The portal spat them out onto slightly rocky but solid ground. Damian stumbled, then caught his breath. He inhaled. Darrow appeared beside him, blinking against the red haze.

  They looked around, and their eyes widened. In fact, they were mixed with fear and a sense of awe. This was their first dungeon, after all. This was their dream, a wishlist activity, but not anymore, not now.

  The air was dry, even metallic, and ashes fell from the cracked red sky.

  Damian wiped his cheek, leaving a streak of red across it, and they looked up and around at the vast mountain pass.

  Jagged cliffs loomed on either side, and in the distance, a decrepit temple sat high up. The building looked halfway between a castle and a monastery.

  Its spires leaned, broken and silhouetted in crimson light. Figures moved about its walls and even more along the paths.

  “What is this place?” Darrow asked.

  “It’s a corrupted dungeon,” Damian said, his voice low.

  For the first time, Damian watched the adventurers exchange wary glances.

  The lionin guards stood tense around their young lord, but for the moment, nothing attacked them. They stood around, just taking in their surroundings.

  “The realms of Yandres,” the mage said, then shivered. She wore a slick orange overcoat with silver trimming.

  “It’s a corrupted dungeon,” Karl said, wearing a full plate of armour that was common for anyone who would be fighting monsters directly. That, and his tall frame, made his role perfectly clear.

  “What were you expecting. An overgrown dungeon?” a female mage asked.

  “This just means there is more profit to be made,” Rraan said, hefting his great axe on his shoulder.

  “Yes, my lord, we will be looking for artifacts, mana crystals, and knowledge,” one of the adventurers nodded.

  “And death,” Damian muttered low, and only Darrow heard it.

  “Always the optimist.” Darrow elbowed him, and he sighed.

  “Come on, let’s go,” Damian said and tagged his pack.

  The ground crunched under their feet, burnt bones and ashes giving way under their weight.

  The clouds gave off a greyish orange-red glow.

  The realm of Yandres was a place where all the dungeons existed. It was a parallel world where you either encountered an overgrown dungeon or a corrupted dungeon. This was what chilled even hardened adventurers — Yandres, the name of a powerful being.

  “So this place shouldn’t exist?” Darrow asked, looking at a magical bush filled with dying, rotten fruit.

  “I don’t know,” Damian said.

  “We just have to kill the dungeon boss, then this all goes away, right?” Darrow asked.

  “Yeah, let’s hope so. Let’s hope they can close the portal,” Damian said.

  Lord Rraan looked behind at the group, his lionin eyes momentarily landing on them.

  “Standard work, adventurers. Let’s hurry up and close this portal,” he said.

  However, a few steps in and his confidence was shaken, and his five guards looked less certain as well.

  This was because the path that led to the castle had split into three.

  One veered left along jagged rocks, another wound through misty chasms, and the last — the most obvious route to take — was a climbing road towards the temple.

  The group paused, and Damian and Darrow, who stood in the back, just exchanged looks and waited for the silver ranks to finish debating.

  “We didn’t want to go any further in case there was a choice to be made,” the rogue they had sent to scout ahead said.

  “Three paths. Good choice,” Karl said, the heavily armed man leading the group to a stop. He looked at the lionin lordling they were escorting through the dungeon.

  “We haven’t fallen into any trouble yet, but it depends on which path we take,” Lord Rraan pointed out to the adventurers and his guards.

  “Yeah, that looks like a normal dungeon pattern,” Karl said.

  “Should we split up?” Ulivia the mage asked.

  Damian’s jaw tightened. He didn’t like that plan — it meant they would weaken their fighting force.

  “We shouldn’t split up,” Damian muttered.

  “I agree, Damian.”

  “What if they do decide to split up? They will split us up, you know that.”

  Damian understood his brother’s words. He looked around at the dungeon, then shook his head.

  “No. If they do that, then we have to be careful. If I sense you’re in danger, I will come to you.”

  “And if I do, then I will do the same,” Darrow said.

  The conversation at the front continued. In fact, they were soon coming to the same conclusion Damian had. Rraan was speaking with adventurers Karl, Ulivia, and their party.

  “Me and my guards will take the path with jagged rocks. Mists may obscure our senses.”

  “And us?” Ulivia asked.

  “Take the misty path,” the lionin lord said, and Ulivia clicked her tongue.

  Rraan narrowed his eyes at the short human woman. Well, she wasn't short, the lionin were just tall. Maybe as tall as the Goliath half-giants,

  “Split parties die, my lord,” Karl said, deciding diplomacy was the best option.

