"I would say that it's convenient that this is here, but this is really not convenient at all," Basalt says, looking down into the rippling waters of Splott Lake.

"Everyone got everything we're taking down?" I ask. "I only have enough potion for three trips."

"And I have some more potion Uncle Falcon's alchemist made in case that's not enough," Anise adds. "We'll be fine. Let's go!"

We drink our potions and swim down to the dungeon. Uncle Falcon helpfully marked the entrance with a couple of yellow light crystals to make sure our potions didn't run out before we found the place.

Ten meters doesn't sound like a long distance until you have to dive into it with level 2 in Athletics (Swimming). Once inside, we have to follow the marker crystals Uncle Falcon left for us through an underwater tunnel. We might not have even needed the potions if we were better swimmers.

You have discovered the Living Stone Caverns. Skills increased: Athletics (Swimming)

I crawl out of the water into a cave lit by glowing crystals on the ceiling of the same sort Uncle Falcon used to mark a path in. A quick check indicates that they're just ordinary Basic light crystals, the sort that everyone's lamps are made of. Cool, but nothing special. Some of them are aspected with air rather than light, so at least we won't suffocate either.

I live in a world where glowing crystals are everywhere and are basically just light bulbs that don't need electricity. How long until that sense of wonder wears away?

Anise magics us dry. "You detecting anything interesting there, Drake?"

[Just thinking,] I send to my party telepathically. I may as well not make unnecessary noise in a dungeon if I don't have to. It's good practice as well and makes sure my [Psychic Child] bonuses are active.

"Can you think and walk at the same time?" Anise asks cheekily.

[With Enhanced Soul, I can think about several things at once while walking,] I send. [It doesn't help when I get so distracted staring at shiny crystals that I forget to even activate it.]

We head in to explore. Nobody's going to let me stand around being introspective all day, least of all myself.

The first monster we see is a brown rabbit that seems pretty ordinary aside from being made of rock with ruby eyes. Those probably disqualify it from being ordinary.

"You know, this still beats a trip to the mall," Basalt comments. "All the jewels you want for the low, low price of committing violence against moving statues. This place really needs a better entrance, though."

Basalt raises his pick and charges at the monster. The ruby eyes glow and the bunny bares fangs and leaps at Basalt. The flint pick cuts into the stone rabbit as though it were made of chalk, and it crumbles to pieces. Basalt pulls out the two small gemstones left behind where the eyes were and dusts them off before tossing them to me to put in my bag of holding.

"Living Stone Caverns," Basalt says with a chortle. "It's like an AI took a name literally."

Juniper bonks a stone rabbit with sapphire eyes with her wooden staff. You'd think this would result in just breaking the staff, but Uncle Falcon wasn't kidding when he said these monsters were weak. A 7-year-old girl pokes this bunny with a stick and it cracks and stops moving.

This… corpse?… is a little more intact than the other. I pry out the gemstone eyes, careful to avoid damaging them, and toss them into my bag with the others. While my bag can only hold 5 kilograms, these gemstones don't even weigh a gram each and keeping them in there is the best way to avoid losing them.

An emerald-eyed stone badger takes two good strikes with my hammer before it breaks apart. I retrieve its eyes and examine the stones thoughtfully.

Skills increased: Search (Digging), Striking (Bashing), Crafting (Appraisal)

I suppose I would have been annoyed if the system had referred to dismantling a rock monster as "skinning".

[I don't think these are real precious gemstones at all,] I comment.

"Yeah, I agree," Basalt says. "This is way too easy for that sort of Monty Haul. And my dwarfy skills are telling me they're worthless."

[Well, they'll still do the job of learning to make jewelry,] I send. [I'll just not feel bad about ruining junk.]

"As a dwarf, I feel vaguely cheated out of an opportunity to dig holes," Basalt says. "I'm still having a hard time believing any aether cores were once human souls as you say."

[They might have been human souls, but they don't have human minds or human hearts,] I say. [They've lost something along the way, and become hardened and crystallized. And they see things on a very long time span.]

