I would have missed the dungeon entrance if Aviela hadn’t stopped me beside it. Algae drenched rocks are battered by splashes of white water falling from the top of the steep valley side, cascading over stepped rock shelves until they reach the boggy stream at the valley floor.

  The entrance is a crack; barely wider than my shoulders and as black as the darkest null cycle. I step close and the dungeon breathes warm, stale air at me.

  “It’s so small.”

  “Most dungeons are. The one that the leaf tribe took you to was a big one. Three boss rooms is not normal.”

  “But how did you find it? There’s nothing special, it’s just a hole in the wall.”

  “You get the feel for it after a while. Theres…” Aviela taps her finger against her chin and looks into the middle distance. “You’ll get it once you’re Marked, there’s a kind of energy, but not really. It’s hard to explain.”

  My new eye shows me things that are even harder to explain. If I’d paid more attention as we were walking and followed the lines that it drew on the terrain, I might have spotted the dungeon entrance myself. My eye outlines the space in vibrant blue with scrolling symbols that are maddening in being so enigmatic. I’m sure that if I just understand them it will open a world of information for me.

  “Ok, great. Looking forward to it.” I touch the rock just to feel the slickness of it. “Do you think I’ll get my mark down there?”

  Aviela shakes her head. “You’re not ready yet. You’ve hardened your body, I think. But you’ve still got to sharpen your mind. There’s plenty of traps down there so hopefully we’ll make some progress. You’ve got to work on your agility too. I’ve a great place to train a couple of segments over; big sticks you can jump across and if you fall there’s a canyon full of water below you. Then find wholeness in yourself and then situate yourself.”

  “I couldn’t just pop in one of the seeds and skip all that?”

  “No. Well, maybe. I’ve heard of people eating a seed and getting their mark having not done any of the work to get there; but I’ve also heard of plenty of people eating a seed too early and popping.” She puffs out her cheeks and makes the sound a bubble bursting.

  “I wouldn’t want to pop… Fine. Well, let’s see what this is about then, shall we?”

  “I’m excited.” She grins and firmly prods be ahead. “There we are, your first test is to take us to the boss room. Find the traps, disable them, learn something. Oh, and try not to get eaten. I expect this place will be teeming with monsters.”

  She’s right.

  Not more than fifteen steps into the darkness I’m attacked. My new eye sees it first, it’s the only reason I haven’t stumbled. A blur of flapping, leathery wings and a body the size of my hand, it latches onto my arm with a pair of gripping feet that prick my skin.

  I’m quick. I snatch it with my other hand and pull it off myself, dashing it against the wall with a satisfying crunch. “Blazing sun, that was quick.”

  “Good catch. How’s your arm.”

  I bring it up to my face. My new eye has traced the outline and highlights the small marks from the creature’s claws in light blue. It’s still too dark to see anything with my bare eyes.

  “Can you light this place up for us?”

  Aviela summons a ball of her light; it hovers over her hand for a moment before floating upwards to illuminate our passage. It is formed of hard packed dirt and the same grey rocks that flank the entrance. Half my height again, the ceiling slopes towards the sides and shines with moisture reflecting the white light.

  My arm is fine. “Barely scratched.”

  “Good. Looks like your training hardened you up well enough then. Let’s see if we can test it with something a bit bigger.”

  “I can’t say that sounds good to me.” I blanch, but a large part of me is excited at the thought. I was strong the last time I went into a dungeon. Not Marked, but Heightened strong. If I’m stronger now that means I might stand a chance against the boss, or maybe I’ll just be safer when attacked or if I trip over one of the traps. This could be an adventure rather than a trial.

  My optimism is dashed as we approach the first trap; it’s a pitfall covered with a thin layer of dirt and a wooden board that would fall away should I step onto it. I spot it easily enough; Aviela and I move to hop over and be on our way but my new eye, in the last moment, spots something else.

  Love this story? Find the genuine version on the author's preferred platform and support their work!

  A rock is out of place.

  A rock with eyes.

  A rock with a sword and an evil intent that smiles at me with a mouth that’s too wide and filled with more teeth than it should. A rock that wears a human face and rises to fill the passage.

  We land. I turn, my heart hammering, and punch towards the creature. My fist slams into its belly and its as though I’ve punched a mountain. It giggles and swings. I would have died in that next moment had Aviela not stepped between us and caught the blade of its sword in her bare hand.

  Not bare.

  Gloved. Her hand is sheathed in light; wrapped in golden mesh and her fingers enclosed in articulated armour plates that culminate in claws. She grunts as she takes its heavy blow and moves languidly into a strike with her other hand. Where my punch had bounced from its flesh, hers cuts into it with precision. She cuts deep enough to disembowel but the creature pours nothing but gravel and spite.

