Chapter 1

“Why exactly am I carrying you on my back again?” Yvain was precariously hanging on to an almost flat wall of rock. A fall that would result in his instant death lay beneath him. On his back, Selt kept whooping and urging him to go up faster. Around him, the wind tried its best to knock him and his smaller companion off.

Their goal was to scout the top of Great Divider, the 5,433-foot-tall border that surrounded Empryon, and make sure that no unexpected dangers lay in wait. An easy enough task the first five minutes of the journey thanks to the stairs carved out of the wall. The problem began when they were faced with the end of said stairs not even halfway up. To be more exact, the problem began when Selt demanded to be taken along for the ride.

Selt wrapped his legs tighter around Yvain’s waist and rubbed cheek against cheek with a grating sing-song voice.

“Yvy, you know I don’t have enough strength to make this climb,” he said.

All hairs on Yvain’s back stood on end, and he quickly grabbed the kid with his right arm, flinging him off with no hesitation.

Selt screamed at the top of his lungs, his voice growing more and more distant. Yvain listened intently, a very small part of him hoping that just maybe that voice would suddenly be cut off. Unfortunately, the scream began to grow in strength. Selt’s body was being pushed up by what he could only guess was a particularly powerful gust of wind.

“Unbelievable,” Yvain said, unsurprised. Yet his heart froze for a split second when the gust carrying his still far-off companion buffeted his body, almost blowing him off the wall. What would happen when Selt reached his position? Wasting no time, Yvain pulled his right arm back and, setting his hand in a knife-like shape, embedded the limb up to its forearm on the rocky wall with some dust and debris bursting outward.

In the next instant, Selt’s scream passed him by at high speeds and with it came the gust’s full assault.

Yvain grunted in pain as the elbow joint tried its best to hold his body in place without breaking apart; the great sword on his back refusing to help with the matter as it shifted his weight in different directions. He gritted his teeth as the awkward position intensified the discomfort but before the pressure on his elbow could turn into an actual injury the wind stopped.

He relaxed his muscles with relief as Selt’s screams now came from above, slowly growing closer. Before he could realize his mistake, the kid grabbed on to him and a sharper pain ran up his arm as his elbow was now pushed the opposite direction from before violently.

Arms and legs grabbed onto him; this time tight enough to choke.

“Y-y-y-you dick! I was just messing around!” Selt screamed.

Opening his mouth, Yvain was about to scream, too, but gave up on it when the kid’s trembling registered. He didn’t feel bad about what he’d done, but there was no need to take the punishment any further.

“And you rubbed your crotch against my back,” he said and climbed as if he hadn’t just thrown his companion to his death. A dull pain now ran through his right arm every time he pushed himself up, but it wasn’t enough to stop their progress.

Yvain climbed for several silent minutes, stopping occasionally every time the wind picked up. Selt’s trembling had calmed down but he hadn’t started up his past hollering.

“Are you excited?” Selt asked.

“What do you think?”

“Come ooon don’t give me that wishy-washy answer. Your lifelong dream is about to be fulfilled! Are you happy? Scared? Will you miss your home?”

Yvain snorted at the last question. His home was the Draconian’s Tavern. How could he miss it when all its members were always together? But he knew what Selt meant. Regardless, he didn’t feel like addressing that particular topic. “You could say I’m a bit hesitant so close to the goal, but isn’t that an emotion normal to humans? Hardly worth a glance.”

Selt released his arms and let his torso fall back while still holding on to Yvain’s waist with his legs. The shift in weight made Yvain almost miss the next foothold.

“H-hey, be careful!”

Selt didn’t pay him any mind and with arms crossed took in the vast grasslands stretching out to the horizon while upside down. The village their group was in sat in the middle with smaller ones randomly sprinkled farther away from it.

“You’re a human too, you know,” Selt said. “Don’t talk as if what you’re feeling doesn’t concern you.”

“My real concern is your own humanity. How high was that fall again?”

Selt grabbed on to Yvain’s neck and with an innocent laugh said, “As long as I hold the favor of all gods I’ll never die.”

