The shimmering gold fled Rylan's eyelids as he stepped through the portal, leaving him waiting for his eyes to adjust to the dark, foggy basement.

"Ryles!" Soren called out enthusiastically. "How'd it—is that blood?!"

Rylan blinked, his vision slowly clearing. "Ehm, probably?"

[Ah, yeah, the side of your head is leaking, Boss... I figured you knew.]

Rylan lifted a hand to his temple, where a bolt had impacted him, and his fingers came back wet.

Tamina and Soren's worried expressions swam into view, and he found himself gently but firmly guided to sit down at the bottom of the stairs.

"I'm fine, I swear," he protested, though his head was still throbbing. At least his ears weren't ringing quite as badly anymore.

"Look here, please," Tamina said holding up a hand and producing a ball of glowing white mana above it.

Rylan dutifully stared at the impressive display of mana control, grumbling all the while. If he was honest, his grumbling was mostly performative; sitting down felt rather nice, with the way the world was spinning around him.

Tamina clicked her tongue disapprovingly. "I think you've got a concussion. Did you request accelerated recovery yet?"

Rylan pulled a face. "I'm not that hurt, am I? I mean, it's 10 whole credits..."

"And unless I'm very mistaken, you can easily afford that, since you just got 100 more," Tamina replied sternly.

I guess they could feel the warm breeze enter the Dungeon from outside then...

"Head trauma is not something to take lightly, Ry," she continued. "If it's too severe, Ethereon won't be able to help you. I met a Quinthar once who just about forgot his whole life up to the point he took a mace to the skull. The alternative to you paying for recovery right now, is that I stay up tonight to wake you every couple of hours—you know, to make sure you're not bleeding out inside your skull—followed by a week of bed rest while Nazyr takes over the cooking. So for all our sakes, I suggest you count your blessings and pay for the damn miracle of accelerated recovery Ethereon provides."

"Yes ma'am," Rylan muttered, a smile tugging at his lips.

While the loss of his credits smarted, once the soothing, warm breeze entered his chest and started suffusing his body with every beat of his heart, Rylan had to admit to himself it was worth it.

But only to himself.

"So," Soren said, clapping his hands together a bit too loudly, causing Rylan to wince. "Headwound aside—how'd it go? Did you beat the challenge? We only got to see your spent knives coming out of the portal one by one, which kind of felt like tracking your progress, but didn't really tell us much."

"I beat it," Rylan confirmed with a smile as Soren produced the knives he'd lost with a flourish. "Oh, thank you."

"And did you get a Skill or a Rank-Up?" Tamina asked while he started sorting them back into the knife belt.

"I've got a new Augmentation for Jumping. Flying Kick."

"Oh, that's so badass!" Soren exclaimed.

[I guess if you like that sort of thing...]

Ignoring Arphin's surly comment, Rylan gave them a quick summary of the events inside the Dungeon, picking up steam as Ethereon's healing slowly soothed his throbbing headache.

"So what did you get?" Soren asked when Rylan got to the reward selection.

"A Strength Enhancer," he replied, flexing his biceps, even though it would take some hours for his new point in Strength to actually take effect, and still wouldn't visibly change his musculature when it had.

Tamina raised a brow at him, but her appreciative smile made it look more teasing than mocking.

She got up, and Rylan made to follow her, but she bade him to stay seated with a gesture. "My turn," she stated simply. Then she turned around and strolled towards the portal.

Soren shot Rylan a bewildered look, "I thought she wasn't interested?"

Rylan shrugged, turning back just in time to see Tamina stride in without a backward glance. "I guess she was."

Soren hummed. "I doubt she could use the reward though. There's very likely a clause in her Contract that forbids her from doing anything other than presenting it to the Talons, probably for some pre-negotiated bonus..."

"Is that how Enhancers end up on auction?"

Soren nodded. "Most known Dungeons are under the control of either a city or a noble family that exert their influence either with a guard post at the site, or—if they're deeper into the cloudsea—simply by keeping the route and location a secret."

This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

"Most known Dungeons?"

"Well," Soren said, gesturing around him. "I doubt these are controlled by any faction, and we know about them, don't we? And I'm sure there are other Dungeons like these. In fact, even if we tried to sell the info about these Dungeons, I doubt any faction would be interested in exploiting them. From what the captain has told me, this spot is simply too far down; the nearest island is tens of miles away, so it would be an immense undertaking to establish a safe route over the cloudbed."

That sent a chill up Rylan's spine. We probably could've wandered for months without finding anything...

"Couldn't they mark the spot with a buoy and lower themselves down a rope ladder or something?" Rylan suggested.

"Well, they could try to set something like that up, I suppose, but they'd first have to find this place again, based on nothing but our descriptions. And even if they succeed, everyone and their mother could find their hidden Dungeons too based on the buoy."

"Right... so how do they exploit the Dungeons they do control? Through Contracts?"

"Sometimes," Soren said. "Not always though. The fees the Talons charge for their services are prohibitive, so it often isn't worth it. Plus, not everyone likes dealing with them. Of course, there's no other way to guarantee that a Quinthar will hand over a reward they've received—or even tell you the truth about it—so what Dungeon owners often do instead is charge Quinthar an entrance fee instead."

"A fee?" Rylan did not like the sound of that. "How much are we talking about?"

