“All right, what's the gimmick here?” I muttered to myself in-game later that night. Ariana, Anhe and myself were near the three fortresses in the Phoenix Domain, having come as surreptitiously as we could with Fyu. These particular fortresses were each on a hill; the eastern one was close to the ridges we were hiding ourselves on, the western one was further away near a forest called the Flaming Wood, and the furthest one from us was to the southeast, near what looked like a mine or quarry of some kind. Each of them resembled a small castle in the East Asian style, more on the practical side than the ornate. A crossroads formed somewhat in the middle of them, and there were roadways leading towards each of the three. I could see a wayport near the crossroads itself.

We had been lying low for nearly a half a day in-game, watching for the small caravan that would depart from one fortress to head for the next. It was at the moment of my muttering that we finally saw it depart from the western one near the wood; when it got to the point where the roads met, it turned for the southeast fortress.

“Something's off here.” I noted as I turned to lay on my back, gazing up at the sky.

“Lana?” Anhe asked me curiously.

“They followed the roads exactly. That's not player behavior, that's NPC behavior. Even in this game, NPCs have a tendency to stick to the main pathways unless they're following a player,” I remarked.

“I couldn't detect the artifact in that little caravan either,” Ariana added as she looked over at me. “And I should be able to, considering how high my alchemy skill is.”

The tome in question was “artifact level”, or so we had been told via message upon logging in tonight. Hua Ling was not an unkind employer, it seemed, desiring at least this much of our plan against the Guardians to succeed. So, normal tomes can't be found by this skill Ari has, but tomes that are artifact tomes or something similar can be picked up on by the same passive skill that allows her to identify rare ingredients. There's only so many of these tomes in the world, though, so it's not like people are picking them up willy-nilly -- hence Hua Ling's interest in this one.

“There's ways to make it 'invisible' to that skill though, aren't there?” I asked her.

“A couple, from what I've read.” she nodded back. “The consensus is that making a box or chest out of artifact level wood or metal will nullify the skill.”

“I have read something similar.” Anhe said. “I think some of the ones not yet found are hidden this way.”

“Heh, that'd be a pain,” I grinned wryly.

“No kidding,” Ariana sighed.

I rolled back over onto my stomach, examining the scene before us once again. This time, I zeroed in on the meeting point of the roads. There was a phoenix statue there, made of some fancy-looking stone that had a reddish-orange shimmer to it; there seemed to be fiery red gems in its eyes, and the pedestal upon which it was situated was made of the same stone as the phoenix, with gold symbols or characters filigreed into it.

“Ari, the statue.”

“Got it,” she returned, using Mystic Vision coupled with Seeing Eye to give us a view as well.

“Anhe, is that the in-game script for these regions?” I asked.

“I think it is; though it does look very similar to Mandarin,” she replied to me. “Hmm... it is basically a sign-post indicating which road goes to where, from what I can tell, though it doesn't mention the three fortresses.”

“That stone, though...” Ariana said, scrutinizing it.

“I wonder...” I mused softly. “Stay here and keep an eye out.” I said to them.

“Master?” Fyu said in a soft tone.

“You too, buddy,” I told him.

“As you wish; I shall keep an eye out as well,” the dog-beast blinked, and I nodded back.

I then slipped into the shadows, and hastened as quickly as I dared towards the phoenix statue. Its stone, whatever it was, was definitely high-grade if not artifact level. My gamble at the moment was that the Guardians were going for a psych-out on this one and that the tome was actually buried near the statue somewhere. That made this both easier and harder. Easier, because we didn't have to slip into one of the fortresses; harder, because I was out in the open between the three fortresses.

As I got near to the statue, I began to sense something. One of my passive skills was picking up on possible traps. I turned on Shadow Vision; there were three nasty explosive traps placed around the base of the statue. Any attempt to dig near them and I would be a goner. There was nothing I could do to disable them either.

Tch, magic-traps... I grimaced to myself frustratedly. One way to get rid of them was to do so at range; I could fire an arrow at a safe distance and blow them up without hurting myself. That option was out. I had no doubt there were several active Guardians members hanging out nearby just in case something went screwy around here. I could probably avoid them by going underground somehow, but that might also be more trouble than it was worth.

Unless... I suddenly blinked as I noticed something, and then turned back towards the ridge where my friends were waiting. Struck by a new idea, I headed back to them, reappearing as soon as I got there.

“How's it looking?” Ari asked me.

“Not good; they've got magic-traps around the base of the statue.” I shook my head.

