Good morning, everyone. I have some news.
First, the end of the volume is upon us. Chapter 268 will be the last regular chapter of volume 8. Of course, we will have the prologue and then a few fun side stories. After that, Ko-Fi advance chapters will launch into volume 9.
But before that happens, I have a family vacation coming up. The last-minute heads-up is not my doing this time, but it is what it is. I'll be heading out of state and into the mountains for some time. So I won't be returning til July 23rd. I'll see you again then, but of course, the regular chapter is coming out on the 7th as planned.
News on the Kickstarter is good. All my items have been returned to me, and I can finally get back to work on them. I'm not 100% sure what I'm going to do, but I'll figure it out.
Thanks, everyone, and happy Monday
---
We searched the entire room, but no signs of life or experiments existed. It was an empty room.
On the surface at least.
With mana coursing through my eye, I scanned the room one last time. A single spot, about the height of a doorway, shone brighter than anywhere else. However, through my regular vision, it was nothing more than a wall covered in mushrooms.
"Did you find something?" Bowen asked me.
I nodded and pointed to the wall. "Something is there, and it goes from the base of the floor to about the height of a door. It stands out a lot," I answered.
He followed my finger and tilted his head to the side. The old mage rubbed his chin and shrugged. "It looks like a wall. Could it be a magic spell, perhaps?" Bowen suggested.
"No…it's too consistent. However, it's not a person. It's like a thick wall of ambient mana," I said.
"Ambient mana…" Bowen muttered. "An interesting term. So, shall we see what lies beyond?"
Bowen raised his hand, and flames splattered against the wall. The fungus burned and released a thick, iron-like smell. The object behind the fungus became more apparent as the ash fluttered to the ground.
"Glass? Or… a mirror?" Sylvia questioned.
It made sense to be confused. The tall dark glass pane stood out immensely from all the rusted iron around it. Due to its size and shape, it could have been a mirror, but that made little sense. And there was no reflection in the glass, either.
"This must be the dungeon's work," Lord Vasquez said as he thrust his axe into the glass.
But there was no glass shattering. Instead, the head of his axe simply slid into it and disappeared with what seemed like little to no resistance.
Lord Vasquez slowly turned his head. "Any suggestions?" he asked Bowen.
Bowen let out a small chuckle. "I didn't get the lecture on this one, sorry," he said with a shrug.
"It…probably goes somewhere, right?" Tsarra asked.
"Most likely," Lord Vasquez said as he pulled his weapon from the glass, revealing it untouched or damaged.
"Then someone needs to walk through it. The odds are it's a trap, and if you move through it fully, you won't be able to come back before dealing with something, right?" Professor Garrison asked.
"That would be the worst case, yes. But there may be more to this place and in the caves," I suggested.
"That could be the case. We can—Cerila? Wait—I know you can't hear me but…oh," Bowen's outstretched hand fell on deaf ears.
Cerila strode toward the glass, and I grabbed her by the arm. She stopped and smiled warmly as she gently squeezed the hand that held her.
Cerila's smile grew wider as she released my hand and signed,
I couldn't help but smile as I signed,
She nodded and walked into the glass, disappearing. I wiped my brow free of sweat and stared into the glass, waiting. It felt like a long time until Cerila's head poked back through the glass. She waved us in and I was the first to follow.
Walking through the glass felt…odd. But the sensation disappeared as I came out on the other side. I looked around in confusion.
We were back in the laboratory, but everything was different; it was like a dream. The entire place was lit up, and the rust and decay of time were gone. Blurry phantoms bustled around the place, sliding about as they left vaguely Humanoid shapes in their wake. The noise they were making sounded like garbled language passing through the water. The entire world around me felt slow, as if I was viewing a murky memory of the past.
"What is this…" Bowen said in wonder.