"Well, for an Equipment Dungeon it really depends on how fresh it is, what the odds of it dropping Runegear are—odds the owners will often exaggerate—but entering a Challenge Dungeon like this will reliably cost around fifteen gold or so."

Rylan's eyebrows shot up. "Fifteen gold crowns? Just for a chance to get a reward? How am I supposed to afford that?!"

"For common-born Quinthar, they give out loans," Soren explained. "Of course, you better succeed at getting an Enhancer or Pearl if you take one of those, otherwise they might force you into a Contract to pay off your debt. You might be better off joining a faction through Contract with Dungeons to begin with; that way you can enter their Dungeons for free, so there's no penalty for failure, only a bonus if you succeed. But then you don't get to keep anything you gain."

"I'm starting to understand Tamina's choice," Rylan muttered. "But wouldn't that mean Pearls of Inspiration do end up on auction?"

Soren shook his head. "Too much demand, not enough supply, so those generally stay within the faction that gains them. There are always higher-ups with children clamouring for them. There's nothing more profitable or worthwhile than raising more Quinthar within your own ranks. Because then they can enter your Dungeons too..."

Rylan nodded. "Makes sense. Hey... do the Thistlethorns control any Dungeons?"

Soren's hand, which was fiddling with a lock of hair by his ear, froze. "Ehm..."

Rylan's eyes widened. "You do, don't you? You totally do!"

Soren sighed, dropping his hand. "All right, we technically don't. However... we do guard a site for the Thorns, and have permission to use the Dungeons there as we see fit. I don't know the exact details of the agreement, or the location, just that it's somewhat near Thistlebloom—relatively speaking."

"How did you even manage to keep this from Zahra and me?" Rylan asked, shaking his head. "We played pretend Dungeons so many times!"

Soren snorted. "Well. I didn't know back then. I was only informed once I became a Quinthar myself, you know? Like, half of what noble families get up to is trying to secretly raid each other's Dungeons for profit. There's no better way to defend them than to keep their very existence a secret. I honestly still shouldn't have told you... and Tamina definitely can't know about this, all right?"

"Right, because she works for the Talons," Rylan said after a moment. It was odd; the outside world still felt so far away that their allegiances didn't seem to matter. But they were planning on making it out of here. "Don't worry; I'll keep it to myself. You know I wouldn't just betray your trust like that."

"Thanks," Soren replied with a smile. "I know you wouldn't."

"So what kind of Dungeons are at the site?" Rylan asked, leaning in.

Soren groaned, but answered. "One Equipment and one Challenge Dungeon. Though unlike the one here, our Equipment Dungeon basically just spits out mundane stuff at this point."

That gave Rylan a thought. "Do Challenge Dungeons ever run out of rewards?"

"Not that I'm aware of. Then again, I'm not sure if those rewards are actually physical objects, you know? I think they may be more like Cubes, made mostly of Quintessence or something."

That was a good point. Arphin had described the Enhancer as feeling 'dense' as well, which seemed to have been in a spiritual sense.

They lapsed into silence for a bit, as Rylan pondered the nature of Enhancers and Pearls. "By the way," he eventually spoke up, "how's the search for the statue going?"

"It's going... pretty slow," Soren said, his eyes darting to Rylan and back. "We keep trying to enter the ruins, so we don't cover much ground. Plus, the inner city is a big place."

Rylan didn't answer, too busy staring at how Soren's thumbs were worrying on his index fingers. But... that's his tell...

[Woah, Boss, why's your bloodpump pumping so fast all of a sudden? Actually, your friend's is pumping faster too... Is there danger?! I don't sense anything!]

His heart is beating faster too? Fog. That basically confirms it...

'There's no danger,' Rylan sent back as he tore his gaze from Soren and hummed noncommittally. 'The reason we're both agitated is that... he's lying to me.'

[About the search for the statue going slow?] Arphin asked, sounding confused.

'Yes. I guess... fog, he must've already found it, and he's keeping it from us for some reason.'

[And that makes your bloodpump go faster, because...?]

'Because I'm angry that he's lying to me,' Rylan replied, as he did his best to unclench his jaws, and not show any of his inner turmoil, torn between confronting Soren about the lie and trying to avoid tipping him off at all costs, so Rylan could better figure out what his friend was hiding and why.

So much for trusting me... What the fog is Soren playing at?!

[Ah, I see. So... you don't like it when people lie?]

'No. Which he very well knows, hence why he's acting so shifty.'

[Woah! Why's he lying if he knows you don't like it?]

'That's a good question.'

[Hmmm... maybe he doesn't want you to help the sad lady?]

'Maybe.'

"But I'll keep looking, you know?" Soren said suddenly, seeming uncomfortable with the sudden silence, his eyes darting to Rylan, then up, and back down to his feet. "I'm sure I'll spot it eventually."

"Of course," Rylan replied, the words tasting like ashes in his mouth.

They fell silent once more, though there was more of a tension to it, which Rylan did his best not to show.

His efforts appeared to bear fruit, as Soren slowly seemed to relax again, until he bumped Rylan's shoulder with his own, all smiles. "By the way, don't think I've forgotten about that mysterious letter which may or may not be from your father. I know we haven't had much opportunity to speak in private, but I'd still love to read it sometime, if you feel comfortable with sharing."

"I'll think about it," Rylan replied, doing his best to keep the frost out of his voice.

Soren nodded. "Well, just say the word, and..." He trailed off when a warm breeze flew in from the distance, headed for the golden portal.

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