Which came first? The monsters, or the dungeons?


    <hr>


    Sekir Lifekeeper had better things to do than sit through yet another tedious meeting with yet another tedious ''noble''. Veor had so little to it, nothing worth salvaging after all. He would save it, rule it, and then leave it behind as readily as anything else.


    Only one person in this entire continent held his interest. Jair Welburne, the Phoenix Healer. He''d been shockingly elusive, despite being so incredibly well known. Rumors always swirled around him after his every appearance, but Sekir could never quite manage to catch sight of the man.


    The days were slipping by without visible progress, but he was used to plans taking a long time to come to fruition. He''d spent months scouring the desert for someone he knew wasn''t there just to solidify his presence within the Hyperion, after all. Of course, that particular plan had backfired when the backlash from Welburne''s phoenix fire had destroyed that body and forced Sekir into his next phase much sooner than intended, but there were always going to be unpredictable factors in any plan.


    That''s what made it tolerable. If he were infallible life would be so unbearably tedious.


    Such as toying with these nobles. They thought themselves so superior to the common underclass, but from where Sekir sat they were all the same. Equally petty, equally small-minded. Not one of them was worth the time he so graciously spent upon them, even the necessity of going through the motions of convincing, befriending, guiding, leading, gently pushing them in the directions he wanted, it was like juggling a single ball from hand to hand. Too trivial to be more than a distraction.


    "Welburne? Why would that have anything to do with our agreement?"


    Sekir refocused his eyes, bringing his interlocutor''s confusion to the forefront. He''d apparently muttered something while the fellow was droning on. "Apologies, I merely thought I saw something out the window."


    He continued to play through the motions, convinced the man it was his own idea to propose Sekir''s desired outcome, and signed the agreement all without more than passing attention.


    He had to know.


    His interest was quickly growing into obsession. The more this Welburne avoided his sight, the more desperately he wanted to meet him.


    Who was this who so casually dismantled years of preparation? Was it possible he was another person of vision? Or just another of the mindless masses who happened to get lucky?


    Sekir shook the nobleman''s hand and took the contract and smiled and said meaningless words, and as he walked away toward the next inevitable negotiation with someone who had nothing of worth to provide but one more tiny step toward the power and influence he needed, he still hoped to catch a glimpse of black-green fire. Just a single confirmation that he wasn''t imagining it all, that this wasn''t some grand scheme his mind had concocted to keep him amused.


    It was one thing to imagine a worthy adversary stalking him from the shadows, and another entirely to see it manifest.


    Yet so far, Sekir was making his moves and no one appeared to counter him. It was enough to make him wonder. Perhaps he was overestimating this Phoenix Healer. Perhaps it truly was a coincidence that he''d so thoroughly destroyed Sekir''s groundwork.


    But he couldn''t help but hope otherwise. He''d been alone in the world for so long, weaving his plots and laying out the steps one after another, it would be so refreshing to have an actual nemesis.


    So caught up in his thoughts was he that when the moment came and he actually caught a glimpse of the man, he nearly missed it. But there it was, the mysterious young man appeared in a flash of fire, and turned around in a slow circle, scanning the area.


    Their eyes met. That was all it took.


    Sekir focused on his adversary until everything else disappeared, even himself.


    As Welburne casually interrogated those around him with oddly specific questions, Sekir seized on every word. The answers he found were both greater and lesser than he''d have ever dreamed.


    Most importantly, he was not imagining things. Welburne not only knew of Sekir''s existence, he knew of him by name.


    He turned and slipped away through the crowd, never making himself known. Welburne knew his name and three of his faces, without having any idea what Sekir was actually doing. Welburne''s motivations were entirely twisted, trying to rescue Veor''s landmass as though the stone and sand held any value.


    He could use that.


    But there was one other thing Welburne knew that Sekir hadn''t.


    “Meliarn.” Sekir’s eyes widened slightly as he heard the word leak out of Welburne’s lips. The answer he''d been seeking for so long, and it was right there for the taking, only a whisper away. This new adversary was actually a stroke of serendipity.


    Sekir didn''t need to play these nobles’ games. He didn''t need to raise himself to king. All he needed to do was get closer to Welburne and tease out the essential details without betraying himself in the process.


    It seemed like Welburne expected him to make a grand declaration on Solaria? Well, then. Sekir was nothing if not considerate.


    His adversary wanted them to party? Sekir would put on a party no one would ever forget.


    Meliarn. The secret lingered on the edges of his mind, the answer so delectably elusive. What did Welburne know and how did he know it?


    He couldn''t wait to find out.


