The hole continued to consume mana from all around as we fell. The light-making artifacts that we had been using were drained as well, so we were falling in pitch darkness. I tried to cast [Fly], [Levitate], and [Telekinesis] to stop our fall, but with every spell I cast, my mana only got sucked out faster, so I soon stopped, and focused on keeping it within me.

  I looked around at the others, hoping that one of them would have a solution. Flight skill utilizing aura were a thing of myth, but with three Godly Emissaries, I thought there might be a chance of something that could help. Unfortunately, it seemed we were out of luck.

  We kept falling, the bottom of whatever kind of pit this was still hidden from sight. Humility and the paladins seemed to remain level-headed, but everyone else was in a full blown panic. Barnabas and the twins were flailing about wildly, and screaming in terror, Hermina was leaking huge amounts of mana likely in a desperate attempt to slow her fall, and Ji-Soo was frozen, with a horrified look plastered on her face.

  After a few seconds, the Otto and Ingrid started maneuvering through the air, grabbing the others and pulling them towards Sylvester, who was facing downward, his shield in front of him. Seeing what they were doing, I started helping, switching my control over the twins to Total Domination to stop them from flailing. Soon, we were all gathered in a clump, with the paladins on the bottom charging up aura below us to try to break our fall when we finally hit whatever was at the bottom of this hole.

  It took about 30 seconds to gather everyone like this, but I still couldn’t see the bottom. However, I had my HUD open to keep an eye on my mana, and noticed that the drain had gotten less intense. It was still far too strong to attempt any magic, but with the rate steadily decreasing, hopefully, that would change soon enough that we wouldn’t have to crash-land.

  A minute later, my hope were proven to not be unfounded. The drain on my mana decreased to the point that I hardly noticed it, and just in time too, because it was around then that I finally started to be able to see the bottom. I cast [Fly] on myself, and [Telekinesis] on the others and started to slow our fall as we approached what looked to be a large body of water.

  When we were about 50 feet over the water, the mana drain finally disappeared completely, and I halted our descent, levitating while looking for a place to land. There were no islands around, but there were plenty of icebergs, so I found one that was suitably large and flat and floated us over to it.

  During the flight, and for a while after we landed, nobody spoke. The panickers were catching their breath, and the paladins and I were looking at the System notification that had appeared near the end of our fall.

You have entered the Tomb of the Ancient Mariner

To clear this Dungeon, locate the Ancient Mariner

  Realizing that we were in a Dungeon, I quickly spread my senses, and started observing our surroundings, wary of any monsters. I sensed no danger in our immediate vicinity, but there were plenty of strange things about our current location. It was unlike any Dungeon I had ever been in, or heard of. Above us, rather than a hole, or a cave, as there should have been so far underground, all I saw was the night sky, with the moon bright and full overhead and stars all around. There was a cool, salty breeze blowing at my face, and the ice-dotted ocean extended as far as I could see in every direction. If not for the System notification indicating that this was a Dungeon, I would have assumed we had been transported out to sea somehow.

  The water looked and felt normal, but my mana could not penetrate more than 50 feet or so into it. In those upper 50 feet that I could sense, nothing was amiss. There were even a few fish swimming around. There was a chance that anything deeper than that was just the edge of the Dungeon, but I had a gut feeling that wasn’t the case.

  Suddenly, a slapping noise interrupted my train of thought. I turned to see Hermina angrily shouting at Ji-Soo, who still seemed petrified.

  “Foolish girl!” shouted Hermina. “You’ve gotten us all killed.”

  “I-I didn’t-” stuttered Ji-Soo. “I didn’t mean to-”

  “It doesn’t matter what you meant to do!” shouted Hermina. “Look what you’ve done! We’re all going to die in here and it’s all your fault!”

  “Enough, Hermina!” said Otto sternly. “No one is dying.”

  “Do you even realize where we are?!” said Hermina turning to the plain paladin. “This is a Sealed Dungeon!”

  At those words, everyone but Liliane, Humility and I gasped.

  “Impossible,” said Barnabas. “There are no records of a Sealed Dungeon in this area!”

  “Well then the records are wrong!” said Hermina. “That floor that this insipid girl broke was a Dungeon seal.”

  “How can you be certain?” asked Otto.

  “The Johann Mage tower is in charge of maintaining the seals, and making sure that they remain strong enough to keep the Dungeons from absorbing mana and growing. I’ve seen dozens just like it.”

  “Hmm…” said Otto. “That is concerning. However, we must remain calm. We are a group formed from the strongest in the world in order to hunt a Demon King. Even if we are inside of a Sealed Dungeon, we will clear it. So stop harassing Ji-Soo. We cannot allow discord to ruin us.”

