It was just a tunnel. There was no extreme slide into the deep, just a gentle slope that eventually flattened out. There was a gurgling sound deeper down. Dee waited for the tunnel to constrict and swallow them all, but the only constricted thing was his butthole in terror. He touched the wall, it was stone, not flesh. He relaxed a little.

  Unlike the rest of the dungeon, there was no light here. Tianna’s mace and Yuri’s staff were the only sources of light. The mix of gold and purple made everyone’s face stand out like a retro movie poster.

  “Can we close the mouth?” Emizra said. “We don’t want another meal following us down here.”

  “No time. Even if we did, they can open it themselves can’t they? We move now.” Arjelica padded forward into the dark.

  “This does lead to an elemental node, apparently,” Dee said, remembering the passage from his book.

  “Oh, you little wonder!” Yuri grabbed him and hugged him tight, lifting him clean off the floor.

  “That’s good, then?” he said between her breasts.

  “That’s why we came here,” Tianna said. “I think he knows too much.”

  “He just saved us, you paranoid little maniac,” Yuri said.

  “I’m not paranoid. The Kingfisher tells us that we must count every coin, and punish the counterfeiter. And besides—” she looked up with a haughty stare. “An elemental node might not even have a crest in it.”

  “There must be a crest down here. I can smell it. I can smell it, my wonderful little War Priest.” Yuri bent down and pinched Tianna’s cheeks. The minnikin shrieked and scampered after Arjelica.

  As they headed further into the tunnel, Yuri held her crystal towards the wall. “Look at this.” Yuri ran a gloved hand over the wall. “This is very ancient focusing magic. I wish I could stay here and study it more.” Her face flushed red suddenly, she was so enamoured with the magic runes. Dee realised there were patterns carved into the stone. Very complicated shapes. Undulating waves and spirals were all over the walls, ceiling, and floor of the circular tunnel.

  “This enchants the mana as it rushes along the tunnel, turning it into healing water. There must be a water crest down here! Perfect for your first crest, Arjy baby,” Yuri cried after Arjelica.

  “Shh. He doesn’t need to know that.” She glanced back at Dee.

  “He probably doesn’t even know what a crest is, never mind my little pet.” Yuri patted him on the head.

  They paced along in silence for a few seconds. Then came the question that they all half-expected.

  “Actually, what is a crest?” Dee asked.

  “Oh, where did you get this little egg from?” Tianna face-palmed and rolled her eyes. “How can you not know what an elemental crest is? You know what mana is don’t you?”

  The four adventurers stopped and stared at him.

  Do I tell them the truth, or try to blag my way through? Does it matter? They already think I’m an idiot.

  “Mana is magical energy, that you use to cast spells. That’s pretty much true for every game. Or world, or dream or whatever this is.”

  “See, he isn’t a complete idiot.” Yuri smiled with smug pride.

  “So, an elemental crest is what we can harvest when potentia can’t turn into mana,” Tianna said with a suspicious look.

  Dee nodded with a blank look on his face.

  “It’s a tangle in the weave of the world. When potentia can’t dream itself fast enough into reality, it whorls and trickles into shapes that we can bond with. Like a class crest.” Yuri stroked her gloved hand along his arm.

  I have no idea what they are talking about. “Mmm, yes. Potentia and mana, I got it. It’s all whirling, and weaving. I know all that.” They stared at him like they didn’t believe him, but escaping the frogites and finding the node chamber was more important than calling his bluff.

  As they carried on, he felt it though. The air was thick with magic, water magic. One moment it smelt of the sea, sharp and fresh, and the next it tasted like a cool sip from a stone pot on a summer day. His mouth watered with thirst. So this was crest power.

  “There must a crest here,” Yuri said. Her eyes shone with excitement

  “What if their PC harvested it?” Tianna said. She glanced back down the tunnel as if she would see frogites leap out at any moment.

  “That frog shaman? Look how old he is, he must have bonded with a crest years ago, plenty of time for another one to form,” Yuri said.

  “How can the monsters have a Player Character?” Dee asked.

  “A what?” Yuri asked.

  “That’s what PC means? Player Character.”

