Severa Book 1 (Chapter 9)

They would depart at dusk. 

Severa had spent the better part of the afternoon deciding what to bring. She laid out her usual assortment of vials, reagents, and instruments, weighing each item’s usefulness against the burdens of carrying too much.  Her hand lingered over the usual trinkets she might grab absentmindedly—small charms, an extra grimoire, her routine thaumaturgical stylus—but Aunt Merry had warned her earlier: this would not be her usual dungeon run.

Finally, she made a choice she would never have considered before: three crystal prisms. Neither she nor Halveth fully understood its properties, but after seeing Kestovar deftly channel his magic through quartz, achieving results she hadn’t thought possible, the decision felt instinctive. A renowned Petramancer had described the prisms when he handed it to her: when aligned with fire-type thaumaturgy, it could focus and multiply the energy into a single, devastating burst, enough to turn a small chamber to cinders if wielded correctly.

Beside it, she placed the aetheric magnifier, a lens more than simple glass: it enhanced the flow of magical energy, revealing subtle currents and distortions invisible to the naked eye.

Along her belt rested four small vials: two health potions, their ruby-red liquid swirling faintly with stabilizing charms, and two aether potions, glowing with a soft cyan hue.

She was about to change into her dungeon outfit, but then she remembered she wasn’t alone.

Listen, she telegraphed to DeShawn with a slow thought, I am about to attire myself appropriately.

[So? I ain’t gonna look. I don’t have eyes.]

I am not comfortable with having an observer present during this.

[Ooooh, you bossy already. You could put me to sleep.]

How?

[Wink twice with your left eye and I’ll be—]

She winked twice and the voice immediately vanished. DeShawn could’ve mentioned this before it’d uttered any of its unnecessary comments, and she wouldn’t have had to listen to all that.

Peace at last.

She shed her usual flowing robes, careful to fold them neatly, and slid into her fitted leather jerkin that cut close to her torso. The seams were stitched with precision, edges beveled and layered to prevent chafing or snagging. Another pair of tapered leather trousers and knee-high boots hugged her calves and she was set.

She fastened her belt, ensuring each potion, vial, and pouch sat exactly where it should. Crossbody straps settled over her shoulders, cradling her instruments. 

There was only one thing left: her dagger. 

She lifted Embervein from its velvet-lined sheath, the blackened starsteel blade catching the lamplight and sending streaks of blue across the walls. The runes etched along its length glowed as she traced a fingertip along the blade, letting a whisper of her aether seep into the grooves. The metal drank it in gluttonously, the cold blue light intensifying as the latent fire stirred beneath the runes.

Severa adjusted the final strap of her crossbody harness and stepped into the corridor. Halveth was already there, leaning against the edge of the fountain that the Magister had definitely once told her to not lean against. A reinforced leather cuirass, light enough for mobility yet layered with thin steel plates over the vital points, covered her torso and a pair of vambraces and gauntlets protected her forearms. Across her back, a scabbard rested empty but ready, its straps adjusted for swift access, alongside a compact crossbow. Small pouches of reagents, smoke bombs, and a pair of throwing knives hung from her belt and harness. She looked like the most combative thaumaturge in all the lands.

“You’re choosing to bring the dagger with you,” Halveth commented as she saw Severa.

“Yes.”

“Have you mastered the second phase of edge-channeling yet?”

“I suppose.”

“When? I am your only certifier.”

“I’m bringing it with me and you’ll judge my mastery then.”

Weapon mastery—and especially the fine control required for aether channeling into offensive artifacts—had always been Severa’s weak point. It didn’t help that a frustrating proportion of worthwhile dungeon rewards turned out to be blades, spears, and other such things meant for people who actually enjoyed swinging them.

“I’ve told you this dungeon might be unlike anything you’ve seen before,” Halveth said. “I don’t suppose you’re thinking this is going to be a pleasant stroll?”

“Of course not. That’s why I’m bringing my best relic.”

Halveth looked at her for another moment, unconvinced, before turning to the front gate. “Daylight’s fading. We best be on our way.” Then, as if remembering something, she turned back and extended her hand. “Your forged ring, Severa, as per your request.”

