They reached the stone building within short order, walking in silence, each person lost in their own thoughts. Eric glanced at Naomi and saw her split between that stern, tactical mindset and mixed panic from her near-death experience. He gently took her hand and gave it a comforting squeeze that she returned. A little flicker of thanks crossed her visage before it returned to that mixed expression.

  The white stone building was akin to a temple right out of Ancient Greece. Large, Ionic columns held up a slanted roof with a raised center. Across the middle part of the roof was a bas relief that showed a small village celebrating the harvest season ending. The steps up were made of the same smooth stone. The Summoned entered the dimly lit interior at the top of the stairs.

  In front of them, the pedestal held a pulsating purple Dungeon Core. To the left was a white-hued return platform. Past the Dungeon Core pedestal, a set of steps led down into darkness, the single, arrow-shaped glowstone pointing down the stairs.

  Eric grabbed the Dungeon Core, feeling the tingling sensation in his fingers, and pocketed it.

  As Peter grabbed his, he said, “Index, what Tier is this?” He glanced at his bracer. “Oh, Tier 1 again.”

  “We probably won’t get a higher Tier until we go deeper,” Naomi said, her voice still small.

  Eric squeezed her hand one more time before letting go. “See you all on the surface.” He walked into the white circle, felt the tingling across his body, and emerged in the Twilight Consortium lounge. The room was empty, so he immediately went to Bortis Faltear’s office. The door was locked. Turning on his heel, he headed to the front desk, and after a quick conversion with the clerk, he handed over three of the Mud Elemental Ashes as their fee.

  Peter joined him a moment later. “We about ready?”

  Eric nodded as he hoisted the sack over his shoulder. “Yeah. Refining is next.”

  Shannon and Naomi came up to them, and the group headed over to Mama K’s refinery, followed by their guards, who waited outside the doors to the establishment.

  Upon entry, Eric heard the boisterous woman’s voice boom through the room. “Ah, you’re back!” She stood up from her workbench, wiping her hands on her apron, and walked over. “Second floor?”

  “Yup,” Peter said as he puffed out his chest a little bit. “We killed some wyverns.”

  “Impressive,” Mama K replied. She headed over to the same sorting table as before. “Ashes and material?”

  Eric nodded and pulled parts while Peter and Shannon shared their experience in the mega dungeon with Mama K. The middle-aged woman was a good listener, and she spoke a few times to draw out more of the conversation as she worked.

  “Can you tell us more about what comes next on lower floors?” Peter asked.

  Mama K’s face hardened. “No,” she said bluntly. “If I did, I’d be crossing some very powerful organizations. I could lose my license to operate in the Concourse, which means my business would be shot.” She shook her head. “If you want information on the floors, talk to a dungeon organization. Now, tell me about your experience on the second floor, and perhaps I can give you some pointers to help you on deeper floors.”

  Eric stepped away from the conversation and went over to Naomi, who was still near the door. “Hey,” he whispered as he grabbed her hand. “It’s okay. We both almost died down there. It happens. But we’re fine.”

  Her mask finally cracked, and tears began to fall down her face. “I . . . I didn’t . . . It hurt so much.” She pulled him in for a hug, and he just stood there as she sobbed into his shoulder.

  “It’ll take time,” Eric said softly. “Dealing with near-death experiences sucks.” He vividly recalled the time during the war when the medical was overrun and he was skewered, only kept alive by his prodigious healing Rotes and Skills until allied soldiers had come to push back the sudden, backline assault.

  He’d had to keep healing himself from the brink of death as he was impaled, sliced, and smashed over and over again. That experience had taken months to process fully and come to terms with. And that was before he acquired the Exarch Class and the Self-Resurrection Trait that came with it. After that, each death had been a scarring, horrific experience that compounded upon itself and had taken a lot of therapy to come to terms with.

  “It’s a violent world,” Mama K said, having moved next to them silently. “Lass, you survived the Twilight Depths. Twice.” She put a reassuring, surprisingly clean hand on Naomi’s back. “It’ll be okay. You’ll come out all the stronger for it.”

