Maiz woke a little earlier than usual, though he wished he hadn’t. He’d slept about four hours again, and already his eyelids were a little heavy from the accumulated lack of sleep over the last two weeks. If he hadn’t increased his Constitution when he’d ranked up, he suspected that he would have collapsed long ago. As it was, he felt like he'd been through all nine hells and back. Yet he hadn’t skipped a single one of the nightly sessions. He couldn’t afford to rest when he could be learning and training. And it’s nice to be with people who want to talk to you.

Sighing quietly, Maiz stood. Judging from the little window set high in the ceiling, was still dark outside, but he thought there was a faint tinge to the sky, heralding the sun’s rising. Besides, he wouldn’t be able to sleep. Today was the day they entered the Dungeon again.

Changing swiftly, he glanced across a pair of sleeping pallets, and saw that Hugan was looking at him sleepily. Maiz waved, and Hugan half-heartedly did the same. He also stood, motioning for Maiz to wait a moment, and changed, stepping carefully over the other Novices towards the door. They both exited out into the chill of the early morning.

“You ready?” Hugan’s voice had a hint of bleariness, but also his customary excitement.

“I think so.” Maiz didn’t think he sounded as excited as Hugan but at least he was equally groggy.

“Let’s go get some food, we can actually be at the front of the line for once!” Hugan’s enthusiasm rose at this, and Maiz laughed a bit. He didn’t think he’d ever met anyone as in love with food as Hugan, and Maiz himself had nearly starved several times in the service of the Sharir.

They walked out to the training field and to the little building where they kept the bread and water. As they walked, the sun rose in the east over the desert and the bell began to toll, signalling that everyone should have been waking up. But Maiz and Hugan still had a head start on the other melee combatant, and there were only a few white robed Clerics waiting at the door of the building, which appeared to be locked. Maiz looked around, still a bit sleepy, at the landscape. The rising sun cast the sands in scarlet, and the walls surrounding the training ground had a similar hue, darker because of the original gray of the stone itself. Maiz had wondered, initially, why there would be a wall around the compound. But it made a good deal of sense. After all, if you were hostile towards a nation like Corunti, which had a huge army of combatants, including a good share of the world’s Masters, what better target than its young combatants? They were relatively weak, yet vital to the long term power of the country.

“Hi Ziya!” Hugan said, waving a hand and snapping Maiz out of his little reverie.

One of the white robed people turned around, and Maiz quickly saw that it was, in fact, Ziya. The fact that everyone had their hair chopped short in the same style--courtesy of a bored Journeyman Slasher who made rounds of the barracks every few weeks-- made it very difficult to tell people apart from behind, and Maiz was a little surprised that Hugan had managed to notice Ziya so easily.

She nodded at them and waved back, though she didn’t smile. Maiz could still tell she was glad to see them--it was a little warmth in her eyes that he’d become accustomed to seeing over the past weeks. She and Hugan exchanged a few pleasantries, before cutting off abruptly as the training officer walked past them to unlock the food building. After he’d stomped past, bearded face in his customary scowl, they all quickly got their food and ate.

“Now I’m feeling even more ready! Maybe I’ll be able to do my feat today!” They had decided against trying to artificially attempt Hugan’s feat of taking a powerful blow in place of an ally. Lila had claimed that she simply didn’t have a way to hit that hard, and had flatly refused to let Maiz use Flaming Strike, saying it was too dangerous, especially since Hugan was only rank 6 and didn’t need to complete his feat yet.

However, Hugan’s mention of his feat sparked a memory for Maiz. “Hey Ziya, did you decide which god to follow?”

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He almost immediately regretted blurting the words out like that, expecting that he’d been extremely rude. However Ziya simply nodded, and continued answering Hugan’s questions about her Cleric training. Maiz debated pushing the issue and asking which god she’d decided on, but thought he was better off not intruding. Soon, Lila and Sifet joined them, and after the roll call they were running to the Dungeon.

