The fifty-six-year-old Cassandra Keep woke up disoriented, with a look of confusion on her face. The confused look would have been seen on her face if it were not for the fact that she was in total darkness. Well, that is not entirely true either, as there is some light, although faint, coming from something stuck to the walls.

The name "Light Moss" came to her mind, along with a shocking amount of memories flooding her like a dam that had burst open. Laying her head back down upon the floor, she groaned as she pushed aside the memories, trying to remember how she got here. The pounding in her head felt like a hangover, even though she didn't remember drinking anything last night. Rubbing her sore throat, she faintly recalled a magic trick she was performing going wrong, and... she died.

Her eyes grew wide as she realized that the lock on the chains would not unlock. It wasn't until she was near death that she realized someone had replaced the key to the latch to keep it from opening.

She had been, or rather was, a second-class magician and puppeteer for the Magic House in the city. Every day, she performed a puppet show for the kids, using puppets that she hand-carved and painted. Some of her puppets were made of wood, while others were made of paper mache or clay, dressed up with handmade clothing that she sewed.

Over the years, she had created hundreds of puppets and even sold many of them online. She learned sleight-of-hand magician work by being a magician's assistant, then became an apprentice. After that, she moved on to do some magic shows to help her mentor out.

With her puppet shows drawing in a healthy crowd, the Magic House managed to stay afloat. However, things took a downhill turn when her mentor added two more apprentices. Veiled death threats and bullying from them started about a year ago when another magician offered her mentor a lot of money to sell.

Sandra was okay with her mentor selling, but the other magician wanted her puppet business too. She refused the man's offer. One reason was that the guy was an ass, and that was putting it mildly. The second reason was that the amount of money he offered was an insult.

She figures that it was him behind her death, but she got the last laugh. She left everything in her will to a puppet show out on the East Coast, with stipulations that her scripts and puppets cannot be sold for fifty years. She tries to chuckle, only to feel her throat hurting, so she groans instead.

Sandra inhales sharply as the memories of a sixteen-year-old girl named Sandra Hope come to her vividly. The memories show her that she was choked to death in a dungeon outside of a town called Shadedale. The man who choked her was a fellow adventurer, a fighter by the name of Gary Stoneshield, who had been let go from the army. In his thirties, with a pockmarked face, he should be sporting some deep claw marks that Sandra left on his face as she died.

Bile started to rise in her throat. Taking a deep breath, she settled her stomach down, but her eyes watered at the thought that she would not see any of her friends again. Sitting up, she was about to cast the spell Light to see where she was when she heard voices approaching. Panic filled her as she remembered being killed earlier in the dungeon, and she thought that maybe the man was coming back to dispose of the body.

In fear, she moved away from where she was and hastily hid in a depression against the wall, but she tripped and fell, groaning as she rubbed her knee from hitting the ground hard. She steadied her breathing as a spell came to mind: Lesser Illusion. Muttering the incantation, she weaved her hand, imagining a cave wall similar to the one she and her best friend had explored a few months ago. She decided to adopt the name Sandra Hope for now, at least until she could leave this place and find another city to settle in.

The spell ended just as the voices grew closer, echoing down the dungeon tunnel. The torch illuminated the surroundings as the figures came into view. A smaller woman was dragging a large warrior by the ear. Sandra recognized the woman as Stacy Hart, a half-breed dwarven woman who dealt in shoddy merchandise and gambling near the entrance of the Rat Dungeon.

Biting her lip to stifle a scream, she recalled that this dungeon was infested with rats. She despised mice, but rats were even worse. Actually, she detested spiders just as much, if not more. She was known to jump on chairs, tables, even into strangers' arms to escape from them. Beads of sweat formed on her forehead and trickled down her back at the thought of rats scurrying around. Fear gripped her heart, causing her to sweat even more.

"You dumb, ignorant, horny fool! Why in the thirty-three fucking Hells did you kill that girl?" The sound of a heavy palm smacking against a face could be heard.

"All you had to do was get her drunk after the dungeon run. Then!" She paused, taking a deep breath.

"That vial I gave you. All you had to do was slip it into her drink. I could have made several gold crowns selling her as a slave to some noble. Those Eastern nobles salivate over a young girl who is a mage that they can break and control, and now you've ruined it! Just because you couldn't keep it in your pants!"

Sandra could see the bearded woman peering around in the darkness, unable to spot anything. "Either the rats ate her or the dungeon swallowed her up! She's not here! There are only two ways to go, deeper into the dungeon or out the front, and I haven't seen her pass us. Besides, she's mediocre in spellcasting. No one is going to care if she disappears or dies. She's an orphan, and her master is dead!"

The woman squinted into the darkness, snorting before leaping up and grabbing the man's ear. "I'm putting you in the bordello to service my clients until you pay me back the two gold you lost!" the dwarven woman declared, dragging the bent-over crying man out of the dungeon.

