Besides, it is not as if the dark element has left this world in its entirety. Ancient artifacts — those created before the fall of the old world and the rising of the new — are more than capable of attuning mana to darkness.

  |

  The third and final layer of the labyrinth lay ahead. Just as the roughly hewn cavern walls transitioned into cobbled flagstone at the start of the second, here the halls were lined with brick and supported by beautiful stone arches. Sconces holding brilliant glowstone clusters decorated the walls at regular intervals, brightly illuminating the way. These would likely be harvested one day and replaced with stones of lesser quality. Then the halls would be much more dimly lit, like the ones in Evran’s memories.

  The last time he’d been in the third layer of a labyrinth, Evran had nearly died. Only his mother’s sacrifice had saved him that day. He reached out with his hand and caressed the stone brick wall as he walked. He recalled the feeling of the coarse grit against his cheeks as he bled out on the floor of the guardian chamber back then. Even through the immense pain, he could still feel the subtle tug of his clothes that pulled under his stomach when he crashed to the ground. The strange viscous wetness of his blood tickled him as it dribbled off his back.

  A memory entered his thoughts, one he’d never before experienced. His recollection of events from the incident and its aftermath was spotty at best, and despite all his efforts, he’d never been able to remember anything beyond when he hit the floor. Here, something had caused his mind to stir, kicking up a memory better off forgotten.

  Then, in his last moments of consciousness, Evran glanced desperately at the exit to the crystal chamber. He’d heard the sounds of armor clattering and the resonant hum of mana growing in pitch as it gathered. Shadows danced along the walls as people rushed towards him. The edges of his vision blurred as they burst into the guardian chamber. His eyes quickly found his mother among them. His final memory of her was with a look of abject terror on her face.

  Evran’s pulse quickened as the horrible vision seared itself in his mind. His breathing became erratic, and his eyes darted around in search of a threat in the shadows. Evran nearly jumped in fright when he felt someone grab his arm from behind. He looked back to see Kaila holding onto him. Her eyes showed concern, though she didn’t give voice to any.

  “Sorry,” he spat out in a feeble whisper, not knowing what else to say.

  Kaila remained silent. She simply pulled herself closer to him and rested her head against his shoulder as they continued on into the final stretch of the labyrinth.

  ***

  “Should we stop and rest?” asked Narro, pointing to the markings on the wall by the intersection.

  Another safe zone lay at the end of the path on the right, close enough to where it could be seen from the crossing. It had only been about two hours since their fight with the osteomorph, and only a tiny fragment of the larger bone they took remained. Though somewhat tired, they still had plenty of mana. There wasn’t any real need to stop. If anything, they would only be giving the creature a head start on finding them.

  “Can we just look inside real quick? It’s right there!” Kaila begged, tugging on Evran’s arm.

  It didn’t take a genius to guess what she was hoping to find. Kaila wanted to see if there were any more murals. They could only convince her to skip the last one because they were making good time and had no idea how far away the safe zone was from the marking that told of it. This one was right in front of them, however.

  “Fine!” Evran relented. “But only because I need to fix my repair on this pack. It’s coming loose again.”

  This narrative has been purloined without the author's approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.

  Kaila charged down the hallway and disappeared into the safe room. When the boys arrived, they found her staring wide eyed at another undamaged mural. This one depicted a bracelet with a series of complex magic circles and enchantments. The poor girl was struggling to carve them into more stone tablets with her earth magic before Evran could finish sewing Lerrum’s pack back together. He took his time.

  “So what does it do?” asked Narro, leaning over Kaila’s shoulder.

  “No clue!” she replied. “Wait, you can sew. Switch places with Evran so he can help me!”

  Without argument, Evran handed the pack over to Narro and started work on transcribing the various magic circles onto stone. The diagrams were very complex, intricate things. Even a minor transcription error was likely to ruin the final product, so Evran took extra care to make sure everything was right. The entire process wasted half an hour, but they were all glad for the rest.

