Severa Book 1 (Chapter 11)

It took only minutes on the second level for Severa Montreal to realize this would be a punishing run.

The second level opened into a much narrower cavern network that felt almost deliberately designed to funnel intruders into predictable paths. The ceilings were lower here, the rock walls scorched and etched with blackened streaks; evidence of fire magic used not for creation, but for survival. That was the first thing that struck Severa as odd.

Severa’s eyes adjusted to the darkness; literally. Scarlet radiance ignited in her gaze, suffusing her eyes with crimson depths. She channeled aether into her ocular blood vessels using Sanguine Focus, a low-level blood thaumaturgy spell innate only to those of House Montreal. Thin veins of aetheric crystal snaked through the rock. They didn’t glow in such weak light, but with her enhanced sight, she could trace each filament’s subtle shimmer. She noted each one, making mental calculations on how she could leverage their conductivity for low-cost spells.

Then she caught tiny wing membranes, scaled in muted orange and copper, flexing as the wyvernlet clung to the ceiling.

The wyverns here moved differently. Miniature in size—scaled-down predators to fit the cramped confines of the second level—they darted with a tighter and more erratic rhythm. Their wingbeats rattled the low ceiling, and from seeing one diving, it seemed as though their dive was sharper. Also . . . their underbellies glimmered with icy cyan undertones.

Even their breath exhaled a faint mist, the result of elemental equilibrium. Fire-resistant but partially cold-infused.

Halveth’s voice came behind her, steady as ever. “Different strain. Fire-resistant. Likely evolved or selectively bred by the dungeon’s ecosystem.”

The scouting notes just last week had indicated standard Lowland Hollow skirverns, prone to panic under even small fire spells. These were something else entirely. Did the dungeon morphed into something else in a week?

This doesn’t make sense. The fire marks left on the walls can’t have been new; which means this specific section of the dungeon has been around for some time.

This suggested the dungeon sub-realm could shift locations to an entirely new place and override the existing dungeon, but she had never heard of reports of any kind. What’s going on?

A hollow pocket in the rock rattled. A wyvernlet lunged out.

Severa hurled an aetheric fireball at it out of instinct—a low-cost spell that used fright as a catalyst; her fright would come and go fast, but they made excellent fuel for quick-cast spells when they surfaced. The flames roared, blackening the wyvernlet’s scales. The creature still pressed forward.

Severa barely twisted aside in time, her shoulder grazing the cavern wall as its claw swiped where she had been standing. Ouch. Her defenses were too weak for direct contact; she needed to avoid it entirely. Every instinct screamed: a strike here, a touch there, and she’d be the one scorched. 

“Say the word if you need aid,” Halveth reminded.

“I can handle it,” Severa whispered. Not asking for help had been the reason why she’d gotten capable.

The wyvernlets must be nesting in these tiny alcoves, using the cramped space as a launch point to ambush intruders. Their speed wasn’t random; it was a calculated use of gravity, tight walls, and sudden angles.

At that velocity, even her fire spells couldn’t stop them. But blunt force could.

Another wyvernlet erupted from a hollow just ahead, wings tucked like a dart. Sever gestured immediately: the aether crystallized around her arm, solidifying into a faceted diamond shield: Prismatic Aegis, a Tier III Crystal spell, Rank IV. The shield would’ve been bigger had she had time for mnemonics.

The wyvernlet’s head collided with her Aegis with a crack. It staggered back, dazed, and its wings beat erratically against the low ceiling. Severa didn’t give it a moment to recover. She thrust a quick-fire burst toward it, a low-cost flame designed to capitalize on its momentary disorientation.

But something felt off. The air around her suddenly sharpened; a sign that the temperature was dropping. Frost crystallized along the edges of the shield, thin and glinting. She realized with a flash that the wyvernlet’s underbelly wasn’t just ice-toned for show—the elemental equilibrium she’d glimpsed in its scales was active. Several others must have been moving in tandem, synchronizing their elemental auras.

She could feel the cold closing in.

Can’t swing my dagger fast enough; I need an AOE. But this passage is too narrow. I might collapse the structure.

