Most dungeons are controlled by adventurer groups, specialist training academies, or wealthy merchant lords. Meliarn is not unique in being owned by the continent’s rulers, but it is one of the few to be so thoroughly hidden that even Veor’s inhabitants have no idea it even exists.


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    Jair flexed his hand on Maelstrom''s hilt. Golden light burned through them all, and then they were back in the courtyard, a bit earlier in the day than their previous arrival.


    Well, Jair and Lilin were in the courtyard. Raina, Ajriol, and Carn weren''t physically present, presumably in the house wherever they''d been before.


    "The fact that Raina isn''t here seems to indicate something," he mused, looking around. The courtyard was already as they''d seen it last, with three bodies arranged at the table in their purposeful morbidity. "I''m not entirely sure what." He smiled at Lilin, trying to break the gloom, but she only shook her head and looked stunned and vaguely horrified.


    Right. It normally took more than a half hour to get used to horrible death.


    "Wait, I know what we need." Jair darkflamed himself to Mount Ryenzo. It took him a few minutes of searching to locate who he was looking for, but they weren''t hiding. "Qahri, want to come solve a murder mystery?"


    Qahrvirna grinned like he''d just offered her an extra moon. "I''d love to!"


    "Do you know where Eythron is?"


    "Out by the pond. He keeps staring into the water and trying to burn it."


    "That''s... different." He stabbed her, darkflamed her to the courtyard, then himself to the pond.


    Eythron was indeed sitting beside it, and he did seem to be trying his best to set it on fire. A thin layer of burning oil flickered out even as he watched.


    "What are you doing?"


    "Practice."


    "For?"


    Eythron looked at him like he was an idiot.


    Jair sighed. "Star Hydra again?"


    "You claimed to know me, how do you keep forgetting that this is the most important piece of my plans?"


    Because until now you''ve never been forthcoming about your plans, Jair didn''t say. "I think I know where Sekir is today. Want to come?"


    Eythron stood at once and nodded grimly. He held out a hand. "Take me to him."


    "First, I should warn you what we''re walking into." He gave a quick description of the situation, and his plans to micro-revert by half hours or so to see as many pieces of the event as possible.


    "Going from three to ten in one hour seems fast. Why the increase?"


    "They weren''t stumbling in as frequently until the end? Once he finished with Ajriol, he wanted to move things along? Who knows."


    Eythron regarded him flatly. "You say we''re up against an Arch-Sorcerer and you don''t think the timing of the ritualized murders is important?"


    "They were all killed in different ways, and there’s no pattern drawn around it. What kind of ritual fits those parameters? It feels more blatantly violent, as though he were trying to make a point."


    "If you want my advice? Pull everyone out. Revert time clean. Let it play out. I want to see the result, before you start tampering. And Qahri. She''ll know more about this than me."


    "How familiar are you with death rituals?"


    "I thought you said you know me?"


    Apparently not as well as I thought. This was becoming a recurring trend. And he wasn''t even sure if it was due to neglect or simply lost information that he''d learned and forgotten over the years. His life was a maddening thing, and reflecting back on it could go on forever without getting anywhere.


    He shook himself out of the repetitive draw of what had been and would never be, dragging his focus forcefully back to the moment. He should be thinking over the future, not the past.


    He had a murder to solve and a sorcerer to catch. Hopefully. He''d still need to deal with the ‘immortal’ part at some point. Killing Sekir physically only bought him a day or so. Sometimes as much as a week, other times only a few hours. There was only one place the sorcerer’s soul would be trapped in place, unable to escape his death.


    But the timeline was so different now. Without the king ailing and the princess available to be subverted to his cause, Sekir had no reason to go near Meliarn.


    If only he could chuck the guy into Mercurios. That would solve the problem for good. But something told him Sekir wouldn''t sit quiet for a several-minutes trip in an acid dragon''s mouth, even if Jair was willing to trust Mercurios with Skyclaw or one of her siblings.