Cassandra could still vividly remember the feeling of the man choking her after he pushed Sandra down in an attempt to rape her. She recalled casting a blinding flash, but his strength was overpowering. The memories of her pleas for help, ignored by the other three members of the adventurer group as the man tried to assault her, haunted her.

Sandra narrowed her eyes and watched as the torchlight faded away while the woman berated the man.

"Just you wait, I will make you pay! Maybe not today, but soon," she seethed, anger simmering within her at her own death and the girl's fate as a slave. Not to mention the attempted rape. The mere thought made her blood boil. The sound of squeaking made her squeal, and she quickly covered her mouth to stifle a scream.

Frantically searching through her memories of various spells, she found only a Minor Light Arrow spell, a couple of minor illusion spells, and a Minor Heal spell. The spells she had for combat were rather feeble. She recalled Sandra and her group using the light arrow spell to kill smaller rats, sometimes requiring two casts to take down a larger rat. Sitting upright, she thought of her staff and the dagger that the man had flung away during the assault. Casting a light spell, she dispelled the illusion covering her and got up, holding the light in her hand. Something caught her eye in the gleam of the light. She found her dagger, partially buried on the floor as if the dungeon was absorbing it, but upon touching it, the knife popped right out of the ground. She looked at the spot on the ground, observing the small hole where the dagger had been, now closing up. Sandra rose from her crouched position and noticed her staff nearby, slowly sinking into the ground. She rushed over and pulled it out, clutching it to her chest as though it were the most precious thing in the world. She sensed a hint of mana in the bone-white staff, which had been crafted from a glowing oak tree located far to the north. The staff had the ability to double the damage of her spells and shorten their duration. If she had a crystal embedded in the staff, it could store mana for her to use when running low. However, Sandra had been too poor to buy one, considering that the staff had been given to her by her mentor.

Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

She turned to leave but hesitated, reaching into her waist pouch and pulling out a silver coin. Weighing it in her hand for a moment, she made a decision. Knowing the silver could provide her with a week's worth of food, she tossed it to the ground and said, "Thanks for not taking my stuff."

She stared towards both the front and back of the dungeon, contemplating the need to find a safe place and follow some adventurers out. They had entered the dungeon in the morning, and it was around noon when she was killed. Assuming it took about an hour for the dwarf woman to appear, she estimated she needed to wait for about five or six hours to ensure a safe escape from the dungeon. Every time she heard a squeak, she would jump, her hands clenching tightly around the staff. After a few minutes, she would painfully pry her fingers from around the staff.

Odd thoughts of Sandra skinning rats popped into her mind, causing her to shiver in horror. Memories of Sandra skinning a rat for its fur to earn an extra copper Fen came rushing back. A hundred copper Fen was worth a silver Del, and a hundred silver Del equaled a gold Crown. The Adventurer Guild would pay one Fen per rat tail and an additional Fen for the hide if it was in good condition. The Merchant Guild, on the other hand, would pay one Del per five gallbladders from a rat. The diseased rat tails were the only valuable parts when it came to bounties on diseased rats. Getting bitten by one of these rats carried the risk of contracting various diseases that could hinder one's ability to work or even lead to death.

Most adventurers had to purchase potions to cure these diseases since healers were rare and in high demand, usually recruited by temples or nobles. This was the reason Sandra kept her healing powers hidden from everyone. If anyone found out that she could heal, her life would be controlled, and her freedom restricted.

Three weeks ago, the third level of the Rat Dungeon, as it was commonly called, had opened up, and stories of Ratmen had spread throughout the town. The rats on the first two levels were about the size of cats, while the Ratmen were humanoid creatures standing knee-high. Rumors circulated that the Ratmen in the dungeon had started wearing clothing and wielding sharpened sticks. A skinned Ratman fur was worth twenty copper Fen, and their tails, twice as long as those of regular rats, carried a bounty of two Fen per tail. The mere idea of encountering any of them sent shivers down her spine. She paused and whispered a silent prayer into the darkness.

"Please, any god that can hear me, let me escape this dungeon safely and find my way out of this place, and I will build you a small shrine," she rolled her eyes, "okay, maybe just a tiny shrine."

Her heart jumped as she heard voices approaching. Hurriedly, she moved towards the dungeon wall, pressing herself flush against it, and turned off the light. After a moment, she cast a minor illusion spell, creating a shimmering wall to enclose her and hide her behind an illusionary barrier.

Two men entered the tunnel of the dungeon from the entrance. One of them wore metal armor resembling a knight from the fantasy stories she had read. The other was an old wizard in pointed hat and long red robes, carrying a staff with a glowing flame at its end, indicating he was a fire mage. He appeared to be around thirty, skinny with messy brown hair that fell to his shoulders, and a prominent beak-like nose. His eyes blazed with red fire, likely a spell to detect heat sources. She silently prayed that the spell had a limited range. Fortunately, the knight obstructed the wizard's line of sight after a minute.

