"Guess we're back to vague clues," I mused out loud, "I mean, obviously we have to find some way out."

She looked at me with an amused look. "It's more about the word final; that's the important part."

"You're right, we should focus on the positives. But knowing our luck, the hardest part is probably still ahead of us." I mean, going through darkness with light in short supply—that's a little terrifying, and I'm not even that afraid of the dark.

"Maybe we can chip the portal for a small light source," she said.

"We don't have any mining tools, and I'd rather not try to use any destructive magic on it; one destroyed portal is enough for me," I answered.

After a few minutes spent in silence trying to think of a solution, she stopped pacing at the edge of the darkness and turned to face me.

"Clearly the test was designed for you, so I'm just wasting time with my ideas; we need to focus on you."

"OK," I said, "but I got nothing."

"Since the battery part worked on the last puzzle, it means other solutions from your world might apply, so what else do you use to make light?" she said excitedly.

"I mean, we might have different ways, but in the end it's still photons emited by a light source, so no different than a fire."

"Photons?" she asked.

"To keep it simple, imagine light is a billion little balls bouncing everywhere. That's what we call them."

"So we need some magical light source."

"Is there a spell for it?" I asked. "I mean, what exactly would make the light magical?"

She deflated a little. "Not really, light is light; I didn't pay that much attention to it," she sighted. "To bad there is no spell to see in the dark."

As I stood a little straighter after her comment, she immediately asked, "What?"

"That's a great idea," I said.

"Obviously, but it has been tried countless times to create such a spell; it would help a lot during night troop movements or spotting things. From my understanding, you can't enhance something that isn't there; no spell ever created was more effective than the enhanced night vision of some classes," Alira said.

"Night vision clearly won't work; the magic affects it too much. So visible light is out."

"Yeah," she said, "I may not have the best night vision out of all the classes, but I should still see something more than you, and there's nothing. So what else besides visible light is there?"

"Infrared light. Remember when I said photons were like little balls? Well, they are also like waves of water."

At her obvious confused look, I continued, "Yeah, it's confusing for everybody back home as well, but just go with it. Basically, besides visible light everything emits another form of light depending on the temperature they have. Right now we are emitting it since we are warmer than the surrounding space.

"So how can we see it," she said.

"Yes, that's the hard part; normally our eyes see light between certain frequencies, basically distance between peaks of the wave of the water I was telling you about earlier; infrared is outside of that. That's where a spell might come in. Let's hope the magic here doesn't affect the infrared light." Hearing that there was no such spell gave me hope that the godess didn't include it in the counter measures.

Still saying it was not the same as doing it. I had no idea how to go about creating such a spell.

Usually the image would be projected onto a screen, but here that would not be possible. The next logical step would be to modify the eyes somewhat, but I was not about to experiment with my own eyes.

Maybe an overlay that would transform the infrared photons into visible ones. That seemed doable, at least in theory.

Since Mana Shield proved so versatile, I concentrated on the shield in front of my eyes, and instead of absorbing energy, I poured some energy into a rectangular shape to give the infrared photons the boost they needed.

Nothing changed, but it was not like I was expecting it to first try.

"Alira, can you please put a small flame in the darkness somewhat? I need to have a reliable thing to focus on."

"Sure, but we don't have a lot of things to burn.

Focusing my eyes on the barely visible flame, I tried to increase and decrease the amount of energy that I poured into the shield, but again, failure was all I got.

The energy increase was probably too intense, so I closed my eyes and proceeded as slowly as possible. Once I felt I had adjusted it enough, I opened my eyes.

Progress was very slow, and I almost lost track of time when Alira spoke.

The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

"Yeah, the fire went out; I might as well stay in the darkness. Will save us our clothes."

"Don't go too far; who knows what might lurk in the shadows?" I replied.

"I'll make sure to scream like a damsel in distress," she smiled while heading out slowly into the darkness until I could barely see her.

"Stop. That's enough; I can barely see you." I announced maybe with a little panic in my voice.

"Better get comfortable; this is going to take a while." I shouted and then took a seat on the ground.

After maybe one hour of carefully going up and down the energy spectrum, I decided to drop this as it clearly wasn't working. Maybe I was remembering it incorrectly; it was hard without Google at your fingertips to remember everything.

So if directly transforming it wasn't working, maybe I needed an intermediary step. This time I focused the mana shield to absorb more of the energy that was incoming in the small rectangle in front of my eyes. After varying the energy, I finally had some success; it began to block visible light.

So it meant all visible light was absorbed. Lowering the energy, I started to see again and hoped I would be in the infrared range.

I then split the shield in half; this was simpler since I had already experimented with the shield, using it to cushion my feet or lie on the ground.

The modified one made up the outside; the "normal" shield made up the inside.

Now came the truly difficult part. The middle layer needed to act as an electron multiplier, and I had no clue how it actually worked. I might have read about it once in passing, but there was no way I could recall the details. Still, since mages here casually conjured food without worrying about the conservation of matter or energy, I figured magic could fill the gaps where knowledge was lacking.

