I don't know how much later it is when Lirushik shifts me, suddenly spinning me upright and setting me down on my feet again. “Now you,” he grunts at me. “I'm hardy surprised a girl like that would walk all over you, but damn you're a pain in my ass. Ruwi!” he calls, and the huge woman comes over. “You're strong enough to carry some dead weight, right?”

Her wry grin says it all. She knows I'm hopeless too, doesn't she? “Sure, Yumi's light, could lift her with my pinky finger.” Is that a compliment or an insult?

She guides me away from the annoyed instructor, mixing among the other students, but I hunch forward, feeling all their gazes burning into me. Ruwi doesn't say much, just giving me a couple sympathetic pats on the back.

Thankfully, we arrive at our destination soon after. It looks like a cave entrance, cutting into the narrow gap between the faces of two steep cliffs. Right where they meet, the entrance is marked with more sparse foliage and a few colorful mushrooms.

Lirushik picks a mushroom, turning it around in his fingers, then turns to the class. He gives a quick debrief, reminding everyone that this will be just like going on real quests, and that it's dangerous enough that if things go south, he might not be strong enough on his own to save them.

“That's why you guys,” pointing out the healers, “are going to be very important. Keep everyone patched up, and things will stay on track.” He adds reminders to stay with the group, remember their training and fulfilling their roles, before finally turning his attention to me.

“As you're all aware, we have this little complication with us. You can think of this as an escort mission if you like. Keep her safe. However.” Lirushik aims his scary, scarred face and hard eyes at the watching students. “Her life is not worth any of yours. If it comes to a choice between her and your classmates, choose your classmates.”

I grimace, then turn away, rubbing my neck, when some of the surrounding students look at me guiltily.

“Lirushik, sir. Isn't that a bit...” It's Ruwi who speaks up, moving a little closer to my side.

“Callous, yes. But true. You all have bright futures ahead of you. She doesn't.” That silences their protests, an awkward atmosphere settling over the group. It feels like the question of why hangs in the air, but no one seems willing to ask. Then he waves us on, and we proceed into the cave.

When everyone lights their torches, I dump most of my mana pool into a light spell. I'm still not too practiced with light yet, but I manage to make it a floating light, that will last for a very, very long time by my normal spell standards. Maybe ten minutes or longer, I guess.

I'm not sure if that really outmatches my mana regen yet though, so I work on absorbing surrounding mana to make up for it.

Then I take a position at the back of the group like last time, and they start to advance.

We don't make it far before the narrow cave entrance opens up. And wow, does it open up a lot. We reach a huge, cavernous area, stretching far enough that our light falls off into complete darkness. Everyone tenses up. As I stare into the dark, a clawing dread rakes at the back of my neck, until I forcibly shake myself and lower my eyes to the area within our light.

I hate the dark...

I sidle slightly closer to the students, reminding myself that they're way higher Rank than me. Even if they aren't 'real' adventurers yet, they're still way stronger than I am.

How the hell did I get through as many quests as I did?

...Because Master put herself in all the danger, I was always in the back, out of the way... The one time a tiny monster got to me, I should have died.

Remembering that, I stick as close to the others as I can. The tanks and other frontline fighters form up in a loose circle, so I stay clustered with the other mages and healers in the center as we move through the open room, senses trained on our surroundings for any signs of trouble. I swallow down my fear too, and tell myself that I'm not alone.

At first, it's just our own breathing and footsteps, but sure enough, the trouble does come. Skittering, like many small creatures moving toward us. The students respond immediately, bursts of fire and lightning tearing past the closing frontline to streak off into the dark.

I join in, tossing a low cost fire spell along with theirs. I doubt it will do anything, but I don't want to be complete dead weight here... For a moment, the spells illuminate the rush of monsters. There aren't nearly as many as I expected, but that's because the skittering is caused by their legs. Lots of legs. I see giant spiders, about half the size of a person, as they rush in, appearing in our firelight moments later to crash into the shields and spears of our tanks and fighters.

Weapons flash and monsters shriek, and I can hardly even follow the motion through the blur and the crowd and the darkness. It's panic-inducing, not even being able to follow the fight properly as an unknown number of spiders hit different parts of our group, the front line fighters spread into a full circle around the squishy mages. Standing with them at the center, I keep looking around, unsure what I'm supposed to do. Mostly, I just try to stay calm.

For now, I keep throwing spells. Little ones, but they don't cost much, so I just keep casting, arcing them over the fighters and hoping that they accomplish something in the tangled melee.

God I hate dark caves...

Despite my somewhat frantic worry, the students hold their own, the fighting maintaining a steady pitch throughout as they work their way through the monsters. In reality, it's just a handful of minutes of clashing weapons and angry hissing, and squelching cuts, before they're all dead, dispersing back into mana.

