In the early hours of the morning, before the guild officially opened, lights flashed from the room where they kept the mind caster.

The mind caster, of course, was the magical device used to cast new bodies for fallen explorers and copy the contents of their mind stones into them.

All explorers in good standing were entitled to use the mind caster in the event of an untimely death, but it was tangled in red tape for certain individuals.

For instance, explorers charged with criminal activity.

As the lights on the machine whirred to life, fluid drained from the mana tank at its side. The compartment where a new body was being created was walled by transparent material, allowing the guild personnel to supervise the process. The body of a female demon took form: a particularly dynamic figure, long white hair, and fully-intact horns that would need to be pierced all over again.

She was the eldest, troublemaking daughter of the Opherion family. Her household, in steady decline ever since the great demon sage had run off, had begrudgingly agreed to pay the fees for her resurrection and requested her return.

The liquid inside the casting tank drained away, and the pressure locking the door in place released. A pair of guild workers approached with a stretcher and a blanket, loading up the extremely groggy demoness.

She was sent to the medical bay, where she was dressed in proper clothes and affixed with a bangle around her ankle that would report her position.

When she woke up a few dozen minutes later, she knew instantly that she’d been caught.

Looking around the medical bay, seeing no one but herself, Casanuella curled her legs up toward her chest and buried her face into a pillow. She stayed like that until more guild workers arrived to bring her to her carriage.

While enduring the bumpy forested road and the loathsome journey back home, she wondered what had happened to Yarnam, their always-miserable elf friend who they had left their mind stones with. Did he betray them and turn them over to the guild? Were they stolen from him? Was he dead or in custody?

Casanuella didn’t know whether she should kick his ass or hold him in mutual grieving the next time they met, if they ever did again.

***

“Good morning!”

The door to the guild branch was thrown open the second they opened, and a cheerful voice announced the start of the day to everyone inside.

Of course, it was Anther, along with his friends Kasser and Myla. They approached the front desk with a skip in their steps and presented their mind stones for safe keeping.

“He’s open for real today, right?” the elf boy begged. “No more delays or rescheduling?”

The demoness manning the desk that morning smiled awkwardly and nodded. It’s not like it’s our fault, you know? She thought, feeling slightly wronged.

“Yes, the dungeon is open. Also, dungeons technically don’t have genders, so—”

“Archimedes is a boy!”

The child was insisting with puffed up cheeks and furrowed eyebrows, so the receptionist swallowed her words and put on a business smile.

“Would you like to look over the latest guidebook before you go delving into the dungeon?”

“I want to look around for myself.”

“I’ll take one,” Kasser raised his hand, accepting a small folded pamphlet from the receptionist. He clicked his tongue. “Nevermind. I was hoping it would have the best hunting spots marked. It’s just a blank map and some puzzle spots.”

“It really is basically empty,” Myla frowned, peering around Kasser’s arm.

“The dungeon requested that we keep the guides as simple as possible, since it awards information as a prize for completing some of the puzzles.”

Myla hummed and took the pamphlet from Kasser. “We’ll keep it. Having a map is always useful.”

A few minutes later, they had climbed up the mountainside to where the dungeon’s entrance was. There were several other people loitering around with various metalworking and mining tools, arguing with the watchman.

“But it was platinum just a few days ago!”

“How come the guidebook didn’t mention that the door changed materials?”

The watchman laughed helplessly. “The dungeon told me to say ‘there’s a mine on the second floor’ when people ask that.”

“But I’m no good at puzzles,” a middle-aged elf sighed.

Although their tools could break mithril, the labor was much more intense. The elves and demons could only sigh, knowing that soon beastfolk would be the only ones profiting.

Well, until the door alchemized up another stage to adamantine. Then they’d all be in the same boat.

The trio of youths ignored the treasure seekers and stepped up to the dented but shiny door.

“Hey, the puzzle changed,” Myla pointed.

Three keys were hanging on the door, but there was only one key hole.

“Easy, we just need to try them all.” Kasser took one of the keys and grinned. “Let’s bet. Whoever chooses the winning key wins.”

The other two smiled and chose their own key, but none of the three actually worked on the lock.

Myla frowned while staring at her key, which was too big to even properly fit in the lock. “We all lose, I guess,” she shrugged, hanging the key she chose back on the door.

“Let me see that one,” Anther said, taking his key and Kasser’s key and comparing them closely. He pressed them up against each other and carefully lined up the teeth and the back and so on.

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“You look silly,” Kasser whispered to him.

“Don’t you think our two keys were kinda loose in the lock?” He replied. Anther didn’t care a bit if he looked silly, he just smiled at the keys with a sparkle in his eyes. “Look, they fit together if I hold them like this.”

When he tried the two keys together, their combined teeth were enough to turn the tumbles. There was a thunking sound, and the door slowly slid down into the floor.

Anther puffed out his chest and waited for his friends to praise him. Myla laughed but complemented him anyway.

“Good job, Anther.”

“I’m a veteran here, after all,” he boasted.

They headed inside, and a sign waited for them in front of the second door. It was a message from the dungeon.

“From now on, you only need to solve each puzzle once, but Anther is the only one who’s solved this one.

-Archimedes”

“You already solved this puzzle?” Myla interrogated him.

“Uh, h-hmm, yeah… I suddenly had an idea, so…”

She made a judging face at Anther, and he shrunk.

“Looks like they added a hint to make it easier,” Kasser interrupted, pointing above the door.

It wasn’t just a mural covered in cute winged foxes anymore. The text above the door said ‘Please feed the wolves.’