“Lovely.” she frowned wryly.

“Hmm.” Anhe sighed.

“Say... I know your summoning skill isn't as good as Heali's, but you do have it up a bit, right?” I then said, and Ariana blinked back.

“Hm? A little bit, why?” she asked me. I pointed to a small creature that was burrowing into the ground nearby. The girls looked, and Ari smiled at once. “A magma mole, huh?” she said with interest, casting a friendship spell on it and another one that came into her sights.

The two creatures came scurrying up to us; they were definitely larger than real moles, probably around the size of a beagle, and they had flame-red fur. We brought up their tamed status with several bits of incidental food we had gotten along the way here, getting them to halfway domesticated.

“That should be enough to give them simple instructions,” Ariana nodded in satisfaction.

“I have it!” Anhe then said, producing a little rope with a noose she had just crafted.

“Okay, tell them to dig towards the statue, find a box, and drag it back with the rope,” I said.

“Got it!” Ari said as Anhe set the little rope before the two of them. Within moments our two little friends had taken off with it, hurriedly tunneling towards their objective. “You don't think they'll set off the traps, do you?”

“Sallymander never did,” I replied. “Besides, these guys will probably avoid them on instinct as well.”

“Ohh, that's true,” Ari nodded back. “I forgot our salamander friend did that!” she said with a smile.

“The one you told me about from the Marshes?” Anhe asked.

“That's the one!” Ari nodded.

“He sounded so cute!” the other girl returned.

“He was sooo cute.” my partner sighed wistfully.

“True.” I softly grinned.

“It was such a shame that we--ahh! They found something,” Ariana said. “It looks like a flamewood casket with jade-infused iron bindings,” she murmured as she turned on her vision skill to examine it.

“That's gotta be it,” I nodded.

“They're bringing it back; yikes! They just missed that trap...” Ari remarked nervously.

“Oh my,” Anhe softly gasped.

“Come on, little guys, you can do it!” I encouraged them as I tried to keep quiet.

“They're out of the trap's radius now,” Ari sighed in relief. “Should be no other problems now... ahh!” she squeaked.

“Ari?” I turned to her quickly. She looked anxious again.

“I think there's a predator coming up after them,” she said to me.

“Tch!” I fumed as soundlessly as I could.

“Masters, the magma moles of this region do have an enemy in a creature known as the conflagrant serpents,” Fyu told us.

“Oh boy.” I said with a sinking feeling.

“Normally the moles are faster, but you do have them carrying an object near their own weight, I presume,” our friend continued.

“Oh dear,” Anhe said with a sad tone.

“Nrrrgghh...!” I fritzed with my hair, looking at the tunnel our small friends had made. It was probably just big enough. “Ari! The ring!” I quickly said. She looked surprised, but handed me the Ring of the Eternal Child. I slipped it on, shrinking down at once and scurried off with whatever had stayed on me into the tunnel to go and help our magma moles.

“L-Lana,” I heard Anhe's voice faintly giggle as I did so.

“Desperate times,” Ariana quipped.

The tunnel, as I had thought, was just big enough for child-size me to wriggle through. I could definitely hear a hissing sort of sound as I got further and deeper inside it, and the anxious grunting of the moles as they came my way. I dug myself an alcove with Thousand Needle Strike to let them past, and as they hurried by moments later I saw what Fyu had called the conflagrant serpent coming up behind them. Without hesitation I initiated the combo of death that I had picked up from Myanihia, instantly killing it.

I examined the loot quickly, noticing an elite item in the spoils, before I heard another one coming after us. This one followed its friend as soon as it was in range of me, and I found another of the same item in the loot I got from it. Not hearing any other serpents, I hurried out of the tunnel after the magma moles, finding Ari and Anhe sorting out my clothes for me as I emerged from the ground.

“It's the right tome,” Ariana said with a smile.

“Phew,” I said, taking the ring off. As I resumed my normal size, I put one of my tunics on until I could get my regular gear equipped again. Ari handed me my things, and I received them with a faint grin, putting them into inventory as we returned to Fyu with the casket and our two little friends.

“Master, shall we six depart?” Fyu said to me with a twinkle in his eye.

“Hmm? I mean, I guess so,” I remarked.

“Ah! They're completely tamed!” Ariana suddenly noticed.

“Oh! Because we saved them!” Anhe smiled brightly.

“Oh, cool! But anyway, let's get out of here quickly!” I said, and we hurried away from the Phoenix Domain back to our guildhall in Xuanpu.