For some reason, Bowen sounded normal. When any of us piled through the glass, moved, or mumbled, it was as usual. I turned around as I watched one of the blurry phantoms move toward me. I readied my spear, but it passed straight through me, like a ghost.
"We don't appear to be in danger. But I don't understand what's happening," Lord Vasquez grumbled.
"It's like an old memory that you just can't quite recall," Professor Garrison said as he poked one of the phantoms hunched over a table.
Bowen stood over one of the phantoms, ran his hand through it, and tried peering down at what looked like sheets of paper thrown about. "I can't seem to make out anything here. When I try to focus on the symbols, they only get more hazy…" Bowen said as he rubbed his beard.
I turned around, and my eyes went to the floor and up. The giant glass tube that was empty when we first entered was filled by something—a large and imposing creature. I couldn't make out the finer details of the monster, but it had a set of arms coming off a torso that, instead of legs, had a serpent tail.
Where a neck would be on a person, the torso extended into a flat shape, similar to the hood of a snake. It felt like it might have had a face, but when I focused on it, I saw nothing but a shadowy blur.
"I don't know what we are supposed to accomplish here. Why would the dungeon send us to this place…" Ms. Taurus said.
"Everyone, over here. Tsarra found something," Varnir shouted.
We passed through more of the working phantoms to where Tsarra was looking into…an oven? There was a blur that looked like flames, and floating in the housing were four eggs, unlike anything else so far; they were crystal clear. The eggs were large, smooth, and varied in their bright colors. One was a pale, yellow with hints of lighter blue; another was light pink with a dark blue hue. The other two were a mix of blues, pinks, and yellows.
Mana flowed into my eye, and I took a look at the eggs, but I was blinded by the sheer brightness of the surrounding mana. As I rubbed my eyes, Tsarra reached out, and I expected her hand to go through the eggs, but she touched it with the tip of her finger.
"So you can touch them. Are they some kind of key? What do they feel like, Tsarra?" Bowen asked.
However, Tsarra did not answer him.
She swept her arm over the eggs and held them close. They were too big to hold properly, but she still managed to hold them against her body. When she turned around, she had a glassy expression with unfocused eyes.
"They…want to be freed," Tsarra droned off.
"Are they, those—?"
Bowen's question was cut short as Tsarra suddenly went limp. Varnir caught her as she fell, along with the eggs. At the same time, the air around us shifted. The blurry phantoms all stopped moving, and despite none of them having faces, it felt as if they were staring at us.
"We are leaving," Lord Vasquez said firmly, raising his axe.
"The glass on the wall is gone!" Professor Garrison shouted.
"Then we head out the other way," Lord Vasquez said as flames left his hands.
The flames engulfed the phantoms, and we sprinted through the doorway. The hallways were clean, devoid of rust, and filled with phantoms. The world was still slowed down and blurry as we ran through the tunnel, burning the phantoms with magic. But no matter what we did to them, they never seemed to attack us, only ever silently watching us.
As we reached the door that should have led us to the guard station, it was another black pane of glass. Lord Vasquez didn't even hesitate as he barreled through it into the unknown. We funneled through, and the dungeon had completely changed once we were on the other side.
The bare cave walls were cut and smoothed. Enormous Dwarven statues stared down at us, their large stone weapons resting on the floor. A large gate loomed in front of us like the entrance to a grand city. However, an orange barrier was blocking the massive space like a shield.
The barrier was made up of thousands of hexagons and spanned to each side of the wall. Beyond the barrier at the foot of the door were three circles. Each of them had a pile of armor and weapons with them. The first had a fancy great sword plunged into the dirt, plate armor scattered around it, but even from a distance, it was clear the armor and weapon were in excellent condition.
The armor was painted a dull, dark green with gold trim around the shoulders, torso, and arms. The helmet had a set of golden wings on the side, while the breast plate was propped up against the elegant golden blade. Imprinted on the chest was a golden cross with white wings on the arms, and above and below the cross, "Glory To The One True God," was written in Human language.
