“Introductions first,” Aya said, once they’d settled down. “Uh, yeah so I’m Aya. I’m an ice mage—the best bronze-ranked ice mage you’ll ever meet in fact. This here’s Freya.”

  “I already introduced myself…” Freya muttered.

  “Oh, really?” Aya blinked. “Well, yeah so she’s a life mage with a specialization in plants.”

  Freya raised her hand just a bit. “I can still heal in a pinch though.”

  Corrin raised a hand in return. “Pretend I’ve never met a healer before. What can you do? Or I guess, how much can you heal?”

  “You’ve—” Aya paused. “Given enough time, she can heal any sort of minor injury you might get. That’s cuts, bruises, burns, and so on. If you break a bone, or lose a limb, you’re shit out of luck.”

  “Good to know,” Corrin rubbed his chin. “I wasn’t planning on it, but good to know.”

  “Guess I’m next?” Jon said. “Like Freya said, my name’s Jon. I’m an artificer—so I specialize in crafting magical items, like golems and launchers, not so much weaving mana directly.”

  “Ah, cool.” Wyn said. “What are you working on right now?”

  He pointed to the device that Jon had poking and prodding with a thin piece of metal. It was small enough to fit in his hand, a thin disk with nubs sticking out of the sides.

  Jon held the disk between two fingers, showing off a set of chained, golden rings that stretched between them. “It’s just a new plaything, check it out…”

  He flipped the disk onto the table and it came to life. The nubs sprouted into tiny legs, six of them, and it scurried off the table and clattered on the floor, before righting itself and running away. It skittered across the floor, deftly avoiding the footsteps of the much larger adventurers until it reached the wall and began to climb.

  Eyes flicking back to Jon’s face for a moment, Corrin saw him whispering quickly under his breath—commands?

  Finally the disk sat still on the wall and began to glow with a faint light.

  “That’s a simple light spell,” Jon said, finally speaking up. “It can perform six others, but four of them would get me banned again. With my baby here, I can cast set spells from all sorts of angles. It works best if I have time to set up, but I can throw it if I need to.”

  Corrin thought it was neat, but Wyn seemed genuinely interested.

  “That’s incredible, I’d love to see how it works some time.”

  Jon preened under the praise. “Do you dabble in artifice or enchanting yourself?”

  Wyn shook his head. “Unfortunately, I’m a complete novice, but I’d love to learn.”

  “Well there’s nothing wrong with that, really that drive is all you need! Don’t let anyone fool you, artifice is the best magecraft there is! Yes it’s the pinnacle! Why take time casting spells when you can—”

  “Alright alright enough with your little spiel,” Aya interrupted dryly. “We haven’t even let them introduce themselves yet. Personally I’d like to know my frontliners’ names. You are frontliners right”

  Corrin nodded. “That’s us. Name’s Corrin, I’m an ash channeler and use a sword.”

  “Ash huh? I’ve heard of that before, never seen it though. What kind of aspect is it?”

  “What… kind?” Corrin stumbled. He wasn’t sure what she was asking.

  “Yeah, like power, speed, control, you know. What should we expect out of you?”

  “Um, well I guess it’s powerful, and fast, but usually in bursts, maybe like… the opposite of earth?”

  Aya exchanged a glance with her sister. Corrin could tell they thought he was an idiot, and he wanted to protest, but he bit his tongue. There was still so much he didn’t know, but he was confident in his own abilities. If he had the chance, he’d prove his usefulness.

  Wyn smiled, breaking up the brief silence. “It’s nice to meet you all, my name’s Wyn. I have pure aura, and it’s not very well developed yet, but I have a blessing that can damage monsters and helps me fight.”

  After a moment of consideration, Aya grinned. “Good enough for me, we’re all bronze here after all, and I wasn’t planning on going into any dangerous parts of the keep. I should ask though, do either of you have experience with dungeons?”

  “You could say that,” Corrin chuckled.

  I wonder how many people here have gotten trapped in one before? Ever meet the demon lurking at the bottom?

  “We’ve plenty of experience with monsters—we participated in the colossus hunt as well, but this will only be our second dungeon, and our first time in a group like this,” Wyn clarified.

  All three of them straightened in their chairs at the mention of the colossus hunt.

  “Well…” Aya said. “I suppose that vouches for your skills, and don’t worry, we’ll get you up to speed quickly. But just so you know, no two dungeons are alike, that’s adventurer rule number one, so don’t forget it.”