Yvain rolled his eyes at the kid’s lame joke and focused once more on the climb.

He wouldn’t be surprised if that was really the case. In any normal setting, Selt would not be part of the Draconian’s Tavern, or any guild for that matter. He couldn’t use starlight nor wield any weapons. Neither could he handle the logistics side of the business. He wasn’t even fast on his feet, a crucial trait for a scout, and his attention to detail left much wanting. Yvain’s companion only had one thing going for him: luck; though by now every single member wondered if luck had any hand in Selt’s impossible survival. But survive he did. That also meant that anyone near him would suffer the chaos following his brush with death if not prepared.

Besides Yvain’s master, he was the only one that could survive that aftermath. Since his master couldn’t really handle the absentmindedness and liberties Selt took, it always fell on his shoulders to accompany the kid. Realistically speaking Selt didn’t need any of them to follow him, but he also couldn’t give a detailed report for the life of him, and one couldn’t help but worry that someday his devilish luck would suddenly run out ... though those worries could weigh less depending on who you asked.

Moving one hand in front of the other, Yvain finally reached the top edge of Great Divider and pulled himself up. Selt didn’t waste any time and jumped off, running past him to check the terrain ahead. Except, all there was ahead of them was uneven, rocky ground ... and a castle.

What in the stars?

It was in an extreme state of ruin. Walls covered with huge holes, bricks scattered outward as if something exploded from the inside, towers either already on the ground or about to collapse, shattered windows. It only had one visible entrance—double doors that looked to be made out of black metal. On them, a pair of giant eyes with flames dancing around the remaining space looked down on whoever dared stand in front of them. The intricate design showed that whoever crafted them did so both to impress a sense of dread onto guests and show off his/her skills. Though instead of dread, Yvain was curious over the inhuman shape of that gaze: razor-edge pupils on a complex system of webs, all surrounded by scales.

Selt was already at the doors trying to push them open but they wouldn’t budge. For better or worse he couldn’t stand still for too long. He always had to be doing something or moving somewhere, even if the ‘where’ wasn’t decided on yet. It could give quite a headache to their leader whenever there was a mission to complete, but everyone just treated it as part of the package deal.

Yvain was still staring at the eyes on the door when a violent sense of dizziness arrived. Everything became double and he lost his balance but, right before he fell, he managed to regain a bit of control. With a hand on his knee and one parallel to the ground not quite making contact, and an imperceptible trembling coursing through his body, he managed to steady himself.

He could feel it. If that dizziness managed to bring him to his knees, he would lose. He didn’t know what or why he would lose, but he knew that he would lose something.

He looked up from his awkward position. The eyes were now alive, their overbearing aura oppressing him. What were scales, iris, and pupil of black metal were now a vivid red containing a web of yellow under a dark slit. The challenge in them wasn’t lost on him. It somehow angered and excited him at the same time.

Yvain could only attribute that feeling to how most of his life felt transient. No will of his own and only reacting to how the surroundings wanted him to react. It was a dull affair. Only when he agreed to be trained by his master and years after, when he finally gave up his comfortable life, did he feel alive; like he was in control. This felt like it was to be the third time. He had a choice. He could give up and walk away or face that stare head-on and gain something more. He needed to reach that door.

None of this meant that Yvain could actually force himself to walk straight or shake the dizziness away. He trudged forward while doubled over as if with stomachache. Two images became four, four became eight, eight became sixteen. All the images held the same inhuman looking eyes. Eventually, all he could do was close his own. With his sight gone, a sort of sharper focus came into being and he could feel that something was directly influencing his brain. That’s when a hand touched his left shoulder.

“Are you all right?” came Selt’s worried voice from beside him.

A silly question considering his current state, but not much the kid could do as Yvain himself didn’t know what was going on. Unbeknownst to Selt, though, that hand sent Yvain’s mind into a more violent spin and he finally puked.

“Hey!” Selt went to grab him but Yvain pushed him away.