“I didn’t bring any food,” Myla said, peeking into the bag at her waist.

“I brought a sandwich for lunch,” Kasser said, but that’s for me to eat.”

They looked at Anther, who smiled and mimed locking his lips. Kasser sighed.

“Well, there’s rabbits in here. I’ll just catch a couple of those.”

***

“Whoa…” As the mural door opened, Myla and Kasser gawked at the cavern beyond.

It was a wide and lush room. Sunlight streamed down from the center, and the walls—carved with the likeness of trees—were slick with running water. There were delicious plants and critters galore.

While those two were distracted, Anther played with the little wolfbats who had come to open the door.

“According to the map,” Myla said, “there are four other hallways branching off of this room, and they all have a puzzle blocking them.”

“Should we split up?” Anther looked up to ask.

“I’d actually rather just hunt here,” Kasser explained.

“I’ll try one of the puzzles,” Myla said, “but I really just want to get my hands on a foraging map. That’s all.”

Anther blinked. “You guys, don’t you want to see the rest of the dungeon?”

“Of course we’re curious,” Myla said. “But you’re the veteran puzzle-solver, right? We’ll just follow you down if you figure out the way.”

“That’s definitely cheating,” he pouted, “but fine. I like solving the puzzles.” The youngest in the trio stood up, and the wolfbats around him jumped up at his legs playfully.

“Oh yeah, there’s a giant black wolf on this floor named Theoria. She’s my friend, so don’t hurt her.”

Kasser blinked with his mouth hanging open and nodded. “I mean, sure. Since that sign said to feed the wolves, I guess they’re our allies on this floor.”

The trio split up then, and Anther worked his way along the wall until he found another puzzle door. Set into its face was a set of engraved concentric circles that spun when he pulled them. Some of the rings also moved other rings, though. It took him some experimentation to get them all in the right position. About five minutes later, he was looking at the completed face of a majestic wolf.

Anther heard a huff and felt warm, moist air on the nape of his neck.

“Theoria!” He turned around and started petting the huge wolf. She wagged her tail and burrowed her face into his chest, knocking him back on accident.

“Oof. It’s nice to see you too.”

When he backed into the door, it swung open, so he peered over his shoulder down the densely forested hallway.

“Do you want to come explore with me?”

The wolf nodded, and they walked down the hallway together. At the end was a small wooden chest, just sitting on the floor. Anther opened it and found two pieces of paper. One was clearly a map, probably the gathering map that Myla wanted, and the other was a mysterious sentence.

‘It’s the largest object in the sky. I’ve never seen it, but you couldn’t see without it.’

Anther blinked. “It’s the sun, but why?”

He simply stashed both pages in his bag and retraced his steps. Theoria continued to walk alongside him as he followed the wall. Myla was already standing at the next door he found, pressing random buttons and pulling a lever repeatedly.

“How’s it going?” he called and heard her sigh in frustration.

“This is stupid. There aren’t any hints except for that carving up there, but I have no idea what it means.”

She turned around to look at him and instinctively jumped when she saw the massive black wolf with him.

“Oh…” Myla held her chest and exhaled. “That startled me. You must be, uh, Theory?”

“Theoria,” Anther corrected her.

The wolf offered her snout for petting as a greeting. While those two got to know each other, Anther examined the puzzle.

There was a metal door with tons of buttons, all with very recognizable shapes. They looked like clouds, stars, a moon, sun, wind, water drops, flowers, rabbits and so on. There were dozens of them. And next to the door was a lever.

Anther looked up and read the carving Myla had noted. ‘No wind nor rain born of earth has ever escaped the sky, yet still I yearn for their freedom.’

He fished the two pieces of paper out of his bag. “I found these in a chest behind the puzzle I solved. There was another riddle like that one. I think we should do the other puzzles first and come back to this one when we have more hints.”

Myla sighed, running her hands vigorously through Theoria’s dark fur. “So I picked the one that’s impossible to solve. Great.”

“I found the map you wanted though.”

Anther handed over the gathering map, and Myla stopped petting the Black Wolf to examine it. “Great! I’m going to go foraging then. Let us know when you’re finished with the puzzles.”

She wandered off and Anther gave his monster friend a smile. “We’ll come back to this one.”

He solved two more puzzle doors after that: one where he had to collect water from a nearby pond to fill a stone goblet carved into its face; and one that had nothing but a carving of a rabbit on it, where he had to reach into a rabbit burrow in the wall near the door and pull a hidden lever.

He returned to the final puzzle with a slice of pie, a shiny metal ingot that looked like mithril, and two more hints.

The elf boy split the meat pie in half, eating half himself and sharing the rest with Theoria, who gobbled it up happily. He held the hints he’d collected in one hand and his reward in the other.

‘It’s the largest object in the sky. I’ve never seen it, but you couldn’t see without it.’

‘It’s a creature you can’t find on this floor, but I hear they cause a fuss when they go flying around every twenty years.’

‘It’s something that forms in large bodies of water. It’s also a kind of greeting.’

So, it’s the sun, a dragon, and a wave, he thought, nodding. He found buttons shaped like each of those things and pressed them down, then pulled the lever. Nothing happened except that the buttons popped out again.

Anther tipped his head and tried again. He pushed the three buttons and hesitated, thinking. Glancing up at the line carved above the door, he also pressed the buttons that looked like wind and rain. This time, pulling the lever produced a satisfying thunk sound as the door unlocked and swung inward.

“Second try!” the boy pumped his fist and grinned. Theoria howled cheerfully beside him.

Anther laughed. “They should’ve heard that. Once they join us, we can keep exploring!”