magic, and Kade used a simple Mending to fix up the fabric. All the while, I just kept calling forth blasts of water against our flaming foes, splashing into the elementals and hissing into clouds of steam as their flames fizzled out into harmless, soggy ashes. It wasn't too long before we were at the staircase.

"All right," Kade said, mostly to the three of us who were new here. "We don't know which aspects the boss will take, but we all know how to deal with the various elements. Joanna's going to hit us with a bit of everything, and then we'll head down.

Once we were abjured up to the gills, we headed down the staircase and into a wide-open room, more blank, neutral stone like the first floor. At the far side of the room was a towering stone-gorilla thing, a good twenty feet tall where the others had been seven or so, except this one wasn't made of stone so much as magma. And there was lightning crackling all across its form. Lovely.

Kayla immediately stepped up and started preparing a long series of dissonances, the strumming growing louder until the room began to echo with it. As the boss charged towards us, I almost threw more water, but thought better of it at the last second; turning my spell into a conduit for that lightning to backtrack into me would not have been a good idea! Instead I went for ice darts, throwing a flight of them at the behemoth. Apogee called forth some immense arctic bear, its fur tinged with rimefrost, which ran forward to intercept the monster and try to maul it. And Irgos used his will to shape hammers of force, smashing the thing's head repeatedly.

No one really expected the bear to last all that long against such a powerful monster. But it gave us a good eight seconds of free rein to blast away at it, all except for Kayla, who just kept building her dissonant reverberations up louder and louder. When the elemental finally delivered a two-handed hammer-strike that snapped the bear's back, and it dissolved away into magical essence a moment later, she finally loosed the spell. The sonic blast bored into the magma monster's frame and caused it to tremble violently, splashes of molten stone dripping off of it. It let out a roar and continued to advance.

Kayla slumped a little, panting. That last spell had really taken a lot out of her! I figured I might as well do the same, and started gathering power to throw an all-out strike against the thing, when Felicity turned to me, shaking her head.

"My turn."

She stepped up, clanging her mace loudly against her shield. "Meþas shield those under my protection!" she solemnly intoned as her armor began to shine. And then she ran forward and struck at the boss. From behind.

I have no idea how someone in heavy armor can move that fast, but for the next minute or so she seemed to be everywhere at once, her full-plate laying as light as cloth on her. A long, unending string of mace strikes, shield-bashes, and flares of light crashed against the boss over and over, each one turning it about, keeping its attention focused on her, not giving it any opportunity to advance another foot towards the rest of the party. The rest of us just stood there, a bit awed, as she essentially soloed the boss of the dungeon.

Finally it lost cohesion, falling apart with a low rumble of rapidly-cooling stone. The glow on Felicity's armor faded a moment later, and she slumped forward, the point of her shield digging into the stone floor as she leaned heavily on it.

Torrin was the first to speak. "I... don't suppose you're in the market for a job?" Kayla giggled at that, and soon all of us were laughing, the tension broken. "In all seriousness, I've been doing this for four years now and I've never seen someone fight like that, Miss Ellis. What's your secret?"

She slowly straightened to stand upright again, having had a moment to rest. "Faith," was all she said.

That seemed to make everyone a bit uncomfortable, so no one said much of anything as we crossed the room to the final hallway. Beyond the boss was the core room, easily the smallest room in the whole dungeon. A wooden chest sat there in the middle of the floor, at the base of a stone pedestal with a round, faceted, amber-colored crystal about the size of a fist floating serenely above it.

Kade opened the chest and looked inside. "Looks to be about 300 crowns worth," he said. "Two minor healing potions, and a staff. Anyone want it?"

300 split nine ways wasn't much. And wizard or no, I had no real need for a staff. "I'll take the staff," Joanna said from out in the hallway.

Kade handed it off to Kayla, who relayed it to Joanna, then he scooped the rest of the loot into a spatial bag. "All right. When I touch the core, the exit will open for about half a minute. Everyone make sure to get through quick, and touch the crystal on your way out." He waited a moment, then reached out and lightly tapped the dungeon core with his palm. There was a soft rumbling sound and the far wall slid aside, revealing a staircase leading upwards.

Kade quickly stepped across the room towards the exit. Behind him, Torrin and then Kelamek jumped up and tagged the crystal with gauntleted hands before dashing across to the exit. I stood there watching this odd ritual as the rest of the team touched it and ran for the exit. Finally I was the last one, other than Joanna who was still hanging back.

"Go ahead," she said softly.

So I did. Reaching out to tap the core crystal, I felt a brief, heady rush of power flow into me, energizing me, washing away all the weariness I'd accumulated over the last couple hours of fighting my way through this tedious dungeon. I ran for the exit, then heard Joanna's footsteps behind me. The rest of the team was climbing up the stairs, and I heard her slip in just before the rumbling of stone denoted the passageway closing behind us.

Then the next quake hit. This one was significantly stronger, the whole dungeon trembling around us. Pebbles and little trails of dust fell from the ceiling, and just as it felt like it was dying down, the shaking spiked hard! I stumbled, falling against the wall... and it crumbled.

Suddenly I was tumbling down a steep incline, being pelted with stones from all sides. Only the enchantments on my armor, and whatever vestiges remained of Joanna's protective spells, kept me from snapping half the bones in my body.

I landed hard on more stone, then heard a scream and a thump as Joanna came down behind me, landing nearby. She let out a pained whimper.

"You all right?" I called to her.

"No. Twisted my ankle. I don't think it's broken, but..."

It was dark down here whatever we were, the omnipresent dungeon light gone. There was some dim light coming down from above, but not much. At least the ground had stopped shaking by this point! I conjured up a ball of magelight and tossed it on the floor, giving me something to see clearly by, then walked over and offered her my healing potion.

She looked up at me, pain and... fear in her eyes? "Thanks," she said. "But... please step back?"

I was already starting to feel the effect of being too near her, so I nodded and stepped away. I looked up where I'd fallen from and saw the rest of the party standing on the stairs, looking down at us. They looked to be at least thirty, thirty-five feet up. They were calling down but the words were muted, garbled, like we were underwater or... something.

"HEY! WE'RE DOWN HERE!" I called up to them, but for whatever reason they gave no sign that they noticed. I waved, but they didn't respond. Could they somehow not see or hear me down here? Where in the world were we now?!?

I could see them talking back and forth, catching a word here and there but not enough to string together any coherent sentences. But after a minute of discussion, everyone turned and headed up the staircase, except for one figure, clad head-to-toe in consecrated armor. Felicity jumped off the staircase, landed sideways in a crouch, and arms extended for balance, and proceeded to slide her way down the incline like some sort of snowboarder, except without any snow. Or a board.

She hopped off at the bottom in an impossibly graceful movement for someone wearing that much heavy armor, then looked back and forth between us before going over and offering Joanna a hand, helping her up to her feet. "They're going to get help, but I felt that I needed to be down here with you. I've learned to trust that feeling, so..."

So indeed! What now?