Date: June 12th, year 1286 Location: Headquarters of the Fourth Branch, Crystal Rose

  Beatrice was bored.

  - “Nyx is out in town by herself again…”

  She aimlessly rolls in her bed, looking around her room for something to distract herself as she fiddles with her lock. It was empty of everything besides basic furniture.

  - “The cafeteria?... No, the food is stale anyways… The girl’s section of the public bath is nice but the other girls there keep asking questions and trying to see my eyes, it’s annoying… And Agnes is too busy doing stuff, and Julian is studying in his room all the time…” She sighs. “Maybe I can ask Agnes for a bird to keep me company for the rest of the day again… I hope that won’t bother her.”

  Beatrice jumps from her bed and runs out of her room. She makes her way up the building through the enchanted staircase, jumping on different steps for fun as the stones rolled upwards. She finally makes it to the 70th floor, and waves at the few guards that were nice or curious enough to chat with her during the past few weeks. When she arrives in front of Agnes’ office, she lightly pushes the door but before she can fully open it she hears Agnes tiredly arguing with an irritated male voice.

  - “Sorry, as I’ve told you the Rose is out of our jurisdiction.” Agnes blankly says. “If we officially intervened there, we would be in massive trouble with the administration and the Dungeon Conservationists.”

  - “But it involves a missing person!” The voice replied.

  - “I am truly sorry about your brother. I suggest you contact any friends or family that might be able to help, or hire professional dungeon rescuers.”

  - “He’s all I have left! And I came to you because god knows no one can afford the services of actually competent rescuing agencies! What’s the Arcane Guard for if you guys can’t even help your own citizens?!”

  - “...I apologize again.”

  Footsteps rush to the door and it slams open before Beatrice can get away. She is sent flying and lands on her back.

  - “Ouch!” She shouts.

  She looks up to see a tall redhaired man storming past her. He had a thick beard and wide eyebrows, along with dark green eyes burning with anger. He was mostly wearing leather armor, with a simple white shirt, brown trousers with suspenders attached to them and black boots covered in stains. A heavy backpack was hanging from his back, clanging with his every step. He glances at Beatrice and continues without a word, gritting his teeth and shoving aside the guards on his way to the stairs. Beatrice gets up, dusting herself off before sticking her head through the open doorway to the office. She sees the latter, sitting at her desk with her head in her hands.

  - “I really despise this job sometimes…” Agnes laments before looking up and noticing Beatrice staring at her. “Ah, Beatrice!” She forces a smile. “What brings you here?”

  - “Who was that guy?” Beatrice asks.

  - “Just a justifiably angry citizen.” She sighs. “His little brother got lost in the Rose while exploring, and has been missing for three days now. Apparently they got separated after a door closed right after the younger sibling and locked itself shut. A classic trap, really, but people keep falling for it.”

  - “The Rose?”

  - “We also call it the Dungeon. It’s the giant white glass dome in the center of the city, you probably saw it from your ferry to the city.”

  - “Oh…” Beatrice starts slipping away from the door.

  - “Wait, did you not want anything?”

  - “Nope, I’m just gonna go back to my room now!”

  - “...Okay?... Stay safe!”

  Beatrice waves to her as she runs off to the staircase. The steps start rolling down, and she leaps forward to accelerate her descent.

  - “I need to catch up to him!...” She suddenly trips, instantly losing her footing and falling forward. “Ah.”

  She closes her eyes and braces for the impact, but instead of hitting the stairs she falls into a body of water. When she opened her eyes, she was encased in a small bubble of still water floating above the ground. She recognizes one of Agnes’ agents further down the staircase, his hand extended towards her as water still flowed from it and into the bubble.

  - “Beatrice!” He exclaims as the water dissipates into strands of blue light and Beatrice safely lands on the stairs, which were still moving. “You should be more careful when going down the stairs. Imagine if I wasn’t there !”

  - “Thank you mister!” Beatrice shouts back before dashing past him. “But I need to go now!”

  - “Huh? Wait up!”

  Beatrice gives him a thumbs up as she continues jumping down the stairs, albeit at a safer speed. When she makes it to the ground floor of the tower and runs out, weaving through the crowd of guards and people in her way, a familiar voice calls out to her and she freezes.

  - “Beatrice! What are you doing down here?” Nyx asks as she cuts through the crowd.

  - “Uh…” Beatrice hesitates, looking around. “I’m looking for someone!”

  - “Who?”

  - “A big man with a big beard and red hair! He’s wearing a bunch of adventuring gear!”