Nestled in her palm was a band of darksteel chased with a thin seam of ruby, the result of fusing Severa’s last rare-grade focus ring with another of its elemental opposite. The ringsmith—Arven Tolbrecht, master of his craft and utterly humorless—had claimed the pairing shouldn’t work at all, then grudgingly admitted it did. The opposing resonances, he said, had somehow stabilized into a sharp, clean aether flow. Enough, at least, to give her synaptic timing a measurable edge.

Severa slipped it on, feeling the metal settle against her skin like it belonged there. A quick Invocation of Staggered Radiance; one she’d always found annoyingly prone to sputtering—ran smooth and crisp this time, the light blooming with more force than she expected. A faint smile tugged at the corner of her mouth. Yes. This would do.

Berrick, reliable as ever, had a carriage waiting to take them directly to the dungeon’s outer gate. The ride would take less than thirty minutes, which meant there would be plenty of time for conversations.

They got on. The wheels jolted over increasingly uneven cobblestones, and the glow of the city walls dimmed as it slipped past the small window in rhythmic flashes. 

Halveth sat across from her, one arm draped over the seat, helm resting in her lap. “You turned Forsing down,” she said without preamble. “Why?”

Severa met her gaze briefly, then looked back at the window. “Because I did.”

“That’s not an answer,” Halveth replied. “You know I would have accepted in your place. Especially given . . . our circumstances.”

“I am nothing if not stubborn,” Severa said.

She had every right to be. Forsing’s words had landed like a slap to her pride, stirring a fierce, almost reckless determination. Every instinct in her body screamed to prove him wrong—not just to show him, but to prove it to herself.

She would clear this dungeon, right then, right there. And the timing—by the Flamus, the timing. Tomorrow was her birthday. For most, that meant a celebration. But not for a Montreal. A birthday in her bloodline was no soft, private occasion; it was a public testament. Her forebears had treated the day as both ledger and trial, each birthday another line inscribed in the family’s long, austere record of excellence. And her father, the Magister, would be there.

She had to have something to show for her birthday.

Halveth studied her for a moment then sighed. “You were lucky it was Forsing. You may have pissed him off, but at the end of the day, I trust he still meant you no harm.”

For a moment, Severa questioned whether upsetting Forsing had been the right decision. His estimated drop in attitude had been 2.9% after the refusal; negligible. But she shouldn’t be thinking about that. She should be thinking of challenging herself in the upcoming dungeon; her favorite pastime.

The carriage slowed to a halt on the dirt path, lanterns swaying in the cooling dusk air. Ahead, the dungeon’s entrance rose from the hillside like the mouth of some petrified beast—arched stone, weathered glyphs, and the dim gleam of a containment seal, its light throbbing with patient regularity.

The sigil belonged to the Order. Heavy, old magic—layers upon layers of wards designed to keep whatever was inside from becoming anyone’s problem. To most, it was an impenetrable wall of light and willpower.

To Halveth, it was an inconvenience.

She stepped forward, placing one gauntleted hand against the barrier. She cast a Water-affinity spell called Tidewave Unweaving, and the seal shivered beneath her touch. Ripples spread in concentric circles, as though the magic were a pond disturbed by a single drop. The luminous threads of the ward began to loosen, drawn apart like wet silk unraveling in the current. One by one, the layers of light bled into a fine mist that drifted away in the evening air, until only the yawning dark of the dungeon mouth remained.

Her magic had always been simplistic and capable.

“There,” Halveth said, stepping back and adjusting her vambrace. “Entry’s clear. For now.”

Severa stepped forward. The moment she stepped past the threshold into the dungeon, Halveth’s voice dropped into a register that was almost swallowed by the dark space. “Remember, Severa Montreal. At the first sign of doubt, we retreat.”

“Understood, Mentor.”

The light from outside dimmed into an emerald gloom as they stepped into what the Guild registries called a Drakeshroud Expanse, a sprawling dungeon-type notorious for wyvern colonies and their symbiotic ecosystems. For Severa, it was an old favorite. She’d always found the hunt here to be an elegant balance of danger and control; wyverns were intelligent enough to test a fighter’s adaptability, but predictable enough to read once you’d learned their patterns.

