Duskbound

Torwin scratched at his beard as he paced back and forth. That kid needs some serious therapy. I mean, I don't blame him. What that town did to him was atrocious. It's no wonder he doesn't trust anyone and spooks like a startled rabbit every time he sees me.

"You alright?" Jensen asked.

His apprentice was sitting up on his bedroll, a blanket still draped across his legs and bunched up around his waist. His bow was propped up against the wall and his armor sat in a pile next to him. Admittedly, it would only take a few seconds to slip it on, but a few seconds was the difference between life and death in an ambush.

"I can't believe you slept through someone walking within twenty feet of you. And then you missed half the conversation!"

"I knew you were talking to someone," Jensen said hotly. "I figured if you needed me, you'd say so."

More like you were too lazy to get out of bed, Torwin thought sourly. And you were doing so well this last week. Maybe not [Ranger] good, but still, better.

"The Black Fang paid us a visit," he told his apprentice.

"That guy? I didn't miss much then."

The jealousy was obvious, and that was at least partly Torwin's fault. He'd let slip how impressive he'd found the boy's performance against that wind-shaping elite, and Jensen had taken that personally. A little rivalry could inspire students to reach for greater heights, but in this case, the difference in skill was too great. Jensen just wasn't at the Black Fang's level, unique class and actual level notwithstanding.

Without his daddy's money, he's not even on the level of other hunters who are actually at his level.

"He had a mana compass and an idea about tracking areas of high mana density to look for the cause of the monster infestation."

Jensen yawned and stretched, then clambered to his feet. "You think that'd work?" he asked as he slipped his enchanted leather tunic over his head.

"I don't know. Depends on how well he can use the compass. Even if he finds high density areas, that doesn't mean the monsters are spawning there."

"Might be worth looking into anyway. It's not like we found anything useful here."

While Jensen was getting dressed and stowing everything away in his pack, Torwin did a lap around the room and peered through every crack more than a few inches wide. The east and west walls showed nothing but dirt, and the north wall was in good enough condition that it didn't really have any cracks at all.

I should have had him point it out before he left. How annoying. Where did you go when you were a child? There's nothing here.

"What are you doing?" Jensen asked.

"The Black Fang told me he crawled through a crack in this room as a child, that he and his friend found the class orb that gave him his class on the other side. None of these cracks have anything behind them, though."

"Maybe the room collapsed later."

"Maybe," Torwin said, but he wasn't convinced. What am I missing?

He crouched down, trying to get himself at eye level with a child. This is the angle you saw the world from. What did you see that I don't?

But there was nothing, just four walls, the door, and the broken dungeon core. The pillar was dark and lifeless, unmarred but for the huge slice taken out of it five feet up from the floor. It was easy enough to see what had happened, too. Someone with a ridiculously strong class had struck the core with a horizontal swipe of some heavy weapon, probably an axe or pick, and sliced a chunk two feet wide out of the stone. It had fractured into a thousand pieces and left pock marks all over the far wall.

Dungeon cores were actually remarkably fragile, barely stronger than regular stone without mana to reinforce them. Teams usually exhausted the core by killing every monster it could produce, then destroyed it in a single blow, exactly like what had happened here.

Still crouching, he scooted forward a few steps. Nothing. He scanned the room again, but the new angle didn't help. There was nothing to see, nothing except—

"The core!" he said.

"What about it?" Jensen asked, torn between confusion and laughter at Torwin's antics.

"Hah! I was right."

Torwin leaned down and looked at the damaged spot, specifically at the top of it. Anyone over five feet tall would have missed it, but to a pair of inquisitive children, it would have been the first thing they saw. Extending up through the pillar itself was a crack, a foot wide and almost twice as long. He stuck his head into the gap in the core and looked straight up.

"There's a room above this one," he said. "When they broke the core, it must have split it all the way up the center. Nobody else saw it because they were too tall. Or maybe they did see it and just didn't care. But those kids saw it, and they climbed up there."

It looked tight, but Torwin was flexible and, if he did get stuck, his physical was high enough to break stone. He'd be fine. "Watch the door for me," he told Jensen, not that he expected something to burst through, but he'd be vulnerable and it was best to plan for unlikely surprises.

Setting his bow aside and unstrapping his quiver, Torwin started to wriggle his way into the crack.

* * *

Chalin was the first one through, with Velik right behind him. In hindsight, he should have waited a minute so that all the pebbles resting in the crack that Chalin had kicked down wouldn't have fallen on him. He'd been too impatient, even after the first one had hit him on the head, and he'd paid for it.

"Sorry," Chalin said.

"It's alright as long as we finally get some treasure."

Getting a lit stick to the top had been the hardest part, but they'd managed to set one on fire and throw it all the way to the top without it falling back down on them. Twenty feet didn't feel like a lot, but it had been a tricky shot to make. Not willing to give up, they'd tried dozens of times before managing to make it work.

Eagerly, Velik snatched up the fitfully burning stick and held it to another one he'd carried up with him. It caught and he handed it to Chalin so they could look around. "Well, it certainly looks impressive," the boy said.

The walls were covered in intricate grooves like some sort of massive spider's web, except they curved around and swooped through each other instead of going straight. The grooves continued across the floor, all eventually leading to the center of the room where they'd climbed up. "What do you think it does?" Velik asked.

"I don't know. Nothing now, I guess. Maybe back when the dungeon was alive, this had a purpose. Now it's just a fun design."

"But no treasure."

"No," Chalin agreed. He peered around, holding his makeshift torch up and scanning the room. "Nothing but a bunch of weird lines."

"Wait, there's something!"

Velik hurried forward and scooped up a stone off the floor. Unlike the rest of the ruined dungeon, it was glossy and smooth, a perfect orb of glass. "Wow!" Chalin said. "That looks expensive. Still think this trip was a waste of time?"

"How much do you think it's worth?" Velik asked as he peered at it. Light reflected from the torch in his other hand, seeming almost to dance inside the orb like it was alive.

"A lot. Here, let me see."

Chalin went to claim the orb to investigate, but the instant it touched his hands, it formed a bridge between the two boys. At that same moment, light flared inside it, no mere reflection, and words appeared in Velik's mind.

[Parameters have been met. Guardian role selected.]

[User has not reached maturation.]

[User's racial profile will be updated to accommodate class selection.]

"What's happening?" Velik yelled, or at least he tried to. His body was locked into place, rigid and stiff with the orb halfway between his hand and Chalin's. No words came from his mouth as the seconds stretched on.

A wave of pain rolled through Velik's body, like he was holding his hand too close to the fire, except it spread to cover his whole arm, then his chest. In an instant, no part of him didn't feel like it was burning, but he couldn't scream. Then the light winked out as suddenly as it had appeared, and everything went dark.

* * *

Torwin crouched down and picked up a glass orb, four inches wide and split down the middle. One side was perhaps slightly larger, but he'd need one of those fancy merchant scales to weigh each piece to know for certain. He wasn't too worried about that particular detail, however.

Holding the two pieces together, he turned it to look at the orb from different angles. No matter how he looked at it, he was sure of one simple truth. The problem was that it just didn't make any sense to him.

"Whatever this thing is, it's not a class orb."