Reud stood outside the entrance to the Metalflow Caverns, Lilia by his side, Bo, Kin, and Lec by their back. The cave that led down to the dungeons was overgrown, barely even recognizable through the undergrowth. There was no way anything had been in or out of its depths in a very long time.

Nudging him, Lilia smiled widely. “This is exciting, isn’t it! It’s like exploring a new-found dungeon!”

“We have been down here before, though.” Reud pointed out.

Lilia shrugged. “With this much time, it’ll be like a completely new place. Besides, if no one else has been down there, then it’ll be teaming with chimeras.”

Reud looked at her, his wife’s exuberance a little worrying. “Are you sure you wouldn’t prefer to stay up here? I can handle anything down there, there’s no need for you to come along.”

Lilia glared at him. “Oh? Too high and mighty to fight alongside your wife now?” She poked him in the shoulder with a finger. “If you’ll remember, you’ve never beaten me in a spar.”

Laughing, Reud raised his hands in mock surrender. “You know that’s not what I mean. I can’t die, and either can they.” He gestured over his shoulder at the skeletons. “You, on the other hand, are far more vulnerable.”

“Reud, I’ll be fine.” Lilia said, her face suddenly serious. “Thanks to you, I’ve finally got some half-way decent equipment, and don’t forget that I’ve been working on my new affinity. It’ll be good to finally have something real to try it out on. Isn’t it best to do that now, under your careful supervision, then when I need it to save my life?”

She fluttered her eyelashes at him.

Gods, she looked so cute when she did that.

“Fine, fine.” Reud said, smiling. “Just be careful, okay?”

“You know I will be. Now, are you going to open this place up or do I have to do it?”

Stepping to one side, Reud gestured to the skeletons to clear the path. Kin and Lec were carrying simple morningstars, their magic providing the majority of their offensive potential. Bo, however, was dressed in a far more elaborate outfit. Over Reud’s time away from the city, it seemed Rachel and Lilia had managed to scrounge up a set of plate armour for the skeleton, complete with a wolf-skin cloak. A set of armour the skeleton seemed to have grown rather attached to.

He’d even resisted Reud’s urging to leave it behind.

Reud could have forced him to take it off, of course, but the novelty of the skeleton showing a personality was enough for him to let Bo have his way. At least Bo had left behind the hulking greatsword he’d taken to carrying around with him in the city, replacing it with a smaller blade. A far more practical weapon for the confines of a dungeon.

Lilia pulled a couple of lanterns from her pack, lighting them and handing one to Reud. “Bo, you’re up first, I’ll be right behind you.”

The skeleton bowed his head to her, then turned and clomped into the dark. Lilia turned and flashed Reud a smile, then headed into the cave entrance herself. Reud followed her, mentally commanding the rest of the skeletons to follow him.

The cave went on for a short while, before angling sharply downwards. A rough-hewn set of steps led the way down into the depths of the earth, ancient support beams lining the edge of the corridor. The stone was overgrown with moss, making the footing uncertain, and a number of times Reud almost slipped, just barely catching himself before he tumbled down into the darkness.

They walked for a long while before the steep steps finally ended, opening out onto a round room. Stone benches were carved around the edges of the chamber, and a heavy door stood in the opposite wall. Into the rock above the door, just barely legible, were the words Metalflow Caverns.

They were definitely in the right place.

“This place has really seen better days.” Lilia said, walking over to an alcove in the wall. “Even the fountain is gone.”

Reud followed her into the room, memories rushing back through him. This was the waiting room, created by the old adventurer’s guilds at the entrances of the known dungeons. Here, a party could rest and recuperate before entering its dangerous depths. Once, there would have been enchanted fountains filled with restorative water set into the wall, and sometimes even a vendor or two selling various herbs and poultices.

Selling things to prospective dungeon delvers was quite a lucrative business.

“It’s actually in surprisingly good condition, given how long it’s been since anyone was last here.” Reud said, running his hands along the wall. “I half expected to have to dig our way down to get here.”

“A good bit of luck for us, then.” Lilia said, before walking over to the door. She gave it a pull, but beyond a creak, it didn’t move. “Bo, mind giving me a hand here?”

The hulking juggernaut of a skeleton clanked over to her, wrapping a gauntleted fist around the handle. Lilia nodded to him. “Now, pull.”

With a screech, the door ground open. A shower of dust fell from the wall around it as the pair strained to shift the ancient portal.

Finally, it was open wide enough for even Bo to step through. Releasing the door handle, Lilia stepped back, rolling her shoulders. “Right, let’s get on inside! I’m itching to fight something.”

Reud grinned at her, stifling a laugh.

