Val’s fourth elemental exploit took place in the Dark Mineshaft. Rumoured to be a labyrinth—an area carrying multiple cores—the chance of a rift rupture escalated threefold. That was three times the chance to return as yet another collected body, like any random adventurer. Like… Dad.

According to the CAU associates in the tollgates way back, the abandoned diggings were aligned to netherite. The fact lured creatures bound to negative elements, the deadliest of their kind. She didn’t think herself prepared for encounters with chimeras or spectrals, but what could she do? Her diminished remnant pile sat empty at home, and her ASC won’t fix itself.

Except for Bo, the squad’s steps squelched uncontrollably. Mine tracks of rotting wood layered the packed-dirt floors, coated in a guck that didn’t want to leave the bottom of their combat boots. The lights overhead flickered, failing their job to illuminate the path. If this was her old line of work, she wouldn’t hesitate to report the safety hazard right away for an extra buck.

As a former miner, Val could admit she was somewhat in her element. Caro, on the other hand, shook at every noise—the creaking floor, the scrapes of moving metal, the stirring soil. Everything.

“Chop chop!” Rick hollered out front.

At his call, the two stumbled away from the safety found in the middle and into their vanguard positions. Rick pointed to a maroon ribbon tied to a misplaced metal pole, charmed cuffs ringing out in the absence of sound. “Soon we’ll be officially entering inside the rift, be vigilant.”

As the familiar glow of the separator veil tinted the dark surroundings blue, she took a brief moment to gather herself. There was no time for doubt once on the other side. In that tiny span of hesitance, things could flip for the worse and it'd be on her. She slipped past the curtain and a cool substance washed over her skin, like a cold shower after a hard-fought spar.

Pitch-dark surroundings welcomed her on the latter end of the veil. No one bothered to assemble light fixtures when it'd shatter at any scuffle to occur. One step in, and a distinct shift set about in the atmosphere. Sounds began to carry hints of stories in them, whispers tickling at her ear lobes.

“For heaven’s sake,” Caro flinched into Val’s shoulder for the umpteenth time. “This is why I hate horror movies.”

“Maybe try not watching them?” Val suggested, donning the pair of shadow-sight contacts bought at Silann’s behest. Eyes watering, she blinked rapidly as the device filtered false colours into her vision.

“While having you as a roommate and a best friend?” Caro’s scoff rivaled Mike’s, dripped in faux-derision. “We’re in a rift, V. I’d rather not attempt the impossible so soon.”

A stream of amusement took a hold of the squad, startling the pair of Strikers upfront.

Rick guffawed out loud, a low rumbling sound that’d better suit a monster trying to breathe. Aeron snuck his chuckle behind a sleeve—yet again—and Silann wrestled with a grin, fighting what looked to be a losing battle. Val’s gaze snapped to the lowborn beside the wind mage, managing to catch the briefest of skyward tints on his lips. So the Hunter smiles.

Settling into a focus after the crackle of mirth, they heeded the Captain’s directions as he decrypted signs rivaling managlyphs in complexity. Every instance they plodded through a different stench-filled tunnel, the claustrophobic walls widened a tad bit. An hour in, it broadened into a cavernous hall and Silann’s prolonged sigh drew the attention of the squad. “We have company.”

“Direction?” Rick asked in turn, his spellcuffs vibrating into life. She flicked a finger to the tapered columns stretching from the cavern ceiling. Skull-piercing screeches emerged out of the stalactites above, eliciting a yelp out of Val. There must have been hundreds of aether creatures lurking up there.

“Weapon-users, equip your talismans while you can.” The Bulwark widened his stance, charmed accessories revolving around his wrists. “Ronny, it’s me and you.”

A haze of the purest kinds of darkness descended, formed by an endless army of bats. Each was a mass of wispy shadows, frame hardly discerned off their nebulous wings. Val hurried to search her coat, and the ever-growing shrieks spelled swiftness into her actions.

“Bo, I need a traversation sheen on the bats, stat!” Rick barked. “Earthen Eminence!”

“Orb Cage!”

The ground rose at Rick’s call, forming into a mountain of dirt at his feet. His arms were outstretched, and like the moon’s command was to a tide, so was his will to his spell. A wave of furious soil lurched forward and slammed against twenty chimeras. Making an angular U-turn, it returned to its owner and stood guard as a mound of defence. All in a span of a few seconds, mind you.

Water enveloped a few others in bubbles of clean liquid, trapping them in an orb and debilitating their movement. From the back, tens were picked off by Silann’s silent Air Arrows, yet it hardly put a dent. A gush of fluttering ebony swarmed at them in earnest. Where one Dark Blindbat fell, another rose, creating a horde parallel to the undead horror stories of the Second Great War.

Val’s fingers brushed at the smooth curves of the capsules in her coat and she cursed under her breath. She had rummaged the wrong side, reaching for her tonics instead of where her enchantry was stashed. Skipping her scrolls, she grabbed a bill-shaped talisman and slapped it onto her weapon. Words of golden light danced on her slate blade.