After the training officer’s instruction to make groups, the five of them formed quickly and moved to join the line. “Hells, these guys move quick,” Lila said in a sardonic tone, gesturing at the five groups already in line in front of the Dungeon, apparently eager to go in early.

”Is there an advantage to going first?” Maiz asked, eyeing the first group in line, which contained Hadar, conspicuous due to his size relative to everyone else there.

Lila shrugged. “It’s nice, but only because you get to leave here earlier. We don’t exactly get many days off, otherwise.”

After the time limit for making groups had expired, the training officer cast a baleful eye over the neatly arranged line of groups before nodding. He waved the first group in, crossing his arms afterward in apparent boredom.

Sifet shot the others a nervous smile. “Oh! I forgot to tell you all, I decided to swear my service to Lady Lumia!” He puffed his chest out a bit.

Maiz smiled along with the others. But even as Hugan said “That’s great Sifet!” he frowned internally. So was it not a problem to know a Cleric’s god? Why hadn’t Ziya told him hers then?

The first group came out after the training officer called them, and after another few minutes, the second was sent in. A few minutes into that, Maiz was listening to Hugan and Lila argue good naturedly about the best way to open a fight, when there was a strong gust of wind. The sand billowed up a bit, and Maiz instinctively turned towards the entrance to the Dungeon, where Instructor Hakim was suddenly standing in his red robes.

Maiz frowned. What’s he doing here? Hugan and Lila looked at the three magic-users with them, confused. “Isn’t he the mage trainer?” Lila asked.

Maiz nodded, allowing his confusion to show plainly on his face. But then he watched with rapt attention as the training officer, standing by the cave entrance and looking tense at Hakim’s appearance, suddenly jumped. In a moment, an expression of horror flashed briefly over his face before disappearing behind a mask of forced calm. He stepped forward and yelled down the tunnel, “Out, now! Jiyan, get them out!” In only a few seconds, the second group was running out, one young man being pulled by a woman who had not entered the cave with them. A Journeyman, likely, meant to watch over the Novices.

Without pause, the officer turned back towards the line of Novices, and shouted, “Full sprint to the--”

His voice cut off as a bright flash of light lit up the cave mouth, and then the ground broke. The rock of the cave’s entrance shattered, as did much of the gound behind it, leaving the tiered stone shelf of the Dungeon’s first room open to the air and covered in debris. There was another flash of light, this one emanating from a particularly large patch of rubble, and suddenly the area at the bottom of the shelf was clear of rock, revealing…

“Run!” The officer screamed at them, but Maiz wasn’t certain how many heard him. Certainly, most of the Novices were already running away, but it was near impossible to make out his words over the screams and yells of the terrified young people. Maiz felt strangely calm as he noted the officer’s words, also noticing that Hakim hadn’t moved at all. Then his attention was once again drawn to the creature looking up at them from the bottom of the excavated tunnel.

Golden scales. Wings. Tail. Massive. It felt strange to witness it in real life, but this was undoubtedly a golden dragon, like the stories. Even as Maiz processed the sight, framed by the darkness of the massive hole the dragon had carved in to the wall behind it, the backdrop was disturbed by a rustle of movement. Another flash of gold caught the sun, and suddenly there were two of the massive beasts. Behind the second dragon, a group of humanoids exited and created three ranks behind the dragon. They carrie spears and swords and wore few clothes, exposing much of their scaled skin. Their faces were terrifyingly lizard-like--the cold features of a salamander with the shape of a human. And at their feet, huge scarab-beetles the size of dogs, black and somehow more terrifying than the actual monsters of the Dungeon, began crawling out of the door.

But Maiz barely saw this. Because, amid the chaos and the spectacle of the two dragons and the assorted monsters, he had spotted green letters, plainly visible above the first golden scaled beast’s head. Granor’al’Hankor-Master Golden Dragon.

And another set, much smaller but also much closer to Maiz: Hakim-Master Aeromancer.