“Just ... don’t touch me.” As he finished grinding those words out, one of the towers that was already breaking down fell completely. As it crashed, with a dust cloud spreading out, the dizziness that had been impairing him lost over half its effect.

Yvain opened his eyes with slight hesitation, but his view had already turned back to a single solid image. Not wanting to risk the ailments coming back before he reached the goal, he straightened himself and walked the rest of the way, albeit still a bit unbalanced, and set his hands on the doors. Whatever dizziness was left disappeared immediately, and ready to claim his victory, he pushed the doors open.

Selt’s swift steps grew closer but, before the kid ventured inside, he abruptly stopped.

“Whoa.”

The outside of the castle belied what was really inside. A great hall made of gold stood in front of them. It was completely empty in the way of furniture; instead, mountains upon mountains of gold coins filled every corner. Enough to set them up for whatever endeavors they came up with in the future. Paintings depicting different types of scenery covered the walls, stretching all the way up to the roof, set in no perceivable order. Ornamental weapons were discarded over the floor along with all types of jewels. There were only three doors in the room. The one they just opened and two, one on the right and left walls respectively, a bit farther ahead.

Yvain walked in with tentative steps, his head swiveling from side to side as he tried to keep his breathing under control. Selt was a bit less restrained and ran up to the closest pile of gold.

“We can definitely go visit those dungeons you guys have been so adamant about with this amount of money,” the kid said. That’s when realization dawned on Yvain.

“Don’t touch that!” he grabbed Selt by the scruff of his shirt and pulled him back, but it was too late. The kid had already grabbed a handful of gold.

Without any preamble, the double door closed with a reverberating thud that shook the whole place. Some of the gold could be heard rolling down their respective piles as Selt looked back at Yvain with a nervous smile.

“We’re in a dungeon, aren’t we?”

“And no supplies,” Yvain sighed.

After searching the room they were now sealed in, and finding no other exit point, Yvain and Selt tried the next logical step.

“One ... two ... pull!” With each one grabbing a different handle, they tried to open the doors that had closed on them. Yvain knew it was a futile effort, but this being his first dungeon it wouldn’t hurt to put word-on-paper to the test.

The most important rule of any dungeon was that once it began its trial, no one could leave until it was either completed or they died. Since the conditions to begin the trial were never static, the rule of thumb was to never put even half a foot inside unless absolutely prepared. Some could begin as soon as the first person stepped in, others would not begin at all even if a whole team searched the place. At least, this was all the practical knowledge Yvain managed to gather in the past with the limited information available to him. Most books repeated themselves before filling the rest of its pages with accounts of the journey unique to the writer. Something that only served as a tale to pass the time as no dungeon was ever the same nor had the same challenges. And once a dungeon was completed it would disappear for good so no references could be used.

Resigned to his fate, Yvain released the door handle. “Here. If the doors ever open then quickly send the signal.” He undid the string holding a leather pouch to his waist and threw it toward Selt. “I’m going to go on ahead and see if I can finish the trial so we can leave.”

Selt grabbed the pouch, but his pout was already giving Yvain a migraine. “No way! This is our first dungeon together. I’m not going to miss out on the fun.”

Yvain rubbed his temples and spoke, “It may come as unexpected to you but not all of us have your luck. I don’t know what I’ll have to face. If I take you with me there’s a high chance that it’ll just be tougher on me.”

“And it may come as unexpected to you but I can take care of myself,” Selt argued.

“Of that I have no doubt, but I wasn’t implying I’d take care of you. Oh don’t give me that face.” The hurt that appeared on Selt was convincing. Yvain knew better though; this wasn’t their first time having this conversation.

“I already gave you a pass when we had to climb Great Divider,” he said. Seeing some guilt appear on the boy, he pushed on.

“Who was it that got us in this situation in the first place?” Yvain didn’t feel good about pushing the blame around, but he needed to increase the odds of his survival as much as he could and taking Selt with him would achieve the opposite.

Selt huffed a frustrated sigh and spoke, “Fine, I’ll stay here for now.” Yvain nodded in relief and began to turn when Selt continued, this time with a mischievous grin and extended hand.