Lilia noticed his gaze, a flush spreading across her face. “What? Why are you laughing? What did I do?”

“You never change, do you?” Reud said, a wide smile spreading across his face. “I remember you saying those exact same words, then running into that ant hive. Then, as I recall, running right back out again.”

“Shush you.” Lilia said, a smile tugging at her mouth. “That was different, I was young and excitable.” She drew herself up tall, flicking her hair back from her face. “Now I’m more collected and mature.”

“Sure you are.”

Lilia stuck her tongue out at him. “Let’s just go inside.” Turning to Bo, she gestured. “After you.”

Bo nodded to her, then marched into the dark.

—

The group snaked through the winding caverns of the dungeon, the oppressive darkness that filled it pressing in on them, as if trying to snuff out the tiny pool of light cast out by their lanterns. So far there had been no sign of life, no movement within the surrounding shadows.

There had also been no sign of the metal they were here for, so they had no choice but to delve deeper and deeper.

Reud breathed deeply, savouring the tingling sensation of the mana saturating the air. A dungeon existed simply because the ambient mana was many times greater than usual, warping reality in strange and wondrous ways. The further into the dungeon they delved, the greater the mana would be, and the more influenced by it the things they encountered would be. The creatures living at the heart of a dungeon would often be monstrous, mutated to deadly heights not seen on the surface. Chimeras birthed in those environments would be entirely unable to survive without the dense mana that pervaded the dungeon, making them even more deadly by their uniqueness.

A uniqueness, however, that made the resources harvested from them valuable. It was for this reason that adventurers braved the dangers of a dungeon's depths.

Reud’s lantern light glinted off something shiny on one of the stalactites filling the tunnel. Walking over to it, he held his lantern up to look closer.

Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

A thin band of greenish-silver metal snaked down the damp rock.

Relief rushed through Reud at the sight. They were in the right place. He’d been starting to doubt they’d ever find anything of value down here.

“Psst, Reud.” Lilia whispered. Her and Bo had stopped at the end of the tunnel, at what looked to be an entrance to a larger cavern. Lilia had dimmed her lantern, crouching to the side as if hiding from something within.

That instantly put him on alert.

Reud dimmed his lantern too, then walked softly over to her, commanding the skeletons at his back to slowly do the same. As he approached, Lilia gestured for him to look at something within the cavern beyond.

Peering over her shoulder, Reud’s eyes widened as he spotted what had stopped her in her tracks. The tunnel opened into a wide cavern, dotted by pools of water. Great bands of the greenish-silver metal lined the walls, shimmering in the dim blue light cast out by faintly glowing flowers growing across the floor. At the centre of the room, crouching over one of the flowers, was a spider.

A giant, dog-sized spider.

Its bulbous body was covered in splotches of the greenish-silver metal, as if the arachnid was wearing armour. With its two front legs, it carefully manipulated the flower below it, pulling away the petals at the top to reveal a tiny orb within. Slowly, it lowered itself down further and plucked away the orb with its mandibles.

“Foe?” Lilia whispered to Reud.

Reud nodded slowly. “I don’t think we can hope that any creature in this dungeon will be friendly.”

“Agreed. Lightning strike then.” Lilia said. “Send Kin with me, Bo and Lec can guard the exits against anything that comes investigating.”

“Sounds good to me.” Reud agreed. Looking back at the skeletons, he commanded Kin forward, the lopsided skeleton hobbling over, morningstar raised.

“On my count.” Lilia said, her eyes glowing with purple light. “Three. Two. One. Go.”

In an instant, she burst into a full sprint. Kin launched himself after her, moving with an unnatural, uneven gait that just barely let him keep up with the lightning-fast woman. Bo and Lec fanned out to either side of the room, facing away to the exits, alert for any hidden adversaries.

The spider spun with surprising quickness at the disturbance, a chittering cry erupting from within its body as it did. But it simply wasn’t fast enough.

Before it could do a thing, Lilia was on it. Her new sword flickered out, a brilliant white glow lining its leading edge, and cut through the spider's raised front leg, sending the severed limb clattering onto the rock at its side. The spider let out a keening screech that echoed from the walls, loud enough to make Reud wince.

Skittering forward, it slammed its other leg towards Lilia. She took the blow on her shield, letting it propel her back out of its reach, a flash of light indicating the enchantment bound into it was doing its job.

Narrowing his eyes, Reud commanded Kin forward. A white glow sheathing him too, he brought his morningstar down with a ringing crash on the spider’s back. A blow that did nothing but dent the metal covering its body.

The spider hissed and struck out, sending Kin’s bones clattering along the ground.

