The group that Dan and the others “rudely interrupted”, as they had continued to put it, were called The Ashes. All four of them had been brought up together since they were young and called themselves an adventuring party. Born and raised in the labyrinth city of Allusia, they were genuinely curious about what life was like on the surface.

The group was composed of four eclectic powerhouses. Dan could feel their mana in the same way that he felt Raffyal’s in the room of waydoors. Their presence ignited Dan’s mana in a way that put him on edge, waiting for someone to take offense, but the effect seemed automatic.

The blue skinned male was a demon, or majaal as they prefer to be called. Dan had never met one before, despite the close proximity between their harsh and barren lands and the lush Guan territory. He named himself Shazaar when introductions began to be made. At his hip was a blade and on his arm a shield. Both were a dull grey, but when they caught the light, had a green sheen. His eyes were terrifying and striking, the white of his eye and iris colour a pitch black. His iris was a star of white by comparison, and his gaze was as piercing as any Dan had experienced.

Wearing a hood that stuck up high was the only other majaal of their group. With ruddy red skin, and spindly, uncomfortable looking limbs Endun towered over the gathering when at his full height, but he seemed more comfortable when below eye level. He wore a leather armour that also had a strange shine to it, as well as a belt of knives around his chest that caught Dan’s eye.

Calliope, the large elf woman named herself with a large smile. Gregarious, she broke the icy tension which Shazaar had seemed happy to let fester. While the blue majaal seemed more than happy to let Fa Lian get angrier and angrier, Calliope had stepped between them and expressed interest in the Dragon Bo as she was carrying a staff weapon of her own, though her double sided halberd somehow seemed more destructive than the literal dragon Fa Lian carried at her side.

Once Dan saw the dark brown wood glint with a purple light, he felt he understood what was happening. Each of these items were magical, but unlike the ones which Dan and his friends carried, something was blocking his sight from analysing them. Is this an effect of the shell that Rafyall had mentioned? Dan wondered without knowing how to ask.

“It’s… sky? All the time?” Grier asked Hyun Soon. The final member of their group, Grier was evidently the healer and support based cog in their well oiled machine. He had taken to Hyun Soon quickly after seeing Rise and Ruin. Upon hearing that they had met another dwarf, Raffyal, Grier became even more interested.

“Pretty much, except if you go inside.” Hyun answered, nodding wisely.

Leaving that conversation alone, lest he interrupt them during an epiphany, Dan chuckled and looked around. His mana senses could feel the traces of blood in the sand and dirt at his feet. Combined with the imposing stands surrounding them, their small jovial gathering was slightly disquieting. The fact that Shazaar, the light blue-skinned swordsman, hadn’t stopped staring at him did not help. Dan, for his part, was pretending he couldn’t see and was attempting to follow whatever Xiaomei and Calliope were doing.

The two were engaged in a strange, improvisational dance that doubled as an intense workout. Apparently Xiaomei would run this gauntlet of poses, stretches and folds to increase her flexibility and Calliope had a similar training method. After Fa Lian had interrupted the combat, Dan had managed to keep things from becoming violent by asking about Allusia.

“What do you know of the city?” Dan had felt him approach, but Shazaar’s whispery voice still made him flinch. There was something very unsettling about the man, though Dan was trying hard to ignore it and seem casual. He turned and faced the majaal man, looking straight into his eyes. Orbs of black, with a flame of white in the middle, it was like being stared at by a star.

“I honestly don’t even remember where I heard the name.” Dan answered truthfully, reiterating his answer from the first time Shazaar had asked. “I wasn’t sure it was anything at all, just a word floating around in my head untethered.”

“Yet you just, what? Blurted out a noise and got lucky?” Although it was harder to tell on his blue skin, a crease of amusement seemed to have appeared around the man’s eyes. “That strikes me as unlikely, though we live in a strange world. Endun, any thoughts?”

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The final member of the Ashes shrugged, pushed up a pair of glasses that were dangling on the edge of his long nose, and stood from his seated position. With his legs crossed underneath him, Endun seemed small. However as he stretched out, his long limbs popped slightly and he was soon towering over Dan and Shazaar alike. His skin was a flushed red, as though he were always embarrassed, and he wore a nasty looking bandolier filled with knives around his torso.

“Psychic, maybe?” Endun tilted his head, looking straight at Dan. His strange proportions made him look like a marionette as he half-stumbled half-danced over to Dan’s position. “Rare but seen them, haven’t we? Psychic, are you?” Endun spoke quickly, seemingly unable to trust any of their own statements. Each sentence was short, followed by a question to Shazaar.

