When Athos and I entered the chamber once again, we found our other teammates catching their breath.

  Kara and Lothras sat on the platform, their breathing ragged, their equipment in shambles.

  Kara looked up as we entered, managing a weak smile. "Easy."

  "Yeah, right," Athos said, slightly shaken still. "Are you both okay?"

  "Define okay," Lothras replied without opening his eyes.

  He was leaning against the throne's base, his armor so damaged it looked more like modern art than protective gear. "My shield is destroyed. My breastplate has seventeen percent durability remaining. I used every consumable in my inventory. And I'm fairly certain I aged ten years in the last five minutes."

  "But you won," I said. He and Kara were undeniably the most valuable participants of this fight.

  "We won," Kara corrected. "Barely. If you two didn’t handle the adds first, it would have been impossible to pull this off."

  I sat down heavily on the stone floor, the adrenaline finally fading enough for exhaustion to set in. The death penalty had taken all my accumulated experience prior to the fight, but I was at a pretty 90,000 flat after clearing the Dungeon.

  "I could have survived; my potion just came off cooldown," I admitted. "But I really thought we’d finish him off before I hit the floor."

  "Not me," Athos said, settling beside me. "I was locked in place when the boss killed me. Not sure I could have done anything differently."

  “You’ve done what you had to,” Loras sighed. “If that son of a bitch used that anti-heal skill one more time, we’d have been dead long before we had the chance to win.”

  "Whatever happened," Kara finally opened her eyes. "The important thing is that the dungeon is cleared."

  We nodded in unison.

  Kara pulled up her status window and let out a small laugh. "Would you look at that! Level 18!"

  "Congratulations," I said. “Now that I think about it, it was good that only Athos and I died.”

  The swordsman nodded. "We leveled up in the previous fight. Only lost a couple thousand XP, and we didn’t drop any of our stuff either."

  "Speaking of which," Lothras said, pushing himself to his feet with visible effort, "we should check the loot before we do anything else. The lich dropped several items."

  He was right. Scattered around where Lord Aldmar had fallen were glittering objects: equipment, skill runes, and what looked like a significant pile of gold coins.

  We gathered around the drops, examining each item in turn.

  The first piece was a cloak, shimmering with ethereal energy that made it seem almost translucent.

  "Mage gear, mostly," Kara said approvingly. "The intelligence bonus is substantial, and physical damage reduction is always useful for backline casters."

  “To the sell pile?” Athos asked. “All in favor?”

  We didn’t complain.

  “Probably goes for anywhere between 4 to 6 gold,” Kara thought out loud.

  The second item was a breastplate, dropped by the warhammer guardian rather than the lich itself. It was massive, bulky, and stone-like.

  Lothras's eyes widened slightly. "Shouldn’t have taken the Skill Rune earlier.”

  "It's yours," I said immediately. "No argument from me."

  "Same," Athos agreed. "You tanked a lich with a broken shield. You've earned it."

  Kara nodded. "Unanimous."

  For once, Lothras didn't have a smug response. He simply picked up the breastplate and examined it with something approaching reverence. "Thank you."

  The third item made all of us stop and stare.

  It was a crown. Sleek and fragile-looking, crafted from some dark metal that resembled the volcanic rocks. Tiny gems were set along its band, each one pulsing with faint purple energy.

  That was quite something.

  "Damn," Kara breathed. "What’s with all these drops for mages?"

  “Boss was mage-class,” I pointed out, and she shuddered.

  "The skill alone is incredible," Athos said. "Resetting a spell cooldown could be game-changing in the right situation."

  "And the defense value is pretty high for a light headpiece," I noted. "The passive benefits dark and shadow magic specifically. This is designed for a very particular build."

  "Necromancer," Lothras said flatly. "Or something similar. The lich's own equipment, likely."

  We stared at the crown for a long moment. None of us could use it, but it felt like such a waste to sell it.