  Naomi calmed after a minute and pulled away from Eric. “I’ll process it . . . and deal with it.” She looked at Mama K and her voice got a little louder as she said, “How much did we get?”

  “Well, after my cut, it comes out to a hundred and twenty common Components.”

  “Thirty each!” Shannon said as she came over with the four bags and handed one to each person. “The question is: what do we want to use them on? We are flush with cash.”

  Mama K looked confused, and Eric turned to her and said, “Cash is a slang term from where we come from. She means coins.”

  “Oh!” Mama K smiled. “Well, you can always spend coin here and buy even more Components.”

  Seeming uninterested in that prospect, the ladies joined Peter as he took his sack of common Components and headed toward the door. “Meet at the ramp in thirty minutes?” Peter asked.

  “Sure,” Shannon replied. She then turned to Naomi. “Naomi, do you want to get some food? They had something that looked like gelato in that one shop.”

  Naomi nodded and grabbed Shannon’s hand, and the two women departed. Peter exited after them, heading off on his own: presumably to shop as well.

  Eric heard the king’s guard outside say, “Summoned, do not leave the crevasse. There are no other exits. We will wait for you at the ramp for when you wish to depart.”

  Mama K crossed her arms and leaned against one of the counters as she looked at Eric, as he was the last to remain in the store. “What about you, Blackflame Mage?”

  Eric reached into his coin pouch and quickly counted up what he had on hand. The monetary system in Elyndor was base-ten, with the less valuable metal being worth less money, and scrip from the GBA being tradeable for coinage. Ten copper would equal one silver, and ten silver would equal one gold. “Mind if I use a table to count?”

  “Go ahead,” Mama K replied. “Safer in here than out there.”

  Eric went to an empty workbench and poured out his coin pouch, then began dividing up the different amounts. The gold coins were one inch in diameter, silver three-quarters of an inch, and copper half an inch. “Thirty gold, fifty silver, one-hundred copper.”

  His scrip, kept inside the anti-theft inner pocket of his pants, amounted to another thousand gold and he knew that count exactly. Those scrip were kept safe in that very well-made, secure pouch that could resist water, fire, and most other environments. Those monies were his split from the various gifts from the soirée that did not go into the estate fund.

  Most of his coin was back at the estate and consisted of his winnings from the gambling. He didn’t want to carry around a ton of coins, especially since there were criminals in the lower and middle parts of the city, and coin was hard to track. Scrip, though, was specially treated, and once a person’s name was written on it with ink, would be marked permanently. Someone could go over it, but someone at a GBA branch would instantly know, and a Banker Class could use a Rote to discern the first person who had written their name on it.

  As such, when people with lots of money traveled, they traveled with scrip. It meant that they were less valuable targets for Thieves, Brigands, Robbers, and Highwaymen—very real Classes that some people in society were cursed with, and some of whom never wanted to retrain out of through Trok’s programs.

  Mama K clicked her tongue. “I would’ve expected a Summoned, especially after that fancy party I heard about, to be loaded with coin. You chose to leave a lot back home?”

  “You could say that,” Eric replied sheepishly, disguising the truth of the matter with naivete.

  “Well, if you need to blow through money quickly, I can give you some advice,”

  “By all means.” Eric had already come up with a few plans for his money, but other insight couldn’t hurt.

  Mama K pointed toward the back end of the crevasse. “There’s a good Crafter for you more magic Paths folk. His name is Darius—”

  Eric smiled. “Met him already. Great guy.”

  “Ah. Then in that case, you might want to look at getting yourself a mana focus from him. Staves are the norm.” She glanced at the coins. “He can probably give you a great deal.”

  She clicked her tongue. “Want some Components? I got plenty of those. An Artisan like Darius might not have Components on hand if you want something specifically tailored to you or your tastes.”

  Eric grinned. “Sure. I know that they come in rarity levels. What are the highest-rarity Components you have?”

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  Her eyes flashed with a glint of greed. “Ah, well, for a discerning customer, I have legendary.”

