Everyone had their own business to tie up. Derrick and Hanna had a marriage ceremony, so we all had to attend that. Then Tyler and Akari got married too, seemingly on the spur of the moment. Lilith began the process of arranging our equipment for travel. We smoked meat, cheese, stored dozens of simple meals and complex ones. Bobbi helped some, so Lilith created a ration plan that would ensure our core combat group would be able to maintain the buff from eating her delicious meals.

Morgan and I spent hours every day in the market, drilling traveling peddlers for information on the current state of the North. We spent a lot of pocket money on loosening the lips of the guards and caravan workers, but the most we could find out was Argarg’s conquest had stalled out in his attempt to conquer the Pine Grove, a group of druids who’s grove could cut off weeks of much more treacherous paths through a small mountain range that the caravanners argued over the name of. Some called them the Pinecrest Peaks, while others called them the Fircrest Mountains.

Lilith and I knew that Winona was sheltered from the barbarity and incivility of a broader, young, world, but we hadn’t realized by how much. The descriptions of towns other than Winona were terrible. Morgan nodded along to those descriptions, as if they verified everything they’d seen first hand on the journey to Winona.

Thanks to the System inventory, logistics planning came down to making sure we had everything before we left. Extra clothes, extra tents, bed rolls, weapons, potions, and warm socks. Lacking any kind of rideable animals, we ran into a spot of luck in our planning.

“I’ll take you as far as the Serpent’s Maw. You planned to level up there, right?” Arkaziel offered.

“You will? That’s awesome, thanks!” Lilith praised Arkaziel, and I echoed her sentiments.

“It makes sense. You kids need to level up before you try and take Argarg on. He was level thirty-five when I flew over his camp last year.”

“You flew over his camp and didn’t blow it to hell?” I asked in confusion.

“You’d already vowed that was your goal, it’d be rude to steal my nephew’s prey.” Arkaziel dismissed it with a wave of his hand. I grinned at my uncle. He seemed proud of us for chasing big prey.

“That means we need to reach at least level thirty to stand a chance against him,” Lilith mused.

“That was last year, you should aim for forty.” Arkaziel corrected Lilith and got a glare from her in return for his reasonable suggestion. “Argarg isn’t alone. He has a cadre of loyal followers and an army of the souls of those he’s slain, who are spectral slaves under his command.”

“Will Serpent’s Maw get us to level forty?” I frowned. Megadungeons weren’t something either Lilith or I had any experience with. We’d only been exposed to small impromptu dungeons, and even the trials we had undergone were relatively small ones.

“Well…” Arkaziel thumbed his chin. “There’s six layers of the Serpent’s Maw. If you clear all six layers, you should be very close. If you manage to trigger some internal quests, you could emerge very close to forty. Knowing you two, you’ll stumble into quests.”

“Are you serious? Twenty levels from one dungeon?” I had struggled to get one level over the last year. Well. I hadn’t struggled that hard. Or at all. Idle hands made no progress, and for some reason any training I did with mom had never given me level progress, where training I did with anyone else did, but Telos had been my nearly singular combat trainer. Sun Wukong had given me attribute increases and ability growth, but if he had given me experience it hadn’t been enough to level.

“Megadungeon,” Arkaziel answered simply.

“I don’t suppose you could share any of the secrets that would help us unlock extra bonuses in the Maw? With your mastery of shadows, surely you know a thing or two about it?” Lilith tried to lure Arkaziel with an ego fluffing, and he took the bait.

“On the first level there’s a secret Hydra boss, on the second there’s a secret vault, and on…” Arkaziel went on to describe several secret encounters and how to unlock them. None of the things he described seemed that well-hidden, so even though Lilith had victory in her eyes, I felt like Uncle Arkaziel was playing her for a fool this once. No way we’d miss any of the things he talked about. I vowed to keep my eyes open in the Maw. If I found even one hidden encounter of my own that’d be a victory.

Ω

“Damn, how far can you teleport?” Morgan exclaimed when we appeared at the base of the Serpent’s Maw Mountain. The entire mountain looked like huge snake coiled on itself, with its open maw jutting out to lunge at some prey.

“Well, here you go kids. Good luck!” Arkaziel ruffled my hair and gave Lilith a kiss on the cheek. “Stay safe,” he added, before he flowed back into the shadows. Like that, he was gone.

This story has been taken without authorization. Report any sightings.

“How many days travel did he just save us?” Akari asked.

“Twelve,” Lilith answered without hesitation.

“How rude,” Morgan grumbled. “Arkaziel is the least doting mentor I’ve ever heard of.”

Our party consisted of myself, Lilith, Aisha, Morgan, Cassius, Tyler, and Akari. Derrick had withdrawn at the last minute, his newly wed life mixed with Aisha already coming with us had left Aisha’s family pressuring both of them to stay, but Aisha hadn’t given in, and remained adamant she’d stay at Lilith’s side. It was the seven of us against the Serpent’s Maw, and ideally, Argarg the Barbarian after that.

“Where’s the path up?” I asked Tyler.

“The stone says that way,” the dwarf pointed to the east.

“The wind spirits agree,” Cassius murmured.