  - “Hmm?” Nyx is surrounded by a violet-colored energy before she performs a spectacular jump above the crowd, twirling while she slowly comes back down to the ground, as if gravity had lost its grip on her. “Found him!” She exclaims as she points north.

  - “Oh?” Beatrice looks over, and sees the top of the man’s head in the crowd. “I see him, thank you!” She starts running in his direction.

  - “Where are you going?”

  - “...To the Rose! I want to help!”

  - “Oh the Dungeon? I heard about it at that tavern the other day! They said it’s dangerous though, so I’ll go with you!”

  - “I’m sorry Nyx but you’re not very quick and the red head man is walking very fast… I’ll be fine, I can outrun the monsters!”

  - “If you say so! Have fun then!” Nyx starts walking away, but freezes in place. “If… anything happens, just pray to me alright? I’ll be listening extra close!” She says without turning.

  They wave to each other as Nyx enters the tower and Beatrice catches up to the red haired man, who was grumbling to himself as he made his way out of the crowded area around the tower. She follows him from a distance in the streets, performing exaggerated dodge rolls every time she thought he was turning in her direction while the onlookers gave her concerned stares. After about thirty minutes of this routine, she notices that they are at the foot of the Rose. From up close, the giant opaque white glass dome looked tall enough to pierce the clouds. The red haired man cuts through the crowd of people with a variety of weapons, magic staves and armors chatting with each other and exchanging information. A large part of said crowd was climbing up and down the tens of different sets of stairs wrapped around the structure up to the top, and she saw multiple of them walking through the glass wall as if it were a liquid, at different heights. She follows the man onto the stairs, and he passes through the glass after climbing about twenty meters above the ground. She stops in front of the wall as it regains its solid consistency, apprehensive.

  - “Uh… that’s really weird.” She comments.

  - “What’s a kid doing here?” A brown haired woman with blue eyes next to her says, looking down at her while frowning. “Must be one of them nobles with powerful magic huh?”

  - “Oh, hello miss! Could you tell me where this goes?” She points at the glass wall.

  - “Huh. You’re really well behaved.” The woman seems to relax, and smirks. “First time in the dungeon I guess ? From here you can get into the first Thorn.”

  - “The first Thorn?”

  - “We got three types of levels to the dungeon. Leaves are the easy stuff, good for beginners, low on traps and monsters. Thorns are where things get real serious, and it’s not uncommon to encounter your first dragon there. Finally you got Petals, which are just the lowest layers of the whole dungeons. We don’t know how many of them there are, but people managed to get to four of them and live to tell the tale.”

  - “That sounds dangerous! Why do people go there then?”

  - “Some want to just make a quick buck, some are hoping to find dead relatives hanging around the parts of the Rose connected to Lord Solomon’s Underworld, and some are trying to meet the Founder.”

  - “The Founder? I heard Julian talk about that…”

  - “It’s the guy who started building this city two or three thousand years ago. He was one of Solomon’s most devout followers, and a bunch of people still look up to him. Hell, I think they even worship him in some churches. Nobody really knows why he created the Rose or holed himself up in it, so they’re just trying to understand.”

  - “That’s a lot… But thank you miss!” Beatrice runs into the glass wall, phasing through it. “If I wait too long I’ll lose him, so I have to go!”

  - “Aaand she’s gone. I know nobles are strong, but starting with a Thorn?... That just sounds like they’re sending their kid to die, not prove herself.”

  Beatrice is blinded by a powerful white light, and when her eyes get accustomed to the brightness she finds herself in an open grass field that seemingly spans beyond the horizon. Ruins of buildings like castles and towers were sprinkled everywhere, creating the pattern of a fallen city built on the field. The sky was gray and cloudy, like it was about to rain, and a light breeze was blowing across the plains. She couldn’t see the sun anywhere, but the field still seemed to be illuminated by something beyond the clouds.

  - “Oooh…” Beatrice looks up at the clouds. “I thought we were indoors?”

  - “Who goes there?!” She hears the red haired man shout from behind the remains of a thick brick tower. “Show yourself!”

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

  Beatrice puts both her hands on her mouth and holds her breath until she hears the man groan and walk away.

  - “I’m probably just yelling at rocks again.” He grumbles.

  Beatrice quietly follows him for a few minutes, using the ruins to stay out of his sight. She could see him glaring at a map, mumbling to himself as he kept looking up to locate landmarks. That is until she hears a cacophony of clanging metal ahead of them, originating from a half crumbled house. The red haired man stops dead in his tracks, and shoves the map inside his pocket as his left hand lights on fire.

  - “Shit.” He whispers as a loud clanging sound is heard from the side of the house, like something metallic hitting the wall from the inside. “Living armor!”