  Eric’s eyes went wide. Those were only harvestable from level seven hundred and one to eight-hundred equivalent monsters. But, he couldn’t say anything that would reveal he knew exactly how valuable they were, and thus he had to couch his words with other terms. “Those sound fancy. How much?”

  She looked at the coins on the table. “How much scrip do you have?”

  Eric quickly dug through his inner lining of the pants and pulled out the scrips, which he placed on the table. “One thousand gold worth.”

  Mama K’s eyes went wide. “I knew that you’d get some money from those fancy-pants nobles . . . but creator above.” She eyed the scrip, then the coins. “Tell you what. You’re such a good customer, and such a nice young man, I’ll do four legendary. Two hundred gold apiece. And you keep coming to me for all your refining needs.”

  “You’re the best, Mama K. You’ve got a deal.”

  The Valagonia family-run branch of the GBA only took a small fee of ten gold for Eric to trade in his scrip for coin, and after the whole transaction with the Refiner, Eric had a bulging sack with two hundred and twenty gold, fifty silver, and one hundred copper remaining. Thanking Mama K profusely, he headed right toward Darius’ shop.

  The familiar door under his palm creaked open, and he spotted the man he was looking for, surrounded by books. Darius looked up and frowned. “Mind using the Silence Node?”

  Eric nodded, closed the door, pulled the Silence Node from his inner pocket, and pushed mana into it. The black and white of his power surged out and coated the whole interior of the shop. “What have you found out?”

  Darius sighed and scratched his head. He looked like he hadn’t had a good night’s sleep in days. “I exhausted all of the libraries here in Tenebria.” He gestured to the pile of books, and then scooted back and waved Eric over. Glancing behind the desk, Eric saw piles of manuscripts. “I’m still working through them.”

  “We have time,” Eric said. “Don’t push yourself too hard. Fourteen years, remember?”

  Darius grinned in that engrossed way that only one with a problem to solve and something to prove would. “I won’t push myself to the breaking point. Promise.” He stood up and cleared his throat, swept his medium-length hair behind his ears, and looked into Eric’s eyes. “What can I do for you in the meantime?”

  Eric pulled out the Dungeon Core and all the Components. “I want some gear.”

  “Hmmm . . .” Darius grabbed the Dungeon Core. “This will only be usable for a Tier one bit of gear. Legendary will convert to Tier eight, and the Common will qualify for Tier one.” He looked across the Common components. “We can do a lot with these.”

  “Let’s start with the Tier one and eight first,” Eric replied as he put both hands on the table and leaned forward.

  Darius nodded. “Can do. What are we thinking?” He leaned forward on the counter and began fiddling with the jars of legendary-quality Components.

  “I want a mana focus. Specifically, I want a book-shaped one. A grimoire would be ideal. Journal-sized, so it’s unassuming.” He pointed at the legendary Components. “Using those.”

  “Ah. Smart. Let’s say with a case and chain to keep it attached to your robes and hanging where your hand would rest.” He raised his eyebrows in excited anticipation. “A mana focus that will not be targeted by people who are seeking to reduce your power in a combat scenario.”

  “Exactly,” Eric replied. He knew that mana focus objects like staves, wands, and orbs were often focused on by hostile combatants that knew what those pieces of gear could do: it seemed that Mages and those who relied on Rotes like Eric consistently preferred those tropey items, and he had no clue why. It was stupid.

  A book, however, was not as common; those types of foci were much harder to create given the delicate materials required, and the Artisan had to be quite talented. Luckily, Darius was just that. “You can do that, I’m sure,” Eric said with confidence.

  “Of course,” Darius replied.

  Eric grabbed the common Components and shoved those back into his bag.

  “Are we not using those as well?” Darius asked.

  “I want to give Naomi as much of this stuff as possible,” Eric replied as he finished shoveling the common ones back in. “The lower rarity is perfect for her to experiment with.”

  Darius nodded sagely. “Sensible for a new Artisan.”

  Eric held up his wrist, tapping his bracer against the table. “She has one of these for you. It allows for cross-world communication. And, she can improve them down the line.”