The second was a spear made of black wood. The tip, which was just barely sticking out from the stone, looked like a bone of a monster. Instead of armor like the first, various animal pelts and skulls were scattered around.
The third circle had black and silver armor scattered around with two swords, one a rather unimposing and even rusted sword. In comparison, the second was a familiar copy.
Sylvia hesitantly approached the barrier. She rested the palms of her hands on it and stared out at the sword in the ground. It was clear that it was the second sword of her uncle.
On our side of the barrier, a single circle was at the edge of the barrier. I didn't necessarilynecssairly understand the floor and what it was trying to do but things started to make sense. If someone was unlucky, they may have wandered through those caves in the dark for a long time before stumbling across the abandoned lab, if ever.
And finding the mirror to be… transported to the other side was rather poetic for a dungeon. We visited what could be considered the "past," where phantoms of a bygone era still roamed.
Now, if we are to progress into the future, we will have to fight the specters of the past.
But there were still many unanswered questions. How was the dungeon replicating all of this? Was it just a coincidence? Or was the dungeon actually taking and preserving the past in some way? Sylvia, someone from the past, ended up in a dungeon on a continent she had never visited thousands of years into the future. Now, the armor and weapons of her uncle are in this one.
An ancient race of long-forgotten Dwarves, turned undead, was not just mindlessly roaming the dungeon as monsters; some seemed to have genuine thoughts behind their actions, like revenge. Were they just clones created via magic? Or are they real?
And if they are real…who or what is putting them here?
"Is Tsarra okay?" Mom asked Varnir.
"She seems just to be sleeping now. Sylvia, can you check her, please?" he asked.
Sylvia knelt down and sank her fangs into Tsarra's arm. After just a moment, she stood back up and shrugged. "She isn't injured as far as I can tell. Just sleeping. She'll probably wake up on her own," Sylvia answered.
"Thank you…" Varnir mumbled.
Sylvia gave me a worried look, and I nodded to her. She didn't need to say anything. I already understood that she wanted to be the one to find answers about her uncle.
Bowen stood at the circle's edge and looked out beyond the barrier. "I feared something like this would happen. It appears we are being challenged. And one of us will have to face an opponent alone," he said.
"It will be a sword versus sword battle. I'm confident I can win, so I'll go first," Professor Garrison offered.
"Are you sure? The cost of losing…may be grave," Lord Vasquez asked in a low voice.
"I can do it. I'd rather go against this sword than the other two. A spear and dual-wielder has always given me a hard time," Professor Garrison said with a smile.
Ms. Taurus put a hand on the professor's shoulder and told him, "Be careful, Kelly. This isn't the place to play hero at."
Professor Garrison chuckled. "Don't look down on me too much. I may have been the youngest, but I'm no less a War God than anyone else," he said with a smile.
Professor Garrison hefted his sword onto his shoulder and stepped into the circle. But nothing happened.
"Uh, perhaps we need more people, after all?" Professor Garrison said.
Lord Vasquez stepped into the circle, but once again, nothing happened. "It's your weapon. Thrust it into the ground like you are challenging them," Ms.Taurus said.
But nothing changed again once the two of them thrust their weapons into the stone. Only when Lord Vasquez stepped out with his weapon in hand did the orange barrier wobble and absorb Professor Garrison.
He was now on the other side and strode into the center. The circle with the winged helmet glowed a faint blue, and like a gust of wind, the armor floated into the air as if it was being worn. The green and gold armor struck a menacing pose; the wearer of the armor must have been well over six feet. From thin air, a misty blue substance seeped out of the circle and into the armor. Arms, hands, legs, and feet seemed to appear but were only in a person's vague shape.
The helmet glowed a faint blue through its visor, and once the creature landed on the floor, it grabbed its sword free of the stone and crouched into a low stance. It reminded me of Cerila's.
It was like a ghost had materialized and possessed the armor.