When I was conscious again, I was drowning in the darkness. It seemed familiar. Had I sunk into a pool of black liquid once before? My memories were too jumbled to remember.

  My whole body felt sluggish and disconnected from my sense of self. If I really was drowning, shouldn’t I be struggling to break the surface? Shouldn’t I be kicking and punching the liquid around me, trying to find a gulp of air I could swallow down? Shouldn’t I feel burning lungs, and the panic therein, possessing me alive?

  All I felt was an almost gentle pressure wrapping around every inch of me as well as the sensation of slowly but surely sinking deeper and deeper.

  Shouldn’t I be trying to get out?

  Before I could formulate an answer to that, because even my thoughts were slow then, I felt myself jerk to a halt. And then, miraculously, I was dragged up higher and higher. Something—someone?—was pulling me up.

  “Ross!” someone shouted. A voice that was familiar, though the words were wet and warped and gurgling under the murk. “You need to work. You need to get out!”

  What? Wasn’t I being pulled out? Surely I wouldn’t need to do anything here.

  “Khagnio can’t do it on his own, Ross.” The voice. That was… Cerea. “You need to fight back against the Nether Vein!”

  And then, as I broke the surface, proper awareness slammed back into me. I gasped.

  “Don’t struggle, mageling!” Khagnio snapped.

  I wasn’t even aware that I was making things more difficult for my would-be rescuer. Apparently, wherever I had fallen to, Khagnio had jumped in after me.

  “I… what’s…” My words were failing me. A hundred sensations were trying to lay claim to my attention, my mind turning frazzled in its attempt to simply acknowledge most of them, much less actually responding to each and every stimulus.

  When I tried to ground myself by seeing what was going on, which was hard enough in the gloomy area, I could hardly make sense of what I was seeing just then. We were in a pool of swirling darkness. Large metal spikes seemed to be rising out of the murk at random but otherwise, I saw no defining features.

  “Just hold on tight, mageling,” Khagnio said more urgently. He wasn’t just swimming forward. We were both being pulled. There was a rope tethering us to a spot higher up in the tall, dark chamber. No. Not to a spot. To people. “Don’t fight against me, fight against it.”

  It. What had that voice—what had Cerea called it?

  Nether Vein.

  What did that exactly mean? I needed to get a grip on my thoughts and figure out what was going on and what had happened. I needed to get a grip on my body—

  Body. I had a body again. A little while ago, the core awakening had overwritten my normal body to create what had felt like a complete simulacrum of it with only pure mana. But now it was back. Real flesh and blood. I was breathing. I was hurting.

  “No,” Khagnio growled. “Calm down, mageling. Just keep it together till we reach safer ground.”

  “Right.” I forced myself to get my head back to working correctly. And the best way to do that was to go along with what my party, my friends who had come to save me, were saying and doing. “Thanks,” I gasped out.

  “You owe so much after this, mageling. You know I lost my Pits-blasted tail for your shenanigans?”

  I blinked. That helped ground me somewhat. I was alive. No matter what craziness had occurred, I was still intact and mostly whole. Even after getting stabbed through my sternum by Zoltan, I had managed to come out of it without losing anything vital.

  But Khagnio had lost his tail. An entire limb.

  We were soon dragged to safety. As we moved, I found that I couldn’t recognize where I was. Either this was a completely different and significantly more gargantuan chamber than the one where I had fought Zoltan and the Eyelined Beast, or the explosion of mana ejected from my core had reshaped everything enormously.

  I shivered as I was pulled up to solid ground by Cera and Ugnash. Not just because much of my clothes were gone and I was cold, but also because I finally got to see Khagnio fully.

  His tail was indeed gone. Severed just a foot after it started off his lower back. But it wasn’t gone completely. Instead, the majority of the tail that was missing had returned in the form of an ink-black apparition of it, connecting seamlessly with the flesh-and-blood stump.

  “What…” I swallowed. “What happened?”

  Khagnio grimaced. “I’m not even sure… You’re one to talk, mageling, with that hole in your chest.”

  I looked down, then stared. At the spot where I had been pierced by Zoltan’s Icon, there wasn’t a hole there. Instead, a ball of compressed, glowing energy was whirring like a generator, crisscrossed with webs of worrying black lines. I hadn’t even noticed it during the swim in the darkness, but now, it felt like I had a little engine running perpetually in my chest.

  “Don’t panic,” Cerea said quickly. “That’s your mana core, I’m pretty sure.”

  “I figured,” I said quietly.

  “I’ve just never seen one out in the open like that.”

  She was about to talk about it more, but Ugnash overrode us.

  “It’s not safe here,” the big Rakshasa said. “We need to get out of this dungeon. What’s left of it, that is. Come on.”

  I looked at the swirling mass of blackness below us. The pool was much wider than I had at first thought. From this higher vantage point at a little nook in the chamber walls, I saw that the tree-sized metal teeth actually made a strange pattern on the face of the swirling murk. Like a vertical figure-eight, except with the top quarter missing and replaced by what looked like a plus sign. Or a four-pointed star. Something like that.

  We left quickly. Traversing wasn’t difficult, especially now that I was on the case with Gravity.