“I’ve got a map,” Lilith reminded us all with an acerbic tone, and me she actually smacked with the rolled up map. “The path to the summit should be relatively clear, with only some minor threats from wildlife. According to the traders there’s very little spill out of monsters from the Maw. Alexander, Akari, you’re the scouts, take the point. Tyler, Cassius, you’re the rear. Let us know if the stone or spirits change their tune. Aisha, Morgan, you’re in the middle with me.”

“Why am I in the middle?” Morgan bristled a little.

“Because Akari is a scout with abilities in detection, traps, and locks, and a melee only fighter. You’re a melee-ranged hybrid who can protect Aisha or I long enough for support to engage. Or would you rather enter the shadows, and emerge as a surprise element?”

“The latter,” Morgan demurred after only a moments hesitation. Morgan jumped into my shadow, I noticed. Hopefully those two would stop clashing over the course of this adventure.

Quest Received: Reach the Summit to enter the Serpent’s Maw.

Optional Quest: Retrieve the Serpent’s Eyes of Fire and eliminate the thieves.

“The Serpent’s Eyes of Fire?” I asked out loud.

“You can’t see them from here,” Morgan answered first. “But above the Maw there’s two caverns, each with a huge fire in them that looks like eyes. Or should be, if someone hadn’t stolen them.”

“Anything from the spirits?” Lilith asked Cassius.

“I’m asking. Spirits are talkative,” Cassius sighed.

I watched Lilith tap her foot for a ten count, and when no one came up with even an idea of where these Eyes of Fire might be she rolled her eyes.

“Oh Inferno, Mistress of Flames, Guide me to the Eyes of Fire!” Lilith always spoke with clear enunciation, but when she used her class magic it felt like her words hit reality in a different way. The sank through your brain, and made you imagine a woman composed of intense red flames. Inferno, as far as I could tell, was an Elemental Lady of the Plane of Fire, and quite the looker if you were into sentient flames.

Two embers that produced no heat appeared around Lilith, and each released small streams of dying fire that lead in the same direction, to the back side of the mountain.

“At least both eyes seem to be in the same place,” Lilith said happily. Cassius looked a little annoyed she stole his time to shine, but also a little relieved. The spirits must be particularly chatty here.

“Thanks for saving us time, Lilith. The spirits haven’t talked to many humans before in this place, and they’re.. well, a handful.”

“Relying on others is always a challenge,” Lilith agreed with him, but I wish she’d done it in a way that didn’t have a barb. Everyone seemed to ignore it though, except Morgan.

“Funny, I was just thinking the same thing.” Morgan said with wide smile at Lilith.

“Less talk, more walk,” I said while I swapped my active Kinesis to an eye-catching pink. As I assumed it would, the flash of pink caught everyone’s attention and distracted them momentarily. My psychic Kinesis was very eye catching, but it allowed me to sense sapient creatures in a very wide area. Not all monsters were sapient, but it still felt like the most useful Kinesis to have active for searching for thieves.

“I’ve never seen pink before, what’s that one?” Tyler asked, helping me change the flow of conversation. Tyler, like me, liked when people were nice to each other.

“Psychic.” I answered honestly.

“You even have mind powers? Your class is so broken, dude.” Tyler laughed. “You can’t read my mind, can you?”

“Nope, the beard must act as a deterrent.” I joked.

“No telepathy, just general manipulation of psychic energies.” I lied. No one needed to know if I could catch extra loud thoughts with this Kinesis active, or if I touched them I could chose to be more intrusive. Kallos had sat me down one day to talk about soul and mind powers, and how they were mistrusted by others. Some day I’d tell the others about the more questionable powers I had, but for now it was better to just lie about what I could do.

“Then why even switch to it?” Morgan wondered.

“The big upside to psychic Kinesis is I can sense sapient life at a long range. Great for searching for thieves, I’m hoping, especially with these motes of flame guiding us. Let’s get to walking for real. I don’t think any of us want to have to camp on the mountain tonight, do we?”

“Dwarves don’t camp on mountains, we camp in them,” Tyler groused in an offended voice.

“Really?” Akari asked.

“This dwarf doesn’t, anyway.” Tyler amended.

The motes of fire led them on a direct path. Morgan created constructs of darkness for us to cross ravines or made easier ways to ascend to ledges. Cassius kept getting distracted by shiny rocks he added to his inventory. Akari killed a rabbit with fangs after it tried to ambush her, she insisted we’d have it for dinner, but I wondered about the wisdom of eating a demon rabbit.

For an hour we followed the embers of Lilith’s spell. Shortly after, dozens of minds appeared to my psychic senses, and I held up a hand to stop. I for some reason expected to find a cave, but that wasn’t what waited around the next bend at all.

“How many?” Lilith asked me.

Optional Quest updated. Retrieve the Serpent’s Eye of Fire and kill all 27 orcs.

“Orcs?” Tyler asked with a confused face, before the number of enemies sank in. Seven vs twenty-seven was fair, right?

“We’ve got the advantage of surprise, at least.” I said.

That’s when a war horn blew, the sound exploding across the slopes of Serpent’s Maw, and echoing everywhere.

“Somehow, this is your fault,” Lilith grumbled at me while she prepared to fight.