    <hr>


    There were two problems with the idea of using dragons to swim through lava. The first, of course, was that they were poison dragons and everything about them was destructive to the extreme. Jair had been dissolved in a poison dragon''s mouth, stomach, or half-destroyed corpse enough times to be intimately familiar with that particular method of demise.


    In theory, one could wear protective constructs, but the energy for those would be extreme even for someone with Jair''s budget. Until he had a chance to get to Nuprima and collect some raw mana crystals, he''d be forced to rely on commonplace power sources, and his little trick with the academy wall had drained most available backup power sources from Astralla and its surrounding environs.


    But even if they had construct armor, the crystals to power it, and no concerns about messing up their fledgling spell imprints...


    The second problem was one of volume. They had dragons, yes, but these dragons were babies. Big enough to bite you in half in a casual snap, but not so big that they had cavernous mouths big enough to float an eelship into.


    And this wasn''t one of those cases where you could sort of cram it in and call it good enough. If they didn''t have an absolute seal, the magma would seep through and that would be a quick recipe for roasted passenger.


    This book''s true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.


    "Skyclaw, you ready?"


    Jair’s dragon nodded and opened her mouth. She wasn''t big enough to swallow him whole with ease, but if he curled up in her mouth she could get it closed over him. Not comfortable for either of them, and he couldn''t wear anything to mitigate the acid in her saliva from burning through his outer layers of skin, but he wouldn''t be in here long.


    All he could feel in the warm darkness was the general orientation of gravity as she soared overhead and then dove. Warmth turned to heat and their passage slowed as she struggled to force her way forward against the weight of the molten stone. Skyclaw swam down and down, the heat growing from comfortable to uncomfortable as she continued.


    Jair breathed shallowly as his body screamed at him. Burns both acidic and fiery demanded attention and went unanswered. He wasn''t quite in a trance, but it was close enough. He knew this would be painful and detached himself from it. Experience it but don''t let it control you.


    After his slip with Uqiar he felt the need to maintain control more strongly than ever.


    It felt like hours later that Skyclaw spat him out into an entrance hall of the grandest scale, though it couldn''t have been more than a minute or two. She bowed. "Sorry to be so slow."


    Jair summoned Maelstrom to restore himself. The darkflame was an unspeakable relief. “I’m glad we decided I should just try it alone first. This is Mercurios?"


    Skyclaw nodded. “It’s amazing.” Her voice was small and reverent as she slowly advanced up the first few steps, then more quickly as excitement overwhelmed her. She even let out a few wordless eager squeaks.


    Jair gave the place a good look around.


    The dungeon itself was very green. Green-tinted light from green crystal lanterns hanging on pillars, green haze in the air. Unsurprising, given that the venom dragons who guarded it were green, along with their poison, venom, and acid.


    Jair coughed as the fog assaulted his lungs, but he could tell from the mildness of the sting that it wasn''t going to do anything immediately crippling. He''d need to do something about it within a few hours, but not immediately.


    The floor was vaguely yellow, like ivory stained by swampy greens over the course of a thousand years, but polished and lustrous like jade. The floor rose in long curved steps that made the entry the bottom of a slowly expanding half-circle. Of course, steps for dragons were long enough that Jair could fit his family house on one of them with room to spare, and tall enough that he needed to use Maelstrom as an interim step to ascend each tier.


    The walls were alternating deep green and vibrant yellow, paneled and carved in detailed friezes of dragons in majestic poses wreaking destruction on all before them, with the volcano always in the background behind them.


    It was a style he recognized immediately from the entry hallway of Ryenzo''s mountain. The detail was even greater here, and on a smaller scale, but the way the designs were laid out was unmistakable.


    The ceiling wasn''t visible, only the haze of poison fog that went on and on without end until everything was obscured fully.


    "Isn''t it beautiful?" Skyclaw’s claws sent echoing clicks through the massive entry hall as she bounded from panel to panel, more like an eager child than a three-ton monster. She stopped at one three steps up and ran her claw across it. "This is us."


    This carving depicted a collection of eight eggs arrayed beneath the cold pride of Matriarch Ryenzo. The shape of her head was distinctively her even in the carving, impossible to mistake after being her sworn adversary for so many lifetimes.


    The next panel was unrelated, but Skyclaw kept going until she found another. "Here! See us being born?"


    Jair examined this panel more intently. Ryenzo’s body was crouched over the eight eggs in a pose that was aggressively motherly, but her face was turned away from them and a teardrop was carved beneath. Each of the eggs was in the process of breaking open. Some had claws reaching through cracks, others were poking heads out.


    Skyclaw pointed to one whose tail had somehow managed to get stuck in the top of her eggshell while one eye peeked out from the bottom. "That''s me."