“But! You owe me a favor. A favor you must fulfill at all cost, be it day or night, windy or not.” Yvain found the choice of words weird, but nothing the kid could ask of him could be too difficult. He went to clasp hands but added his own condition before doing so, just in case.

“Make sure it’s something I can manage.” He got a confused stare as an answer.

“Why would I ask you to do something you can’t do?”

“Forget it,” Yvain said, kicking himself for even worrying, and clasped hands with the kid, sealing their impromptu deal. Selt lay back on a pile of gold with an audible clink and threw the leather bag up in the air before catching it on its way down.

“Be careful with that,” Yvain said, and strode back to the middle of the room.

“Yes sir!” Selt said dramatically, making Yvain shake his head in exasperated silence.

The two doors deeper in the hall were practically identical. He mulled over which one to take as he took a mouthful of water from his canteen and rid himself of the acidic taste permeating it. Being just one person he would have to commit to one side.

Not wanting to waste too much time on such a random choice he asked the paragon of “luck” for guidance.

“Which way would you take?”

“Left,” Selt said absentmindedly.

Well that didn’t take long, Yvain thought and went the opposite way from his companion’s choice. He and the others had been testing the theory that Selt had a nose for danger and followed it religiously, more for fun than some rigorous scientific study. So far the evidence had met halfway on it being true or not. This was as good a chance as any to once more see if Selt’s luck extended to his conscious choices.

The door didn’t offer any visual or mental attack; neither did it look at him. It easily opened, and Yvain found himself standing in a spiral staircase leading down. With torches steadily lighting the way, it didn’t take long to reach the bottom where a long hallway waited with a tall window at the end.

A red carpet, that felt pleasing even under his boots, covered the floor. Contrary to the great hall, the materials here conformed to the norm with finely cut rocks of identical shapes creating a pleasing view from floor to the arcs on the ceiling. The five chandeliers lighting the hallway completed a picture that reminded him of the past, albeit more grandiose.

Doors covered both sides—all closed except for one, next to the window, from which some light was spilling out. A torrential drumming indicated that it was raining, with the muffled strike of water droplets hitting the roof streaming thought the hallway. It alluded to him being inside a building that was outside. But considering the circumstances by which he got there, it should be impossible. Outside the window it was pitch black, so it wasn’t possible to tell by just looking.

An illusion, he thought. Roesia, the one member in their group that could use magic, was always clamoring on about it. According to her a sharp stimulus to the body should be enough to end it, but that was for weaker illusions. Yvain could feel the humidity on his skin, the carpet under his feet; he could even smell roses, though he was not sure about the smell’s point of origin. If it was an illusion, then he didn’t have the means to break it. He thought back to the imposing eyes at the entrance, but they felt inherently different.

Yvain was broken out of his thoughts when the cry of a baby came out from the only open door, the rain outside intensifying. He immediately grabbed the hilt of his sword with his right arm but flinched in slight pain. Switching to his left, he walked forward with caution.

The closer he got to the door the stronger the downpour became and a few moments later, as if the rain reached a boiling point, lighting struck.

It illuminated Yvain and the hallway completely before everything was plunged into darkness, with only the light in the final room remaining. Some seconds passed with the baby still crying, a sharp silence in the background signifying that it wasn’t raining anymore. Then the sound of thunder hit.

Every door creaked open, and a sound not too different from nails on chalkboard screeched out from every single one. Yet Yvain was only focused on one thing. He couldn’t help but tremble at what he just saw outside the window.

The moment lightning struck the image of a massive creature had appeared inside the shadows. It came and went much too fast to see the details, but he didn’t miss the eyes. They were the same ones he saw at the entrance. Yet not only were they much bigger, but the pressure they gave off was a sky compared to the speck of blue from the ones that came before it. The orbs had been staring at him.

Giving him no time to gather himself, skeletons close to him in height came out of every room. Some were bare of skin and others only had their eyeballs or none at all, with some skin giving hint at their past features. Most were holding a sword with a few holding a double axe or a great sword like Yvain.