"You sure she wasn't pulling your leg there?" Basalt asks.

I shrug. [I think she believed it. In any case, I don't see a reason to stop asking questions and searching for answers.]

"Man, it doesn't have to be that deep," Basalt says. "Let's just kill some weird rock bunnies and get some loot. Your uncle mentioned there were bosses, so there will probably be chests."

Nothing here seems to be edible or useful to Splott, so I can see why they'd ignore the place except possibly for training for small children. They probably have good enough [Swimming] skills that getting in here would be a reasonable test of them. I have more faith in my Crafting than my Athletics, though.

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Some of these monsters might be trickier to find, looking like normal rocks and boulders, but it's hard to miss them when you can see auras. One particular boulder is actually an Elite stone bear, hunched over motionless until we get close.

With the sound of stone grinding against stone, the bear starts to slowly climb to its feet. As dramatic as the scene might be, we're not about to just let it get up and start attacking us in slow motion. We hammer, pick, stab, and bash the bear to pieces before it has even gotten into combat mode.

Unlike the Basic-rank living stone animals, the Elite-rank bear has three topaz eyes. Maybe that came with some special ability, but it didn't live long enough to use one.

[Still don't think these are real gems,] I say, identifying them. [The third one's Elite-ranked and aspected with creativity.]

"Still probably useful, if not what you were looking for right now," Basalt says. "Let's see what's in the chest."

In addition to the usual pittance of copper coins one finds on Basic floors, the chest contains a dagger made of clear glass.

"Man, what good is a glass dagger?" Basalt says. "Is this at least some sort of unbreakable super-glass?"

[It's aspected with invisibility,] I say. [Too bad we're not Elite yet. I don't think we can even activate it.]

"I'm so glad I've got someone who can identify items along," Basalt says, chuckling and handing the dagger to Anise to hold onto for now. "Let's keep looking."

We continue on, collecting a decent haul of worthless colored crystals and leaving behind dissolving piles of sand.

The next boss is already awake and alert when we find its cave. Three glowing emeralds mark the face of a striped granite badger the size of a large couch. It opens its mouth to sound a rumbling imitation of a badger's scream. In response, pebbles lift themselves off the ground and fling themselves at us.

Rowan blocks some of them with his shield, but it's ineffectual when they're coming from every direction. The individual damage is low, but there's a lot of them.

[That's annoying,] I mutter mentally. [Let's bring it down quick.]

We dogpile the giant stone badger, dodging the swipes of its paws and teeth even if we can't stop the hail of pebbles. I burn Inspiration to getting [Rapid Healing] to counteract the damage a bit.

The badger is tougher than the bear (if only because it's actively fighting back), but we still take it down before taking any serious damage.

Skills increased: Enhanced Heart (Rapid Healing), Discipline (Pain Tolerance)

[This one's aspected with earth,] I say as I collect the badger's three eyes. [I suppose that makes sense, considering what it was hitting us with.]

"Red light crystal this time," Basalt says from the chest, holding up a small crystal that looks black to me.

[That's dark, not red,] I say. [Dwarves and goblins can see a shade of near-infrared that's called 'dark'.]

"Cool, cool." Basalt adds it to Anise's pack. "Darkvision. Makes sense."

"Found the stairs," Rowan says, pointing at a narrow staircase tucked between some pillars.

[Uncle Falcon said they'd be tougher down there,] I think, hefting my hammer. [Let's see how much.]

The rock creatures on the second floor behave more like you would expect actual rock to. Juniper's staff is no longer good enough to shatter a diamond-eyed marble bunny.

The first boss on this floor is an serpentine jackalope with amethyst eyes. And by "serpentine" I mean the stone, not an adjective for snake-like. It's green with black markings and I totally remember that book on gemstones I added to my [Mental Encyclopedia] before going looking for gemstones.

[It's wary.] I inform my party. [Mid-Elite, spirit-aspected serpentine jackalope.]