  “Thanks for the tip,” Wyn said.

  Corrin just saluted.

  “A couple other things to note, since you’re new to this, make sure to follow my lead while we’re down there. It’s not an ego thing, but I’ve been into this dungeon the most here, and it’s just important we don’t have conflicting ideas about what we’re doing at any given time. That goes for you two as well,” she looked pointedly at Freya and Jon.

  Wyn nodded. “Makes sense.”

  Aya winced. “Now for the ugly stuff. We’ll do an equal split on loot, okay? On the off chance we find any rare items like an enchanted blade, I’ll decide who gets it in the moment, and we’ll sort out its owner once we resurface. If need be, we’ll sell the item and split the earnings instead of keeping it directly.”

  Rare items? Corrin’s mind hung on that point. The Founder’s Tomb had nothing like that. There were cores, and on the deeper floors there were ores and resources to be collected, but nothing remotely man-made. He wondered how something like that even ended up in the dungeon to begin with.

  “No problems there either,” Wyn agreed easily.

  Aya breathed a sigh of relief. “Glad to hear it, and please, let’s not kill each other over something we find, yeah?”

  Corrin frowned. “Does that actually happen?”

  Freya nodded. “I heard just the other day there was a fight between two members of Chainbound over keeping an item they took from some bandits.”

  “More like chainbroke,” Jon muttered.

  Aya looked at him out of the corner of her eye, raising an eyebrow. “Terrible, truly awful,” she said dryly. She turned back to Corrin. “But yeah, it totally happens, and cuts are usually a sticking point, so thanks for being chill about it.”

  “Chill.” Jon snickered. “Okay miss ice mage.”

  Aya ignored him.

  “Oh, and last thing. You guys are good till after nightfall right?”

  “Yep,” Corrin said.

  “No problem,” Wyn nodded.

  “Great!” Aya stood up. “Then let’s stop wasting time, we’ll talk strategy on the way. Now let’s go make some money! Mama needs a new wand!”

  And with that, they were off.

  ***

  The entrance to The Hollow Bastion was just outside the back of the adventurer’s guild, and unlike The Founder’s Tomb, there was nothing natural about it.

  A huge stone staircase, wider than a small river, had been constructed into the ground, heading down and into the mountain’s surface, with no gate or door to obstruct it. The stones to the staircase were weathered, but it had clearly been built by human hands. The further they got down the stairs, the colder it became, and the light from the sun above was slowly replaced by an eerie blue light coming from below.

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  They passed another group on the way, who seemed weary, but in jovial spirits, and wished them luck with their dungeon run, though it didn’t seem they knew Aya directly.

  After a long, long descent, the stairs ended, leaving them standing on a floor of stone brick. Corrin exhaled, as he looked around, and the air frosted in front of him. He was grateful for the thick wool coats Eldress Edith had made for them, as he was mostly warm despite the chill.

  Having reached the bottom of the stairs, the differences between this dungeon and the one he knew only grew. The walls of the hollow bastion seemed manmade, constructed from the same stone brick as the floor and stairs. But they had crumbled in some spots, revealing a thick wall of ice just on the other side, and cracks in the floor revealed a similar situation below.

  “What an odd structure,” Wyn muttered as they slowed. “What is the purpose of the walls if the other side is simply ice?”

  “If you try to understand the keep, you’ll drive yourself insane,” Jon said, shaking his head. “Smarter men than us have tried. But as far as anyone has found, there is no logic to it. Even worse, the layout of the keep changes from time to time.”

  “How does that work?”

  Jon shrugged. “It only happens every few years at its most frequent. Sometimes decades will pass between shifts. It is a difficult phenomenon to study.”

  “We’ll head towards the courtyard,” Aya announced, glancing at a map she’d pulled from her pack. “Jon, can you—”

  “On it,” the artificer dropped a similar-looking golden disk onto the ground, though Corrin thought it seemed different from the first somehow. Familiar legs popped up and the disk dashed into the room ahead of them, just on the other side of a doorway, skittering legs clicking quietly against the stone floor.

  They followed the strange device, as Aya gave instructions to Jon that he would then whisper to their scout, and their walk through the strange dungeon began.

  It was only some five minutes in when they had their first encounter. Jon held his hand out to stop them, pointing to indicate something ahead.