We gather up any loot left around, mostly chitinous materials, and some fangs and claws, then move on. The next fights go in a similar fashion, against more monsters that I can't even identify. Things with claws and fangs, some with a whole lot of teeth, and one big slime thing.

We finally reach a somewhat more narrow crevice, the ground pitching downward. This cave is nothing like that strange area the last group entered, it feels like an actual, natural cave rather than something constructed by human hands.

As we get deeper, my light goes out. Huh, much longer than I expected, closer to twenty five minutes... I work on a new one, trying a few different methods to make it better than the last, while absorbing more ambient mana. I grimace as I begin to feel the negative effects.

Somehow, I can tell that the mana here feels... like, worse than usual, overcoming the resistance I've built up from doing this for a while. Ignoring it for now, I finish up on my spell to summon another floating light, this one with a wider range than the last.

It helps illuminate the center of our group, so that at least our own little area of the cave is better lit than by the flicking torchlights. It helps me calm my nerves.

“Huh, decent support at least,” one of the guys notes with a small smile, which helps me feel a bit less like dead weight here.

But besides his comment, I start to notice the changes in the area around us. I guess it's getting into this deeper area of the cave, there are little flecks of color, like bits of floating light wafting around us. There are multiple colors, like red, green, and blue, but also bits of white, gray and black. They float through the air lazily, sometimes blowing around as people pass, sometimes not. They give the overall impression that we've moved into a more... magical area of the cave, I guess?

The best part, is it doesn't feel nearly as dark anymore. Even if they don't help illuminate the surroundings, they do a ton to relieve the oppressive blackness beyond our lights.

We keep going, and more monsters hit us, but it's less frantic in the narrow area. There's less need to worry about getting surrounded. It lets me notice for the first time how the Enchanters like Hrinth actually contribute. It's like they focus, a faint glow seeping from them as they cast their magic. They hold a hand to their target, letting the magic flow to them, and their target takes on the same glow.

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It's faint and I can only really see it when I focus on it, but the glow comes in numerous colors, which I can only assume relate to the type of enchantment. Of course, unlike the lust enchantment Hrinth put on me earlier, these ones must boost combat abilities. They're also done without Hrinth's ridiculous methods...

So, Enchanter is a support Class focused on ally buffs. I wonder if they can also set permanent enchantments on objects like my earring, or does that fall under a different Class?

It's also pretty interesting how the little bits of the magic lights around us spin into a flurry whenever the Wizards cast their spells. They don't react when I cast normally, but they do when I pull in any ambient mana.

That actually makes me realize that the little lights must be the ambient mana. I guess it's strong enough here that it's actually visible? That makes me a bit nervous, I wonder how much stronger the monsters are going to get...?

Despite my worries and wandering thoughts, they're still better than the earlier darkness.

We continue our advance through the caves. The narrow area continues sloping down for a while, before leveling out and opening up again. If this was a proper dungeon, I'd call it the second floor. As expected, the monsters that come are bigger and stronger, some as large as a person, with crude weapons.

Lizard things kind of like kobolds, a few swarms of monsters that look mostly like goblins, but way bigger and stronger, and these mini-chimera things that look like crosses between a half dozen random animals, each one different from the next...

They keep getting bigger and more aggressive as we descend to a third and forth floor, then further, one floor after another. Holy crap, I went on a number of quests, and none of them had monsters like this before...

After a particularly rough battle against a chimera twice the size of a person, with huge claws and bat wings, around its creepy insect face, one of the tanks goes down, three big gashes in his leg from a claw swipe he couldn't fend off, which rent clear through his thick thigh armor.

The Menders all gather around him, casting continuously to stop the flow of blood and close up the wounds. Everyone else spreads out slightly, torches raised to spot any approaching danger.

I watch the healers briefly, before drawing in more ambient mana. Even if my magic isn't much use, I've been throwing spells all over to at least try and contribute, especially now that the monsters are so big that they take a lot of damage to put down.

As I draw mana, my brow wrinkles, because it's not as much as I expected. Which is really weird, because it's really thick here. It's getting darker and darker though, and feels awful to absorb, but I'm still putting up with it because I just don't have enough mana regen to keep up with the others.

How do they get by? Do they just rely on their larger mana pools from their higher stats?

In fact, right now, it feels even worse than I've come to expect in this cave. That fact alone puts me on edge and I start a slow form spell, just in case. If I'm being paranoid again, I'll just toss it at the next monster we fight.

Looking around, I see the flow of the mana in this big, open room. It's languid in its drifting. After some time, I realize something is off. I'm not seeing red. Lots of other colors, especially black and gray, but effectively no red.

Turning in a circle, I actually do spot some after a few more seconds, but it's kind of far away, barely visible among the pitch darkness. It's all pretty far away, slowly drifting as it gathers bit by bit. It kind of looks like what happens when one of the Wizards... casts a spell...