Skills increased: Enhanced Mind (Mental Encyclopedia), Knowledge (Geology), Clairvoyance (Telepathy)

"It's nice that the system started identify these things automatically," Basalt says.

"That wasn't automatic," I say aloud. "That was just me."

"Oh. Well, keep doing that, then."

"Are we going to kill this thing or not?" Rowan asks.

We attack. Juniper has switched to a dagger and manages to make a small chip in the big bunny statue.

A wave of confusion washes over us.

[Steady!] I tell my party, pushing aside the feeling, though it takes most of my Inspiration to do so.

I wish I could see the sky from here. I split my consciousness three ways and have one of them fervently think about fanfiction shipping debates.

Telepathy is a cheat skill. Normally, a Basic can't access true magic, the use of vis outside their body. Telepathy bypasses that issue by system facilitation. It only sends words, but sometimes words are enough. With [Aura Sight], I can quite clearly see the debuff on them and know I need to be more firm in my encouragement.

In remembering a discussion over whether villains can or should be redeemed with the power of love, the jackalope is rubble.

Skills increased: Discipline (Battle Trance, Self-Awareness), Clairvoyance (Telepathy), Enhanced Soul (Fractal Consciousness), Enhanced Mind (Fantastic Inspiration), Recollection (Suppression)

After checking that everyone is alright, I think, [Great job, everyone. That was fantastic. And I think this one's the one I'm looking for.]

Rowan is a bit scraped up but his [Rapid Healing] is rapidly (by normal human standards) sealing up the cuts. Basalt loots the chest and holds up an aspect stone. Aspected to the concept of 'dwarfiness', or something like that.

"Dwarfiness?" Basalt laughs upon seeing my identify screen. "Really?"

[Really.]

"How's everyone doing?" Anise asks. "Do you want to continue a bit more, or head out now?"

We're all good, so we finish out the dungeon with two more bosses, neither of which drop notable loot. Out of curiosity, I take a peek down to the third floor, only to find it has already been cleared.

"I suppose Uncle Falcon's party already wiped out these monsters for experience," I say.

"Probably," Anise says. "And maybe to keep us from getting in over our heads, too. Hope they found a good boss or treasure down there."

We return to the surface and regroup in the Splott Inn that evening, and exchange tales of the battles we fought over a warm dinner by the hearth.

"And the final boss was an obsidian hydra," Uncle Falcon tells. "Each head bore a different gemstone, all of them gleaming with power."

"You kind of blacked out there for a moment, Drake," Rowan says quietly.

"I split my mind in three and used one to fight, one to sense, and one to regenerate Inspiration. But I think the only one I remember was the one coordinating it. Did I not fight adequately?"

"You fought better than I've ever seen you fight," Rowan says. "By which I mean you, for once, actually hit the monster instead of had your weapon broken and hiding behind your little sister."

"I really should have gotten the memories of all three," I say with a frown. "I'd probably need to access the memories of the particular past life that was handling each task. Alex was running Inspiration and Liu Xing was doing combat."

"Right, right," Rowan says, pretending that he's following me and understood all that.

"I didn't intend for him to do that, but he's there," I say. "He's awake now."

"Well, that's a good thing, isn't it?" Basalt asks. "You said you wanted him to protect your sister."

"Yeah, but I'm trying to avoid thinking too much about him to avoid conceptual contamination of my aura."

"Those were totally words," Rowan says. "You're channeling your mightiest ancestor to make yourself competent in combat, and you just want to keep your sister safe."

"I wanted a ghost buddy," Juniper puts in.

"Will that rock work?" Basalt asks.

"Yeah," I say. "Just need some metal now. Raw metal. It can't have been part of an orc's sword or anything."

"Con-seppial comamination," Juniper parrots.

"Well, if the orcs were using bronze weapons, they had to get the metal from somewhere nearby," Basalt says. "And I think the Heroics are itching to check out the second layer."

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