One week earlier, in the city of Quies Surus, "Surus's Rest," the morning sun was well clear of the River Gate. This meant not only was Eira Wainmender late, but she had to dodge fresh dung, horses, and ox carts in the busy street as she ran down the Decumanus Maximus on her way to the Forum.

Her worn sandals slipped on the smooth stone, and her singed and stained apprentice robe flapped behind her catching on wagon wheels and slapping irritated bystanders. Her staff, a plain wooden stick lacking even an F-rank focal crystal, was even more of a hazard, if only because she completely ignored how it waved behind her as she ran with it sheathed across her back.

She was no athlete, but she ignored the stitch in her side and the ragged breaths hammering in counterpoint against her racing heart. Her attention was completely absorbed by the bronze amulet cupped in her left hand. It was as long as her thumb and oval shape, carved with intricate thorns, symbolizing her grandmother's family. For all her life those brambles had surrounded a smooth dome of the same metal.

But not now.

Now the cover had retracted. She didn't even know it could do that. Instead a brilliant blue eye, bright as a jewel stared, unblinking from the amulet. As she ran it pointed to her left, unerringly gazing to a point north and a little west. She could feel powerful mana thrumming through the family heirloom, her only connection to the Briar family besides the Death Mana that flowed inside of her.

"Hold up now!" A teamster shouted as she collided forehead to forehead with his ox.

The great beast loomed over her, as she sprawled on her back, the amulet flying from her hand. The ox's capped and knobbed horns blocked out the sky above her. Its expression was the same one she had seen in so many people over the years, slightly confused, but ultimately unimpressed. I hate cows, she thought, almost as much as I hate people.

"Get up and move along, you!" The driver called. "I need to get this load delivered."

She retrieved the amulet from the gutter and wiped it on her robe, not bothering to dust off herself. She ducked her head and made her way around the cart, not meeting the driver's eyes.

"Watch where you're going and stay to the side of the road or you'll come out worse." He called after her, ignoring the implied threat of her mage's robes.

No one had ever ignored her grandmother like that, or any of the rest of the Briar family. She gripped the amulet hard in her hand and resisted the urge to drain the life out of the loudmouth with a gesture. Not that she would do something like that, not really, but she could still feel her mother's disapproving frown anyway. After what the Briar's attempted, after the trials and sentences that followed, Eira's mother, Rose, had turned her back on magic and had grown up to marry a wealthy merchant.

Rose had inherited the family temper the same as Eira, though, and the thought gave Eira a smile as she found her way to the side of the road and continued to the forum at a safer pace. Had her mother been there, she wouldn't have blasted the hapless teamster, she would have bought out the carter he worked for and sent him packing without a job.

Then her and Eira's father, Gaius, both would have insisted Eira run the carter's service for a year and turn a profit. They were keen for her to find any business besides the one she wanted. Her grin turned into a frown again and she started shuffling faster. She was almost at the Forum.

The crowd thinned before her. Columns surrounded an open area with the temple of Juno to the south, the baths to the east and main intersection of the main roads, the Cardo running north and south and the Decumanus running east and west. The center of the Forum was dominated by the statue of Dying Surus. The huge war elephant seemed to kneel as its head lay beneath the sandaled foot of Scipio, its tail in the air.

Eira slapped the elephant's stone rump for luck as she jogged past, speeding up again now that there was room to run.

"I would say that you are late, but it serves no purpose to remark on things that never change. The sky is above, the ground is below, and Eira is late." Theus stood beside the rostrum, the very image of a Greek tutor, fit as a fighter and as well groomed as a senator. The effect was only slightly ruined by his raspy, speaking voice, a consequence of having been poisoned twice before he escaped Athens, first to Rome, then to this town on the frontier. "I will comment that my wealthiest student might show more respect, if not for herself, then for her family who pay so much for her tuition. Such a respectful student might arrive smelling less like a stable."

"Yes, magister. Sorry, magister." Eira ducked her head and rushed through her standard morning apology. "But I was delayed by something amazing!" She looked down at her robe, now filthy from the road. "And there was an accident."

"Yes, the sky is above." Theus gestured toward a line of benches against the temple wall. "Why don't you take a rest and catch your breath while you tell me what is so amazing?"

"Thank you, Magister." Eira settled to the bench, first with relief then with a wince at what was certainly going to be another bruise. She opened her hand and showed the amulet to Theus. "This has been in my family for generations."

"Well, yes, that is amazing. If your ancestors were anything like you, it's a wonder they didn't carry it off a cliff into the ocean long ago." Theus sounded disinterested, but he took the amulet. "Interesting, the eye's gaze is very persistent, regardless of the amulet's rotation."

"Family legend says that the amulet points the way to places of power." She lowered her voice, although there was no one nearby. "Like dungeons."