The skeletons only shared two things in common: horns coming out of their heads, all of different shapes, and the stench. It was the first time Yvain had smelled something so putrid. It took all of his mental endurance to hold himself steady as he prepared to fight in that smell.

The fight never came though. The closest skeleton ignored him and headed for the light ahead. In fact, every skeleton was heading toward the source of the cry.

What’s going on? Yvain thought.

He knew he couldn’t use examples of finished dungeons as a point of reference, but the descriptions made by others were never this bizarre. As no skeleton was paying him any mind, he decided to just follow them and see if there really was a baby in a dungeon.

The crying didn’t stop even after all the skeletons entered the room. When Yvain reached the door, a line of them were standing at attention on either side. A crib was at the end with a single bearded skeleton standing in front of it.

It really is a baby, Yvain thought with widening eyes as a tiny head struggled inside a bundle of cloth.

He slowly walked in at the ready, piercing every skeleton he passed with his gaze, but no one made a move. The room was like any other where someone would find a newborn. Bright colors, stuffed animals, a chair for the mother to sit in while feeding. The rotting atrocities now in it didn’t fit at all.

The crying shifted abruptly, with an adorable laugh taking its place. Yvain kept the skeletons in his peripheral as he gazed back to the crib where the bearded skeleton was holding the baby in its arms, a knife hanging over it.

“Stop!”

Yvain shot out of his position, forming a single deep footprint on the ground and creating a mild shockwave around him that rattled anything hanging loose. Having no time to draw his sword, he could only extend his right arm and allow the knife to impale his hand.

Pushing up, he managed to stop the edge from reaching its target and without missing a beat backhanded the bearded skeleton’s head with his left fist. The head, as if being shot out of a cannon, got ripped out from the rest of the body and smashed the wall, forming cracks all around it. He quickly slid the knife out, some blood falling on the cloth underneath, and with no other option carefully laid the baby between the crevice of his right arm.

As if on cue, every skeleton in the room screeched and began to move, this time their weapons set on Yvain. He didn’t wait for them to attack first.

Yvain slid the great sword from his back in a horizontal motion and, with a speed almost invisible to normal eyesight, cut two of the skeletons to his left in half. Wasting no time, he took the brief opening to dodge the attacks coming from the right and moved behind the crib, kicking it toward his most recent assailants.

The cradle burst into wooden pieces, pushing back several of the skeletons in its way. That’s when the crying started again.

Yvain had moved too roughly, and the baby’s left arm was stuck uncomfortably between his chest and its tiny body.

“Tch,” he stabbed the sword on the ground and, flinching at the sound of blade meeting concrete, gently repositioned the baby’s arm. The small creature immediately calmed down and began cooing after him but there was no time to pay it attention. More skeletons were coming into the room with those already inside trudging after him.

Yvain picked up his great sword and prayed to the stars it wasn’t damaged; the last thing he wanted to do was bring back his master’s weapon in a worse condition than when it was lent to him. There was no time to examine it though. Instead he ran through the left side of the room, focusing on parrying the attacks coming at him.

The skeletons were thankfully slow on their feet and their strikes predictable, making his escape quick and easy. Unfortunately, when he left the room and turned to leave, the entire hallway was filled to the brim with more of them. In the back, several orbs of bright sapphire that served as eyes were illuminating the body of skeletons that were around twenty feet tall.

Yvain was sure he could take on this small army but, they were too confined, the baby would die in the crossfire. Only one exit remained. Pushing down the shiver of fear that threatened to burst out of his body, he sheathed his great sword and ran for the window.

He jumped and turned in the air, allowing his back smash against the glass, and dark instantly turned to light. Yvain was now standing in the same great hall as before. At least, that’s what it looked like at first glance.

What was the entrance to the dungeon was now the broken window with skeletons starting to pour out of it. The paintings on the walls, having more space than before, were neatly set around the room. Everything was also much, much wider; wide enough to comfortably fit the beast growling behind him. It reminded him of the many lizards he would see around his home, only this one was several magnitudes bigger. One of its eyes alone overshadowed Yvain’s measly seven feet stature.