***

“Wriggles and Scratch, huh?” Healina giggled as Ari introduced our little magma moles later on. We had delivered the casket and its tome to Hua Ling about a game-hour earlier, and she had agreed to help us with our ship-stealing scheme when the time came.

“C-yuute!!” Maryn squealed with delight.

“Right??” Ariana beamed back.

“Though it would've been nice to see Lana as a kid again, too,” Maryn grinned.

“Yeah, yeah...” I waved her off with a grin, and they giggled.

“But seriously; all we have to do now is get that orb, as soon as we have more people on,” Healina then said.

“Anyone from Dreamers coming?” I asked her.

“Der, of course; I think Cylodel is tagging along too.” she replied.

“Oh, the portal mage,” Ari recalled.

“He's gonna be annoyed if you call him that, though,” Heali said with an amused grin.

At that moment, a silhouette began forming; someone was logging in. A few seconds later the familiar form of Elizasmith materialized, clad in her usual mish-mash of heavy armor and casual-wear.

“Whew! Sa-weet fr-eeedooooom!” she exclaimed in a sing-song voice.

“Lizzy!” Heali called happily, running over to give her friend a hug.

“Hee-hee! You're in a good mood!” the blonde girl quipped.

“You too,” the other returned.

“Der should be on soon, too.”

“I figured!”

“Oh, hey girls!” Belle said as she came flying into the room.

“You made it!” I smiled over towards her.

“Yup! Though we won't have Sandra and Myanihia tonight... someone got a little too tipsy tonight!” she grinned.

“Oh no, not again,” I bemusedly grinned, remembering how Christina had been at the movies.

“No no, Sabrina this time.” Belle told us.

“Pffft!” Lizzy chortled.

“Oh wow.” Maryn shook her head, softly smiling.

“M-Myanihia... tipsy...” I briefly wondered to myself, both amazed and weirdly curious.

“Oh! By the way,” Belle continued, “We're coming to opening night. All three of us.” she told me with a mischievous grin.

“Oh, thanks,” I replied. Ariana suddenly grinned at me slyly, and I blinked. Then it hit home. “HUH?!?”

“What a delayed reaction,” Heali giggled.

“Dork.” Lizzy chortled beside her.

“Looks like you'll have some interesting conversations in a few weeks,” Ari patted my head as an unintelligible squeal wafted out of my lips.

“The last people to find out were you and Sandra, right?” Maryn said to Belle.

“And that was only a couple months ago; you'd think Lana would be used to it by now,” Belle replied to her.

“She does get buried in the part.” Anhe softly smirked, petting one of our new animal friends.

“At least it's her and not Jo. Myanihia will probably accept you at this point; Joanna would wring your neck.” Lizzy remarked, coming over to ruffle my hair.

“Hyeck!?”

“Now, now. Don't scare her.” Heali chided. Then she blinked. “We really have buried Lana in the part, haven't we?” she grinned.

“Right?” Lizzy beamed back. “Come on, leader! Let's get our girl-power going!” she patted my shoulder heartily.

“Hrrmm... where were we going again?” I asked.

“It's Caer Gwynt, isn't it?” Maryn asked.

“That's the place,” Heali nodded. “Oh, there's Der! I'll send him a meet-up point,” she smiled, and with that we got ourselves geared up to head out on our next adventure.

We assembled our dungeon-group at a wayport near Caer Gwynt, and found that Cloveroak, one of Dreamers' regular party leaders, had come along as well. His character was a Changeling Sage, and his claim to fame was that he had advanced so far up into the Nature's Harmony trees of his sage and changeling skills that he could basically be a weretree, or “wereoak”, as he liked to jest. Cylodel, the quietest of the three, gave us a nod as we met up.

“I hope we don't need your friend for this one.” he commented dryly.

“Ah-heh, I don't think he'd fit in the dungeon,” I laughed back. I got a nod in reply.

“All right; you said you thought you had it narrowed down, yes?” Derwydd asked his girlfriend.

“I'm pretty sure now,” Healina replied, materializing out her notes. “It says, 'by the fastness of wind you shall enter on the sun's descent into the gloaming valley rilled by mists; there you shall find the door by the gnarled oak'.”

“Gloaming valley rilled by mists...” Derwydd pondered. “That sounds like Glynniwl, the Vales of Twilight just northeast of Caer Gwynt.”

“Which is the fastness of wind.” I added.

“Exactly.” he said. “And it sounds like we'll have to enter it from the western side.”

“Not when the sun goes down?” Cloveroak wondered.

