“That wasn’t so bad,” Liz said.

  Natalie didn’t disagree, though she’d taken more hits—even if just gng—than she’d have preferred. And, intense as it’d been, she’d fone her use of [Illusion]. She’d made strides with the past week’s training, but in the moment, she’d been focused on perf her role iraditional manner, usihods she was most fortable with.

  A smart choice, clearly, because even without pushing out of her fort zone and trying to weave some illusions in, Natalie had taken blows. Her armor was still knitting itself together from where the kobold’s spear had punctured. One of the bes to dungeon-linked loot; the gear shared life force with her. It would be rather inve if each exge left her armor more and more degraded. At least, as quickly as mundane armear did degrade, eventually.

  “Not so bad,” Natalie said. “Yeah.”

  Sofia leaned forward and plucked the monster core from the ground. She ied it between two fingers.

  Natalie did so, too.

  ***

  Monster Core - Tier 1

  ***

  Not much of i. Just a monster core. Beyond their ranking, the orbs didn’t vary muot uhey had something stored ihem.

  “Got lucky,” Jordan said. “One in three odds. Good start.”

  Monster core drop rates varied, but one in three was the simplified average. It depended orength of the monster, location, and some other factors. Obviously a swarm of tiny monsters wouldn’t drop one-in-three cores.

  Te had loahem each ten first-tiers to pay for starter equipment, and it hadn’t gone far. From that perspective, it would be a while before Natalie was geared out, much less geared out well.

  Then again, brutal as the fight had been, it’d sted all of a minute, if not less. Not a bad pace for earning cores, even split five ways, if they kept the pace up. Speaking logistically, at an enter every few minutes—say three—and a monster core every third mohat would make six to seven cores an hour. And that was stig to floor one, he entrance, where payouts were lowest.

  Natalie rested her hammer on her shoulder, still breathing heavily, as most of her teammates were. Even Ana and Liz. While the bae casters weren’t as physically involved, spells were tiring in a different, but equally intense, way. Natalie would know, for all she hadn’t used her own spells in the brutal exge.

  There was a lull as everyone g each other, appraising ditions. Then, as one, eyes fell to Natalie. Though not a leader in a literal sense, she was the vanguard. The one who set the pace.

  Though tired, and still ing down from her adrenaline rush, she nodded. “Let’s keep going.” Momentum was important. If she o rest, she would of course ask, not riskieam’s wellbeing for the sake of her ego. But as things stood, she was fine. Ready for anht.

  And, though she wouldn’t sabotage herself, and thus her team, she did itore. She’d always found the thrill of the fight intoxig. There’d been a reason Natalie had pursued a career in delving with so muthusiasm.

  Setting forward, she tinued dowretg cavern tunnel.

  ***

  Several enters ter, fighting their way through a variety of snarling monsters, Natalie aeam found themselves entering a rger room, no longer stricted by the tight tunnel hallways they’d spawned in. They kept track of each turn they made. Liz, specifically, had been tasked to do so. The easiest way out of the dungeon was to backtrad exit through their inal portal. It was uhey’d be finding a sed natural one, or entering a boss.

  The rger room, on a brief s, presented no visible threats. It seemed empty. Not that Natalie let herself take that at face value. Just because something in the dungeon seemed safe, didn’t mean it was.

  “Any traps?” Jordan asked, eying the room in the same way as Natalie, and the rest of the team as they trailed in behind her.

  “Puzzle, I’m guessing,” Sofia said. “Look at the mural.”

  Natalie had noticed the sprawling diagram on the far wall of the room, but had put it out of mind while looking for more immihreats. Not finding any, she allowed herself to take it in.

  A mural stretched across the stoched in bright white scratches, outlining in the gray stone a depi of a beautifully rendered se. The pictures were dense, difficult to make out from this distance, but in front of the diagram, seven squat pilrs sprouted from the ground, each with—what seemed to be—a button sitting on top.

  A puzzle room.

  “What is it?” Liz asked. “It’s so detailed.”

  “Clear the room first,” Natalie said. She was ied as the rest of them, but makiain they were safe came in higher priority.

  A quispe ter, the team in agreement that the puzzle room wasn’t trapped, at least in any obvious mahey regrouped and studied the mural, finally letting their guards down.

  The diagram took a sed to decipher, dense as the imagery was. Though expertly drawn—or maed from thin air by the dungeon, not actually drawwork was cramped and overly-detailed, adorned with flourishes that made identifying the relevant pieces difficult. Shortly, though, she cobbled together an uanding of the position.

  Seven figures id, elevated above the rest of the figures in the drawing, in various poses, each of their eyes closed. One held her hands to her chest, slumbering peacefully. Another seemed distraught, seemingly stirring, distressed, from a nightmare. A third figure frowned, brow furrowed. Each of the people were distinct, with unique clothing, accessories, and builds.

  Beh the seven, a slew of others id or stood in various poses, but also with closed eyes. None were stirring in the way the elevated seven were. Their designs were clumsier, paid less attention. Less important, paratively?

  Natalie studied the figures, ied. Even the ones without emphasis, beh the seven, were powerful. Crafted with evocative imagery. Intimidating in a way hard to describe. And familiar, almost? She could swear she ought to be able to name some of them. Were they … ?

  “The Reverie?” Ana said. “I see. Yes, I believe it is.”

  Natalie looked to the girl, as the rest of the team did. “The what?” She shared a gh Jordan and Sofia, but two respective shrugs indicated they didn’t uaher.

  Liz, though, seemed to. She tittered nervously, eyes having widened. “The Harvest, Ana?”

  “Do you disagree?”

  Liz looked at the mural, then back to Ana. “The Harvest isn’t real.” Then, more nervously, “And it’s pretty bsphemous, even just to talk about.”

  Which, obviously, caught Natalie’s attention. Bsphemous?

  Ana ied Liz. “I’m simply stating what the mural depicts. And it is the Reverie, no?”

  “It would fit,” Liz said relutly.

  “The what?” Natalie asked, louder. Though she doubted she’d be much help in solving the puzzle, Liz’s nervousness had caught her i.

  “The Reverie-Siphon Hypothesis,” Ana said. “Or more colloquially, as Elizabeth put it, the Harvest.” She turned back to the mural, tilting her head. “I suspect this puzzle resented for me in particur. I have an i in religions.”

  She did?

  And, Natalie supposed, a suspi of hers had been firmed. The figures depicted on the wall were reizable, even if she hadn’t been able to pce how. The gods. Though not presented in standard Valhaurian fashion, adorned with the iography Natalie was used to seeing.

  “You still haven’t answered,” Natalie pointed out. “What is it?” She spared another look for Liz, whose anxiousness had been steadily growing. Her eyes flicked between Natalie and Ana, and she fidgeted in pce.

  Ana appraised Natalie. “Well,” she said, “in short, it’s a religious theory.”

  “I don’t know if that’s the right word …” Liz said.

  “A grouping ious theories,” Ana corrected.

  “Not what I meant.”

  “But what is it?” Natalie asked, exasperated.

  “That the gods were killed,” Ana said, as impassively as ever. “Specifically, by the Architect, and that He used their bodies to create the system. A Harvest, so to say.” She wrinkled her nose. “Not precisely the right terminology, in my opinion. It’s unlikely gods truly be killed, and it’s an ongoing siphoning, not a oime harvest. Hence, a Reverie-Siphon, as we refer to it in modern terminology.”

  Natalie sidered that.

  “Ah,” she said.

  Yeah, she could see how that was bsphemous.