The dungeon started out just like any other. The first days of delving involved smashing our way through the weakest beasts the dungeon had captured, mostly the types of nocturnal creatures we had dealt with as we made our way through the desert.

Slowly but surely the beasts sized up and grew more powerful. I had left Otter with the sled on the surface to avoid getting my new little pal killed, but Tug followed us through the tunnels as usual, though she could only really help in the boss chamber. We fought our way past corrupted sandstingers, which had three tails instead of one, each with a long metallic needle at the tip of the stingers. We battled a corrupted rhinothell, with a long metallic bladed horn and inky black fur over a muscular body. We triumphed over increasingly challenging corrupted beasts, until finally, after days of careful delving, we reached the end.

“What the fuck is that?” Rashir said as we pulled back to regroup.

“I… I don’t know,” Sidel said, eyes wide.

“It’s a draconic beast.” I looked up at my party members, and saw their shocked faces. “I mean, it has to be, right?”

I had already appraised it, so I knew what the beast was.

A corrupted wyvern.

I glanced back into the boss cavern and examined the massive beast again. It had two powerful back legs, tensed below its large frame. It was, precariously, bipedal, as in place of having proper forelimbs, it had two large, leathery wings.

The whole draconic beast was covered in dark, void-black scales that my magic light seemed to almost flow off of rather than absorb. It had metallic spines and talons that were characteristic of corrupted beasts, and a maw full of matching teeth, making its lizardy snout appear extra savage and dangerous. A long, powerful tail extended behind it, coiling around its legs as it waited in that mechanical way that I still had not grown entirely used to despite spending so much time in dungeons.

Our main advantage was that within the confines of a dungeon cavern, the wyvern would not have its ability to fly on its side. This was the same situation I had been in with the corrupted aclewing in my first rank B dungeon, and it gave us the tiniest of a leg up in our battle with this pseudodragon. Without functional forelimbs, it would not be able to grab or slash, meaning we would mostly have to watch out for biting and tail lashing.

Despite those possible advantages, it was still a rank A corrupted beast. It would be an incredibly difficult battle. I felt a flutter of nerves in my belly, something I had not properly felt in a long time.

“It doesn’t matter what it is,” Markas said, looking at each of us in turn. “The plan stays the same. Deklan up front with his shield, protecting us. Rashir and Estorra in the back, peppering it with ice projectiles and venom arrows. Sidel guides Tug in to damage, disrupt, and distract. I attack, with Deklan’s support, and we bring this beast down.”

We all looked at each other, wariness plainly readable on some of our faces.

“We can do this,” Markas insisted. I was not honestly sure he was right. Draconic beasts were a lot tougher than others, and this one was corrupted, which was completely new to me. Still, I locked eyes with him and nodded. “All right. Let’s get ready.”

* * *

Of all the battles our party had been in, this would be our most precarious, and so we should have approached it with the most caution. Perhaps we would have been better suited to leave the dungeon entirely and sleep on it, but something about the intensity of the coming battle was too much of a draw to us. Maybe we just all knew we would not be able to sleep if we had tried to, which would have only made the coming battle harder.

For whatever reason, and through unspoken agreement, we did not head back to the surface. This was the end of our quest, the end of a series of quests. We were prepared to face it immediately. All we did was ensure that our blades were sharp, our magic reserves topped up, and our bodies ready for what we were about to put ourselves through.

We stood at the mouth of the cave, looking in, and Markas clapped his hand on my shoulder. I turned to him, met his eyes, and we both nodded.

“Now.”

I sprinted forward, carrying my massive sword on my back and my tower shield in my hands, and the wyvern’s tail uncoiled as it came to life. Its eyes narrowed in my direction, and it let out a blood-curdling howl while I closed the distance. Slamming my shield into the ground, I prepared myself and braced for a blow.

The tail hit my shield like a meteor impact. I grunted and dug in, barely managing to tank the hit and keep the wyvern’s focus while my party arranged themselves behind me. With relief, I saw arrows and icicles start to soar past me and crash into the wyvern’s face, and I took a sharp breath as I prepared to move and intercept the corrupted draconic beast if it switched targets.

The wyvern did not move beyond its head, which swiveled to identify the source of the projectiles. A frown began to appear on my face as I realized something was wrong if the wyvern was not rushing to attack them, and had not yet attacked me again.

It reared back slightly, lifting its chin and elongated its throat.

I had only a second to react as the beast’s head snapped down, maw gaping, and a torrent of black fog fired from its mouth towards my party. I threw out a magic barrier, but the miasma chewed threw it like it was nothing, and it washed over us.

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Choking, coughing, and sputtering, I pushed some magic into my 4-point magic circle, pushing the air in the cavern forward to clear the black smog. It felt disgusting, but I was alive, and it did not seem to be causing me too much distress. I glanced at my information, trying to figure out what the miasma was doing, and saw the change in my status.

The miasma caused a status effect that my metasystem called Pollution. As I appraised it further, it seemed to be eating away at our magic reserves. Would it stop when our MP hit zero, or would it then start chipping away at our health, like overdrawn magic usage did?

That was not a risk I could take. I was not about to let this status effect slowly kill any of my party members. Even if it did not affect health, Estorra needed her magic to fight, and I needed mine for barriers and light. There was only one option, then, and I cursed quietly.