"Dungeons!" Theus bounced the amulet in his hand like a ball, its chain rattling and laughed. "There's no dungeon within a month's travel." He nodded toward the statue. "Not for a century and a half, thanks to doomed Hannibal's ambition. Though I can see where a family of merchants might repeat such a story. I once knew…"

"Pardon, Magister, but this is not an heirloom of my father's family. This is an amulet from my mother's family."

The color drained from Theus' cheeks and he dropped the amulet back in Eira's hand as if he held a live scorpion by the tail. "I did not know that any of your grandmother's creations still existed."

Eira raised her hand. "No, no this is much older than that. It was specifically excluded from the decree. It's harmless."

"Yet here it is doing something unexpected." He reached into his pouch and withdrew a device made of crystal and wire. "Empiricism requires that we not make claims without evidence, but only based on observation and experiment. Place that thing here on the bench like so, and do not touch it again until I've inspected it."

"Yes, Magister." She did as she was told.

He spread the wires apart until they formed a set of articulated legs and adjusted the crystals until they aligned above the eye. "Yes, just so." He peered through the crystals. "It is certainly active itself. An open spell structure, recycling mana from the environment, masterful work, really." He muttered more to himself, lapsing into Greek which Eira could only follow with effort, something about "metamorphic canulae." Then he picked up the apparatus and moved it around in a circle around the amulet, then raised it to point across the Forum to the northwest and moved it around in circles there before snapping the device closed and placing it back in his pouch.

"It's not necromantic, thank Bubo. The power source seems to be just a very well designed but unremarkable mana sink. But I find no evidence of the sort of massive mana flow disruptions a dungeon might create, in that direction or any other." He waved a hand toward a group of adventurer's guild fighters walking south toward the amphitheater. "In fact, I'm quite sure that half the guilders in the city would already be mounted and on their way if there were any such disruption. It's almost impossible to hide a dungeon, it would have been found centuries ago."

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"What if it's a new dungeon?" Eira picked the amulet back up and slipped it around her neck, hiding it under her robe.

"The histories describe new dungeons forming, but they are usually created in the mana-rich environment near existing dungeons or natural mana wells. Perhaps there are such things far off in the frozen wastes beyond the Orbis Terrarum, but there is nothing of the sort in Cisalpine Gaul." He took a cloth from his pouch and wiped his hands as if to remove something noxious.

"Put that thing in a box somewhere and forget about it. It's well made, but if its purpose is finding dungeons, it is obviously defective. If it's actually meant for something else then all the more reason to bury it somewhere and forget it. Now, I have another appointment unless you are going to shock me and tell me you want me to review your arcane geometry assignment that was due last week?"

Arcane geometry was the least magical topic of magical study she could imagine. She sometimes wondered if the whole field was just something Theus had made-up to spend more time talking about Pythagoras. "No, Magister. I didn't finish."

"The ground is below." He rose and set out toward the baths. "See that you have it tomorrow."

"Yes, Magister." She kept her eyes averted so he wouldn't see how angry she was. How could he tell her to bury the amulet like so much garbage? He had never tried to conceal his revulsion for her grandmother's crimes, but even for him, this was disrespectful.

Garrik had been right. These so-called tutors were nothing more than babysitters. Garrik! He would listen, and he might even have some ideas for how to prove the amulet was right.

She jumped up and started running, forgetting about her previous misfortune, following after the fighters toward the amphitheater.

She found Garrik at the training grounds between the amphitheater itself and the city walls. He was working through some complex drill with the other guilders that involved six of them ganging up on him and trying to flank him while he used a skill that allowed him to whirl around in a blur, his wooden sword spinning like a windmill.

One of his opponents used another skill that allowed him to charge forward at incredible speed, slipping inside Garrik's guard and knocking him flat on his back with a shoulder to the gut. Eira was impressed. She couldn't recall ever seeing anyone take down Garrik with one attack before.

Garrik calmly tapped the other on the back with his sword. A trainer, off to the side, yelled "Point!"

"It's not a bad idea, but you should probably stab the dominant arm next time instead," Garrik said as they helped each other up.

"Or we could just stand back and put arrows in you, or can you deflect those now too?" Eira called as she stepped onto the field.

Garrik sniffed. "Juno's dimples, what did you step in?" He turned around. "Rather, what did you wallow in?"

Eira sighed. "It's been a very long morning. Can we talk?" She looked pointedly at Garrik's sparring partner, Decimus. "Privately?"

Decimus smirked, "I'll just go stand in rank with the other plebeians."

Eira frowned. "I didn't mean–"

Decimus shook his head and waved over his shoulder, "You never do." His expression as he looked back was good natured, with just a touch of pity, presumably for Garrik.

Eira shrugged it off.

"I do need to train, Eira." Garrik grounded his practice sword and leaned on it. It was shaped like his sword "Cyclone" so it was twice as long as the gladius the others trained to use. "Can't this wait?"