As the black wave neared, she ignored the fear bubbling within and brandished her saber alongside her fellow Striker. Their spell caches remained useless on winged creatures—Metal Spike was always dodged. Better to save energy than to waste it on a mere whim. Bereft of her elemental prowess, she was left to do just as Magus Hawke insisted.

Trust her training.

“Sheen.”

Bo’s voice sounded like a late bloomer, high-pitched and a little squeaky. What he lost in the shaky presence of his spellcasting, though, he gained in results. The overwhelming wave of chimeras braked, their wings flapping at a turtle’s pace. Val’s brow furrowed despite the break in the battle.

A cause for question required a call to answer, and she couldn’t stop the inquiry from flashing through her stream of thoughts. Sheens obscured things; how did doing so affect speed? What about Rick’s fortification spell—it wasn’t strictly defensive, as fortification was known to be. The fact disarrayed the knowledge gathered in days past.

Can’t be thinking about this right now, she berated herself, quelling her rambling thoughts.

Capitalizing on the immobilization, the Strikers dashed forward. A bat flying as if the air was tar made a pretty easy target. Her weapon struck true and the talisman lit up. Inherently susceptible to the positive essence, the chimera stood no chance against the radiance coating her sword. The blade that seemed dull at first burned through the poor thing in a blink.

“It won’t last much longer!” Bo warned. Sweat beaded his nose and his copper-brown hair stuck to his forehead in a matted mess.

Aeron’s gaze roamed over the hundreds of creatures left to dispatch. “This doesn’t bode well.”

“Should I cast a magma spell?” Caro looked between the group. “It’s great for this type of thing, but I can’t control it.”

“Then don’t use it,” Rick fired back. “Remember: control, control and more control.”

Val leaned from foot to foot. This wasn’t the time to be teaching.

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Silann’s hands flourished upwards like an orchestra conductor and the panicked air… calmed. Aeron’s elongated casks slumped to the edges of his shoulders as his body relaxed and a set of easy smiles appeared on the squad as if all was well.

And it wasn’t.

It wouldn’t ever be until the mob of chimeras out for their blood were dealt with. Her opinions nearly left her lips in a perplexed cry, but a screech whirled her around. It was like witnessing a slo-mo video return to real-time. The Dark Bats' wings pushed against Bo’s restraints with a vengeance, beating their paper-thin wings harder and harder.

Val’s eyes fled the horrid scene, taking refuge in Silann’s reassuring presence. Or was there something else there? Once her attention reached the mage, she didn’t want to leave. The presence of the Elemental Gate of Air was tangible. Solid. Not in the free-spirited nature as many depicted the Grey Saint, or in the curt and succinct nature found in wind prodigies.

There was a palpable arrogance. A trait that, Val noticed, accompanied numerous Supports. Yet it also accompanied the verity that air was everywhere and anywhere. What, in all honesty, topped that?

Silann's hands shook like she carried a great amount of weight and some sort of tension released as she pulled her palms down. A gush of air blew cedar strands across Val’s face and worked to lift her off the cavern floor. The Striker stabbed her weapon downwards for support, mouth agape at the lady’s work.

Shrieks were silenced the moment the creatures crashed into the ground, smooshed against the dirt like the palm of a saint forced them to prostrate. Flattened into unrecognizable piles of bones and leathery skin, the air eased off their miserable existence and vacated without a trace. The veneer of darkness casting their shadowy countenance left with their souls, apparently.

That wasn’t conjuration. Val locked quick stares with the Support before she went about collecting the energy cores of her scores.

“The hell? A Support using invocation?” Caro didn’t care to uphold the same level of tact as Val, gaze trailing Silann’s back unashamedly. One arm propped on her greataxe, the other reenacted the display of magical strength. Her eyebrows pinched together momentarily, and a second later, a light bulb seemed to go off in her head. “Son of a bitch.”

A grin flashed on her face and her back straightened, the vigour of her discovery supplying newfound energy. “Val,” she half-squealed, half-whispered. “She’s the living definition of what we want to be. Well, the opposite, but you get my point.”

“That I do,” Val hid a smile of her own. For a long time coming, interdisciplinary mages seemed to exist in a faraway land. Never did she expect she'd discover one in her backyard.

“We don’t have time to dally—heavens knows how many more of these annoyances are hiding up there.” Rick detached his cuffs, equipping a new set. “We need all hands on deck, so let’s move it.”

Aeron dangled a duffle bag, gesturing to the morbid pile of chimera flesh. “C’mon kiddos, we’ve got work to do.”

Val nodded in understanding, grabbing the sack and lingering at his heels. As he worked alone in harvesting the cores—neither of the Strikers achieved the feat, as of yet—Caro picked up the glowing pebbles he left behind, throwing them inside the sack. The labour was harmonious, each member of the group possessing a role that ebbed into another's task. It didn’t stop the Strikers’ eager stares, however, from burning Aeron’s back.

He chuckled. “What’s it now, you two.”

“That spell Silann casted back there invoked the present air,” Caro stated. “Ain’t her Path that of a Support?”

“The job of a teacher never ends,” Aeron made a show of exhaling and dropping his head low. “Short answer or the long answer?”

“Hella long.”

“As long as need be.”