“No, not psychic.” Shazaar put his hand on Endun’s shoulder, giving it a squeeze. “There’s something there though. Whether it’s you, the stone or the fox, I’m not sure.”

“Fox?” Dan asked, feeling again like there was a word on the tip of his tongue that wanted to be spoken.

“I don’t think we have the time, unfortunately.” Shazaar answered dismissively. He whistled loudly, a single note that had the eyes of the Shades on him immediately. Even Endun turned, though he was standing right next to him. “Right. We did not actually want to babysit today so maybe you can move along now, children? Yes, yes, very good, very nice to meet you.”

For the first time since tensions ebbed, Fa Lian moved. She had moved away to one side and sat down, watching the goings on with a face like thunder. Dan had not really stopped paying attention to her the whole time, keeping a layer of ambient mana around her. He couldn’t help it. Now, she leaned her weight against the staff and pulled herself to her feet.

“So we go to this city and then what?” Fa Lian had been agitated for a while now and he kicked himself for not noticing there was a problem sooner. A storm had been brewing in her for days and some of it, Dan knew, was his fault.

“Find yourself an actual bed to sleep in and a bath to wash yourself.” If Shazaar had said it, Fa Lian would likely have started breathing fire again. As it was Calliope, she seemed to take the words with more of a discerning ear. Xiaomei was lying on the floor looking like she had been boiled slightly, her skin a bright red from exertion, yet she still cheered at the mention of a bath.

“There’s plenty for young, upstanding, young intrepids like yourselves.” Shazaar embellished.

“You said young twice.” Fa Lian pointed out, clearly not amused.

“Well you’re all very young, even for humans.” Shazaar’s smile was wide, though it seemed more like the look a peddler gave you than a friend. For a time, no one said anything, and an awkward quiet started to settle as people glanced at each other for the next move.

Sighing and rolling her eyes, Fa Lian acquiesced. “Fine. I suppose a bath does sound nice. Why is it so cold here?” She braced against the staff again as though warming herself. Shazaar gave Dan a pointed look and turned away, clearly feeling he had said all he needed to.

The Ashes had given directions and Dan was becoming more and more eager to follow them. Allusia was, according to Shazaar, not technically in the labyrinth. He said that it would be more interesting if they saw it for themselves and Dan couldn’t help being caught up in the man’s intrigue. The whole group had caught Dan’s imagination in a way that he had never thought possible.

Hyun Soon and Xiaomei were sharing what they had learned with each other behind Dan as they made their way. Xiaomei was effusive and excited due to an apparently vital hint towards her own way of cycling. While Dan sent his mana coursing around inside himself like a torrent of water, and Hyun Soon’s mana had an ignition to it, Xiaomei’s mana was like a bundle of yarn with threads of magic she could pull from it. Practising forms and stances, holding intricate positions and rolling into another, were the ways that Xiaomei bolstered the mana within.

Her time with Calliope had therefore been very well spent.

The muscular elf had been every bit the match for Xiaomei, despite her larger mass. Each challenge that Xiaomei set, Calliope took and extended one step farther. When Xiaomei bent, Calliope stretched further. Standing taller than Hyun Soon, it had been an impressive sight to behold, though Dan had looked away after a jibe from Shazaar about the woman’s tight clothing.

Hyun for his part had done some learning of his own. Grier had been very excited to explain the legend behind Rise and Ruin. As the dwarf had explained it, the tale was essentially a bedtime story, so when he saw Hyun walking in with the knuckles, it was like a character from a book had jumped right up to meet him. The story itself was a dark tale, and Dan hoped that it had been embellished over the years, but the fact remained that most dwarves would be very interested in the gauntlets.

Dan paid a cursory attention to them, most of his focus aimed squarely at the back in front of him. Her energy was completely inverted, as though a sun was bearing down on the soul stone within her with the intensity that it usually bore down on Fa Lian herself. Despite thinking that she was changing, Dan couldn’t say it was for the worse because he still remembered the pain of handling Fa Lian’s mana the first time in the forest of Sasin.

Due to his worry keeping his eyes firmly ahead, while his thoughts scrambled trying to remember when he needed to take the fifth right or the seventh left, Dan was not looking behind their group. Dan didn’t notice the quiet, hungry eyes of the Ashes behind them. After the horrors faced in the labyrinth, it seemed that Dan had forgotten an important lesson.

It doesn’t take claws and fangs to be monstrous.