    Jair chuckled. "I''m not surprised."


    "I don''t do things the same way as everyone else," Skyclaw declared proudly.


    "Then I''m glad we were able to meet. I wouldn''t want to miss out on the opportunity to work together." Jair stood back from the image to take it all in. "I can''t help but notice there''s eight here and only seven of you. What happened to the other one?"


    Skyclaw''s head drooped. "Our blood-venom curse. We hadn''t figured out how to diffuse it among the humans yet at that point, so it was very concentrated. He wasn''t able to survive it." She ran a claw tenderly around one particular hatching egg.


    Now that Jair looked more closely, the claw and eye did look rather emaciated. "You were also harmed by the curse?"


    "Up until you bound me." She stretched her neck and wings with a happy sound. "I''ve never felt so good in my life. All the burning and seizing is gone completely, I can move in whatever way I want. It''s amazing. I never thought it could happen."


    "So that''s why your whole clutch was so eager to sign up." Jair frowned. "What could cause a poison dragon''s venom to turn against itself? Especially a whole clutch. What happened?”


    “I don’t know. Mother always said it was the humans'' fault. That’s why we turned it back against them.”


    “And Serin humans in particular.” Jair frowned. “Do any of these panels show a record of human interactions with dragons?”


    “I don’t know, but I’m sure I can find some!” Skyclaw bounded off deeper into the hall. “It’s got to be in here somewhere, right?”


    Jair bladewalked toward the center of the room, ascending several of the massive broad steps. "How often have you been in here before?"


    "Never. Only before we were born. But mother told us about it."


    "What did she tell you?" Jair climbed up another step while she considered this.


    "Not a lot. She never wanted us to worry about ruling, only being ourselves and destroying every person with that one bloodline."


    “House Serin.”


    “Is that what it’s called?” She didn''t seem very interested though, and redirected the conversation by bounding over to Jair. "I can carry you if you like."


    Jair waved away the offer and continued to float on Maelstrom while Skyclaw rushed forward and back again. The room went from a half circle in one direction and then curved back the other way, sinuous and unchanged in tone. More pictures, more pillars, more crystal lights, and the inescapable poison fog.


    Jair was rapidly losing faith that any of this would be directly related to Eythron’s condition, but it was a chance to investigate secrets he’d never even known existed. How could he resist?


    "So, apart from the fact that your mother didn''t tell you much, what do you know about Mercurios?"


    "Syrsamal says it''s the burial place of our first ancestor. That Mercurios Draconis fought the original dungeon spirit for control and the place became his tomb. Ever since, the creatures who live here have done nothing to harm us but only carved out the stories of our lives."


    "Ruling a dungeon is a pain." Jair shook his head. "If he really wanted the job, good for him."


    Skyclaw turned back to him, eyes wide with excitement. "You have a dungeon? Can I visit?"


    "Not any more. There''ve been a couple through the years, but in my opinion it''s not worth the tradeoff. Losing that much of your independence of action is a steep price for being able to create a few monsters and items at will."


    As a soul-based tie, it was one thing that persisted across timelines. Experimentation with dungeon cores led to some very awkward times where he felt his home core on a different continent perpetually trying to pull him back without either him or the core being able to do anything about it. It was the exact opposite of the power he’d hoped to bring back with him through time, inflicting the worst soulsickness he’d ever experienced and giving him nothing in return.


    He suffered the backlash of that for months, enough to kill him in more than a few timelines, before he eventually figured out how to sever the tie without causing too much permanent damage to himself in the process. After that in future loops the dungeon he''d temporarily bound himself to returned to its normal behavior without any indication that he''d ever been involved.


    Being eaten by a dungeon was corrosive, but eating a dungeon back was like swallowing a living chain of infinite length that twisted through you until you were almost equally hollow.


    "How do you mean? I''ve never actually been in one before now."


    "Well, the process of binding yourself to the dungeon is complicated and risky as it is. After binding, you''re basically tied to that physical location. Trying to leave is incredibly uncomfortable, you''ll need ongoing healing to sustain your form so long as you''re away. It''s not impossible to leave, but it would be like leaving home without your bones. Perpetual absence, inability to move quite right. Excessive energy just to compensate."


    "That sounds unpleasant. Why would our grand-patriarch subject himself to such pain?"


    "He didn''t. The pain of separation only happens when you leave the dungeon. As long as he stayed inside, there would be no pain or risk of damage. It’s an interesting way of obtaining a pseudo immortality. Not one I’d enjoy, but a powerful alternative to dying. Let’s go talk to this first patriarch of yours."


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