  Aviela frowns and I fall back to give her space. She cuts ribbons off the monster. Shredding it like an animal herself, one with claws and anger abounding. But with her claws come shafts of light that bite into the rocky flesh and tear chunks from it. The creature isn’t without its own strength, though. It beats at her with the edge of its sword. It swings its other hand like a club and steps into the narrow passage to press her with feet like boulders.

  I fall back again and again, being pushed down the corridor and away from the pit trap. I’m enraptured. It’s enthralling to watch Aviela weather an assault that would have turned me to a pile a meat and shrug off thunderous blows. She’s winning. Of course she’s winning, she’s a Marked and a blazing strong one at that.

  I smile. This is what it should be like. She leaped into battle for my protection without a moment’s hesitation. I need my mark so I can do the same.

  The battle is ebbing now. She’s torn more of it off than it can stand and it’s failing. Its grin is still wide and its teeth sharp but its arms pump slowly and its legs wobble. I’m watching the last of it as I step back another pace and fall.

  This trap is something different. I fall and its upwards. A pressure like nothing I’ve ever felt presses me to the ceiling and I grunt with the pain. That is the last breath I take as it squeezes my lungs. It’s a giant hand pressing and pushing until I’m paste. My bones creak, blood leaks from my nose, my eyes, my ears. I’m done. I’m done. I’m dead.

  Aviela kills the creature and turns. She sees me. She sees the danger and she acts again. Something is on the wall, out of place and glowing with strange symbols. They’re like the ones my eye shows and Aviela knows them. Or she knows dungeons. She moves lights and presses panels that flash and fade, faster and faster. She’s so focuses she doesn’t see as blackness approaches the edge of my vision and I fade.

  It gives.

  The pressure vanishes as quickly as it had come and I tumble back to hard packed dirt with a thud and a ragged breath that is life itself. I raise a twitching hand to forestall Aviela’s concern until I have my breath back.

  “I missed a trap,” I offer with a weak smile.

  “I noticed.” She crosses her arms and shakes her head, also with a sly smile. “If you’re going to train your intellect, you need to solve these puzzles.”

  “Yeah?” I reach my feet. My body is a wonder now; the crushing ache of the trap has faded and my bones don’t feel like they’re broken or bruises, just my ego. I look at the strange panel with its shifting lights and symbols. “How’d you know what to do with this?”

  “Ah.” Aviela blushes. “Well. Don’t tell anyone else but… here.” She fetches her pack that she dropped before she intervened with the stone creature and pulls a small rectangular object from within.

  I know what it is. The memory is jarring, unpleasant as it forced its way through my brain to the back of my eyes.

  “Book.”

  “How?”

  “Cocoon.”

  “It’s always the blazing cocoon. They shove so much into your minds.” She swears for a long while now, it becomes creative enough that I remember them for later. “Wait. Do you know what a book is for? Can you read?”

  “No. Just that that is a book. That’s all they gave me.”

  “Great, so the all powerful architects used their unlimited powers to rob me of the moment of the reveal. Do you know how long I’ve had this? Kept it a secret from everyone? Years, Pik, years. Yes, this is a book. It’s got things inside called words and you can read them and learn new things. That’s how I knew how to read the words on that panel and to turn off the gravity trap.”

  “Can I see?”

  “That is the point of showing you.”

  “You know I almost died just now? You could be nicer.”

  “And you could speed up the intellect part of your training so we can skip this kind of stuff.” She’s grinning at me so I know that she’s joking. It warms me somewhere in the middle, just behind my stomach.

  Aviela opens the book; I’d had an inkling of what I would see but to witness the same symbols that cascade through my new eye on the pages is still incredible to me. I point to a string of symbols. “What is this one?”

  “Umm. That one? That is the word transformational.”

  “Transformational. Amazing. Why’s it there?”

  “Well, it’s because whoever made this book wanted us to know things. This section is all about advancement; it’s how I know about the five stages. I think most people just muddle through, but I found this book in a dungeon room years ago when I was still Heightened. It helped me advance faster than most anyone I know.”

  “The architects blessed you as well then?”

  “I like to think so.”

  My eye is churning through symbols at a prodigious rate; it is fixated on the book as if absorbing every word on the page. “Do you think I can learn how to read too?”

  “I don’t see why not. I can teach you. Once we get out of the dungeon, anyway.”

  “Right. The dungeon.” I grimace. “I’m going to be honest, Aviela, I’m more nervous now that I’ve almost been killed by a monster and a trap and we’re not even fifty paces into the dungeon.”

  “You’ll be fine or you’ll be dead and you won’t need to worry anymore.”

  “You’re leadership is sorely lacking in warmth.”

  She grins and punches me playfully in my arm hard enough that it numbs me from shoulder to wrist. “You’ll be fine, little Heightened. Now, lead the way.”