  A large set of iron armor suddenly bursts through said wall right after that, holding a war hammer in its hands. It was about two meters tall and its helmet featured two massive bull horns pointing forward. It immediately starts walking towards the man with slow and heavy steps, swinging its hammer from left to right. It’s quickly followed by smaller armors wielding longswords, some of them missing a few parts like a helmet or a limb, letting Beatrice see that they were completely hollow. One of the smaller sets of armor was wielding a wooden staff, with a large blue gem mounted on it.

  - “A caster?... Just my luck.” The man raises his right hand, which glows a soft green light.

  The grass around him quickly grows to be multiple meters long and starts wiggling like tendrils, before he waves his left hand and a wave of flames causes it to catch on fire. The burning grass blades then start lashing at the sets of armor like whips, leaving trails of flame in their wake and igniting more grass. The smaller armors are knocked to the ground, then the man snaps both his fingers and burning grass stands wrap around them to keep them down as they slowly melt. The larger one, unfazed, walks through the burning vegetation and raises its hammer above its head. The man reaches into his backpack and throws a very small round object at the armor’s feet. The second it touches the ground it erupts into a large oak tree, lifting the armor above the ground and holding it in its branches. However, the armor in the back raises its staff, and the blue gem crackles with electricity before discharging a powerful lightning bolt, producing a deafening sound and striking the man directly. The latter violently spasms but manages to stay standing, smoke emanating from his now clothes and skin. The large armor starts breaking branches with its hammer to make its way down from the tree, and the man swears as he waves his hand towards the armor with the staff, causing burning blades of grass to wrap around its limbs and restrain it. Beatrice starts prowling around the battlefield, staring at all the armors melting on the ground while carefully avoiding the flames.

  - “I need to help, he’s really struggling… But what can I do?”

  She looks around for anything that might be of use, but while she’s distracted a few of the armors on the ground manage to free themselves from the grass, as the flames were quickly consuming it. One of them, melted from the torso down, turns towards Beatrice and lunges towards her. She steps aside to avoid it, but the armor manages to grab her ankle. Its hand was still red hot, and Beatrice screams as she falls to the ground and her skin starts sizzling.

  - “Let me go! Let go!!” She kicks her legs and repeatedly hits the armor's arm with her free foot, trying to crawl away from it.

  The armor’s hand snaps open for a fraction of a second, and she immediately pulls away. The armor’s hand immediately grasps again after that, to no avail. Beatrice runs away, muttering to herself as she looks back at the armor crawling on the ground to chase her. She stumbles, the searing pain in her ankle causing a few tears to trickle down from her eyes. She grits her teeth, trying to ignore the burning sensation as she runs.

  - “Did I do that?... But it doesn’t work on anything that isn’t locked… Oh, but they’re objects so maybe my magic can undo the lock of their hands! If I can do that…”

  She pivots and runs towards the spellcasting armor, which was focusing on another lightning bolt despite being restrained. She extends her hand towards it, and the armor’s hand starts to open very slowly. However, it doesn’t open wide enough to drop the staff.

  - “Do I need to be touching it?...” Beatrice carefully walks towards the armor, and reaches her hand towards a part of its chestplate that wasn’t burning.

  The armor thrashes, hitting Beatrice’s head with the gem on its staff. An electric shock courses through her body as she falls to the ground, and her vision gets blurry.

  - “Ow ow ow… I should’ve listened to Nyx…” Her gaze wanders towards the man, who was lashing at the large armor with his burning grass tendrils. The latter had come down from the oak tree and was raising its hammer to strike. “(Does that mean I’m gonna die here? And I won’t see Nyx and Julian anymore?...)” She thinks before her vision turns clear again. “No… I have to do this!”

  She jumps back on her feet and lunges at the armor, grabbing its gauntlet despite the flames from the grass searing her skin.

  - “Unlock!” She yells, and a wave of magical energy propagates from her hands and into the gauntlet.

  The armor’s hand completely opens, and Beatrice falls back on the ground with its weapon. She rolls away to put out the flames that propagated to her dress, and gets back up holding the staff towards the larger armor. It was still crackling with electricity from the spell the armor was focusing a few seconds ago.

  - “How do I use this?... The magic item teacher at the orphanage was really bad, and he never actually taught us that much…” She shakes the staff, infusing some of her magical energy into it, and the electricity starts forming into an orb floating above the crystal, but without discharging any lightning. “Huh. That’s not what I wanted…”

  As she says that, she hears a loud crashing sound as the man is sent flying into the house by the armor’s hammer swing. He spits up blood, holding his ribcage as the armor advances towards him again and raises its hammer to finish him off.