Severa’s mind raced. Narrow walls, low ceilings, frost spreading along her shield—there was no room for a reckless detonation. Yet something had to be done.

She reached into her satchel and pulled one of her three crystal prisms, letting the smooth quartz catch what little light the cavern offered. 

She tossed the prism into the air. Her fingers traced a precise gesture, and she blasted a concentrated ray at the prism: Solar Convergence, Light Thaumaturgy Spell, Tier II, Rank VI. The spell blazed a brilliant golden from the emotion she drew upon—reverence—a memory of her first idol, Peta McPyre, who had cleared a Legendary dungeon alone at thirty-two.

“Duck!” Severa yelled as she herself ducked.

The prism caught the ascending ray like a shard of captured sunlight. Light splintered along its facets, scattering into a cascade of golden beams that arced in perfect geometry across the cavern. 

The prism refracted the solar energy into a perfect, omnidirectional lattice; every wyvernlet caught within its radius was struck simultaneously. The wyvernlets screeched and darted. Golden shafts sliced through the shadows, each one puncturing their scales, wings, and claws. Sparks danced along the edges of their armored hides. Incandescent sparks showered across the entire chamber.

All the wyvernlets were reduced to ash. The prism broke into thousands tiny pieces.

Light Thaumaturgy was a highly specialized form of Fire and Air Thaumaturgy hybrid. Although Light was the fifth element she learned, right after the four basic: Fire, Air, Water, Earth, she’d only ever reserved it for emergencies. It was incredibly aether-draining, and the reason why Severa had been wary of casting these spells was that she was frail. Physical frailness inherently limited access to the aether pool, so her spellcasting had to be strategic and precise.

Severa sagged against the rough cavern wall, every muscle trembling from the effort. Her chest heaved as she fumbled into her satchel, pulling out a cyan vial. She uncorked it, tipped it back, and chugged down the content. Screw being graceful. I’m so tired.

Then Halveth emerged from the now-resumed darkness. “They tried to neutralize your fire and ambushed you from all sides, but you managed to read the situation. Good job. However, you must know your limit.” She got down to one knee beside Severa, inspecting her. “You’re sweating. I was this close to intervening.”

Severa didn’t reply. She was busy inhaling.

“Can you . . . help me . . . pick up the loot?” she rasped.

Halveth’s hand hovered near her satchel. “There’s no loot.”

Severa stopped breathing for a second. “Come again?”

“There’s no loot,” Halveth repeated.

That was . . . wrong. Every other time she’d cleared even a dozen lesser creatures, there had been something—a scale, a claw, even a scrap of hide. A single shard of proof. Not a single wyvernlet had dropped anything.

Halveth now stood, extending her hand to Severa. “This is a Tier III dungeon at the lowest, but there’s nothing to gain here. We must retreat.”

Severa knew Halveth was right: she wasn’t yet ready for a Tier III dungeon solo run. Not until she could solve her aether conservation bottleneck. But she had almost cleared the second level; there was only one more to go. If she went home now, she’d return empty handed.

“Fine. Do what you do best. See if your ‘best’ can even clear that unstable dungeon,” Forsing had said.

He would know she had failed.

“Severa Montreal.” Halveth stared at her. Halveth didn’t possess sanguine irises, but her gaze was enough to melt gold all the same. “At the first sign of doubt, we retreat.”

“Aunt Merry, I—”

A giant frosted hand smashed through the ceiling of the tunnel. The crystalline fist collided with the ground in a spray of frost, and in the instant of impact, Halveth vanished. The space where she had knelt was empty, swallowed by the abyss of shadows that yawned beneath the icy strike.

Severa instinctively conjured flames. The flames engulfed her palms as she turned her hands into living fire. This was thaumaturgic fire with a mind of its own. Her palms radiated warmth, but it never burned; the fire existed in symbiosis with her, attuned to her intent. She could pivot, dodge, or raise a shield, and the flames would burn only where she willed.

Her supervisor had just vanished.

She looked down at the flames swallowing her hands. They burned charcoal; the color of fear.

And the icy fist came down again. That single fist was the size of her upper body.