  From the next room, Corrin could hear a strange, rhythmic sound, like heavy wood clopping against stone. With a start, he realized they were footsteps, though perhaps the oddest he’d ever heard.

  Drawing her wand, Aya ushered them forwards, indicating for Wyn and Corrin to take the lead. Corrin was the first around the corner, and was met with something his brain took a moment to dissect.

  The room was much like the rest he’d seen so far within the dungeon—the spacious square of stone walls reached high up before giving way to a natural icy ceiling which glowed with a strange light. In fact, there seemed to be no torches at all throughout the keep, yet the rooms were still rather bright.

  The entrances into the room, of which there were three, were not doorways, but rather openings in the walls which ran from the floor to the ceiling, except for one which only reached up about halfway, still a good ten feet up.

  A huge shadow passed in front of Corrin. He leapt away on instinct.

  It’s huge! Ash flooded from his lungs into his mantle, and he forced most onto his blade, dashing forward. He needed to act fast—take action before it could land a blow.

  “Wait!” Aya cried out.

  Corrin skidded to a stop, pulling his blade back just in time as he rolled under the enormous figure’s feet and into the center of the room. Rising to a crouch, he finally got a look at the creature which hadn’t seemed to even notice him.

  Pacing the perimeter of the room was a hulking figure of wood and metal, whose body rumbled with a deep clicking sound from within as it walked. The figure was humanoid, but it had no distinct features, and actually, it didn’t make Corrin think of a living creature at all, just a huge, faceless… thing. It was a construct, similar to the disk creature that Jon created. The behemoth wielded a huge polearm—a staff tipped with blunt metal on either end. Though the weapon itself was not intimidating, the size of the thing wielding it made Corrin uneasy.

  Even as it faced them however, it didn’t seem phased. The construct walked right past Corrin, its patrol of the room unceasing even in the sight of him.

  “What the hell is this thing?” he wondered aloud.

  “It’s a monster,” Aya said. “A clockwork goliath. Lucky us, this one seems neutral, I’d be hesitant to fight a goliath with this group.”

  “Neutral? You said it was a monster though.”

  “It is, and don’t forget it. Just because this golem isn’t attacking, doesn’t mean the others won’t. But some of them are weird. Maybe ten percent or so won’t attack unless you attack first. Now hang on, let me kill this one.”

  Holding out her wand, Aya began to chant.

  “Wait, we're killing it? But it’s not attacking.” Wyn frowned.

  “Exactly,” Jon pitched in. “Means it’s the perfect opportunity. She can take all the time she likes chanting and gathering mana. Goliath’s have big cores, you two might be good luck charms.”

  Sure enough, Corrin saw ice begin to coalesce in the air above the golem, a huge mass of it, unmoving as the construct continued its route. As she chanted, the silver on the tips of her hair seemed to creep up further.

  “I don’t know…” Wyn said. “It just seems wrong I guess.”

  “Don’t let the appearance fool you,” Jon muttered. “These things are just as much monsters as the rest of the constructs here. Hell, they’re not even actually constructs. Break them open and you’ll find gears, pistons, and mechanisms, but none of them do anything. It’s all just some sort of imitation. They don’t run on scripts or engravings either, and they turn to ash once their core is removed.”

  “Strange,” was all Wyn said.

  The five of them waited in the icy tomb, silent but for the Aya’s chanting as the ice grew, forming a huge spike, larger than the golem itself, sharpened to a deadly point.

  It trembled for a moment, hanging in the air as the golem came back around, unaware of the danger.

  Aya whipped the wand towards it, and the icicle speared downwards at an angle, crashing into the golem with its immense weight.

  Corrin held up a hand to shield his face as ice and wood shot out from the collision, spraying across the room. But just like that, it was over. The golem hadn’t been crushed entirely, but it was damaged beyond repair, and was pinned beneath the bulk of the ice, body twitching mechanically.

  Though he wasn’t the biggest fan of what were essentially ambush tactics, Corrin squashed any sympathy he might’ve felt for the thing.

  Jon walked over and bent down next to it, reaching his arm into a gap in its shell. He fumbled around inside for a moment, but didn’t seem to find what he was looking for, so instead he reached into his cloak and pulled out a small golden sphere, rolling it into the ‘corpse’. The telltale skittering echoed from within. He frowned.

  “It’s too heavy, damn. Aya dispel the ice.”

  “But it’ll move,” she protested.