  “No. PC means Potentia Class. Only Potentia Classes can bond with elemental crests and focus their mana through them,” Arjelica said.

  “What is a Player Character?” Yuri said.

  “I know what a player is! I read it in my- my anthropology books about humans. A player is a man or woman who seduces people. Usually with their passionate human wiles, and then leaves them heartbroken.” Tianna glared at Dee.

  “You think that old frog shaman is a seducer of frogites?” Emizra said.

  “Is that why you came down here? To seduce some of the frogites. And you were so good that those nasty men had to sacrifice you to get you to stop. Oh, you’re so full of surprises. O-hohoho! I’ve caught quite the human player!” Yuri exclaimed.

  The author's tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

  No you really haven’t.

  The feel of magic became unavoidable as they descended. It vibrated in Dee’s ears and jaw, and set his teeth on edge. He jumped a few times at noises ahead. He still felt like the tunnel was going to collapse. Something was trying to squeeze into the world.

  When they came to the source, even Dee understood what it was. It was like finding a sudden clearing in the depths of a forest. The power was so thick here that he couldn’t think about the threats behind him, only the pure force of magic that seethed in the air. This was the node chamber, a wide open space underground.

  Water cloaked the walls, it trickled down the stone in rivulets. Pure water just condensed out of the air. A thick blanket of mist carpeted the floor. Stone pillars jutted out of the mist at random intervals, as if the water had carved away the floor between them. He felt that if he jumped into the mist he would fall forever into some unknown.

  Further into the chamber was obscured by the mist. Dee couldn’t stop staring at it. In its whorls he saw oceans, vast heaving waters that separated continents, and rivers, old and ancient that sprang in a trickle from hidden mountains and then grew into roaring serpents of water that demolished cities in their rage. It was a dream of water, waiting to come to life. Unceasing waters came from these depths. Curls of mist reared like water dragons.

  He reached out to touch the mist. Several things happened at once. Tianna screamed, Yuri cracked him across the chest with her staff, and Arjelica shouted “Idiot!”

  Then Emizra let out a smooth rolling chuckle. Dee heard that on his back. He felt a stinging bruise across his chest. Yuri’s staff was pressed down into him, pinning him to the floor. She had knocked him over. Why?

  “What did I do?” he pleaded.

  “You’re going to kill yourself,” Tianna wailed.

  “ Throw him in if he has a death wish,” Arjelica said.

  “Never touch raw potentia.” Yuri lifted her staff away from him, but she looked ready to push him back down at any moment.

  “You will fall apart like a dandelion in a gale, little man,” Emizra said. She gently helped him to his feet. Her touch was warm and reassuring, but all over him like a masseuse pickpocket. He instinctively felt his pockets to check his wallet hadn’t been stolen. Then he realised he didn’t have any pockets in his pyjamas. The girls looked at him as he patted himself. “Mmm yes, I’m all here. Phew.”

  “How can a soul be so innocent?” Emizra said.

  “He’s interesting, isn’t he?” Yuri cocked her head and laid a finger on her cheek. She was still not sure what to make of him.

  “I’m having trouble adjusting to this world. I don’t know the rules. Apart from the basics. You level up and you get more powerful, and that’s about all I’m sure of. And I know we don’t have time to explain everything, but I’m doing my best. I did get us down here, and if I can figure out how my magic book works then I will be a great asset.” I hope. I dearly hope.

  Emizra hummed a tune and an illusion appeared in her open hands. Hazy mist of potentia floated in front of him, almost infinite in its depth. “Potentia is the raw stuff that elements are made of. Before anything existed, it was all potentia, formless potential aching for the touch of reality. Then the four terrestrial elements formed, Earth, Air, Fire and Water.”

  Dancing arcs of stone and water formed, whilst fiery winds blew through the complicated shapes. Small figures crawled around on the Escher-like structure. The four elements weaved and made mountains and forests.

  “They made the base of the ethereal elements.” Emizra waved her hand, and the scene changed.

  “Actually, the celestial elements came first.” Tianna waved her mace right through Emizra’s illusion. The image disappeared. Emizra turned and tutted at her.

  “Rude!”