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  “It’s clearly a trap,” the lionin said and folded his arms.

  “It’s a dungeon. Trap or not, this place is dangerous. Let’s focus our strength on one path,” he pointed at the straight path.

  There was a moment of silence, a moment of contemplation on the lionin’s part, but in the end, they relented.

  “Fine,” he said, hefting his axe back on his shoulder.

  In the back, following along, Damian nodded. Darrow was peeking his nose, looking unbothered, but that was the point — he had better ears than Damian thanks to his [Altered Awareness] skill.

  “Lucky call,” Darrow whispered.

  After the group of fifteen decided which direction they would be going, Damian and Darrow watched as the scouts were sent ahead — including a leather-jacketed man with a crowbar tied to his back.

  Damian was busy studying the strange crystal-jutting rock when Ulivia tossed him a similar crystal.

  “Mana crystal. That’s a green crystal, not very useful, so keep your eye out for blues and purples,” she said, and he nodded.

  She didn’t stay watch, however, as she turned to move ahead. Darrow tapped the jutting crystal with his dagger. It hummed faintly and vibrated, then he moved to dig it out of the rock before he threw it in the bag.

  The party pushed forward, and the brothers, on occasion, lagged behind collecting the magic crystals. As they did, they had a bit of banter.

  “Any vacation spots after this?” Darrow asked.

  Damian just smirked despite himself.

  The sky shuddered with red lightning, and the entire group paused. They looked up, then around, but after nothing happened, they kept moving — their weapons at the ready and ash clinging to their leather armour, boots, and cloaks.

  “It feels alive,” Damian said, reaching out to catch a still flaking piece of ash.

  “Yeah, everything wants to eat us,” Darrow said, walking past him.

  “You’re not wrong, but so far so good,” Damian said.

  The closer they got to the broken towers ahead, the heavier the magic grew.

  “You feel that?” Darrow asked.

  “Yeah. You too?” he asked, and the rogue nodded.

  The adventurers, however, moved without a care in the world. One of the lionin guards had a spear on his shoulders, his hands hanging loosely over it. An archer yawned, and the rest of them seemed too at ease.

  Damian knew they had done this before, but they acted too arrogantly. Darrow whistled and grabbed his attention.

  “I bet there are crystals in those corpses,” Darrow nodded towards a heap of piled, unmoving figures below an edge.

  Damian just rolled his eyes.

  “That’s on account they don’t just wake up and bite your head off.”

  “Hey, don’t say it too loud ,you may give them ideas,” Darrow joked, stepping away from the ridge.

  There was a groan that echoed across the entire dungeon, and Darrow looked at his brother suspiciously. Darrow just shrugged, saying it wasn’t him.

  The adventurers froze. Their relaxed postures shifted, and they tensed, ready for a fight. The rogues and scouts appeared.

  “We found them,” one of the rogues said.

  Just as he said those words, a looming shadow shambled and stumbled into view. It resembled a long-limbed humanoid, and its skin hung from its body in tatters. Revenants.

  However, the adventurers grinned. This was easy for them.

  “Come on, guys. It’s simple revenant undead,” Karl said.

  He unsheathed his sword, and the rest of the adventurers did the same. They were almost eager, something that would have been in line with Darrow, but not Damian. Never Damian.

  “It’s a warmup boss,” a rogue said, twirling daggers in both of his hands.

  The undead zombies lurched forward, and Damian drew his sword, holding it tightly in his grip. Darrow shifted his stance, his daggers ready to be thrown.

  The brothers watched as the adventurers, who were probably level fifteen or twenty, threw themselves at the undead zombies. They struck fast and hard.

  The small zombie horde fell apart in minutes — heads rolled, limbs fell, and the laughter of the adventurers rang out.

  “This is too easy,” Rraan said as he chuckled and cut through one of the zombies with his axe.

  “As I said it would be,” Karl answered, cutting a revenant zombie in two.

  He didn’t bring up the fact that the lionin were one of the strongest races physically, or that their lords were even more powerful. It would have been an excuse for the lordling’s power.

  Darrow scoffed.

  "No finesse. Typical."

  “Don’t say that,” Damian muttered from the back, but the lionin and adventurers didn’t want or care for the comment.

  Zombies fell one after another, and when it was done, only the bodies of the dungeon monsters littered the ground.