  I followed the others’ direction, mutely observing how the dungeon was basically nothing like I was familiar with. Whole chambers had been wiped out and buried in debris, tunnels caved in and missing completely, entire sections falling off only to reveal new pathways.

  Certain areas were flooded with lava. It wasn’t just the natural magma from the volcano. The mana blast had melted a lot of the rocks, creating more glowing, molten runoff that turned the atmosphere sweltering.

  “If there are any maps in the treasure, they’re going to be useless now,” Khagnio said sullenly.

  “Oh, right,” I said, suddenly remembering the real reason we had come to Eversight dungeon, which wasn’t my mana core awakening. In the chaos, I definitely hadn’t gotten to see everything that was supposed to be our reward. “What all did it have?”

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  “Exactly what we were expecting,” Cerea said. “The slab that Master Kostis wanted and some trinkets too. There’s also an eyeglass that lets you see into the future for I think it was five seconds or something. And—”

  We all turned to her at that.

  “That’s insane,” Ugnash muttered.

  Cerea shook her head. “You didn’t let me finish. A bunch of purified versions of the monsters carcasses and cores that we were collecting, a set of robes lined with eyes whose property I’m not exactly sure I want to test out, a bow with an eye that lets you look at targets far away like you’re right next to them, and some other assorted odds and ends.”

  Her voice was disinterested, unlike mine, Ugnash, and Khagnio’s. There was a good reason for that. Interesting as some of our discoveries no doubt sounded, we wouldn’t be able to make use of them. Not yet. First, they would go through the guild and enter circulation.

  If we really wanted to get them, we’d need to go through legitimate market channels like everyone else.

  That said, the treasures sounded particularly nice. They’d fetch excellent prices and a ton of profit was always something worthwhile.

  “We’d still be at a loss,” I said. My mind was still occupied with what I had experienced, with the things I needed and wanted to check out. Still, I couldn’t help but think about an implication I hadn’t actualized just yet. “If we really wanted the treasures for ourselves, that is.”

  “What do you mean?” Cerea asked.

  “Well, think about it. The guild is obviously going to pay us a decent bit of money for the treasures, right? But, if they want to make a profit, they’ll need to mark up the price of what they sell at a higher rate than what they pay to take it off us. And then the merchants who sell it on will do the same. So by the time any of us try to procure it from the market—”

  “We’ll be paying a crap ton more than the money we received for it,” Khagnio said.

  “That’s right.”

  “Well,” Cerea said. “That’s why we’re in the Adventurer’s Guild to make money, not to find treasures for our own use. If we wanted to do the latter, we’d need to head over to the Seeker’s Guild. If they weren’t outlawed, that is.”

  I raised my eyebrows. “Outlawed? What for?”

  “Malpractice,” Ugnash said. “They were found to be sabotaging Adventurer Guild operations through means like spying on the public job board to learn about areas they should strike out at and get the treasure for themselves.”

  “Wait. There isn’t a public job bo—oh!”

  I supposed this banned Seeker’s Guild was the reason why there wasn’t a job board at the Adventurer’s Guild like there was at the Mage Guild. All this time, I had thought it was just a matter of practicality. Adventures like the kind we went through weren’t the typical sort of jobs in and around the city.

  “They also made it a lot harder to rein in the undercity,” Khagnio said. “Because they would bypass regular channels and create smuggling lines with other cities. Pits-loving bastards were lucky that all they got was just an operations ban.”

  “Not that any of it really matters because of the Nether Vein,” Cerea said somewhat dubiously.

  It had been kind of nice to chat about inconsequential things. Nice in the sense that it took my mind off things.

  There was a lot to worry about if I pondered for a second longer than I should have. I had found Zoltan, but instead of capturing the bastard somehow, I might have ended up killing him. I didn’t regret doing so, but obviously, it wasn’t ideal. Pretty sure Hamsik didn’t want to see his half-brother dead.

  Then there was my whole core awakening issue. Even now, I could feel that pulsing churn of energy within me. My friends had given me odd looks throughout our little trip, but they didn’t comment, despite their curiosity. They knew even I didn’t have all the answers just yet.

  I’d need some time to figure it all out.

  But now, Cerea had mentioned the Nether Vein issue.

  “This discovery…” I said hesitantly. “What exactly does it mean? Is there supposed to be a Nether Vein under Zairgon? What even is it? Why did it… did it try to eat me?”

  Cerea took a deep breath before answering. “I don’t know. All I know is that Nether Veins were created by an Ascendant. Another one of their Monumental Opuses, just one of the strongest ones ever, supposedly. It was said to facilitate travel before the Rupture. It’s also supposed to be cursed, but that’s just one of the many rumours surrounding everything to do with the Ascendants.”

  Cursed, was it? It had certainly felt cursed.

  “But it’s also an opportunity,” Khagnio said.

  “Khagnio,” Cerea warned.

  “No, I’m right. If what they say about Nether Veins is true, then it’s like a dungeon, but imagine several ranks stronger.”

  “Dungeons aren’t supposed to facilitate travel,” I said.