Technically, the Expanse’s first section wasn’t supposed to house them. The entry biome was meant to be a Lowland Hollow—wide plains of windblown grass and scattered basalt ridges, populated only by warren-lizards, horned hares, and the occasional sky-manta drifting lazily overhead.

However.

The first thing she saw, even before her eyes had fully adjusted to the dimness, were shapes wheeling above—broad wings catching the faint green light that seeped through the aetheric sky far overhead. The ceiling was impossibly high, lost in mist and shifting clouds, and the cavern floor stretched into a horizon so distant it almost felt wrong to call it a cavern at all. This was no confined corridor. It was a self-contained world, suspended in the folds of the aetheric realm.

And the shadows circling there weren’t sky-mantas. From a distance they might have been mistaken for sky-mantas—until the shadows passed overhead. These were bigger, far bigger, wingspans that could swallow a skiff whole, necks coiling like ship-rigging under strain. And the sound they made wasn’t the song-whistle of a manta; it was a tearing, metallic scream.

They were wyverns.

“If this is the first level, this isn’t a Tier II Dungeon,” Halveth said. Forsing wasn’t trying to scare her. He was speaking the truth.

If Halveth stays close, nothing bad can really happen. The thought came as naturally as breathing, and it steadied Severa’s pulse.

She drew her weapon. The dagger’s starsteel laid dormant until she spoke the shaping words.

“Steel that sleeps, awake in flame,

Curve and burn, now take your name.”

Heat gathered in her chest and raced down her arm as she invoked a Fire-channeling spell, Tier III, Rank IV: Invocation of Phoenix Shaping. High-level spells like these often required precise emotional channeling; and she’d chosen the most suitable emotion according to Thaumaturgic theory: triumphant confidence.

Many spells require specific emotional channeling to amplify the effect or even allow them to be cast at all. For example, the direct output of the Invocation of Phoenix Shaping might be X, but this same fire spell cast with channelled confidence might bring the output up to 150% of X. Other methods of non-thaumaturgic spellcasting in this world might be much less complicated, but they often have to circumvent this limitation by using prepared foci, artifacts, or alchemical fuel.

The rune etched into the hilt flared to life, veins of molten light racing along the blade’s length until it turned a blazing blue.Where her confidence peaked, the blue deepened, and tiny sparks of green flared in the heart of the flame like the flare of copper in a forge, producing brief, bright bursts that leapt along the curve of the blade before vanishing into the heat. Fire sculpted the tip of the dagger, lengthening it into a slender, predatory curve. Steel became the heart of the flame, until all that remained was the arc itself: scorching blue heat, so hot the air shimmered around it. The curve was that of a falcon’s talon, built to cut on the draw and again on the return.

Two of the shadows broke formation, angling toward her in sharp spirals. Their wingbeats churned the mist into violent swirls.

Lowland skirverns, juvenile by the wing-shoulder proportion. 

Halveth could probably guess it too, but Severa’s mind supplied the rest automatically: brittle bone ridges, thin scale seams at the jaw hinge, tendency to overcommit on the dive. Weakness: lateral neck strike, preferably on the glide-in.

She smiled, turning slightly so the light of her blade painted a curved smear across the cavern floor. “Merry,” she said without looking away from the approaching shapes, “witness my mastery.”

The wyverns screeched as the flame along her weapon surged, stretching in a sweep so wide it seemed to slice the horizon itself. It reached far beyond the steel itself, curving like the tail of a comet.

The first skirvern dove straight into that killing curve. The fire devoured its scale with a sizzling sound. Its head tumbled away and the rest of its body dove straight into the ground.

She swung the dagger again, this time in a whiplash curve. The second head tumbled to the ground.

Severa turned back to Halveth, and her lips curved into a smile as she saw the Prefect’s nod.

“You’ve been training,” Halveth said.

“I’ve been training,” Severa replied as her entire body sparked green, the color of confidence.