  An adventurer stabbed one of the corpses through the chest, revealing one of the most valuable things a corrupted dungeon had to offer. A crystal was glowing faintly in the body of the zombie — and this one was blue.

  “Hey, porters, over here,” the adventurer jeered and pointed at the corpse.

  “Hoping to keep your hands clean?” Uliva asked.

  “No. We have porters, that’s why we brought them,” the warrior said.

  She shrugged.

  “Fair enough,” she said.

  “You two... cut the crystals out and let’s get a move on,” Karl said as Darrow and Damian approached.

  Damian clenched his jaw but said nothing.

  “Just ignore them,” Darrow muttered.

  They approached, and the warrior kicked the corpse towards them.

  “Well? Chop chop,” the warrior said.

  Damian looked down at the corpse and wiped the oily substance that had splashed on his face. They all watched Damian stand, and at first, they thought he wouldn’t do it, but he relented. He used his sword to pry the crystal free.

  The blue crystal glimmered in his hand, and Darrow whistled softly.

  “Looks expensive,” Darrow said.

  Damian just glared at his younger brother, and the mercenaries just laughed and turned as they made their way up the sloping path.

  The crafters' guild would be paying them handsomely. No, not them. As porters, they would be getting a porter’s contribution.

  “Keep moving,” the lionin lord just said, not caring what the adventurers thought.

  The undead corpses smouldered in the ash. They dried up now that their magic was gone, and the two brothers wondered if they’d turn to ash just like the rest of this dungeon.

  The path narrowed, but they kept walking, following behind the real adventurers.

  On occasion, more revenants shambled from the cracks — those were easily taken care of. They reached a sunken mound of earthy ground, and the horde that was there still proved no match for the adventurers.

  Damian comforted himself by studying the warriors fighting. Maybe one day it would be them fighting.

  When the fourth horde was dismissed by the adventurers, that’s when it happened. The ash stirred around them, and from it they noticed a larger figure looming above them.

  It was a zombie revenant, but it wasn’t like the ones they had recently fought before. It was larger than even the lionin. Its flesh was stitched together, and bones protruded from its joints. The entire monster was a grafted, enormous zombie.

  It roared, and the loose stones shook around them. The adventurers moved like practised guards, and they spread into formation, letting the most heavily armoured stand at the front and those with less armour stand behind them.

  Damian and Darrow did their part and stepped back into cover.

  Lord Rraan growled, and the gargantuan zombie charged. More revenant undead swarmed along, and these ones seemed faster than before.

  Karl laughed and used a skill, "[Bulwark]." The ground beneath him cracked, and when the grafted zombie hit him, his eyes went wide.

  He stepped back due to the force, only managing to change its direction. He protected his mages and archers, but it ran directly towards the lionins.

  Rraan held his great axe out, and a grin grew on his face. He met the giant head-on. He used a skill, and his claws grew longer and flashed with gold.

  The zombie swung its massive arms, and he ducked under. Rraan slashed deep into its flesh. The zombie stumbled, and its flesh tore even more, causing its black, gooey blood to hiss, releasing a green gas.

  Then a moment later, the large zombie steadied its. More zombie revenants closed in around him, and he roared. He twisted, his claws arced, and a head flew off one of the zombies. He twisted back around, then used a skill, and his dwarf-made axe swung for the large zombie’s neck, decapitating the giant in one swing.

  The corpse stumbled back, then it crashed backwards to the ground, causing the ash to billow upwards.

  There was a silence that fell over the chasm as the last zombie made a gurgling noise as it took its last breath, and the adventurers cheered.

  Damian frowned, impressed despite himself.

  “Show off,” Darrow muttered as the lionin roared to the red sky, his white and orange mane blowing in the wind.

  They regrouped and left the zombies twitching on the ground with their crystals exposed.

  The adventurers carved the zombies apart, making sure they wouldn’t get back up.

  Darrow knelt by one of the dead corpses and cut free its crystal heart. Damian just kept watch.

  The lionin lord wiped blood on his cloak and lifted a large blue mana crystal from the larger zombie. That one he gave to a lionin guard, who put it in a much smaller pack. His guards wore smug smiles as they took the crystal.

  “The corruption’s stronger here,” Ulivia said as the group stepped onto the cobblestone street.

  Damian’s skin prickled.

  “Guess we’re getting closer,” Darrow said, shrugging.

  They weren’t all prepared for what happened next, however. After the group made it onto the much cleaner path, a scream split the air.