The alarms go off. With a thought, I'm flinging my hanging light spell in that direction, bursting it for a few moments of daylight-brightness, so we can see clearly. And shouting. Pointing and shouting to watch out, as the light bursts, and the giant skeleton creature, hiding far outside our torch range, is revealed.

In the few moments of light we have, I fling a dozen light-pull spells at it, to form sticky lights, and cast the still half-formed long-cast spell at it. I practically do it on auto-pilot, because I'm staring at the figure with my mouth falling open.

It looks like every classic RPG skeleton ever, no clear indication of how its bones maintain their humanoid form, and it holds a staff. Long, and smooth, and polished. It doesn't look anything like the weapons the other monsters have had.

A special monster? Did it take a weapon off an adventurer? Can they even do that? I don't know, and it doesn't matter.

All that matters, is that the last of the red light is done converging on the bright, glowing red jewel at the tip of its staff.

My spells hit, covering it in light, and my bigger spell blasting it with a torrent of superheated stone, but it doesn't even flinch under my assault. I don't do nearly enough damage. It does turn its attention to me though, the tip of its staff shifting to aim directly at me, and my heart stops. My blood doesn't even have time to finish going cold, before the flash of red punctuates the skeleton monster firing a beam of flaming energy straight at me.

I try to dive out of the way, even though I know I'm not fast enough. But in that instant of travel time before the beam blows me away, a mountain of muscle and heavy armor throws itself between us, taking the attack herself.

There's a scream of pain. Ruwi's shield immediately melts under the assault, lances of fire and molten metal spewing away around her.

Without a thought, I snap fire a pull spell using all of my remaining mana, and she jolts sideways off her feet, out of the line of fire. She comes crashing down on me, hot metal searing my skin where it touches.

“Ahh!” I gasp out, pain and weakness and nausea crashing over me all at once, even as I force myself to draw more mana, attempting to channel what I can into another spell, but I've already hit mana exhaustion and I can barely focus through the pain.

Thankfully, I don't need it. Between the little remaining light and the visible markers on the attacker, the students don't waste a moment, charging in and cutting it down where it stands. Then they immediately retreat back to the group, darkness quickly closing in around us as the light goes out.

“Everyone, form up!” Lirushik barks, drawing the whole group back into a circle. “Eyes out for any more ambushes!”

Everyone stands at attention, eyes and ears trained on the surroundings. After Ruwi rolls off me, I manage to stagger up to my knees, my hands coming up. I have burns all over my hands and arms from pulling Ruwi onto me, but the way she's shaking herself off makes it look like I got her out of harms way fast enough that she didn't get hurt too badly to function. That's good, but still... What the hell was that staff?

I turn to look at the spot where the monster died, the faint glow of my light spells on the ground where its corpse dissipated giving the only real indication in the dark. Everyone retreated so fast, so... I can't really see, but I give it a try anyway. With the little mana I've collected, I arc a pull spell up over our protectors, down on the spot the skeleton died, and catch the movement in the dark.

A few people flinch slightly as the weapon comes flying out of the darkness, but it comes right down into my raised hand.

“Guh!” I grunt at the pain, on impact with my burns. Even so, at one touch, I know that this isn't normal. Not something a monster would use. Trying to ignore the agonizing burn, I glare at it, and get its information window.

Firekeeper Staff A magic staff Condition: 86% Age: 6 Mana Store: 0% Mana Storage: Can store mana for use with spellcasting.

Enchantment: Durability – reduces wear and tear over time.

Item is old, increasing enchantment effectiveness slightly. Modifications: Spell Crystal (Blazing Beam): Stored mana can be consumed to cast a spell.

I barely have the time to wonder about the information in the window before Lirushik is at my side, asking, “What is that?”

“The weapon that skeleton was using,” I explain immediately, while reading over the window. I see the last line, and add, “It lets the user cast the Blazing Beam spell.”

He hisses under his breath, probably because he knows that spell? Then says, “Give it here.” I don't want to, but his tone doesn't leave room for argument, so I pass him the staff. I called that monster out before it ambushed us, shouldn't I get to keep the drop...? Well, I suppose I wasn't the one that killed it...

Despite the commotion, the healers stayed focused on their job, healing the injured tank. Just now finishing, they turn back, spreading out to check for other injuries, mostly gathering around Ruwi to heal her burns as she pulls off pieces of melted armor. Thankfully, one of them heads my way. I sit and let the guy run his hands over my burns, the heat and pain melting away at the touch of his magic.

While the healer works, I take a second look at the information on the staff. Why did I get information about its condition and age this time? I can't recall getting info like that on the other things I've Scanned. Granted, I mostly just Scanned things over and over without paying any attention to what I got, but the ones I did never gave me that information.

Because it's a special magic item? Or some other reason maybe? Something to do with my Appraisal Skill? With no answers, I push it from my mind and wait for the healer to finish his work.