What was the next course of action? Was he supposed to fight everyone here? Yvain didn’t mind the skeletons now that he had this much space available to him. But if the beast attacked, forget the baby, currently laughing in his arm, even he would not survive.

He was confident in his strength, but their muscle mass was just much too different. Not to mention that his great sword was a toothpick compared to its claws.

The skeletons, ignorant of Yvain’s troubles, moved toward him. Hand on hilt, he slowly backed away while deciding on what to do. Then a light lit up behind him.

With an increasing heat enveloping him, Yvain turned his upper body to find the gaping maws of the beast wide open. There was a blinding brilliance coming from its throat that immediately turned into an incandescent pillar of solid white heading straight for him.

Yvain pushed off to the right as quickly as possible, shielding the child in his arms. Yet even while managing to dodge the brunt of the attack, the sheer heat coming off of it made the back of his leather armor burst in flames and his sword start to melt.

Holding back a scream of pain he quickly discarded the weapon but had no time to do the same with his clothes. To make matters worse, in his haste to get out of the way, he tripped.

His body was about to fall flat on the defenseless child when he shifted his center of gravity midair and landed on his back, sliding across the floor for a few meters before a pile of gold cushioned his crash. Coins burst out at every angle before falling down in a downpour of shimmering yellow.

The sliding had put out most of the fire on his armor, but his body was still smoking with some parts of his skin mildly burned.

“What in the stars was that?!?” Yvain couldn’t help himself and screamed out at the beast in an accusing tone, more to suppress the pain and the shattering of his understanding of reality than to attempt a scolding.

Was this part of the hated monster race? It couldn’t be. Images of his friend’s beautiful ex-fiancée came to mind. She was part of what humans considered monsters, but she looked nothing like this. It had wings spanning all of its body, a long lizard-like head, sharp red scales that could probably grind anything to paste, and a tail that looked both powerful yet nimble. Yvian had never seen anything like it, neither had it ever been mentioned in dungeon related books. Yet one word kept coming unabated into his mind, ‘monster’.

It was a word that sent the roughest of men and women into shivers. Yvain had never paid it any attention. In fact, those in Draconian’s Tavern had adopted the moniker ‘Beasts’ as it was another description given to the beings that was less crude than monster. Yet, was this how everyone felt when the word was naught but uttered? He couldn’t deny the coldness that was flowing from the tip of his feet through his groin and onto his head before pulsating back down.

That attack could obliterate every single member in Draconian’s Tavern. That’s what it did to the skeletons that had been gathering. All that was left in the aftermath was a river of lava spanning the attacks path, the searing substance creating a molten waterfall where the window had been.

Maybe we made a mistake, Yvain thought.

When he and Nelimir first went to recruitment office in the Cosmos headquarters two years back they were offered strength beyond their mortal means. Such a promise, and their subsequent illustrations, was more than enough to convince two hot-blooded young men to join one of their established guilds. Unfortunately their rules proved too constricting and so they created their own at the sacrifice of a fast track to ‘unimaginable power’. But unimaginable power was exactly what Yvain needed right now.

A hiccup caught Yvain’s attention. The baby was looking at him with round, innocent eyes. It finally registered that they had a glowing yellow sheen to them with the same razor-sharp pupils as the beast that had just attacked them and the eyes at the door. Were they connected somehow? His friend’s ex-fiancée had sharp and long ears, so did her family. Even if they were considered monsters, they retained a shape close to humans. The child’s ears were round, but its eyes different; human, but with a quirky trait. Mild excitement began to build in the pit of his stomach in face of this discovery, but he couldn’t give it precedence as small earthquakes grew near to his location. The beast was coming.

Standing up, Yvain shamelessly ripped off the rest of his ruined clothing and scanned for anything he could use to fight. With only ornamental weapons available he grabbed the first sword he could reach and ran. As long as he didn’t engage and fought defensively, he and the baby could survive while he found a way to get out of their predicament.