  "Do we want to sell it?" Kara asked. "It’s worth more than what most would pay for it. Doesn’t feel good."

  "True," Lothras said. "We should hold onto it for now. The market isn't established yet, and we might find a buyer willing to pay premium prices."

  Cyrus was the first mage who came to my mind, but he would not benefit from cooldown reduction on dark skills.

  This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

  The crown definitely felt like a really strong item for Acolytes, or specific Conjurers who found necromantic skill runes, but other than Ziestra from the woe raid, I hadn’t actually met anyone noteworthy.

  We moved on to the skill runes. There were two of them, and both were significant.

  "A teleport skill," Athos said thoughtfully. "Six-minute cooldown is long, but the utility is undeniable."

  "Art of Finesse," I noted. "...I could use this."

  "So could I," Kara pointed out. "Bards fall under Finesse as well."

  We looked at each other for a moment, then she laughed. “You can have it, darling!”

  I was stunned. “Why?”

  “Well, I have a feeling the next one’s mine anyway,” she winked.

  Kara picked it up, and the smile on her face widened by a huge margin.

  Bard's abilities came in different types. They had continuous skills, like this Tune of Death or Healing Notes, instant skills, like Echo Strike or Thunderous Accord and wind-up skills like Aria of Protection or Sonet of Valor.

  Sonet of Valor and similar wind-up skills applied their buff or debuff effects immediately after being played for a couple of seconds, and the effects had a fixed duration.

  Instant skills were just like the skills of any other class; you used them, and their effects were… well, instant.

  Continuous skills had to be played continuously, and as long as the user kept playing them, their effects remained in place.

  "I got a system message that I was considered MVP of the dungeon," she said quietly. "I don’t know if I should have been the–"

  "You earned it," Lothras said, and there was no resentment in his voice. "You kept me alive through that entire fight, and helped everyone sustain through the steam. Without you, we would have wiped without even getting close."

  “He’s right,” I nodded. “I don’t think we could have cleared it without either of you, but your double casts came in clutch way too many times.”

  "An epic skill for a Bard," Athos added with a grin. "That's going to make you very popular in groups."

  Kara stared at the rune for a long moment, then put it in her inventory.

  "Tune of Death," she murmured, testing the name. "I like the sound of that."

  The remaining loot was more mundane: gold coins totaling about twelve gold and a few consumables. We split everything evenly without argument.

  "Now," I said, reaching into my inventory, "the reason we came here in the first place."

  We went to the pedestal, and I took the Trident fragment. It still glowed with that faint blue light, but no other traps were activated.

  "One piece down," Athos said. "One to go."

  "About that," Kara said slowly. "Calian mentioned that the second dungeon would be harder than this one."

  Silence fell over the group.

  "Harder," Lothras repeated flatly. "Than a dungeon that nearly killed all four of us."

  "Catacombs under Ravenmere," I said. "Unknown territory."

  "We should be careful in our approach," Athos said grimly. "If this was the easier of the two dungeons..."

  We let that thought hang in the air, unfinished.

  "We need to prepare better," Kara said finally. "Our teamwork is good, but we need better consumables. Maybe even better gear, if we can find it."

  "Agreed," Lothras said. "I'll need a new shield regardless. And I’m out of repair kits for my armor."

  "The quest gives us seven days total," Athos reminded us. "We've used one. That leaves six days to prepare for and complete the catacombs."

  "I’d rather not try and tackle it last minute," Lothras gestured toward the back of the Sanctum. "Shall we see if there's an exit, or do we have to walk back through the entire dungeon?"

  As if in answer to his question, a section of the wall behind the throne began to shift.

  A hidden passage revealed itself, a narrow staircase spiraling upward into darkness.

  "That's convenient," Kara observed.

  "It's standard dungeon design," Athos said. "Always provide a shortcut after the boss is defeated. Saves players from tedious backtracking."

  We gathered our gear and began the climb.

