The walk back into town was long enough for Emrys to clear his head. If anything, he had regained the spring in his step. Not only had he survived the toughest dungeon he had ever seen, he had walked away with three mana roots and a handful of shards. On top of that, he had gained a ring that would increase his affinity with water and earth magic. It would take some time before he could stop associating those mana classes with the mud and sludge of the bog, but if his experiences had taught him anything it was that he should expand his repertoire past fire magic.

All in all, it was a very good haul for a day’s work.

“Emrys! You survived!” Julia waved down at him from the wall tower.

The arcanist waved back. Once upon a time, they had stood watch on the tower together, daydreaming about what it would be like to have magic. The goddess of prophecy had chosen him and he had found his path to becoming a fire mage. He had learned that the manaroot could be used to gain magical ability, for those without the good fortune to be born with it. Julia had chosen to stay as she was. If there was going to be an adventure, she’d said, it could just as well come to her and not the other way around.

Emrys pulled open the gate. Back in those days, the wooden door had felt heavy and ungainly in his arms. He shook his head. Times changed.

“What happened to your team?” Julia asked. She was rushing down the stairs, taking them two at a time. “Let me get a look at you. You’re not hurt are you?”

“Just a little foot sore,” Emrys said. “You’d think I would be used to the hike by now.”

“Well it keeps getting longer, doesn’t it? If you keep this up, you’ll have me out of a job!” The guard slapped her friend on the shoulder.

Emrys laughed. Julia had been making the same joke ever since Emrys had announced his intention to destroy the dungeons. The town sat on the edge of a ravine that marked the border between the kingdom and their neighbor. Once every several years, the dungeons would overflow and waves of monsters would attack the town.

“Actually,” he said, “my teammates left me.”

Julia stiffened, abruptly serious. “What do you mean they left you?” She led Emrys inside the watchtower. There was a room at the base of it meant for lounging, and the arcanist wasted no time in setting down his bags and putting up his feet. He gratefully accepted a cup of coffee. .

“Well, they were immortals weren’t they? We made it all the way to the final floor, and they decided to ‘call it a night.’”

“Call it a night?” Julia scoffed. “What does that even mean?”

“That’s what I said! At first I thought they meant they wanted to camp for the night in the third floor boss room. Weird, but doable, you know? But no. They were completely done for the day, and they said they’ll be back tomorrow, or at least tomorrow their time, to finish out the dungeon.”

Julia gaped. “That could be days.”

“Right! So anyway, I had to finish out the dungeon on my own.” The arcanist rose to his feet. “I really should be going, anyway. You haven’t seen Sven around, have you?”

“Not since you left,” she said. A shadow crossed her face. “I’m starting to worry, you know? They keep talking about a necromancer roaming the area. And I know it’s just rumors at this point, but he’s never been away this long.”

Emrys raised an eyebrow. “Hasn’t he? He used to sneak off to visit Stephanie every chance he got, and towards the end he was making those visits last as long as possible.”

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“It’s different and you know it. He hasn’t been the same since her funeral.”

The arcanist threw back the rest of his coffee and placed the mug on the table. “It’s good seeing you Julia. I’m glad it was you on the walls tonight.”

The guard sighed but didn’t push the issue. “How did you survive? You told me you were going to a tier four dungeon, I can’t imagine you had an easy time of it after those immortals left you.”

Emrys’s blood boiled at the mention of Jefferson and Merv. He had trusted them with his life, and they had thrown that trust back in his face.

“I found someone else. Another immortal, believe it or not. She must have entered the dungeon sometime after us. She was trying to do a solo run, but she agreed to party with me so long as I shared my portion of the loot.”

Julia frowned. “I think I remember her leaving town. I didn’t see her come back either, though.”

“She didn’t make it. We were fighting the final boss, and she… Well, she sacrificed herself to save me.”

Julia raised an eyebrow. “I thought you said she was an immortal.”

“I did.” Emrys laughed, still somewhat in disbelief. “She was. Is. Dissolved into golden light and everything. I didn’t even have time to try and save her.” He frowned at the memory. “Not that I could have, after the hit she took. I’ve been thinking I should try and learn a few more healing spells. And some shadow magic. And maybe a water spell or two.”

Julia looked at him like he’d grown another head. “Who are you, and what have you done with Emrys?”

“I know right?” He scratched the back of his head. “That dungeon really did a number on me, though. I was so out of my depth, and there were so many moments where even a small cantrip from another school of magic could have made a world of difference. And there are some things that are just too valuable to pass on, like the rogue I was with? He was able to kill monsters in one blow just by sneaking up on them. If I could do that, I could really start making my way down the ravine.”

“Hm.” Julia looked troubled. “Don’t rush into anything. I don’t know much about magic, but I don’t think you’d want to stretch yourself too thin. I wouldn’t want you to put that much work into something only to find out it was setting you back.”

The arcanist nodded. He’d had the same thoughts, but he worried she only felt that way because she’d heard it from him. And he didn’t actually know what he was talking about, he’d just been trying to avoid learning completely new magic and it had sounded like a reasonable enough excuse at the time.

“Well, I’ll think about it. For now, I need to find Zereh. She only agreed to get me through the dungeon if I gave her my share of the loot.”

“Get out of here then. I’ll see you on your next run, and hey, let me know if you hear from Sven, okay? I know I shouldn’t worry so much, but I have a bad feeling.”

“Of course.” Emrys left the tower behind and headed into town center. That was typically where immortals appeared, whether it was through teleportation or after death.

As a result, the town center was ringed by market street, a series of shops and stalls all pressed up against each other. The locals tended to stay away from the overpriced goods, but immortals rarely looked further than the conveniently located merchants.

Unfortunately, the street was absolutely swarming with adventurers. His party connection to Zereh told him that she was close by, but it wasn’t specific enough for him to find her amongst the crowd.

The weight of her dungeon rewards hung heavy in his pack. He dug through his pockets until he found a small matchbook. It had been a gift from Sven so he tried not to use it frivolously, but the situation definitely called for it. He had already used three of the twenty matches, so it was with only a moment’s hesitation that he removed the fourth and struck it.

The match flared to life. The arcanist muttered a quick spell and blew it out. A thin trail of black smoke rose from the match, but instead of dissipating into the air it trailed outward about two feet. Unlike a normal match, it wasn’t the fire that burned it down but the smoke. For as long as the match burned, it would point toward its target. In this case, that meant Zereh.

Emrys kept the match held in front of him as he followed the smoke. He walked the outskirts of market street and kept away from the densest part of the crowds. His tracking spell was admittedly not the easiest to follow, and it was even worse at night, but it was effective.

To his surprise, he didn’t find her at any of the shops. She was further out, at the training hall. It was a large dirt courtyard beside the adventurer’s guild hall. He had heard that larger cities often had elaborate obstacle courses in their training halls, but Westover wasn’t that fancy. It was little more than a set of training dummies. He was proud to say, though, that a few of the dummies had recently been upgraded to fire off some basic magic attacks.

By the smell of it, Zereh was practicing against lightning magic. There was a tang of ozone in the air that irritated Emrys’s nose.

“I didn’t expect to find you here,” he said when the warrior paused to catch breath.

She whirled around, her swords in her hands in an instant.