"You train every day, and what do you spend all of that hard-earned skill doing? Chasing off bears, harassing starving brigands?" Eira waved her staff like a sword. "Sparring with trees?"

Garrik sighed and tapped one huge knuckle on the hilt of his toy sword. "That's what this place is for, Eira. It's an expensive vault where our families keep their most troublesome valuables. We're safely stored away here to earn our ranks without embarrassing our families by dying, or worse, making a name for ourselves. There's nothing new to say about that."

She looked around to make sure no one was watching too closely, then pulled the amulet from the neck of her robe. "What if I told you there was a brand new dungeon somewhere northwest of here?"

Garrik's eyes snapped to the amulet and his stance tensed. "Dungeon?" He narrowed his eyes then relaxed with a frustrated grunt. "There's nothing out that way. I escorted a bunch of scholars from Alexandria up that way to visit the remains of the Altar of The Hungry Flame. There aren't even any scavengers out there anymore. It's completely picked-over."

She stepped closer, ignoring Garrik's wrinkling nose. "This was my grandmother's. Understand? This eye has never opened before, and it is supposed to point the way to powerful mana sources, specifically dungeons."

"Really?" He scratched at his chin, shaved clean in the Roman style, but starting to show stubble again though the day had barely started. "New you say? Maybe not well established. A small party might be able to conquer it, train it into a gymnasium like the one in Rhodes."

"All I want is a good focus stone for my staff. I'll never make full guild status without one and there's nowhere in this nursery to earn one. But just hypothetically, what would they call someone who conquered a dungeon and trained it to do tricks?" Eira grinned.

"Hah! Wouldn't that spoil old Pater's grapes!" Garrik stared off into the distance for a moment smiling. He pitched his voice low and disappointed, "Well son, you've made a Dungeon Master of yourself, despite all my guidance and good family name. You've fallen to violence and low commerce, it's your mother's influence, I've no doubt. Barbarian to the core." He looked Eira in the eye. "I'll do it. When do we leave?"

"How soon can you be ready? I just need to grab some writing materials, and..." She trailed off, thinking. She had never really been on an adventure before. "I suppose some food?"

Garrik laughed. "Don't worry, I'll do the shopping. And the cooking. But you must promise me you won't tell anyone else." Garrik motioned for her to hide the amulet, looking around the busy training field. No one seemed to be paying any attention to them. "If anyone else knew about this we wouldn't stand a chance of claiming the dungeon for ourselves."

Eira nodded. "I told Theus already, but he didn't believe me."

"That should be fine then." Garrik was also one of Theus' students. "He hardly ever listens to any voice save his own." He slung the practice sword over his shoulder and waved an arm to the trainer who shrugged and nodded. "We should get started though, just in case he mentions it over his cups tonight. This way. I know a good vendor for salted meat leathers and fermented tubers."

Eira tried not to gag. "Wonderful."

Garrik's campaign experience, mundane though it was, shone brightly over the next few hours as they gathered supplies for an extended hike. They decided the two of them could more effectively scout the location alone than with even a small party. They were high enough level that nothing in the forest would be much of a challenge and they wouldn't try the dungeon until they had a better idea of what skills they might need.

The markets were near the baths, and they had to step behind a merchant stall at one point to avoid Theus who was deep in some serious conversation with a man in a brightly colored tunic and leggings. He didn't notice them and soon left.

"That's the last of it. I'll make bundles of it all we can carry on our shoulders." Garrik had the whole load for now wrapped in a large ground cloth and thrown over his own shoulder. "We can head out at dusk, but first, and I have never in my life said this, before we head out into the wild to face hardship and rough nights among the beasts…" He looked her in the eye and said in an earnest tone, "you have to go bathe!"

She grimaced. He wasn't wrong. She said her goodbyes and headed toward the baths. While she was there she could send her robe off to be washed and delivered to her apartment. Which reminded her she should leave a note to her landlord, host really since they didn't charge her as a favor to her parents, and another to Theus so that he wouldn't worry, or worse, inform her parents she was absent.

A few hours later, she was early arriving at the south gate and had to wait an unbearably long time for Garrik. He finally appeared, carrying his armor and their bundles over his shoulder. He wore Cyclone slung across his back like her staff. They stopped just long enough for her to repack her bundle with her change of robes, writing materials, a comb, a flask of oil, some perfume, and a scraper among other small necessities. She had decided while soaking earlier that she was going to at least try to stay presentable, even in the wilds, if only to protect Garrik's delicate sensibilities.

They set out through the south gate, past the amphitheater, just to throw off anyone who might note their leaving. It would seem like they were heading toward the farming villages and villas that spread southward along the west bank of the river, a common destination for city dwellers on holiday.

She watched the road behind them as they went, but after a few hours, she was confident they weren't followed.