"This map cost me my favorite shield!" Quentin replied, his heavier metal armor clanking as he jabbed a finger at the worn-down paper map in Jonas's hands. "I never got it back from that harpy nest! The Quartermaster said it is spelled to update based on the configuration of the maze, but it hasn't."
The Quartermaster demanded seven harpy hearts in exchange for the labyrinth map.
Dungeon creatures could be harvested for parts and traded directly, either for coin or for specific goods that let groups push deeper into the corridors. Hearts, eyes, venom sacks, all of them were catalogued, weighed, and priced. The deeper you went, the rarer the currency.
No one had reached the center where the real treasure lay. The Eye of Balor, the key to the Goddess’s prison. No one had even seen it. Every year, the school announced new progress, new territory maps, new records set, and lauded the teams that had accomplished the greatest feat.
At least that is what they claimed.
For me, the math wasn’t mathing.
The school had existed for over a century. In all that time, not one student had reached the middle to claim a prize of unspeakable value. Not one confirmed success.
So why were only students sent in?
Why not unbound alumni who had passed the Order test and been set free from the bonds that limited their power? Why not the soldiers who guarded the entrance? Why not the instructors themselves?
I had so many questions, but I didn't ask any of them outloud.
I kept my mouth shut and carried the load of loot and monster parts.
The ranked groups at this school had a strict composition: A rogue, a healer, a tank, a mobile fighter, and a ranged damage dealer.
The rogue detected traps and conducted sneak attacks, the healer stabilized wounds mid-combat and repaired the damage afterwards, the tank got front and center in the fight, absorbing the worst of the melee. The mobile fighter shifted across the field, exploiting gaps and flanking. The ranged damage dealer stayed out of reach and shot arrows, or spells if they were skilled enough to shape magic under pressure.
Squires were not a part of that formation. We carried the loot. We cooked. We cleaned weapons and armor. We managed supplies and tended to the group in safe rooms during longer dives.
At the start of the ranking battles, we had a single role to play, a competitive contest to earn tactical advantages before the main match began.
I had lost that trial every time.
So it was very important that I was good at cooking, carrying, and keeping my mouth shut.
"It took us a full day to reach the labyrinth," Heacur said. "We've been in this for two days now, and there hasn't been a single monster or safe room. I don't know about you guys, but I don't want to spend another night here waiting to see what the Dungeon is going to spring on us once we're exhausted. We should recall and take the map back to the Quartermaster to get the spell on it fixed."
The Dungeon itself was enormous. Its internal structure could change without much warning. Monsters migrated or vanished. Entire rooms rotated, sliding and locking into new configurations like a massive Rubik’s Cube. Passages that existed one week sealed the next, and so anyone going into its depths had to take a recall stone, a stone with an extremely complex spell that was simple to trigger that would instantly teleport the user back to the location the stone was attuned to.
The Dungeon was divided into known regions, though “known” shifted as often as the corridors did. The labyrinth was harder to access, but this particular configuration was one of the rare times it was more accessible. From what I could tell from the damp surroundings and the faint sound of water rushing, it lay somewhere beneath the river that cut through one side of the caldera holding the school.
"Heacur is right," Jonas agreed. "The fact that there hasn't been a single trap or monster in the labyrinth so far means that the Dungeon is likely setting up to attempt a full party wipe. Rule four."
"When in doubt, recall out," I murmured. That was my favorite rule. A cautious group meant a higher survival chance for their squire.
"This is a good time to do that thing we were talking about," Olrik said, pursing his lips as he stared at me, his pointed ears marking him as an Aos sí, a high fae. He looked just like an elf to me, but I hadn't survived this long at this school by sayinga slur like that to someone who could end my life because he was in a bad mood. The Aos sí, at least the ones with black hair and pale skin, were insufferable and just as dangerous as the lycans high on a Blood Moon. They were the fascists of the magic realm, all focused on their race being superior to all others. That didn't stop them from working with shifters or other Aos sí who had the taint of Chaos on them, but their belief system that their physical appearance and magical gifts made everyone else default servants to them was straight up nazi talk.
The one thing that every mundane could agree on was that fascism was evil, even if the Nazis were beautiful elves, and being anti-fascist meant you believed in basic human rights for everyone, not just the wealthy. But there wasn't anything I could do about that, just like there was nothing I could do about what I saw in the fish hatchery.
All I could do was survive.
Survive and hope that the prophecy that the Chaos God would return and fuck everything up would happen within my lifetime.
"Good call," Vut said, striding towards me.
I stepped back. Not far enough, not fast enough.
His hand shot out, and I flinched. He caught the back of the carry pack and lifted, easing some of the weight off my spine. I didn’t feel any form of relief.
"Here, let me take that for you," he said, his kindness a red flag streaming across a field.
