Cyoria’s Dungeon boundary was widely known to have more holes than a sponge. It was a fairly young city, and the local Dungeon was particularly extensive. It grew too big, too fast, and a proper separation between layers was never finalized. That was probably why the invaders managed to smuggle an entire army of monsters into the city by having them pour straight out of the tunnels — though how exactly the invaders mapped out the Deep Dungeon well enough to find a route big enough for an army to pass through is anyone’s guess. Just one more example of how ridiculously well prepared the enemy was, Zorian supposed.
Despite the obvious danger, Zorian wasn’t too worried about following Taiven into the tunnels. Cyoria’s underground wasn’t the safest place in the world, but it was by no means a certain death sentence either. And he doubted the invaders were currently in there, since a giant army of monsters living just beneath the city was absolutely impossible to hide, regardless of how good the invasion organizers were — they would have to navigate their route on the day of the invasion to avoid detection. He would feel better if he had a focusing item for his combat magic, of course, but that was beyond his reach at this point. Nora’s tutoring aside, he still wasn’t good enough with spell formulas to make one from scratch, and he couldn’t buy one without a permit.
Unfortunately, their employer didn’t seem to share Zorian’s confidence.
«This is the fourth member you found?» the old man demanded incredulously. «Did he even graduate yet?»
Zorian looked at the scowling man waving towards him in a dismissive manner and promptly decided he could understand Taiven’s irritation with the guy. If the guy was so worried about their ability to deliver results, why didn’t he hire an actual professional to recover his damn watch? Oh, that’s right — he didn’t want to pay a professional’s wage! Frankly, Taiven and her group were probably the best he could hope to get, considering where he looked for help.
The job itself was simple enough — the old man lost a pocket watch in the tunnels while fleeing from a duo of giant spiders, and now they had to get it back. The old man tried to retrieve it, but when he came back to the spot where he had dropped it, it was no longer there. Personally, Zorian was sure it was eaten by an ooze or some other metal-eating scavenger living in the tunnels, but the old man insisted it was still intact and in the spiders’ possession. How he knew that was anyone’s guess. What would a bunch of spiders, giant or otherwise, do with a watch? Were they like magpies, collecting shiny items just because?
«Nope,» Zorian said, completely unrepentant. «I’m a third year.»
«A third year!» the man squawked. «And you think you can survive down there? Do you even know any combat magic?»
«Sure do,» confirmed Zorian immediately. «Magic missile, shield and flamethrower.»
«That’s all?»
«You get what you pay for,» Zorian shrugged.
«Look, what’s your problem?» Taiven interrupted. «Its four of us versus two large-ish spiders. I alone would be enough for that!»
«Just because I only encountered two doesn’t mean there isn’t more of them,» the man grunted. «I don’t want you to stumble on a whole hive of those things and get slaughtered. Those things are fast. And stealthy — I didn’t even notice them until they were right on top of me. I’m lucky to be alive, talking to you four.»
«Well there’s four pair of eyes among us,» Taiven reasoned. «We’ll watch each other’s backs, so good luck on them sneaking up on us. I don’t suppose you’ll finally tell us what’s so important about that watch you lost?»
«It’s none of your business,» the man shot back. «It’s not valuable or anything, I just have sentimental reasons for wanting it back.» He shook his head. «I suppose the kid is right. I got what I could, considering the reward I’m offering. Just… don’t get careless. I don’t want the lives of a bunch of children weighing on my soul when I finally die.»
A few minutes and a whole lot of pointless bickering later, Taiven finally led them all towards the nearby Dungeon entrance. There were guards stationed there but Taiven had a permit to go in and could bring people with her, so they were free to pass. That was reassuring at least — it meant someone in the permit office considered Taiven capable enough to keep relative non-combatants like himself safe down there. Apparently she hadn’t been talking completely out of her ass when she had said she could protect him.
The tunnels themselves were a lot less sinister than Zorian imagined, or at least this particular section was — smooth stone walls and nothing more threatening than rats wondering around. The stone covering the corridors reflected light pretty well, so the four floating lanterns they had hovering above them (Taiven insisted they all cast one and space them away from each other, so they wouldn’t be immediately plunged into darkness on the off chance they encountered something that could dispel them) illuminated the tunnels quite nicely. Unfortunately, there was no sign of either the missing watch or the giant spiders. Taiven seemed to think it would be easy to track down the spiders with a simple ‘locate creature’ spell, and was stumped when the spell — and all other divinations she tried, for that matter — came out empty.
As it turned out, Taiven and her two friends were more than a little specialized in combat magic, and didn’t have the faintest idea how to go about tracking down either the watch or the spiders once their rudimentary divination attempts failed. Eventually they settled on just wandering around, hoping they’d stumble on the spider’s lair, occasionally repeating the divinations with no effect. After about 2 hours of that, Zorian was ready to call it quits. He was just about to suggest they give up and come back tomorrow, when he suddenly felt very, very sleepy.
Being a mage required a great deal of mental discipline — shaping mana correctly required focus and ability to visualize the desired result with crystal clarity. As such, all mages were, to an extent, resistant to mind magic and other effects targeting the mind. It was the only reason why Zorian was still awake and desperately fighting the sleep spell, instead of collapsing on the ground in deep slumber. In front of him he saw Taiven and one of her friends sway on the spot as they tried to resist the spell as well, while the other boy already laid sprawled on the floor.
He struggled with the spell for a second or two, and then the sleep effect just… withdrew. Before he could do anything, he was forced on his knees by a stream of memories and images that bored themselves directly into his mind.
Confusion. A memory of him staring at a particularly baffling spell formula problem, tapping his pen against the table in frustration. An image of two floating balls of water connected by a collection of ever-shifting streams of water flowing from one orb to another. An alien memory of a war troll tearing through delicate white walls that seemed to be made solely out of cobwebs. A question.
[Are you—] the voice boomed in his mind, before collapsing into another psychedelic collection of images and alien memories. The deluge lessened for a moment, as if waiting for a response. Then it started again. Frustration. [I thought—] Brotherhood. Webs stretching across lightless chasms, orbs of light trapped within them. [—don’t understand me, do you?] Sadness. Pity. More frustration. Resignation.
The flow of images abruptly stopped assaulting his mind. Zorian clutched his head to lessen the raging headache pulsing inside his head and looked around. Taiven and her two friends were unconscious, but appeared to be unharmed. There was no trace of their attacker anywhere. He tried to wake them up, but they wouldn’t budge.