  “Sorry that took longer than expected. We were gonna have to fight that thing again either way, right?”

  “Whatever, I was a little tired anyway,” said Narro, resting against the wall on the far side of the room. He’d long since finished repairing Lerrum’s old pack. “Now that you’re done, I’ve been meaning to ask. What the hell’s wrong with this water?”

  While Kaila carefully stored the stone tablets in their bag, Evran wandered over to the other side of the safe room to see what Narro was on about. “Oh, gods, that’s liquid mana!”

  Kaila sprinted over to see for herself. Whereas in the last safe room there had been a stream of fresh water running through, this one had a small pool filled with a faintly glowing blue liquid. A partially submerged stone plinth rested at its center. It clearly held something special once, but the adventurers must have taken whatever it was.

  “Let’s take some!” Kaila shouted.

  “Will someone please tell me what it does!” said a frustrated Narro.

  “Of course he hasn’t heard of it. He’s never needed to use any!” Kaila laughed.

  “It’s a potent alchemical reagent,” Evran explained. “A few drops can double or even triple the effectiveness of a potion. In its raw form, it can be used to fuel spells. It won’t just feed mana to you, but to any spell it comes into contact with. The effects can be rather violent and uncontrollable. If, for example, one of our flare spells were to accidentally touch it, it would likely explode, killing us all. Heck, it might cause a dungeon rupture with this much of it.”

  “Well, if it can help against the osteomorph, then we should take a bit!”

  Evran dug into his belt and extracted three empty potion vials. After removing their stoppers, he submerged them in the pool of liquid mana. He immediately felt energy flowing into his hand, even recovering a small portion of the mana he’d spent carving the stone tablets. He quickly capped off the vials and returned them to his belt.

  “By the way, you’d be shocked to learn how expensive this stuff is. It takes ages for liquid mana to accumulate like this. These vials are probably worth a platinum each.”

  The look of disbelief on Narro’s face was priceless, however. He’d been sitting next to something worth more than a skyfront mansion on Hyperia, and he hadn’t even realized it. All the wealth in the world wouldn’t mean a thing if they couldn’t escape this gods-forsaken island, however.

  With their business in the safe room concluded, it was time to return to the labyrinth. Evran threw on the noticeably heavier pack and followed the others outside the room. Right before they passed the threshold back into the dungeon, they once again heard the dreadful rattle of bones.

  The osteomorph quickly came into view, then vanished just as fast. It continued to sprint deeper into the labyrinth, heedless of the potential prey only a few meters down the other hall. Concerned, Evran stepped past the threshold and shot a flare into the wall of the intersection it’d just passed through in an attempt to get its attention.

  “What the hell are you doing? Let it pass!” shouted Narro.

  The rattling faded as the osteomorph ignored the flare and continued on its current path away from the group. Narro grabbed Evran by the shoulder and pulled him back into the safe zone. Another tremor shook the ground just as he did, and the two boys lost their footing and fell to the labyrinth floor.

  “The adventurers are probably fighting the guardian by now, if not soon,” said Evran. “I didn’t want that thing to ambush them in the middle of that fight, though it seems capable of ignoring us.”

  “Maybe it just locks onto one group and ignores anyone else? That might explain how we avoided it for so long.”

  “Either way, we need to get moving. Let’s go!”

  The students walked quickly through the labyrinth, eager to catch up with the adventurers ahead of them. Although they had a tremendous head start, the adventurers had to fight more monsters, explore all the branching paths, and solve tedious puzzles. In comparison, the students had a much easier time following the trail the adventurers had blazed for them. Now, they were so close as to not even have to fight any monsters, as none had spawned in the short amount of time between their passing.

  After half an hour of walking at a frenetic pace, they could hear the faint sounds of fighting ahead of them. A quiet din of metal clashing on bone drifted through the tunnel, occasionally punctuated with a small explosion or a loud shout. They were tantalizingly close.