  “We don’t have time to debate philosophy of the Ladder,” Arjelica interjected before an argument started. She grabbed Dee’s shoulder and spoke slowly to him. “Don’t touch potentia. If you do, you die. Okay? Don’t die. Dying is bad.” She let him go and then swung herself onto the nearest pillar.

  Yuri looked at him with a serious face. “Please be careful, I don’t want to lose you.”

  He felt quite touched by her sincerity. “You haven’t carried anything for me yet. O-hohoho!” she laughed. Well it was better than nothing.

  Yuri skipped onto a pillar of stone and followed Arjelica.

  Emizra took a silver coin out of somewhere, and waved it in front of Dee’s face. Then without a word she threw it into the mist. The coin disappeared. Not in a tricky, now-you-see-me, now-you-don’t kind of way. In a very disturbing, metal turning into thick liquid that then turned into vapour kind of way.

  Tianna let out a squeal of displeasure at good money being disintegrated.

  “If you ever let yourself touch raw, pure potentia, it will unmake the song of you and send you back into the great roil. There will be nothing left of you. We can harness mana and the elements, but we are nothing but a dream to potentia,” Emizra said.

  “Got it. Don’t touch potentia. Never touch potentia. I will never touch potentia.”

  He carefully stepped out onto a nearby rock. It wasn’t difficult to make it across, he didn’t even have to jump at any point. But it was the most tense part of his adventure yet. He kept imagining his foot slipping and then hitting the mist. Would I just lose my foot or would my whole body just go? I hope I never find out.

  The centre of the cave was filled with a thick column of potentia. Dee saw that Arjelica was waiting for them, staring at the column. He heard Emizra’s voice in his ear suddenly and almost fell off his perch.

  “Potentia is always seeping into the world, taking form. We absorb it naturally from the elements as mana. But when leylines cross and too much potentia seeps in, nature remedies this. It forms a crest, an elemental stone of energy. That stops raw potentia pouring into reality and dissolving it. Do you understand a little now?”

  “Yeah. A crest is like… hair blocking the plughole.”

  “That understanding will have to do.”

  They came as close to Arjelica as they could. She was there, standing and staring. If potentia was something to fight, Dee was sure she would have jumped in and attacked it.

  Yuri lifted her staff and held it before her. She closed her eyes and whispered a spell. Energy pulsed from her staff’s crystal, purple light washed over them, and then a thick cloud of water exploded from it.

  They were drenched. This was not healing water, just potentia channelled into watery energy. Yuri had made the mist of potentia recede, revealing the centre of the chamber. They all gasped.

  There it was. A drop of water, about the size of his fist, hanging in the air like it was frozen in time. But it wasn’t exactly frozen, he could see it vibrating and turning. It was repelled by the stone around it, and the potentia below it. He could feel it, ready to break open. Magic inside magic inside magic. If he could only reach out and touch it, he would possess a small part of the power that had dreamed the Universe. He felt the same hunger from the others. It was like an unresolved note waiting for a resolution. It was a song waiting for a singer. It was an elemental crest. It was nothing like hair blocking a plughole.

  Arjelica drew a pouch of metallic looking cloth and held her hand out around the crest. Her eyes were fixed on it like a hunting cat.

  “What—” Dee started to ask but Yuri pushed a finger over his mouth and shook her head.

  Whatever Arjelica was doing obviously required a lot of concentration. It looked like she was waiting. And whispering to herself. Her hand hovered, ready to strike, and she was whispering to the crest. He saw something there. The crest was changing, slowly. Perhaps the elf was coaxing it into a different shape, or perhaps she was waiting for it to change into a certain form. He saw the shapes inside it, like a thumbprint each one was different, and promised different power. A relationship was forming. She was waiting for a certain shape of crest.

  She snatched it suddenly, and thrust it into the pouch. She let out a breath and so did everybody else. She had done it. She looked over her shoulder with a cool expression of triumph.

  “We did it! We did it! We found our first seal!” Tianna jumped up and down on her pedestal.

  “We already have seals,” Emi said. She swung her leg and hopped closer to Arjelica. “Apart from a rather special elf who will soon have hers.” She hugged Arjelica.

  “I meant as a team. We found a crest as a team. We’re proper Crest Hunters. Praise the Kingfisher, yahoo!”