“Hmm... that's what I thought when I heard it,” Lizzy agreed.

“We barely have time for that; if we're gonna aim for sunset we have to go now.” I said, and the others nodded.

“We should head for the western edge of the vales just in case, too.” Ariana remarked.

“Agreed.” Derwydd nodded. “All right, team, let's go!” he said, and we made out way quickly to the western side of the Vales of Twilight.

Just as the sun was about to disappear over the horizon, we reached the location in question. Nothing special happened to clue us in as some of us had thought, but hey, better safe than sorry. We then descended into the foggy vale, taking care not to fall into the rills and brooks that crisscrossed the place, weaving around the trees and other flora that flourished here. In some places there were built bridges, in others there were incidental ones or even shallows that we could ford, but overall we could not go ten meters without water somewhere around our feet.

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In the heart of the vales we encountered a light marsh. Every strand of running water was running into it, almost making it more of a large pond than a marsh. It was the kind of place that reminded me of places near my grandparent's old home way out in the country. Frogs and crickets were in full choir, and I could hear owls hooting or screeching in the darkness.

“Wouldn't you know the gnarled oak is on that eyot in the marsh?” Healina sighed as she pointed into the distance.

Illuminated by just enough moonlight, we could see a giant among oaks further out in the marsh, seated like an ancient king upon his grassy throne above the wetlands it presided over. It reminded me of the Grandfather Oak in the park.

“How deep is it?” Maryn wondered. Cylodel took his staff, dipping it in the water until his forearm was getting soaked.

“Deep.” he replied unceremoniously.

“Deep?? Mate, your staff is two meters!” Cloveroak quipped back at once. The other sighed, and, placing his hand on his guildmate, whisked the two of them over to the eyot.

“Oh yeah!” Ariana snapped her fingers, doing the same with me at once. After a minute, the two of them had teleported the rest of our group there, and then we began investigating the area around the gnarled oak.

“By the oak, huh,” Lizzy scratched her head, looking at the thing. “I wonder if it's not the oak itself.”

“Maybe,” Heali allowed with a nod. “I'm not exactly sure, but the word I read could be interpreted to mean 'in' as opposed to 'by'.”

“Well, Clover, you're up.” I then said, and he nodded back, attuning himself to the nature around us. In a few moments he released his skill, heading over to another side of the oak, where he tapped the trunk three times. A hidden door swung inward, revealing a descending passage.

“And, here we go...” Derwydd remarked as he led the way. I followed after him with Ari and Heali, and the others filed behind us as we headed down into the dungeon below the marsh.

***

Just as soon as we had gotten to the end of the passage there was a room before us with twenty-four floor tiles arranged in a rectangular fashion, each tile with a symbol upon it. Several tiles had the same one, and I could see at once that ten of them led in a roundabout way to the other side.

“It says here to 'follow the dragon and do not deviate, even for gain',” Healina read as we observed the scene before us.

“So no skipping on that one over there where it doubles back near the end.” I noted to myself.

“Not as simple as it looked, huh?” Ariana said.

“Nope.” our healer softly grinned.

We crossed this room with no trouble at all, and then continued down two more flights of stairs to another room of the same -- except that no two tiles in this room were alike. And there were a lot more of them this time.

“I-isn't that over twice as many tiles?” Belle asked with a bemused smile.

“Fifty.” Cylodel stated.

“Should we just skip it with our two mages?” Derwydd looked over at me.

“I want to say yes, but let's look at something first...” I returned, touching Ari on the shoulder. “You have that one skill like mine now, right? To detect certain kinds of traps?”

“Arcane Seeker,” she nodded back, activating it. She gazed around the room for a few moments, frowning. “I don't see anything, but it's also not a high-level skill for me,” my partner reported.

“Wait! I've got it!” Healina then exclaimed. “These tiles are not alike, but they are sequential. We just have to traverse them in the proper order,” she told us, confidently heading out onto the first one. She smiled as nothing happened, and continued on the path that she had determined from putting together the clues in her tome. We followed her carefully, making sure to step exactly where she had stepped, and reached the other side in safety.

“Phew,” I sighed in relief.

“Good one, Heali!” Lizzy beamed, and the other girl smiled back. We then heard a low growl. I slipped into the shadows and went to look ahead.

At the other end of the curved passage ahead of us, there was yet another room with tiles. This one, however, was broken up by a center where a large, white hound with red eyes was situated. That's at least the first boss or I'm a hauflin, I noted to myself at once, and then blinked in surprise.