  “Ross is right,” Cerea said, still with the warning tone. “If we treat a Nether Vein of all things like any old dungeon, we’ll be annihilated, Khagnio.”

  The Scalekin scoffed with a hiss. “I know, I know, but I’m thinking of it in practical terms. Look at it this way. The guild will want to know, and then the guild—and everyone else in Zairgon for that matter—won’t wait to take advantage of this discovery. We might not be equipped to deal with a Nether Vein. But don’t think for a second there aren’t those who are.”

  Cerea had no answer to that. For all that he was a scummy bastard at times, Khagnio had some sense in him.

  “Khagnio is right too,” Ugnash said. “The point is that our discovery is very valuable. It’s been ages since the Nether Vein was sealed. I don’t know about official policy, but the general outlook will have shifted. We would be silly not to take full advantage of the opportunity this presents us. We—” Ugnash looked at me. “—well, Ross mostly, is the one who discovered it. That in and of itself deserves a reward.”

  “Yes,” Cerea said. “But it’s only been unearthed. I don’t think it’s fully open yet. If that happens, it’d be sending signals across half the continent, at least. To people and things we really shouldn’t be signalling to.”

  Khagnio scoffed. “Dumb old stories. You really believe that crap?”

  They bickered some more about the validity of the past. The main point was that we couldn’t hide anything. Open or not, just the unearthing of the Nether Vein—and the blast from my mana implosion—would have been felt all over Zairgon.

  We didn’t discuss much further, other than talking about how exactly we’d be taking advantage of our discovery. Cerea had finally agreed to it. I was just thankful to know that it wouldn’t be a conversation in the middle of a crowded guildhall in the presence of crooks and belligerents.

  I was kind of tired of the antics of all those so-called adventurers.

  As we journeyed on, a part of me wanted to explore what exactly my new mana core was capable of, but there wasn’t exactly any opportunity for me to experiment. So instead, I lightly participated in the chatter. I especially paid attention when Khagnio talked about what had happened to him after he had separated from us.

  Turned out, Shagor had indeed been the one to confront Khagnio and their battle had been vicious. The leader of the Claws was no joke, as I could attest.

  Khagnio had admitted to being outclassed by the half-Scalekin, half-Rakshasa Claw leader. Thankfully, he had survived the fight, albeit with wounds that had been heavy. But, as I found myself feeling guilty to learn, that wasn’t how he ended up losing his tail.

  Or rather, getting it replaced by whatever strange fake-tail he had going on now.

  Healing the wounds from his battle had taken some time, which was why he hadn’t been able to follow when Shagor went after the rest of us. Nevertheless, he made good time as soon as he was able to get going, which was how he had arrived through the mess of the mana implosion and everything exploding and breaking apart to find out that the Nether Vein had opened.

  That solo trip of his to find his party members deeper in the dungeon was what had caused him to lose his tail.

  “Sorry,” I said genuinely. It wasn’t really my fault, or anyone’s for that matter, but it wasn’t a matter of fault. I was commiserating, which obviously didn’t make up for losing an entire fucking limb, but it was the least I could do. “You didn’t have to come after us like that. But you saved me. You all did. I can’t repay something like that.”

  Khagnio scoffed with a hiss again. He seemed to be acting fine, but there was a slight list in the way he moved that confessed he was finding his current situation very awkward. Not to mention the trauma that came from the injury…

  How was he even acting so nonchalant? Shouldn’t he have been writhing with pain? It reminded me of the moment I had been impaled by Zoltan. I shuddered a little.

  “You’ve saved us many times too, Ross,” Ugnash rumbled. “We’re all just looking out for each other.”

  “That’s right,” Cerea said with a smile.

  “And what was I supposed to do, leave you all to claim the glory of securing the dungeon’s treasures for yourselves?” Khagnio said with a sneer. “Fat chance.”

  I slowly grinned. “Never change, Khagnio.”

  Next, I wanted to ask what exactly that ethereal black version of his tail actually felt like. Somehow, it was reminding me of my own mana core, of the swirl of magical energy embedded in my torso. But I refrained from asking about it because we had arrived at the exit.

  It was a little less vastly remodelled than the rest of the dungeon, which was nice. Throughout our journey, we hadn’t spotted either any Sight Flayers or any sign of Zoltan or the Claws anywhere. Either they were all dead, or they had managed to escape.

  “We should head to the Adventurer’s Guild immediately,” Ugnash said. His glance was kind and understanding but also determined. “I know you’re not in tip-top shape, Ross, but if you can hang in there for a little longer, then securing the bag now, before anyone else gets wind of what happened, will be for the best. Trust me.”

  Anyone else getting wind… I could see that, honestly. It was surprising we hadn’t already met someone coming in to investigate the disturbance.

  I nodded. “Yeah, let’s go. I want to see what I can earn after unearthing this Nether Vein myself.”

  And, possibly more importantly, it would give me some time to think about my new powers. I could hopefully test things out now that I wasn’t pressed to escape a potentially volatile and mostly destroyed dungeon.

  A good reminder to do so arrived in the form of the sudden rank ups I received from the Weave. I smiled at the blue boxes. Looked like I’d need to consider new Affixes soon enough again.