  At that, Darius’ eyes lit up with excitement. “That would be so valuable if it became widespread.” He shook his head and chuckled. “Tinkerers. The most quirky of the Artisan Classes that burn through so many Components in their experimenting, and yet they can make wonders like that. I’d be delighted to have one of those on my arm.” He chuckled. “There are communication network-like devices, of course, but those are generally restricted in civilized nations like Trok. I know that the Spymaster’s network has them, and those are all attuned to one another.” He pursed his lips. “I believe that the more piece of gear in contact with one another, the heavier the strain is on the gear itself, and thus the higher rarity Components that must be utilized in their construction.”

  Eric shrugged. “Naomi figured it out. She might have blown through a lot of high-rarity Components from the party while figuring it out. For all I know, these bracers are made with legendary rarity as well.”

  “Interesting.” Darius looked down at the artisan Components, then the Dungeon Core. “Well, I can work on this right now. It’ll take me only a few minutes. Why don’t you go and find your friends, come back, and I’ll share with you what I have learned thus far regarding the Titan.”

  “Sounds good,” Eric replied.

  Eric went back to the ramp leading out of the Twilight Depths and waited for his allies. Peter was the first one back, and he had swapped out his hammer for a massive, two-handed, chopper-style sword. “Check this thing out!” When he unsheathed it from the scabbard on his back, Eric was thrown for a loop with how heavy it seemed.

  “How much does it weigh?” Eric asked.

  “No clue. Maybe fifteen pounds? I can push mana into it, and it’ll grow in size.” Peter’s skin flared red, and then the red aura surged into the blade, which increased to a ludicrous ten feet from crossguard to tip. “Great for grouped enemies if I can get the space for the wind-up.”

  A Consortium guard nearby shouted out, “Hey! Sheathe your weapons!”

  The pair of king’s guard who stood at the base of the ramp just glanced at each other, then faced the front once more.

  Peter grinned. “Sorry, bro! Let me just—” he twisted the pommel with his left hand and a rush of red mana surged from the tip of the blade like a geyser. It shrank down, and he re-sheathed it.

  The Consortium guard just shook her head and continued her patrol.

  Eric looked around for Naomi and Shannon, then shrugged, walked over to one of the nearby walls, and sank down next to it to sit on the cool stone floor. Peter walked over and stood next to him. “How long were we in there?” Peter asked.

  “The Twilight Depths?” Eric clarified. Peter nodded, and Eric checked his bracer. “Only a few hours.”

  “Dang,” Peter replied. “Figured there was some time dilation or some shit like that.”

  “Nope,” Eric replied. “Time in there equals time out here. The same goes for all dungeons, from what I heard.”

  He spotted Naomi and Shannon across the way and stood up. Naomi and Shannon came over. Naomi was laden with burlap sacks, while Shannon no longer had her multiple crossbows. Instead a single, silvery-hued wooden arbalest of an even thinner and more intricate design than her prior one was slung from her back.

  “New gear?” Eric asked.

  Shannon nodded. “Yeah. I got a new crossbow. It can carry multiple ammunition types. A little click and bam, brand new chamber. Naomi is going to make me a ton of new bolt types. And, it has the same firepower as the arbalest, without the heft.”

  Naomi hefted the bags she held. “I’ve got Components. Lots of them. I spent pretty much all of my money and scrip back at Mama K’s after I got some food.”

  Eric pointed to the back of the crevasse toward Darius’ shop. “Come on. You all need to meet this guy.” He led the way, and the group idly chatted behind him. Upon reaching Darius’ shop, he entered, and when the door had shut, re-activated the Silence Node.

  As promised, Darius had two items on his desk. A large, black book with a bronze, metal exterior lining. A small chain was connected to it. His voice was cool as he said, “These must be the other Summoned I didn’t get the chance to meet.”

  Eric turned to his allies and gestured to Darius. “Meet Artificer Darius Dromond.”

  Darius gave a little wave. “Hi there.”

  Naomi cocked her head. “Artificer? Is that some type of Artisan?”