“That's a cŵn annwn!” I remarked aloud as Derwydd reached my side. He whistled in awe as I deactivated my stealth, admiring the beast before us.

“So it is!” he said with interest.

“Tiles. Why? Why are there more tiles?” Lizzy grumbled.

“Shush and I'll figure it out,” Healina softly jabbed her.

“It's pretty, if also scary-looking,” Ariana said as she came to stand with me, observing the Hound of the Otherworld, and I nodded.

“All right,” Healina then said, and we turned to her. “It's not unlike the room we just left, where we have to step on them in a sequence--but here's the tricky part: there's ten sequences. Look at the room here; there's an outer edge with no tiles like the center the boss is in. Some of us will have to stand out there; Ari, Cylodel, Clover, Der, myself, and possibly Lana. The other half of the group will have to maneuver towards the center by the first sequence to reach the boss and start the fight.”

“What about the other nine sequences?” Cloveroak asked her.

“The next eight of them seem to activate different debuffs or DoTs on the boss to help us defeat him, and the tenth is for the center team to reach the exit safely.” Healina told us as she read the tome carefully.

“Belle can move about safely, right?” I asked.

“She's probably the only one who can,” Heali smiled, and Belle grinned.

“Pixie power for the win!” she declared, and we laughed. Well, Cylodel doesn't really laugh, but he cracked a grin, at least.

“What's the order for the tiles, Heali?” Lizzy then wondered.

“For the melee group to reach the boss, it says 'follow the hound'.” the reply came.

“Got it.” Maryn nodded.

“Maryn, take the melee group when you're ready,” I told her, and she gave me a sword-salute.

“How should we arrange the ranged group?” Healina asked me.

“By best partners, of course,” I winked back, and Ariana smiled as the two of us headed around the room for the far end while she grinned back.

“I guess that means you're stuck with me.” she said to Derwydd, taking his hand.

“Looking forward to a good fight, Cy!” Cloveroak thumped his guildmate on the back.

“Sure.” the other returned as they headed to one of the other sides. Maryn led the others to the center then, and our first real battle began.

The first three attempts for our tile-manipulating were rocky, but by the time we got to the second sequence we had managed to pull ourselves together. We quickly learned that if we goofed, it did not immediately backfire on us but gave us a three-tile warning: if we stepped on three more wrong tiles after our first goof, a poison mist would rise up. Healina had since identified a reset tile, which had a cauldron upon it, so that if we goofed again in the heat of the moment we could just jump to that one and start over. Well, Belle was the one who did it the most, being the most maneuverable here.

Anyhow. One by one, we knocked out the sequences for the tiles, and each time we did so the boss got weaker. He also got smaller. At the start of the fight he had been at least larger than Fyu; by the time we got to finishing him off he was maybe the size of a fox, but still feisty. Maryn finished him off with a flourish of her blade, and a mournful howl sounded as the cŵn annwn boss went up in pixels and flames. She then led her group carefully towards the exit while the rest circled around the edge, and we collected our winnings from that first fight.

“On to the next, then,” Derwydd said. We passed through a door that had now been unlocked, and entered the second part of the dungeon.

Before we had stepped too far into the next room I held up my hand for the others to stop at once, and I turned on Shadow Vision. I frowned; the room was covered with spike traps and vents where fumes might pour in.

“Any way around them?” Ariana asked, guessing from my expression that we had trouble ahead of us.

“It's very narrow.” I replied.

“Narrow, huh?” she remarked.

“There's no way we can avoid all of them, but we can definitely pick our poison, if you know what I mean.” I said.

“Lovely.”

“Lana's right; there's no choice but to pick which traps we set off here,” Healina reported as she closed the tome. “I'm guessing you want to go with the ones we can actually resist?”

“Between your skills, Cloveroak's, and Anhe's auras, we should definitely be fine.” I told her.

“I will activate them now,” our staff-wielder nodded back.

“Turning on Forest's Ward,” Cloveroak said.

“And I'll keep some HoTs on us, along with Shielding Grace,” Healina added.

“Let's go,” I then said.

Making sure to step only on the traps that set off the fumes and such, we hastened as fast as we dared across that room. It wasn't as hard as I thought it might be, but the end almost tripped us up a bit. Right at the last moment, Lizzy of all people stumbled into one of the traps that activated the wall-spikes. Cloveroak quickly grabbed her and yanked her into the small hallway that bridged the trap room with the next as she lightly yiped with a rare panic.

“Good grief! Thanks for that,” she said in a more relieved tone moments later.