    Still, if there was any way to make that happen… it wouldn’t matter how strong Sekir was out here, to Mercurios he’d be just as helpless as Jair had been.


    Was there a way to drain the volcano? Open the entrance to access?


    Eh, but then it would be accessible. That would be worse in the long term, even if it would be a very nice short-term solution. The fewer people going into Mercurios, the better. Starve out the old monster. By binding himself to a dungeon, the dragon had limited himself to that area. He''d probably collapse in another few millennia, if no one ever went in to feed him. But the blood-bonds to his descendents...


    Jair shook himself out of that line of thought. He could deal with the terrifying dragon-dungeon some other time. Or, better yet, ignore him until they both died of old age.


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    Sekir first. Which started with learning where he was and what he looked like this time around. Perhaps some hints as to his plans. Was this simple revenge against the Phoenix Healer for his interference with Sekir’s plan to subvert King Farshen? Or did he have some other reason to target House Serin?


    This felt targeted at himself, but that could be biased.


    "You ready?" he asked, holding out the sword to Eythron.


    Eythron wrapped his hand about the blade, gently, too gently to break skin. "I don''t know what I''ll do," he warned. "At an unknown distance."


    "If it''s too bad, I''ll bring you back," Jair promised.


    Eythron nodded and Jair darkflamed them back to the Serin side of Veshin Oasis and the courtyard with its—


    "Qahri! What are you—"


    Qahrvirna, crouched beside the dead cook, looked up innocently, blood running down her cheek. "What? They weren''t using it, and they''re nice and fresh." She stared at him with a suggestive tilt to her head, then closed her eyes and leaned back in to continue.


    He should have known better than to expect anything else.


    "We’re here to investigate, not…" He''d been thinking in terms of preventing the further deaths of anyone else at the event, and while Qahri may be a bit of an isolationist she was also a master socialite. If anyone could slink her way through the crowd and learn absolutely everything everyone knew without drawing any suspicion, it would be Qahrvirna.


    But... fresh blood, right there. Vampire. Yep. He definitely should have seen that coming.


    Eythron had started walking, haltingly, shoulders tense, roughly northward.


    "Master, the party is this way." Jair took his arm and steered him around.


    Eythron stared at him blankly.


    "Not this again. Snap out of it! You don''t want Mercurios, you don''t want Meliarn. You just want to find Sekir. Remember?"


    Eythron took a deep breath, seized Jair''s forearms tightly, and stared wildly into his eyes. "This one is weaker. I can do it. I can do it! Finally. I can be free."


    Then, as though that was all he needed to explain, he turned north again.


    "Master, there''s a wall—"


    Eythron stabbed his sword into it, swung himself up to the top of the wall, then hopped down over to the other side. He continued across the oasis without pausing to go around any obstacle, only over.


    Jair sighed. "So much for help." He turned back to Qahrvirna, who''d finished her snack and was standing on top of the table and looking critically down at the people lying slumped over it. "So, apart from making yourself look like the culprit, what do you—"


    "They''re equally aligned."


    Jair frowned at the three dead staff members. One on one side, two on the other. But the cook was the one closest to the head of the table, the other two further down and on the other side, so it wasn''t even forming a triangle. Three empty seats on this end, none on the other.


    "How?"


    She pointed up to the arched window that opened toward the sunrise—though, of course, the sun was overhead now—then to the bodies. "The next one would go here." She pointed at the seat where Jair remembered Molash''s body having been. "Young and male. Violent. Head."


    Jair blinked. He hadn''t told her those specifics of the final scene, and yet she predicted it exactly. "So Eythron was right, this is some kind of death ritual."


    Qahrvirna shrugged. "I don''t know how it''s a useful ritual for anyone but a vampire, is the thing. It forms an internal binding between the targets, trading magic for physical. It''s normally used at fancy parties where a lot of vampires are planning to gather and someone wants to show off."


    "When you say trade magical for physical...?"