“Draw its attention!” Lilia shouted, circling around towards the back of the spider. “I’m going to try something.”

“Try what?” Reud shouted back, ordering the fallen skeleton to pull itself back together and re-enter the fray. Lilia didn’t answer, her blazing eyes focused on her blade.

Reud turned his attention back Kin. Raising a hand towards him, he flooded the skeleton with mana once more, brightening his sheath to an almost unbearable intensity. An enhancement more than enough to make up for the handicap of his missing bones.

The spider lashed out with its remaining foreleg, smashing into the ground again and again. The enhanced skeleton, brimming with energy, deftly dodged its attacks. In between each strike, he darted in to slam his morningstar down. The attacks seemed to be doing little actual damage, but that wasn’t the intention.

He was acting as the perfect distraction.

Then, Lilia was back into the fight. She charged towards the spider, spinning on one foot to bring her blade around in a long arc, cleaving through the spider’s bulbous abdomen with ease. As her blade moved, it left behind a glittering trail, and where it touched the spider a white film covered its body, seemingly slowing its movements.

Reud’s eyes widened in appreciation. True dual affinity magic, force and ice mixed into one strike.

Lilia really had been practising.

The spider screeched and tried to spin around towards her, but the skeleton at its front sprang in, smashing his morningstar into its face. The spider reeled back, only to take Lilia’s blade in its side again.

The frost spread further and further over the spider’s body after each strike, until the creature could barely even avoid Kin’s morningstar. Blows that it would have taken on its armoured back instead landed into its face, bursting its many eyes and crushing its mandibles.

Then, with one final strike, the spider stiffened. Its legs curled up underneath it, sending its body rolling over onto its back. With one final shudder and a wet gurgle, it went still.

Lilia stepped back, a faint sheen of sweat glistening on her brow. “Well, that was exciting.”

“Impressive use of your new magic there.”

Lilia gave her sword a few swings, leaving glittering trails through the air. “It’s good, isn’t it? It takes a bit of getting used to, channelling through two affinities at the same time. Not something we ever got taught at the Academy.”

Reud nodded. A dual affinity was so rare, he’d only ever heard of it in books. Lilia would be forging her own path in learning how to control both her affinities, it was honestly impressive she’d managed to get so far already.

But then again, she hadn’t been a diamond ranked adventurer for nothing.

Walking up to the spider, Reud squatted down beside it to examine it closely. The creature was fascinating. The metal that covered its body in blotchy streaks seemed to actually be fused into its exoskeleton, running all through its carapace like greenish-silver veins.

“It’s like naturally formed plate armour.” Reud remarked.

“Sure was hard enough,” Lilia said, walking over to him. “Cutting it nearly chipped my blade. It seemed resistant to my magic.”

“That’ll be the mana infusing the metal.” Reud said. “It’ll have a repelling effect on any other magic. If I remember rightly, it made some pretty impressive armour, if rather on the excessively pricy side. It’s just so hard to work in large amounts.”

“Surely that makes it a poor candidate for your token project?”

Reud waved a hand. “It’s fine as long as each token is kept small. It’s just hard to work when kept in a single large piece.”

Reaching out with his senses, he focused on the metal. A steady stream of mana flowed into it from deep within the dungeon, continually replenishing the mana leaking out from the spider's ruined corpse.

“Huh, that’s odd.” Reud murmured, a frown creasing his face.

“What’s wrong?” Lilia asked.

Reud gestured at the corpse. “Any mana link should have been severed once the creature died. But for some reason, it hasn’t.”

Reud tried to push his senses along the mana link, but the connection was too faint to be sensed through the ambient noise of the chaotic mana in the dungeon. He would need physical contact to follow it better.

Reaching his arm out, Reud went to touch the metal. “The link goes deeper into the dungeon. I’m just going to follow it and see-”

The moment his fingers brushed the metal, the link became clear.

In both directions.

Deep in the dungeon, a powerful mind, raging with mana, stared back at him. Their gazes met for a moment, before the thing sent an immense blast of mana back down the link.

The mana slammed into the spider, blasting the metal along its body apart, before slamming into Reud. He jerked backwards, stinging slivers of metal peppering his arms, a high-pitched ringing filling his ears.

Reud lay back on the floor, staring up at the ceiling as he waited for the dizziness to pass. Lilia’s face appeared in his vision, concern creasing her brow. Her mouth moved, but whatever she was saying was lost behind the ringing.

“... you okay?” Her words finally made their way to his ears. “Reud, say something!”

“I’m fine.” Reud said, pushing himself up onto his arms.

“What was that?”

“That…” Reud said, a smile spreading across his face. “It was blowback from a mana surge. We have a dungeon boss to slay.”