  “And do what? It’s smashed up, and I can’t get the core from here.”

  With a sigh, she held out her wand again, and the ice slowly began to melt away. As soon as the golem began to thrash, purple flames engulfed its body. It did not scream in pain, but the clicking sound of its internals slowly dimmed until it fell still, and its shell was consumed by the flames.

  Corrin glanced over at Wyn, who was hooking his wooden blade back onto his belt.

  “This thing was strong, I couldn’t have burned it in one go without the first shot weakening it. But if it burns, then it's definitely a monster.”

  The other party members looked at Wyn as he watched the goliath’s body turn to ash. Their faces were at once awed and intrigued.

  “That’s the blessing you mentioned?” Aya asked.

  Corrin suppressed a smirk.

  “It burns monsters,” Wyn explained. “It’s more effective the weaker they are, but as you can see… it gets the job done.”

  The flames died as the body vanished and a golden core about the size of a fist dropped to the ground with a clink. Jon bent down and scooped it into his pack.

  “That’s a good blessing,” Freya muttered. “Does it have any limits?”

  “None worth mentioning.”

  Aya clapped him on the shoulder. “Well, you won’t hear me complaining. If you’ve got a blessing that good, I plan on putting it to work.” She grinned wolfishly.

  “Yes ma’am,” Wyn smirked.

  And so the walk through the dungeon continued. Corrin found himself entranced with the layout of the place. As they took countless twists and turns, he would peer down hallways that seemingly led nowhere, and into rooms that made no sense at all. A spiral staircase descended from the bare floor into a ceiling with no hole, a doorway sat halfway up a wall, and opened into nothing—after passing a room with a strange looking stove for the third time, Jon confirmed his theory that some of the rooms were duplicated across the keep.

  The dungeon itself wasn’t empty either. Roaming the decrepit castle halls were countless golems like the one they’d killed. With each encounter, he understood more about them. The constructs came in all sorts of sizes. The smallest hardly came up to Corrin’s waist, while the largest were larger than any person could possibly be, hulking figures of inorganic material.

  That was the other distinction between golems—their material. Corrin noted three types of golems as they made their way in. There were clockwork golems, made from a mixture of wood and metal—they looked the most man-made, with complex gears and mechanisms that apparently did nothing upon closer inspection. Above them were the stone golems, or statues as he heard the other’s call them. They were sturdier, with heavy bodies made from what looked like stone armor, but they held nothing within. The strongest of the three, the metal golems, took either form. But no matter what type of golem, the shells were empty, and the mechanics were pointless.

  Whatever made them move, was something entirely separate from the physical.

  Hollow huh? That’s fitting, Corrin thought. The whole place felt like it lacked substance. It was like… a dream. Everything looked normal at a glance, but the more you thought about it, the more you inspected what you saw, the less the illusion held up.

  Wyn’s spirit fire cut through that dream like the morning sun, burning it to ash. Each time lavender flames ate away at metal and stone, it served as a reminder. For all its appearance, Corrin was confident that the dungeon was not man made. A human wouldn’t have needed to pretend.

  Eventually, the stone floor gave way to dirt and grass, and the sounds of people talking could be heard just down the corridor. Aya’s pace quickened, and Corrin rushed ahead.

  He burst out of the hallway and—he was suddenly outdoors. Corrin looked around in a daze as he was treated with a much more spacious view. Though surrounded by tall castle walls on all four sides, the high ceiling had vanished, replaced by an open sky above.

  Belatedly, he realized there was no sun. What he thought was the sky was simply a new ceiling of ice, much higher above, so high it was almost indistinguishable from the real thing. He was standing in a huge courtyard, an open space with no golems visible. The stone wall behind him stretched up almost a hundred feet before giving way to a vast wall of ice which stretched up to the sky-ceiling of the cavern. At the end of the courtyard was a large wooden gate that seemed to lead out of the castle and to… somewhere.

  Around him and throughout the space, dozens of adventurers mulled around, some resting, some chatting, and some cooking food over pots. There were even a few tents and cots set up.

  Do people… sleep here? Corrin kept looking around, slack-jawed.

  Aya walked past him, clapping his shoulder as she did.

  “Welcome to The Courtyard of The Hollow Bastion. It’s nice right? Who’s hungry?”

  Corrin took a deep breath. The whole place was just weird. But food was food, no matter where you were.

  “I could eat.”