“No probs.” the other grinned back.

“Now what's this one?” Derwydd sighed as he looked ahead. There was water falling down from the ceiling into a deep chasm that took up most of the room before us, except for two very narrow ledges on either side.

“At least there's no tiles,” Belle remarked.

“Or traps.” I said as I scanned the room with my skill.

“This one we can cheat on, right?” Maryn asked.

“Let's try it.” Ariana said, placing her hand on my shoulder as she activated a teleport. Or tried to, anyway. “Huh??” she said a moment later.

“Ahh. Nullstone.” Cylodel nodded as he touched the walls.

“Boo!” my partner sighed.

“No magic in this room, huh?” Derwydd sighed.

“Apparently not.” Belle remarked from the floor. I knelt down to pick her up, and she then situated herself on my shoulder as I stood back up.

“I forgot your flying is regarded as magic,” I said with a faint grin.

“Tee-hee!” she grinned back. “Careful now, chick; I know your agility's good, but that's a looong way down if we slip.”

“Hahh,” I grimaced, heading for the ledge on the right.

“I wonder...” Ari then mused, making her way for the left one.

“Hmm? Oh, I get it,” I nodded back to her as we coordinated stepping on to the ledges.

“Aw, you beat me to it,” Healina wryly grinned as she and Derwydd did the same after us.

“Aren't we going to be short a pair?” Maryn called up to us.

“Ah! I can fix that!” Belle cried out, hopping from person to person back to the other side as I reached our goal. A few tense minutes later we had all arrived safely, and headed around a corner to another tricky room.

“Light-beams. Why'd it have to be light-beams?” I sighed, plomping down as I watched the narrow beams of light rotating in a tight sequence around the room to catch unwary intruders.

“Now, now. We beat something similar in that one temple a few months ago, we can get through this.” Healina chided softly as she looked through the tome again.

“Woof.” I softly groaned.

“Oh, this one's easy; all we have to do is find the reflection crystals and destroy them.” she said a moment later.

“Crystals... got it.” Cloveroak said with a nod, transforming himself into his “wereoak” form while activating a detection skill. After a few moments he began extending his roots into the room carefully, and snuffed out the crystals one by one. When the light-beams had stopped, he resumed his more human look, grinning in satisfaction.

“Niiice.” I remarked as I got to my feet again.

“Show-off.” Cylodel quipped as we proceeded, and we all laughed once more.

There were no monsters or traps for the next several minutes of our dungeon-raiding, but the passages did wind around and around as well as up and down for what seemed like forever until they finally led to another room. This one had the next boss, which was not unlike the first one except it was a black hound this time.

“Gwyllgi this time, huh?” Derwydd said with a faint grin.

“Hmm,” I said quietly, getting my bow ready again.

“No tricks here; it's a straight fight.” Healina told us.

“Then let's get fighting!” Lizzy crowed, and with Maryn, she led the charge against the second boss.

Since there were no tricks coming from the dungeon, I decided to employ one of my own, disappearing into the shadows to unleash that now infamous one-shot combo, taking the second boss down mere moments after the fight had begun. Lizzy blinked in confusion for a moment before espying me and letting out a sigh.

“You're no fun.” she quipped.

“I want to hurry and get this dumb orb!” I retorted, and the others grinned at each other.

“It's not going anywhere!” the blonde Nordian returned as we headed into the next section of the dungeon.

“The competition is!” I hurriedly reminded her.

“Yeah, but--okay, point for you.” the conceding reply came.

“Now let's hurry before--” I started to say, only to be grabbed from behind and held in place by Derwydd, who was looking ahead intently as I looked up at him. “Der?” I asked him.

“Lana, look!” he said in a quiet but intense voice. I looked; there was a ghostly figure of mists in the chamber ahead of us. “This whole dungeon has Cymric creatures running around it; that one is Brenin Llwyd, and he seems to have allies with him. They look like... Morgens,” he said to me as he let go, patting my shoulder as an apology.

“Tch!” I scolded myself for almost running headlong into the room. “Water spirits, huh?”

“Ice.” Cylodel intoned.

“Good idea,” Ariana nodded back. “We can try trapping them in ice so that the rest of you can actually do some damage to them.”

“Sounds like a plan!” Maryn smiled.

“I'll try lowering their resistances as well,” Belle said.

“And I will do the same, and also bolster our magic damage,” Anhe added.

“Go, team, go!” I grinned, and with our attack plan thus loosely (but hopefully effectively) outlined, we began the fight.