Hopefully, no one would notice.

As soon as the miasma cleared, I focused on the 6-point magic circle hidden in my armor, and casted cures on my party, cleansing them of the negative status.

“What was that?” Sidel choked out once the air was clear.

“I have no idea!” Estorra screamed, her eyes wide and panicked.

My focus was drawn back as the wyvern’s head came down at me, razor-sharp teeth filling my vision. I leapt back, hauling my shield with me, and narrowly avoided the crushing bite of the corrupted dragonling. Up close, its mouth and teeth were even bigger, and I was not sure I could tank that, even with my shield.

Estorra shot off another icicle, and the wyvern pulled back a bit, letting out a low growl through sneering lizard lips. I saw Markas dance forward, slashing at the beast, but its scales were very durable and the blade seemed to skate off them rather than find purchase.

Tug charged, attempting to knock the wyvern off-kilter. With only two legs supporting most of the beast’s weight, that was our only real chance at turning the tide of this fight. If it was grounded, maybe we could hack at its underside and cause some proper damage.

The wyvern stumbled slightly when Tug collided with its leg, but did not fall. Still, I dropped my shield and rushed forward, drawing my greatsword with two hands and swinging it with all my might up at the scaly monster.

My blade clanged off the beast’s impressive scales, twisting in my grip slightly, and I cursed again as I quickly stepped back to reclaim my shield before the wyvern’s tail pasted me against the dungeon floor.

“This is not going well,” I muttered, and I must have been overheard, because I Markas grunted an affirmation from behind me.

The wyvern reared back again, and I knew another wave of miasma was on the way. We could not let that happen.

“Hit it again, Tug!” I shouted, and I shifted my grip on my shield, twisted, spun in place once, and launched the hunk of steel like a frisbee at the wyvern’s throat just below its jaw.

The tower shield crashed into the wyvern’s neck, and it seemed to do the trick, interrupting another bout of black fog breath. Unfortunately, that left me relatively defenseless on the frontline, and the wyvern glared down at me with hate and rage in its eyes.

From the corner of my eye, I saw Tug racing forward, and the nomadic rhinothell crashed into the wyvern’s leg again, distracting it just enough for me to race forward and retrieve my shield. By the time I was back into a defensive position, I was panting hard.

This was going very poorly. I appraised the wyvern; we had barely done any damage at all.

“We need to fall back!” I shouted from behind my shield. There was maybe a chance we could defeat this thing if we gave it everything we got—especially if I let loose with everything I had—but the risks were too high. I was not about to let one of my party members die just to get the core. I was the party defender, and that meant I needed to keep everyone alive.

Once we regrouped and recovered, we could study our battle and try again. Maybe recruit more help, bring in more combat beasts, the same way we had taken out the dracosaur back in Freehold. There was no time limit on this, so there was no need to rush.

Suddenly, the pressure of the dungeon eased off. My head snapped up in confusion, and I saw the same disorientation in the eyes of the wyvern before me.

“I’ve got it!” I heard Rashir call out as he raced by.

“What? You…” My thoughts stuttered as I tried to catch up with what had happened. When had his arrows stopped? He must have snuck around the wyvern while we were distracting it.

He took the core.

My eyes widened. The wyvern was still alive, but he still took the core. What did that mean? What was going to happen? Was the dungeon still going to sink into the ground? My mind raced as I tried to recall if I had ever pulled a core without first clearing the dungeon entirely, and came back blank.

“Deklan! We need to go!” Markas called out, and I realized the party was retreating back out the tunnel of the dungeon. With a shake of my head and one last glance at the wyvern, I ran after them.

Our party fled the dungeon, winding back up the tunnels we had cleared on our delve, until we finally spilled back out into the desert. It was night, and the desert was dark and cool. Otter cooed happily when he saw us, running over and rubbing against my legs. My party members were all catching their breath and calming down as I spun and marched up to the rogue.

I grabbed Rashir by the leather of his armor, partially lifting him off the ground. “What the fuck were you thinking?”

“What? We got the core, and we’re alive to sell it. The quest was only to retrieve the core, not to get ourselves killed against a draconic beast.”

“He’s right, Deklan,” Markas said, putting a hand on my shoulder. I let go of Rashir in disgust, and he dropped an inch to the ground, scowling. “This works out for us. We’ll report what happened to the Guild, but there’s no reason to think—”

Markas’s words were cut off when we felt a tremor in the ground. An earthquake? I had yet to experience one, but the mountains in the north suggested tectonic activity, so it was possible.

The timing suggested otherwise, though.

We all fell to our knees as the ground shook violently. Otter let out a little squeak, Estorra cried out in fear, and I heard Markas curse.

The desert continued to tremble as the sound of stone breaking echoed from deep in the cave we had just fled. I turned just in time to see the top of the outcropping explode as the corrupted wyvern broke free from the confines of the dungeon, its furious eyes hungrily searching for something as it whipped its head around. Its gaze finally landed on the core in Rashir’s arms, and the wyvern screeched in boundless fury.

I grew cold at the thought of what we had just done. What we had caused, and unleashed onto the world.

A dungeon break.