  - “That’s what I get from coming here without a party. Guess being broke will be the end of me.” He scoffs. “I’m sorry Leo…” He hears the sounds of light footsteps running towards him, originating from a small humano?d figure cutting through the smoke. “Is that you?... I guess you were already dead from the get go huh, don’t worry I’ll join you soon…”

  - “Cover your eyes, fire man!” Beatrice yells as she leaps towards the armor, holding the charged staff above her head.

  - “Huh ?! Aren’t you the kid I saw at the-”

  Beatrice smacks the armor with the staff, and a powerful and blinding discharge traverses the metal. When Beatrice falls and opens her eyes, the armor was standing still. It then slowly starts falling forward, landing right in front of the man. He painfully gets up, and walks towards Beatrice.

  - “I owe you one.” He says as he offers a hand to help her up. “You were following me weren’t you?”

  - “I’m sorry! I just wanted to help!” Beatrice gets up, holding her head in pain. “Ah… That really hurts…”

  - “The adrenaline’s wearing off. You’re bleeding a lot, I’ll make you a quick bandage.”

  He sits on the ground and pulls out a few medical supplies from his backpack.

  - “I can’t believe I got tailed by a child… I’m supposed to be better than that.” He comments as he wraps a white cloth around her forehead.

  - “You looked very distracted the entire time. Is it because of your brother?”

  - “I guess you listened in, huh? Yeah you’re right. He’s stuck inside a castle that we were exploring, and I’m nowhere as skilled as him when it comes to lockpicking and disarming traps. The enchanted door’s too tough for me to break down, and if I use my Fire magic the whole place’s gonna burn down.”

  - “I heard it had to do with doors! My magic lets me unlock locked things, so I wanted to help!”

  - “So you’re an Irregular?... And you’re out there risking your life for strangers?”

  - “I didn’t know it would be that dangerous… But I’d do it again ! It all worked out so it’s fine!”

  - “Who the hell taught you that mindset?...”

  - “My mom! Well not my mom but…”

  - “...Alright I’ll just escort you out of here. I don’t wanna deal with having two dead kids on my conscience.”

  - “What?! What about your brother?”

  - “He’s probably dead anyways.” He grits his teeth, looking down at the ground as his hands stop moving. “It’s been a few days now, and I was carrying all the food and water. I think I was just being delusional, but I don’t want to drag someone else down with me. Especially not some kid that doesn’t know better than rushing into a dungeon to help people.”

  - “I don’t wanna!”

  - “Well deal with it.”

  - “If there’s a chance your brother is alive, you should take it! Why are you giving up so easily?! You’re so lucky to have some family!”

  - “He’s the only family I have, kid. Quit talking about things you don’t understand, will you?”

  - “And I have zero family members left! Even my parents didn’t want me! If I had siblings, I’d do anything for them even if I was told they’re in Galanos and the sea goddess is gonna smite me if I try to sail there!”

  - “And what if he’s just not there anymore huh? He wouldn’t want me to put mine and someone else’s life at risk for a corpse.”

  - “Why are you insisting that he’s dead?! Don’t you trust him? And even if he is, you need to know! I don’t know if my real parents are alive or not, and I think about it all the time, it’s horrible!”

  - “...” He finishes tying up the bandage, and gets up. He puts a hand on his face. “That’s… yeah you’re right. I should at least bring his body back if he turns out to be a goner. And maybe he found a way to survive, he’s always been a smart kid…”

  Beatrice smiles, satisfied as she gets up and they both walk away from the battlefield. On his path, he waves his hand at the burning grass and the flames are shot vertically into the air, stopping the spreading of the fire.

  - “By the way, what’s your name? I’m Beatrice.”

  - “Oliver, Ollie for short.”

  - “Then let’s go save your brother, Oliver!”

  They navigate through the ruins for an hour, Oliver constantly looking at his map and making sharp turns at a moment’s notice. They manage to avoid other groups of living armor patrolling around the plains.

  - “What are these things?...” Beatrice whispers, tightening her grip on the staff she stole from the spellcasting armor.

  - “Dungeon monsters. They’re made by the Founder, or at least everyone says that they are.” Oliver replies, glancing at the group of walking armors they just passed. “Those are just sets of armor possessed by who knows what. Pretty sure they’re animated by some sort of magic, and someone is controlling them. I remember hearing that story about some guy going around repairing living armor, and killing anyone in sight. He might be one of these crazy criminals that escape the law by fleeing into the Rose.”