  “...Fine,” said Hermina before storming off to meditate and recover her mana.

  “I-I’m sorry,” said Ji-Soo, crying. “I didn’t-”

  “It’s alright, Ji-Soo,” said Ingrid, walking over to her. “I was about to do the same thing.”

  “As was I,” said Otto.

  “See?” said Ingrid. “It’s not your fault. Even if you hadn’t done anything, we would still be down here. It’s not your fault, so keep your chin up. We’re going to need all of us at 100% if we’re going to make it out.”

  “But if I didn’t then Hermina would have had time to warn us!” said Ji-Soo.

  “No, she still wouldn’t have,” I said. “She only started speaking as a reaction to your spear. It would have been the same with any of us.”

  “Exactly,” agreed Ingrid. “So calm down. Do that meditation thingy you always do and clear your head so we can focus on getting out of here.”

  “O-ok,” said Ji-Soo, wiping the tears from her face.

  She walked a little ways away in the opposite direction that Hermina had gone and started doing her own meditation.

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  “So… what do we do now?” asked Ingrid.

  “Well, we need to work on getting out of here,” said Otto. “This is a quest dungeon, so we need to fulfill the quest and find this Ancient Mariner character. However, if Hermina is correct and this really is a Sealed Dungeon, we must be careful. There is no obvious danger yet, but there will be something here that even the heroes of old were too afraid to challenge, so we must keep our guards up.”

  “Uhhhhh…” said Liliane. “What’s a Sealed Dungeon? Why is everyone so afraid of it?”

  “Idiot!” said Maxine. “You’re a high level adventurer! How do you not know what a Sealed Dungeon is?”

  “I dunno!” said Liliane. “No one ever told me!”

  “I did!” said Maxine. “I read about them in a book, and then told you about them. Did you really tune me out that much?”

  “I always tune you out when you start talking about your nerdy books and stuff,” said Liliane, shrugging.

  “You-”

  “Enough!” said Sylvester. “Bickering is a waste of time. Sealed Dungeons are Dungeons that were long ago deemed too dangerous to raid, and were closed off from the world, to prevent people from getting lost inside them.”

  “What makes them so dangerous?” asked Liliane.

  “No one knows,” said Sylvester. “They were sealed because no one ever made it out alive. We have no records of the interiors of these Dungeons.”

  “Oh,” said Liliane. “Fuck. That’s not good.”

  “Correct,” agreed Otto. “This is not good. But it is not hopeless. I believe that we are all powerful and intelligent enough that as long as we are careful, we will be able to make it out safely. We will need to come up with a plan though first.”

  “If I may,” said Barnabas. Otto nodded at him, so he continued. “This talk of strategy is important, but I am nearly out of [MP]. I need to meditate, or else I will not be of any use if we need to fight in the near future.”

  “I’m running low too,” I said. “I should be back to full in two hours at most, though. There doesn’t appear to be any danger for now, so this would be the best time to recover.”

  Otto nodded. “Do what you need to do. We will continue our discussion, but we will not make any decisions until you return.”

  “Thank you,” said Barnabas.

  Barnabas and I walked off in opposite directions, and in different directions from Hermina and began to meditate. We couldn’t do it too close together, as we needed to absorb mana from around, and with other meditating mages nearby, our efficiency would take a hit. Two hours later, we reconvened back where the others were. Hermina and Ji-Soo had also returned by then, though they didn’t seem to have made up yet.

  “This is a quest-giving Dungeon, so theoretically, there shouldn’t be too many monsters around,” Otto was saying. “However, it will also be time-consuming, and we did not prepare for a long term excursion like this. As far as I can tell, we should be alright with the fish in the water, and with two water mages, we won’t have any trouble getting fresh water, but the situation still isn’t ideal.

  “Due to the terrain, unfortunately our official Scout won’t be too helpful,” Liliane scowled, “so the others will have to take on her duties. Hermina, as the water specialist, your job will be to scout the water, and Lucy, since you seem to have the most [MP], you will fly around and scout from the sky.”

  Hermina and I nodded.

  “If you encounter anything that looks like it might be dangerous, do not engage it. Even if it looks weak, come report back to us before doing anything. We can’t afford even the slightest bit of recklessness.”

  We nodded again.

  “Unfortunately, there’s not too much that the rest of us can do,” continued Otto. “Barnabas can catch us some fish, but us aura users won’t be that useful until we encounter something we can fight. Because of that, we will be taking the watches, so the mages can rest and recover. Any questions?”

  I was tempted to ask why he had promised not to make any decisions without us if he was just going to make all the decisions anyway once we were back, but I decided against it. His plan was solid, and as he and Sylvester mentioned, bickering and discord wouldn’t help us here.

