"This wasn't how it was supposed to go," Sophia muttered. "We wanted to talk."

Sophia frowned at the dead followers of the Broken Lord, then turned resolutely back towards the survivor. It wasn't the first time she'd killed someone, and her training meant that she didn't react during the fight, but it was always tough afterwards. That was especially true when she could relate to them, and she sort of could. They'd just made their way through a dungeon, even if that wasn't what they thought they were doing.

The fact that they'd then turned on their allies made them a lot less relatable. She definitely sympathized with the only survivor more than the people she'd helped to kill. It was too bad they couldn't save the other two, but by the time they realized they needed to act, it was already too late. "Come on. We can trade stories; you seem to have one too. My name's Sophia."

"Jax," the man answered. "Jaxucet Willowbloom, at the moment. Call me Jax. Who are you people?"

Jax was taller than Sophia, at least before she counted her horns, but he was shorter than Dav. He looked a little scruffy, which was completely explained by the time he'd spent fighting through Cliff's monsters, though Sophia was pretty sure the injury that resulted in a bandage on his left arm wasn't from one of Cliff's monsters; it seemed too clean.

Even though he wasn't as good looking as Dav was, at least in Sophia's opinion, Jax's sharp features meant he probably cleaned up well. His dark hair was surprisingly long; his ponytail reached the middle of his back. It seemed like a strange fashion choice for a warrior, but Sophia had long enough hair that saying anything would just be hypocrisy.

"Aurora Clan explorers from the Skylands," Ci'an answered almost immediately. It was the explanation they'd settled on when they thought they'd be talking to an entire group; as the only actual Aurora Clan member, it made sense for Ci'an to step forward. "I assume we're not in the Skylands now?"

"The Skylands?" Jax sounded surprised. "I didn't think there was a connection to the Skylands near here."

Ci'an chuckled. "It was closed from the other side. Hasn't been used in centuries, from what we can tell. Where are we?"

"We're under the Arena," Jax answered. It didn't mean anything to Sophia.

"Which one?" Xin'ri tapped the wall to close the opening behind them after she stepped into the corridor. "Most large cities have several arenas. Izel has three that I know of, and there are probably a couple of small ones I don't."

Sophia blinked at that. She hadn't heard anything about an arena while she was in Izel. It made sense; it was something to do and something to bet on and a way to make money if you could win. It just wasn't something that she'd even thought about looking into. It was enough to make her wonder if Casterville had an arena as well. Now that she thought about it, it seemed likely.

"The Arena," Jax repeated. "The one you've probably seen displays from, near Mazehold. The only arena with third-upgrade combatants."

That description made it sound like a sports arena, complete with some sort of recordings. That was something else that it hadn't occurred to Sophia to look for; she knew there wasn't an equivalent to television or any sort of long distance communication without people actually traveling, but she hadn't thought about the possibility of people carrying anything other than letters. She should have known better; there was a reason the Messengers' Guild existed back home, and it wasn't just for letters.

"I expected more monsters near Mazehold," Ci'an said doubtfully. "There weren't any down here at all when we arrived; shouldn't the place be full of them?"

"We went through an awful lot of monsters," Jax disagreed. "They shouldn't have been able to get here. The underground was supposed to be empty. This is inside the area patrolled by the Arena staff."

"That was my fault," Sophia stated bluntly. It felt a little weird taking credit for Cliff's work, but it was better than admitting Cliff's existence. She'd mentioned him to Ci'an as part of the story of how they came to the Broken Lands, but wasn't sure the wolf-girl really understood what it meant to have a dungeon core fused to her. She hadn't mentioned him to Xin'ri and wasn't sure if she wanted to. "When Tiwaz noticed you coming down the old maintenance route, we figured we'd better slow you down and, well, try to weaken you so that we'd have a chance if it did become a fight. I can summon monsters, and it wasn't that hard to work with Tiwaz to summon them at the mana collection points instead of next to me."

It wasn't hard for Sophia, at least, because she didn't actually have to do anything other than absorb the mana and essence from the pile of storage boxes they'd taken from the creation chamber while sitting in the creation chamber. Cliff handled everything else, from interfacing with Tiwaz itself to manifesting the monsters at the concentric octagonal "mana collection points" that appeared behind false walls along many corridors in the complex. "I did use a lot of mana to do it, I'd have emptied my mana pool several times over to summon that many monsters. Oh, and the traps, those are Tiwaz's; he modified a few of them, but most of them were always there. They just hadn't been active in centuries."

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The entire underground complex was filled with deadly (or at least uncomfortable) traps. Tiwaz called it a security system and said it was designed to slow down or stop monster incursions. Sophia thought it was evidence of rampant but ineffective paranoia; the traps were dangerous to anyone without enough Shield and still not powerful enough to stop or even significantly slow down third-upgrade monsters. They certainly hadn't slowed down the group from above much, and it was a mix of high second and early third upgrade people.