  Darius smiled. “That’s right. It’s a Class like yours. I focus on making gear for Classes that utilize magic.” He pointed at Shannon and Peter. “I couldn’t make anything for those two, since they count as martial focus.” He then pointed to Eric. “He’s magic, and so are you, technically.”

  “Ah, so it is like a sub-type,” Naomi said.

  “Correct,” Darius replied with a grin as he stood up straighter and came out from behind his desk. “Every Class type can be categorized into martial or magic. It just depends on how the mana manifests to enable their Rotes.” He looked at Eric. “Your order is ready,” he said, then grabbed the book and handed it to the Mage.

  [T8 Focus Grimoire.]

  Eric flipped the pages. All were blank, but as he pushed some mana into them, the pages flared to life. Blackflame surged through the book, igniting up around the edges and bathing his hands in the monochromatic light while leaving the pages and cover untouched.

  “What’s that do?” Shannon asked.

  Eric replied. “I can normally use Rotes from my hands.” He activated Blackflame Bolt and held it above his palm. “Really, I could manifest them from any part of my body.” To demonstrate, he moved the Rote from his palm to just over his forearm. “But it’s more natural for me to do it through my hands.”

  He held up the book, shifted the Rote to it, and the crackling power of the Blackflame Bolt surged in height, width, and potency as it flared with an even brighter power. Eric sucked back the mana and let it fade as the pages returned to normal. With a finishing flourish, he snapped it shut and clipped the chain through his belt. “If I use Blackflame Bolt through a mana focus like this? It is amplified. And, since it’s held in the hands, I can also use my gloves to slightly alter the trajectory.”

  Naomi put a hand to her chin. “What about Skills?”

  “Those too,” Darius replied with a grin. “But, it has to be held in the hand containing the Sigils.”

  Mentally, Eric added, Tier eight means that this thing will amplify my damage by eighty percent. Which means my burns will be stronger too, since Blackflame Blaze is based off of the initial damage inflicted. Not the most flashy piece of gear, but more than adequate. It does exactly what I need it to do. It won’t affect Skills that can’t go through my hands, though, like Flashstep or Sootshroud, if they eventually upgraded to deal damage.

  Peter whistled. “Damn,” he said, “that’s a big boost.”

  “And the Dungeon Core?” Eric asked.

  Darius smiled and reached into his pocket to pull out a solid, bronze flask. “I figured you’d want to keep the black and bronze theme between the book and this.” He jiggled the flask, and Eric heard the sloshing of some liquid within. “This is a Mana Flask. You can divert your mana to it and store it for later use.”

  Eric took the flask and immediately handed it to Shannon. “Here you go.”

  Darius’ eyes went wide as Shannon accepted the item. “Why?” he asked, bewildered.

  Eric smiled and pushed more of his mana from his full reservoir into his still-filling skin. The Blackflame surged across the surface for a brief moment, covering his face before receding. “I already have Mana Skin.”

  Darius tapped the top of the desk he leaned against. “Huh. Alright, then. Didn’t know you had that. I normally would say there’s no such thing as too much mana, but having more mana to go around as a diving group is advisable.” He cleared his throat. “Remember, you can’t fill that up with your mana and let someone else drink it down. You can only get your own mana out of it, since you’re pouring your own ‘flavor’ of mana into it, for lack of a better phrase.”

  “Oh!” Shannon touched Naomi’s shoulder. “This is the guy you told us is working on the investigation! Give him one of the bracers.”

  Naomi glanced back at her. “They’re back at the estate.” She looked back to Darius. “I’ll bring it later. One of these—”

  Darius held up a hand. “Eric told me about them already. I am honored to use a new piece of manatech. It will be good for keeping in touch and sharing what I uncover. Having a private communication line? It’ll be just like what Trok’s messenger corps uses.” He glanced at Eric. “And, if we get word from that weird voice telling Eric about the countdown for this Titan’s hatching, he can notify me.”

  Naomi looked at Eric. “Is that all for now? Are we heading back home?”

  “Not quite,” Eric said. Then, he looked to the Artificer. “What have you found out so far?”

  Darius returned to the desk and took a seat so he could begin flipping pages. “Well, let’s start here.”