    "The ritual cannibalizes their manabodies to keep them physically pseudo-functional for longer. Keep their blood from decaying, replenish it faster. But it''s usually done with alive targets." She shook her head. "This is pointless. Sure, keep this guy fresh for me an hour or two longer, but it''ll run out soon enough, and then they''ll go right back to decaying. Probably faster than before, since there''s only physical left."


    "Could it be to disguise what times they were killed?"


    "Could be, but it won''t change the time of death, just the rate of decay."


    “Yeah, that felt like a stretch, but if Sekir wasn''t planning on being found until after the whole tableau was ready... would he go to all the trouble of digging up an obscure vampire preservation ritual just so everyone looked freshly-dead instead of having been around all afternoon?” Jair snorted. "Yeah he would, he''s such an exhibitionist. It doesn''t matter how magically inefficient it is, he just wanted it to look good.”


    Though the idea of Sekir being familiar enough with vampires to use their rituals so casually was worrying, knowing where he got some of his knowledge wasn’t going to change his capabilities. “You recognized it immediately, how far does it extend?"


    "Infinitely, just has to be done sequentially. The first three sets up the array, then more can be added as long as they follow the pattern. It''ll be connected stronger the more you add, but that just means it''ll burn through the available mana faster. With just these three, you may get seven or eight hours. Add another five or more and you''ll be lucky to get three."


    Jair missed his archmage spell loadouts. Until he could get to Nuprima and redo all his imprints, he couldn''t even switch into manasight. "Do you have manasight? Can you tell how far these are decayed to?"


    Qahrvirna''s eyes glowed brighter red as she stared down at the bodies. "An hour or two, it looks like. They''ll last another six before starting to decay."


    "Plenty of time to take it slow, set up his scene however he wants." Jair shook his head. "This is just excessive."


    "So the guy wants to party like a vampire. I think I''d like to meet him."


    "Of course you would. Just be sure to let me know if you do, so I can take care of the cleanup."


    Qahrvirna grinned at him suggestively, blood still streaking her fangs and down her chin. "Don''t worry, I''ll leave some fun for you."


    She waved at him, hopped down, and hurried inside with a swishing gait that showed off her form in as flattering a light as she could manage.


    Jair let her go. She knew what she was doing, even if she pretended otherwise. He turned back to where Eythron had gone running. He tossed Maelstrom into the air and flew off after his wayward mentor. At least if Jair went with him he could prevent the most blatant of Eythron''s self destructive tendencies. Even if he threw himself into Meliarn there should be enough time to stop him from doing anything permanent.


    Veor''s dungeon was a much more standard thing compared to an anomaly like Mercurios. Most dungeons hadn''t had their cores eaten by ancient dragons, and thus followed the same predictable patterns year in and year out.


    Being a normal dungeon meant it was unlikely to have any instant-death options, mainly monsters that wanted to eat you. Perhaps once he experienced being eaten alive a time or two, Eythron could put Meliarn behind as easily as he''d escaped the lure of Mercurios.


    For that, however, they''d need to spend almost five hours walking across the desert. Meliarn wasn''t out in the open, nor was it somewhere easily accessible. There was a reason only the Veori royal family knew about it.


    Meliarn had five layers, each successively smaller than the previous. The top layer would take a month to fully explore, while the lowest level could be fully traversed in less than a day. But they were full of ordinary monsters trying to eat you alive, not... whatever Mercurios had been.


    If you knew your way through and had a full complement of archmage spells, you could get top to bottom from Meliarn''s entrance to its core in just under three days. With Bladewalk and Maelstrom''s ability to one-hit anything short of a dragon, Jair could probably carve another eight hours off that time.


    He left Eythron running across the desert, since he had both a known destination and an unwavering trajectory, and darkflamed himself back to the oasis. There was plenty of investigating left to do. His mentor’s particular form of madness could be dealt with when he actually reached his destination, but until then Jair had hours to observe the timeline play out.


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