The monsters slowed them more than the traps and that wasn't even the point of the monsters. They were there to strip the group of their Shield, making them far easier to kill if necessary. It worked out that way; Sophia wasn't certain they'd have won without the triple advantage of having stripped their enemies' defenses, infighting in the group, and surprise.

Well, really, any two of those probably would have been enough.

"Huh," Jax muttered. "I guess that explains the feathered lizards. Your Signature is feathers, isn't it? Or wings, something like that? No, can't be wings; the beavers didn't have wings. Maybe the fur counted?"

"Plumes," Sophia admitted. "The same thing, more or less. But there weren't any … oh, right. You don't know what a dragon is." She always forgot that. It was strange to have people who didn't know what a dragon was; Dav knew what a dragon was even though he was pretty sure they were only a myth on his homeworld.

"Your Sphere must be all about preparation?" Jax shook his head. "I'm not sure how useful that will be in the Maze. Spheres that require a lot of setup often don't do well there, since you never know when monsters are going to turn the corner or simply appear. If the rest of your group is set up for control or burst damage, it can work, but I really prefer a more flexible group. Ah, but don't let me stop you from entering the Maze; it's really the only way to reach the third upgrade. Even if you have to build a party and stick to the outskirts, it's worth it for that."

"We won't be going into the Maze any time soon," Xin'ri stated bluntly. "Not when I'm the only one of us past the second upgrade. That's also not why we're here."

Sophia bit her tongue before she said that she wasn't all about preparing ahead of battle. Truthfully, she was really bad at that; it simply wasn't that important back home … or maybe she was just impatient. She wasn't about to admit that anywhere except her own head, though.

Jax's head whipped towards Xin'ri. "Only one at the second upgrade? Then the rest of you are first upgrade? But … wait, you have a Signature at the first upgrade?"

Sophia nodded. "It can't be that unusual. Can it?"

Jax shook his head. "Less than one in a hundred. You have to do something impactful, usually a really specialized Feat. I gained mine with my first upgrade, but I've only known a couple of other people with early Signatures. It will make moving into the second upgrade easy for you, at least; all you need is the Wisps, where others have to find their Signature. The Guide doesn't help the way it does with Anchors."

Jax huffed and shook his head. A smile crept across his face. "I really thought you were all second upgrade, probably ready for the Maze. I guess that goes to show the power of a Sphere that can prepare ahead of time."

"I thought the Maze was for people at the third upgrade?" Dav asked as he opened the last door before they entered Tiwaz's chamber. "And that no one had made it to the center in centuries, but that there might be Gateways there?"

Dav hid it well, but Sophia could hear the pain behind his words. He didn't talk about his family often, but it was clear he was thinking of his parents.

"You can't reach the third upgrade without-" Jax froze as he stepped through the doorway and saw Tiwaz for the first time. "What is that?"

"I am Tiwaz," the glowing crystal answered. "This is my complex, my home. I think the better question is … who are you?"

Sophia grinned at the stunned expression on Jax's face. This was absolutely worth the effort it took to get Tiwaz to devote the time to get a language transfer from Othala. Unlike Othala's room, there was plenty of space in Tiwaz's room. Sophia led Jax over to the table and chairs where they'd planned the "defense" of Tiwaz's installation.

"Uh." Jax seemed to grope for words for a moment. "Uh, are you the reason Kizru and Thera were rejected? They didn't expect it."

"Their imprints were hollow. Reversed. False." Tiwaz sounded almost offended. "And yet they were close enough that if I were not watching, they would have been accepted. I am certain they thought they would be accepted because they were in the past, while I slept."

"Hollow?" Jax sounded surprised as he settled into one of the chairs. "Wait, what's an imprint?"

"An imprint is a portion of your mana signature that identifies your status in the Empire." Tiwaz's voice shifted from matter of fact to slightly embarrassed as it continued. "Or, now, your position with the successors of the Empire, I suppose. Your imprint identifies you as attached to a direct Imperial vassal, most likely Mystic Vorian. Kizru's was a corrupted version of the imprint of a security operative, a fairly high ranking one, while Thera's tried to imitate maintenance personnel."

"You mean like what Othala gave us?" Sophia asked with a frown.

"No." Tiwaz dimmed slightly, almost as if it was emphasizing the word, then brightened again. "Othala sent your entire mana imprint and tagged it as belonging to maintenance personnel. I am not depending on an imprint for the five of you."

Jax frowned and glanced around the room. "There are five of you?"

"Taika's asleep," Sophia informed him. "He woke up for the fight, but as soon as he knew it was over, he went back to sleep. We'll introduce you when he's awake again." Sophia was looking forward to that. It was going to be almost as funny to see Jax's reaction to a talking rodent as it was to see his surprise at a talking crystal.

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