  They continue, up until Oliver stops in front of a small castle that was in surprisingly good shape. They enter, and make their way through the ground floor. Spider webs were everywhere, and deep pits were visible in the floor here and there, with sharp wooden stakes at the bottom.

  - “Alright it’s here.” He stops in front of a door with a silvery trim, that was in better shape than the rest of the structure.

  - “I’ll do my best!” Beatrice reaches her hand forward, and focuses her magic on the door. She pulls her hand away immediately after.

  - “What’s wrong?”

  - “It’s… resisting?... That’s really weird.”

  - “Yeah most things with magic will. That goes for people too. The more magical energy you have in your body, the tougher your body gets and the more resistant you become to curses and other things. You might just have to try a bit harder if you want it to open, it took my brother three days of tireless work to crack the lock.”

  - “Okay, I’ll try again…”

  Beatrice extends her hand towards the door again, and feels the lock resisting her influence once more. She focuses, deeply frowning and extending her other hand as well. Her fingertips start glowing white, and after about thirty seconds the lock clicks.

  - “I did it!” Beatrice exclaims as the world starts spinning around her. “Oh I’m dizzyyyy…”

  - “Thanks a lot.” Oliver catches her before she falls, and sits her down on one of the only nearby chairs that wasn’t rotten. “You probably used too much of your energy. I’ll just go check in there myself, that’s probably not a sight you wanna see anyways.”

  Oliver takes a deep breath before entering the room, and after a few seconds comes back carrying a teenager with red hair on his back, so thin Beatrice confuses him for a skeleton and immediately assumes the worst.

  - “Oh no…” Beatrice tries to get up, but falls back on her chair. “I’m… really sorry…”

  - “There was some water trickling down from the ceiling, so I’m assuming he survived off that. He’s barely alive.” Oliver chuckles with a genuine smile. “And that’s thanks to you. You have no idea how grateful I am that you showed up when you did.”

  - “Oh he’s alive?! He doesn’t look like it!”

  - “He probably wouldn’t have lasted another day.” Oliver replies as the teenager faintly groans. “Alright let’s get out of here.”

  - “How do we do that?”

  - “Normally we’d have to find an exit, but I have one last emergency warp from our stash.” He pulls out a white glass orb from his backpack, which begins softly glowing.

  He throws it on the floor, and when it shatters it creates a perfect white disc of glass identical to the glass Beatrice saw outside the dome. He puts his foot through, and as expected the glass starts behaving like a liquid.

  - “Heave ho.” He picks up Beatrice and drops her into the disk before jumping in himself.

  Beatrice finds herself at the foot of the dome, and Oliver appears next to her, phasing through the glass. The crowd was still very dense even as the sun set in the horizon, and she could also see other people coming out of the glass from the base of the dome. Black birds were flying above the scene, and one of them landed in front of Beatrice and started pecking at the ground.

  - “We’re outside!” Beatrice celebrates.

  - “Yup. If you ever need anything, just call. I can never repay you enough for what you did for me today.” Oliver smiles.

  - “Take good care of your brother!” Beatrice replies.

  - “I SEE HER!” Beatrice hears a familiar voice screech from the stairs a few dozens of meters above her. It was Agnes, blazing through the crowd to get to her. Julian and Nyx were closely following her.

  - “I can’t believe you’re that irresponsible.” Julian tells Nyx. “Then again, you’re you. I swear a sick rat would make a better goddess than you!”

  - “That’s not nice!” Nyx replies, offended. “I’m much better than a rat! Plus, Beatrice said she was going to be fine, and she is!”

  - “...I’m that close to stabbing you. Don’t test me, I haven’t slept for two days.”

  - “I think they’re here to pick me up.” Beatrice comments. “Bye Oliver! Take care!”

  After this, Beatrice was brought back to the headquarters of the Fourth Branch, and both her and Nyx received an earful from Agnes. Nyx was grounded for the next two weeks, much to Beatrice’s joy since that meant she could spend more time with her. Julian swears he lost a bit of hair due to that incident. Agnes considered confiscating the magic staff Beatrice brought back from the dungeon, but the latter was so adamant about getting to keep it because she earned it that Agnes couldn't bring herself to follow through, only instructing her to not fiddle around with it too much.

  - “Aaah.” Beatrice sighs in relief as she falls into her bed that night, after a quick check up at the Branch’s infirmary. The lightning staff was laid across her desk, its gem periodically emitting a very faint blue glow that lit up her face. “That was nice! I should do this more.” She closes her eyes, feeling the pain from her ankle and the wound in her forehead getting a bit sharper. “But not right now…”