And within the first five seconds, we learned that the side-monsters our mages were hoping to encase in ice were immune to ice, and they loved to move around. That had us scrambling for a bit. Healina and Derwydd quickly focused on defensive and protection skills, as did Anhe, while the rest of us prodded our enemies to try and figure out their weaknesses. After about two minutes, we had discovered that they had a rotating debuff-slash-buff on them; it raised their resistance to a certain damage-type to immunity while lowering another into the negative, leaving their other resistances at a medium high of sixty-five percent.

“Bleehh!!” Lizzy angrily sighed when we figured it out.

“Our plan does not change very much here!” Anhe then called out. “All we have to do is keep an eye out for what they are weak to!”

“Exactly!” Heali smiled in agreement.

“How long does that skill last?” Maryn asked quickly.

“It seems to change at least every forty seconds or so,” Cloveroak noted for us. “However, there is one type of skill that none of them are immune to, not even the boss!” he grinned, changing into what he called a wereoak again and using his roots to, well, root our enemies in place.

“Ha-ha, that'll keep them still!” Derwydd said with glee. “Right, they're weak to fire now -- go!” he then called. Those of us who had fire-skills or skills that could be used with fire activated them, while Belle and Anhe bolstered the skills with a damage and critical-chance bonus.

“Hitting them where it hurts speed that up, huh?” I said as I watched the skill change to another buff-debuff combo.

“Ice!” Derwydd called. He, Ariana, and Cylodel unleashed a torrent of ice-skills upon the minions; this sort of thing went on for another three minutes, and then we were finally rid of the Morgens.

The boss, meanwhile, had been taking most of our incidental hits to him in stride; he was not immune to anything, but he had superbly high resistances, especially to physical damage. Maryn forced his attention onto her when we were rid of his allies, and he began to attack in earnest. He seemed fairly strong from the sound of the blows that rained down on Maryn's shield, but he could not drive her back or maneuver her out of his way. Meanwhile, I heard Ariana's voice chanting some semi-familiar words. They were the words that had literally spelled doom for a certain group of hobgoblin chieftains a few weeks before.

“Ahh... Ari?” I hesitantly laughed. “Y-you sure about using that down here...?”

There was no response except the continuation of her chanting. Finally she swung her staff in the direction that opened the Abyssal Portal of Doom. Maryn saw it opening behind the boss she was fighting, and bashed him with her shield to disorient him just long enough so that he practically did a backwards jump into the portal. Out of the corner of my eye I could see Cloveroak, Derwydd, and even the normally impassive Cylodel gaping and gazing with disbelief, their eyes about ready to pop out of their heads.

Never saw it until now, huh? I wryly grinned to myself at their reactions. The fight, of course, ended with that, and a chest of loot awaited us near the door to the next part of the dungeon. Cylodel gave Cloveroak a slap, and Cloveroak returned the favor.

“Not going crazy, huh?” the sage remarked.

“N-no, guess not,” Cylodel returned.

“You may think Lana's the crazy one here,” Lizzy said as she put her arms around the both of them, “But we're all crazy in our own special way.”

“G-got it,” Cylodel nodded.

“Ha-hah,” Cloveroak grinned sheepishly.

“What are you gaping at?” Healina said to Derwydd. “You should be used to this by now.”

“G-give me a break,” he laughed nervously as we collected our loot and moved on.

***

We fought our way through more of the water spirits again, except this time they were champion level. I took that as a signal that we were close to the last boss. Then, after a curved passage, we entered a room nearly filled with pressure-plates. Cylodel used his staff to test one out, finding that it set off several banks of wall-darts. Carefully, we made our way through the plates, managing not to activate a single one of them. Then we had another room of light-beams, which Cloveroak again disabled for us. And finally, we found the door to the boss room, which was a challenge in and of itself. It was a puzzle door.

“Oh boy.” I sighed, sitting down to let others figure it out.

“All-righty,” Healina said in a more upbeat tone than mine as she came to investigate, tome in hand. “It's a series of dials; it looks like they want us to orient them so that they tell a story, or rather seven stories. I'm guessing the theme is 'stories adapted from Celtic Mythos', judging from the dungeon's location and some of the scenes I'm seeing here.”

“It is Bretony.” Maryn shrugged, nodding back.

“Don't count on me too much. Knowing the actual stories doesn't mean I totally get their renditions in-game.” Derwydd said.

“I wasn't going to ask.” his girlfriend smiled. “The stories are all in here, after all.” she continued, flipping through the tome.