  The staircase was long, winding upward through solid rock for about a minute before we reached a portal.

  After activating it, the same teleport scene that we’d experienced at the beginning yanked us out of the dungeon.

  We were on the hillside overlooking Twinfire, just above the burial site's entrance. The village spread out below us, smoke rising from chimneys, NPCs going about their daily business. The Spring Festival decorations were being taken down, the celebration coming to an end.

  It looked peaceful. Normal.

  Then the system notification appeared.

  I stared at the notification, processing the rewards.

  I almost forgot about the added reputation system. I will have to see what that’s about.

  The title was another welcome addition to my arsenal. 5% experience might not have sounded much, but small numbers added up.

  Then a second notification appeared, this one different.

  "First clear bonus," Athos explained. "Same thing happened with the Briar raid. The game rewards pioneers."

  "Players will flock towards potential dungeons," Lothras said slowly. "They are repeatable content. Every party in Tidemark will now have access to instanced challenges. We just opened that door for thousands of players."

  I thought about what that meant. The Twinfire Burial Site could likely be farmed now, run over and over by parties looking for experience and loot. The strategies we'd developed, the mechanics we'd learned through trial and error, others would figure out too.

  But we were first.

  “Do you guys think the dungeon is easier now?” Kara asked.

  “Potentially. There’s no way an average 6-man team of level 15 players could clear it if it stays this way,” Lothras said, and even though the paladin was proud and cocky, I had to agree with him.

  Twinfire Burial Site was much harder than a level 15 dungeon should have been.

  "Dungeons will likely be used as a threshold by guilds," Athos added. "They probably have teams preparing for them right now. The competition is going to intensify."

  "Let it," Lothras said, surprising all of us. "Competition drives improvement. If one guild clears dungeons with more efficiency than the other, it means they need to improve."

  I raised an eyebrow. "That's... not something I’d think a guy from Crimson Court would say."

  He shrugged. "I'm pragmatic. Pride is useful, but not when it blinds you to reality. We barely survived this dungeon. We need to improve before attempting the next one."

  He wasn't wrong.

  "So," Kara said, looking between the three of us, "what's the plan? How do we approach Ravenmere?"

  I considered our options. "First, we rest. Recover our resources, repair our equipment, and process what we learned today. Then we should go and grind until we hit our 12-hour mark. Then we research. The librarian in Twinfire knew about this burial site; there might be similar information about the catacombs in Ravenmere."

  "It will definitely have some lore attached to it," Athos suggested. "This wasn’t a random dungeon either."

  "I'll need to find a new shield," Lothras added. "I can’t imagine I can replace it with something as good as it was, but I can’t go without one either."

  "We have time," I reminded everyone. "Enough time to prepare properly if we use it wisely."

  Kara nodded slowly. "Then let’s split up. We can cover four times as much ground that way. We can grind, look for new items, try and level up, or go ask for help from teammates."

  “Just stay in the vicinity in case someone finds a Field Boss or something that would require more firepower,” I added.

  We began the descent toward Twinfire, the afternoon sun warm on our faces. Behind us, the hidden entrance to the burial site had already sealed itself, waiting for the next party brave or foolish enough to challenge its depths.

  As we walked, I found myself thinking about the lich's final words. Its talk of revenge, of legacy, of a century spent plotting in darkness.

  Lord Aldmar Trynd had been a noble once. A leader. Someone with a family, with responsibilities, with a future.

  And then he'd lost everything, and the loss had transformed him into something monstrous.

  I started thinking about whether the game would be any different had House Trynd emerged victorious all those years ago. Would this sanctum be filled with House Vizgrad’s members? Would it be completely different?

  Questions for another time.

  Right now, we had a second dungeon to prepare for, and according to Calian, it was going to be even worse than the nightmare we'd just survived.

  I tightened my grip on the Threadweaver, then took a look at the key fragment in my inventory.

  One piece down.

  One to go.

  ?