Sure, the end product would be subpar, as evidenced by the barely edible food conjuring produced, but I didn't need the most powerful infrared night vision spell, just a serviceable one.

Concentrating on bridging the gap between the layers and letting magic flow there with just my vague intent to guide it, I finally held my breath and opened my eyes.

The sensation was overwhelming. The world around me shifted into shades of red, orange, and yellow. I could see heat radiating from the ground in front of us in barely visible yellow light.

Most strikingly was the heat Alira was emanating; it was like I was seeing her in the day, but only her shape, as her details were just colors.

Soon it became apparent that the spell did come with extra challenges. It was difficult to control as it required constant focus; a little slip up and it would either turn off or become blinding with all shades converging into a LSD-like painting.

Furthermore, except for the ground and Alira, the rest of the cavern was featureless, so it was only half as useful.

"It worked," I finally said out loud.

"It was about time," she got up and slowly approached me. "The darkness was beginning to get to me; I started seeing shapes out of the corner of my eyes."

"I can see the ground somewhat and you perfectly, so here's hoping any dangers we encounter are warm-blooded."

She started to look uncomfortable. "Yeah, I would worry more about traps than creatures."

The air was damp, the scent of earth and stone thick in my nose as we crept deeper into the cavern. The only thing guiding us was the faint yellowish glow of the infrared night vision spell I had cast. It wasn’t perfect; the darkness pressed in from all sides, and the edges of the cave flickered with strange shadows, but it was enough to keep us from stumbling blindly into the abyss.

Oh yes, there was an abyss on either side of the road that we encountered a few minutes in. The road moved in a slightly wavy pattern, so without the spell, it would have been basically a death sentence to walk this way.

"How much farther, do you think?" Alira’s voice came from beside me, soft but tense. Her breath echoed slightly in the cave, swallowed by the vast emptiness around us.

"I don’t know," I admitted, my voice sounding much smaller than I wanted it to. "We’ve been walking for hours already. It’s got to be here somewhere."

The rocky floor crunched underfoot as we walked, the cold biting at our exposed skin. Since I was concentrating so much on the infrared spell, the mana shield was not protecting me from the cold, so I suffered alongside Alira.

"How are you holding up?" she asked.

"It’s fine," I muttered. But I felt a headache starting; I was not used to focusing for so long. Still, I kept quiet. We couldn’t afford to stop now since the cold was becoming harsher, or maybe it was my imagination, like preventing us from resting. Not that we had anywhere to rest; the road barely fit two people, and we were walking shoulder to shoulder.

As we pushed deeper and it got colder, the cavern seemed to come into view as the little heat on the roof made it suddenly visible to my spell. The walls felt like they were closing in, the stalagmites reaching up from the floor like jagged teeth. Every so often, a gust of wind would whistle through the cave, causing both of us to tense, eyes scanning the darkness for movement. But it was always just the wind.

"Well, the wind picking up speed might be a good sign," she mused.

"Wait." She stopped suddenly at my word, her hand grabbing my arm.

"What?" she whispered.

I pointed ahead, toward a faint shape in the distance. I squinted, the yellow hue of the night vision spell making everything blur together. But then I saw it—a shadow, more solid than the others, a flat, vertical surface.

We hurried forward, hearts racing, our footsteps echoing against the stone. As we approached, the shape became clearer: a door. It was carved from stone, rough and ancient, with strange runes etched into its surface. It was massive, towering over us, with no visible handle or keyhole.

I exhaled a breath I hadn’t realized I was holding. "Finally."

As her fingers ran across the door searching for anything useful as the spell could only show so much, she said under her breath.

"Of course there's no handle."

"You expected it to?" I said, smiling, even though without the spell it was probably pitch black.

"For once it would be nice to have the easy way out...anyway you said symbols?" she said, becoming all serious.

"Yes, they are clearly visible, so they must be made of a different material. As to the shape..." I tried describing it, but it was like playing mime in the dark, so not very efficient.

"I don't think I recognize them, but it's hard to be sure descriptions and touch can be misleading. Are you sure you don't recognize them?"

"Definitely not...wait, maybe it's not about the symbols. Step away from the door."

"You going to try to blast our way out?" Even in the darkness, I could see her rolling her eyes.

"If lightning started this, it might mean the door needs some juice as well." I answered.

"Why would you need lightning to open a door?... Why do I even bother asking? Of course, you'd make it complicated," she mused.

Channeling a low-intensity lightning bolt into the door, I could immediately see the strange symbols light up. With an expected thud, the door started rolling to the side. Light immediately peered, and after hours of darkness and using the spell, I was basically blinded with the night vision spell still on.

Slowly, my eyes adjusted after canceling the spell. The other side was still a cave but brightly illuminated by something, as I couldn't really spot a source for it.

Ruins littered the landscape as the terrain was on a slight slope with us in the valley.

"To the right," Alira almost shouted.

Facing my view to the right, I could see the body of a muscular creature that was lying next to a wall. It was most likely an orc, and it looked injured but alive. It took me a second to discern the immediate danger present in her voice.

His skin was... red.