"Miss Hart claimed that the young mage died from a rat swarm. She wants us to kill as many rats as necessary to find her core," the knight informed the mage.

"Hmph! More likely, she wanted that soul core to place it in a sex golem for her brothel. I know she owns six of them," the mage replied, causing the knight to shiver upon hearing the revelation.

"I'm glad I'm not a magic-user with a core. No wonder many of you would rather explode than have your core taken," the knight remarked.

"Aye, I purchased a rune and had it tattooed on my skull. It will teleport my core to a secure location to be inserted into a golem I've already constructed upon my death. The tattoo cost me ten crowns, and the golem several hundred more. I'll lose some magical abilities, but gain several hundred, maybe even a thousand, years of life," the mage boasted, waving his staff about.

The knight shook his head, visibly disturbed. "You lose your humanity by doing that!"

"Hell, I'd do it right now if I had that one missing part to perfect my golem, but then I wouldn't be able to learn any new spells or grow stronger. I need to find a powerful magic core that will ensure I don't lose any of my existing spells. If the girl had died in here, it would take a week before the dungeon absorbed her core. Oh, it would be nice to acquire a dungeon core instead!" the wizard chuckled, as they ventured deeper into the dungeon.

Sandra leaned back against the wall, shocked by the realization of how many individuals were after her. The body she inhabited had no clan or family to protect her. She had gained her powers at the age of fourteen when puberty struck her at the orphanage. The girl's memories revealed a blur of men's faces, laughter, and foul odors until she was taken in by the mage. Above all, the memories were filled with the humiliation and anger that plagued her life until it abruptly stopped on the day she cast a Light spell, blinding some of the bullies who had been assaulting her at the orphanage. A mage sensed her spell and purchased her from the orphanage for a silver. She ended up serving the mage in his bed, which, to her, was preferable to enduring the nightly rapes from several men and boys at the orphanage. The only silver lining in it all was the opportunity to learn spells.

That day, she formed her mage core, making it easier for her to store mana. The core within this body allowed her to cast spells multiple times a day. Three weeks ago, her master was killed in a duel against a rival mage, and she fled from the hut they had shared, as the victor claimed all of the mage's possessions, including the hut. Fortunately, the slave contract had expired upon the mage's death. She managed to steal the staff and two books, one of which she hadn't been able to open and had buried outside the village in an oilskin bag. The other book remained in her backpack, still strapped to her back.

She could hear the sounds of fighting echoing from deeper within the dungeon as the two men battled the rats. If she didn't escape the dungeon tonight and allow it to reset, they would discover that she was still alive.

She moved as silently as possible toward the front of the dungeon, being mindful of her footsteps. This dungeon, being relatively new, only reset twice a day: at noon and again at sunset when the town closed it down. Sandra found a secluded hiding spot, where she cast her illusion spell once more and patiently waited for the two men to leave. Several more people entered the dungeon, most of them departing with limps and wounds from their battles.

As the outside light began to dim, a guard stepped in and blew a horn, its echoing sound reverberating through the dungeon corridor. A few minutes later, several individuals covered in blood and gore rushed past Sandra toward the dungeon's entrance, passing by the guard.

The guard gazed into the dungeon momentarily before turning and making their way toward the gate of the enclosure. On the other side stood a guard tower, ensuring that any rats escaping the dungeon would be shot down to prevent havoc in the town. As the guard closed the gate, Sandra swiftly emerged and positioned herself next to the wall by the gate. She cast the spell again, concealing herself, so that when morning came and the gate opened, she could make her escape.

Sandra contemplated her options with the illusion spell. She decided that in the morning, she would cast it on herself, assuming the appearance of someone else. Hopefully, during the early hours when the town guards were more lenient, many new adventurers would be allowed to enter the dungeon for training and mining. With any luck, she could slip out undetected.

The first floor of the dungeon housed tin ore nodes, while the second floor contained copper that could be mined on a daily basis, with the local Adventurer Guild overseeing the operations. Occasionally, gems could be found on the ground, though such discoveries were rare, happening only a few times a year. However, even if the gems were worth several silver Del, they still had to be turned in at the guildhall. Sandra heard the guard ascend the tower, followed by the release of a bowstring and an arrow soaring overhead, striking a squealing rat near the entrance. The sight of the dead rat caused a small involuntary squeal to escape her lips before she quickly pressed her mouth shut.

"That's one!" someone in the tower exclaimed.

Another voice beyond the gate chimed in, "Ninety-nine more to go!"

Sandra's eyes widened, and she silently mouthed the words, "Ninety-nine more," shivering in fear.