“No cutting corners either.” He shook his head and relented with a sigh. “The faculty of the mind is a mage’s hand; spells take form in the palm, and are thrown by the arm—will and energy.

“The rite of specialization alters that hand, making it able to better form spells under a specific discipline.” The pink of his actual palm grew incandescent, and another Dark BlindBat’s corpse withered away to reveal a blue orb. “It takes a great deal of talent, effort and hard work to break through the limitations placed.”

Lost in his explanation, he trudged onwards, leaving a vast number of glowing spheres in his wake. “The whole process is akin to closing the disciplines behind metal doors. Only, the Path you choose has a wide enough space for you to walk through. The rest have something more like a keyhole, and you have to squish your will through it to cast.”

“And that lets those on privy to other disciplines, regardless of Paths?” Val worked to keep up with his pace, juggling the duffel bag that began to feel like it was packed with weights. “Sorry to keep asking you all this. Information is hard to come by. It’s there, just buried in too many arcane terms for a Novice to make sense of it.”

“It’s nothing,” he smiled, “and to answer your question—no, it does not. I put talent first for a reason.”

Caro dropped the last of the core within Val’s sack, ambling after Aeron. He leaned his tubs against the cavern wall, glancing at the Strikers on his trail. “It dictates how large that keyhole may be and the capabilities to squeeze past it. For the majority, no gap exists and no amount of effort can surpass that.”

“Just great,” Val mumbled.

“Be wise about it, though,” he grunted, fingers askew as he extracted water from the packed dirt. “Certain Paths are inclined to subdisciplines. According to the Circle of Magic Disciplines, your best chance is to hope to minor in traversation and conjuration.”

“Hell yes,” Caro pumped a fist. “That’s perfect for us.”

“Don’t get your hopes up before you pass the rite.” Once his water—if you could call the ominous, brown liquid that—bubbled at the top of the cylindrical containers, Aeron capped them shut and lugged them over the shoulder. “Looks easier on paper than it is in real life.”

Picking up the crystal-adorned wand that often appeared and disappeared amid battle, he led the walk down the cavern. “It’s not the biggest deal for Silann as someone from the Haldar family, even if by the tiniest of bits. As one of the Twenty, it’s quite expected of her.”

“Holy shit, I knew her last name was familiar,” Caro whipped around to the ginger, possessing two healthy inches on the guy. “What’s she doing as an adventurer at her age?”

“Focus, there’s a spectral at your feet.”

The girls jumped into action at the warning, weapons drawn and heads swerving. A soft sweep of dragged feet answered their prudence. Silann strolled past, a smirk on her lips as she patted each of their backs. “Good reaction times; however, try not to gossip with the person in question in close proximity.”

Val clutched onto her blade, as if the mere grasp of its hilt would summon forth the danger Silann had proposed. As scary as it would be, she’d feel half the idiot. In the end, her lips curled upwards and her saber returned to its sheath. I’ll get her back.

Silann led the group forward from then on and Magus Hawke would demand laps for the audacious act. No matter how talented she was, Supports remained at the rear, and Val knew her company would agree. One more odd thing to add to her accrescent questions.

A light edged into the cave from afar, glaring with the shadow-sight contacts equipped. Too scared to remove the items while danger abounded, she endured the burning discomfort till her eyesight adjusted. The cavernous chamber bloated twenty times in size in the meantime and a stone fortress was erected at its center. Smooth lines indicated a geo Adept at work, using the surroundings like a potter used clay to shape their envisioned fortress.

“Labyrinths like these are home to many adventurers. You remembered how little you all received at the CAU through energy cores alone,” Aeron said. “These people camp here for months before heading back with enough to feed their families, and there's only one word to describe them as: commendable.”

During Aeron’s speech, a stream of adventurers congregated out of thin air. Dark Mineshaft was as porous as cheese, with an endless amount of tunnels weaving about in its body. Mages bled into the Base Camp’s yawning floor, likely addled with thoughts of safety, security, and a surety that the next breath won’t be their last.

A wide breadth of people led up to the Base Camp’s walls, meandering to the earthen gates. Too high up to discern, she could hardly see the silhouettes of the army of geo mages at work, hauling the barricade open and scurrying to clamp them closed on repeat.

“Who might you be!”

Sheltered behind the sturdy barriers, an aura-laden voice boomed across the underground enclosure. He dropped the question on a squad of three up ahead, a limp teammate in their grasp. Val winced at his arms, mangled beyond the point of recognition. Brutal.

“Dan lost his badge on the way here,” a girl answered, glancing at the injured ranger. “I and Shuri have ours. You can trust that he’s with us—”

“Entrance cannot be given without a badge,” he cut across, not a hint of sympathy detectable. People surged forward, and the desperate group was shoved aside as another took their place. The movement was nonchalant. Normal. “Who might you be!”

“Silann Haldar.” Pronunciation crisp, a draft carried her low-pitched words across the area, despite the request being directed at another. Val turned to catch the wind mage’s green eyes narrow in constrained fury. “And you will let my team and that man through.”

“Entrance cannot—”

“If I hear that sentence of yours one more time I will painfully extract every ounce of oxygen in your lungs, put it back, and do it again.”