“So much details and history for all these dungeons and such...” Cloveroak scratched his head.

“Right?” Ari nodded as she sat next to me. “You tired?” she asked me in a quieter voice.

“Ehh, not really.” I shook my head. “Just getting a funny feeling about something.”

“Hmm,” she returned, laying her head on my shoulder. A few moments later we heard a click, followed by six others, and then the door began receding into the walls. “Here we go.” Ari said softly as we stood up, and I nodded back.

Inside the room was a bent, hooded figure with a twisted staff in one hand. Surrounding the figure were nine diminutive creatures that looked like goblins. I saw Derwydd tense up at once, and Maryn got her shield ready. At the far end of the room, in an alcove near the ceiling, I could see the object of our quest, the Wind Orb.

“There's a spell around that alcove.” Ariana reported as we took stock of the room.

“I figured,” I nodded back. “A cauldron, huh?” I then noticed. There was a great black cauldron with decorative imagery emblazoned upon it. Or was it a story?

“Oh, snap, I bet that's a cauldron of rebirth!” Derwydd remarked. That was something even I was aware of; in the ancient legends, that cauldron was used to bring dead warriors back to life, though in some stories it also got destroyed.

“I doubt we'll be able to destroy it all at once, though,” I remarked aloud as my thoughts continued.

“Hm.” he nodded back in agreement. “But we should aim to do so anyway.”

“So what are the monsters here?” Heali then asked.

“That's a gwyllion; they're a witch, a hag, and I bet it's got all sorts of nasty skills. This one has... well, they're goblins. Coblynau in the original, if you like.” he replied.

“Defense first, offense later?” Cloveroak remarked.

“I'd say.” Derwydd nodded.

“We'll go with that strategy.” I agreed.

“Well then, time to pixie up!” Belle declared, casting her defensive magics on us as we slowly entered the room. The gwyllion looked up with a nasty smile that only grew wider as we entered the room and the door shut behind us.

“Welcome... welcome! To your doom, mortals!” she said, and then cackled in that iconic and stereotypical witch's cackle that no game or horror film with witches is ever complete without.

***

Okay. So it was a mostly hard fight. The cauldron regenerated one-percent of its health every ten seconds after being damaged. When we did so, two of the goblins would immediately rush over to carry it around the room while their fellows rushed in to keep us at bay. And in the meantime, every time we killed one of them it was quickly placed in the cauldron to come back just as new. Finally, Cylodel unleashed a stun spell on them, and Derwydd changed to werebear, which froze Maryn up for a moment but in that moment he completely wrecked the cauldron, batting it like it was a pillow and smashing it against the wall, where it burst into countless pieces and disappeared.

Then the goblins went into frenzy mode, but that didn't help them very much because Cloveroak. I know that's not exactly proper English, but they guy became a wereoak again and literally strangled them to death after catching them all with his roots and branches.

After that, the gwyllion, who had raised an immunity shield at the start of the fight and only cast a fireball now and then while her minions did most of the work suddenly abandoned her own defenses and went on the attack. That fireball-every-minute thing was about an eight, but now she'd dialed up to eleven and counting. Very quickly Healina and Cloveroak began casting anti-fire spells and shield-wards to keep us safe while Anhe activated two of her auras, one for defense and one to reflect damage. It was at this point I really wished Ariana had saved that Abyssal Portal spell; and when I wryly grinned to her at one point of the fight she returned the look, as if softly agreeing with my unspoken comment.

Then Cylodel, apparently inspired by the earlier incident, opened a portal underneath the gwyllion. Her eyes bugged out in surprise, and with a shriek she fell into it. We gaped or blinked in shock for a few moments, and then turned towards him.

“W-where did you...?” Healina hesitantly asked him.

“The exit portal... was over a volcano.” he replied calmly.

“Un-dirtyword-believable.” Lizzy grinned, shaking her head.

“Y-you teleported... th-the dungeon's boss... into a volcano?!” I stammered out. “You can do that?!”

“Apparently.” he shrugged. “I only tried it just now.” he remarked as the orb's protective field came down.

“Hahh... and you think we're nuts.” Maryn quipped.

“Whose bad influence do you think gave me that idea?” he returned with a dry wit, raising an eyebrow at her.

“Let's get our prize and go.” I then said with a laugh, and Belle flew up to get the orb while the rest of us collected our winnings from the final chest. We stepped through the exit portal to the entrance just outside the dungeon, and there I found a substance to the funny feeling I had gotten earlier.

Standing before us was Melody, the Blade.