  “Good,” said Otto after not receiving any pushback. “Lucy. Hermina. You’re up. Come back every two hours, even if you don’t find anything.”

  “Roger,” I said.

  “Yes, sir,” said Hermina.

  I spent my entire scouting shift flying north, knowing that I could use the communication device to teleport back whenever I needed to, and during that time, I found exactly nothing. The ocean just kept going and going, on and on, for what seemed like forever. If not for the wind in my face and the icebergs passing by, I might have thought that I wasn’t moving at all.

  Hermina’s journey was much shorter and much more exciting than mine.

  “There’s… something down there,” she said. “About 50 feet down, there’s some sort of barrier that blocks mana. It’s not the edge of the Dungeon though. The water keeps going, and I saw fish freely going above and below the barrier. When I put my hand through the barrier, I felt something. There was… a ripple. I didn’t see anything, but I couldn’t shake the feeling that there was something coming for me, so I came back, and didn’t explore further. Nothing has appeared yet, and I can’t sense anything, but I haven’t gone back in yet.”

  “I noticed there was something strange about the water too,” I said. “I can’t sense anything below that line either.”

  “Interesting,” said Otto. “And Lucy, you said you didn’t find anything in your journey.”

  “Nothing but water,” I confirmed. Then, I froze. “Wait…”

  As I said that, I suddenly remembered something from back on Earth. Something had been nagging me at the back of my mind ever since I saw the name of the Dungeon, and it finally clicked when I said that out loud. The name of the Dungeon was very similar to the Earth poem, Rime of the Ancient Mariner. But what was a Dungeon in Astraeus doing with a theme based on an Earth poem. I looked up at the starry night sky, which hadn’t changed since we entered, and as I studied them, I realized that they weren’t the stars of Astraeus.

  “Water, water everywhere…” I muttered.

  “What is it?” asked Ingrid.

  “I think I have a clue about this place,” I said. “Hold on, give me a minute to think.”

  I tried my best to recall the poem, but I could only remember a couple bits and pieces. I had only read it once in middle school, and I wasn’t too interested in school at that time, so I hadn’t really paid attention. All I could remember was that it was the tale of a Mariner who killed an albatross and was cursed for it after. But if this place was his tomb, how did he die? Did he die? I didn’t remember it well, but I thought that part of the plot might have been that he didn’t die.

  “Have any of you heard of the Rime of the Ancient Mariner?” I asked slowly. If this Dungeon was here, there was a chance that the poem was known here as well

  “No,” said everyone to my disappointment.

  “Is that a poem?” asked Maxine.

  “Yes, I think so,” I said.

  Since it was something originating in another world, I had to be careful about how I revealed information. Fortunately, my alleged amnesia provided an excellent cover story.

  “I can’t remember where I heard it, and I can barely remember the contents,” I continued. “But I do remember that at some point in the poem, the Ancient Mariner shoots down an albatross, and is cursed for it.”

  “What’s an albatross?” asked Ingrid. “Is it a flying monster?”

  “Just a bird, I think,” I said. “A bird that brings good luck.”

  “A skill that brings luck… How interesting,” said Barnabas. “I’ve never heard of such a bird.”

  “Yes, quite,” I agreed. “I can’t remember the rest of the poem well, but I know that a lot of bad things happen. And this Dungeon seems to be themed around it. So if you see a bird, don’t kill it. Who knows what will happen if you do.”

  “Yes, that’s probably a good plan,” said Otto. “Dungeons are usually themed, sometimes around things in the outside world. If you believe this Dungeon is based on that piece, then we most definitely shouldn’t do things that the original piece advised against. Do you remember anything else from the poem? Anything about the thing in the water?”

  “No,” I said apologetically. “I barely even remembered the name. Sorry.”

  “It’s alright,” said Ingrid in a comforting tone. “This is an ancient Dungeon that’s been sealed for so long that it was forgotten, and the church didn’t have any records of it. That means that the poem that it’s based on must be even older. The fact that you know any of it is a huge help.”

  “Thanks,” I said. “Oh wait, that reminds me. Last night, while I was wandering, I overheard something interesting. There was a man talking to his lover who claimed to have more connections than the church. I thought it sounded like nonsense, but the man was a very powerful mage, so I couldn’t disregard it.”

  “What did he look like?” asked Otto with a serious expression on his face.

  “He had black hair, blue eyes, and he was about six feet tall, and- Actually, it’s better if I just show you.” I conjured up an illusion of Ophelia’s lover, and when I did, Otto, Ingrid, and Hermina’s eyes widened.

  “Are you absolutely certain, that’s the man you saw,” asked Otto urgently.

  “Yes… Who is he?”

  “That,” said Ingrid, “Is Midhna in his human form.”