The following morning found us on horseback, heading down the cobbled path toward Elderstead, a modest township Anabeth claimed was not far from her family’s the estate of some family she just happened to know but couldn’t quite recall the name of. Silvermane’s gait was smooth and steady, though my peace of mind was anything but.

  Anabeth rode behind me, seated side-saddle as though gravity itself had made a private arrangement with her. She was quite a compact person, slight in frame, and it would not have been an issue had she remained still. But alas, Anabeth did not know stillness.

  She rummaged through her satchel, producing yet another vial of slime slurry. “Ah! Failure again,” she sighed, flicking it aside. “But no matter—thirty-six more to go.”

  Before I could issue a lecture on roadside contamination, she produced yet another vial. “Now this one,” she announced with ominous enthusiasm, “should suffice. If my calculations are correct, a mild invocation ought to reconstitute Durand’s primary structure.”

  Anabeth uncorked the vial and began sketching spirals in the air with her fingers, her other hand braced against my shoulder for balance. Then both hands rose skyward as she recited something between a hymn and an explosion. “Lithogenesis: Resonant Recall...”

  A thin tremor passed through Silvermane’s reins as a burst of ochre light flashed behind us. The horse whinnied.

  Something popped. Not loudly, but with the wet, disappointing sound of a collapsing pudding. The ochre light fizzled into a thin wisp of smoke that smelled of burnt limestone.

  Anabeth slumped forward with a sigh that brushed the back of my neck. “Failure number thirty-two.” Then she perked up immediately. “But no matter! Thirty-six more samples to go.”

  Enough was enough.

  I bellowed, “Impudent sorceress! One more of your trifling experiments upon my saddle and I will see you returned to your tutors in shackles.”

  She giggled, “Let it be silver, Ser. Lesser metals offend my neck.”

  I groaned. How anyone could be this shameless was beyond me.

  Elderstead rose up like a smudge of hearthlight against the greenery as we rode into the late morning haze. I recognized the crooked bell tower from afar; every town had one of those for whatever rituals the townsfolk deemed necessary.

  Silvermane’s hooves clicked less urgently now, her gait settling into the kind of steady trot that lets a rider’s thoughts wander to dangerous things.

  Which was precisely how I found myself noticing the marsh to the west. Anabeth followed my glance and said, “That’s Gallowmere, Ser. There’s a slough there—three, if the travelers are to be believed. Little dungeons, mostly. They’d harrowed the trade lanes for years ever since they’d appeared.”

  A few weeks ago, the mention would have been an annoyance at best. Gallowmere’s knot of slime dens had eaten better men than me and spat them back into the road, mostly in pieces. It was the sort of hazard that required strength, experience, or a very inconvenient amount of luck. I would have gripped my reins and kept my eyes forward.

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  Now the thought hit me. I could clear that dungeon in a single morning and earn myself north of 700 Kohns. Confidence is a dangerous thing, but it is also an honest one. For the first time since Sir Roland called me a curiosity and the Order called me useless, I could picture the slimes dissolving beneath a spatter of lightning channeled into steel. The notion of clearing Gallowmere made my shoulders want to square like I was a flagbearer.

  But reckless optimism was how men ended up as fertilizer in Gallowmere’s swamps. The smarter path was clear enough: reach Elderstead, acquire the Lightning invocation, somehow gain 2 more APs, and then return to the marsh with the means to turn those slimes into profit. Unless an opportunity presents itself... say, a glowing stone on the side of the road that’d give me a Dungeon-specific Task for a reasonable boon, I wouldn’t venture into Gallowmere now. But of course, such opportunities would never—

  “Look, Ser Henry! A glowing stone on the side of the road!” Came Anabeth’s chirpy voice.

  Before I could utter a single word, Anabeth slipped off the saddle like a cat. Silvermane barely twitched. For a heartbeat, her cloak caught the wind and fluttered. Then she descended, impossibly soft-footed. The air around her seemed to bend for just a moment to cushion her, like the wavering distortion above desert sand. Must be some Air-based magic.

  She brushed the hem of her riding skirt and hopped toward the roadside glimmer. The stone pulsed a bluish-gold rhythm like a heartbeat trapped in quartz.

  Anabeth crouched and breathed, “Oh, fascinating! Crystalline aether residue, specifically a Lustrous Phonolite. But... goodness, what turbidity! Look at that occlusion band. Impure formation, yet it’s still maintaining an active glow!”

  I had no idea what she’d just said.

  “A Grade-III at best,” she went on, more to herself than to me. “But even so, the density is magnificent. Oh, Ser Henry, it’s probably linked to one of the local dungeon aetheric leyline!”

  ‘What is a leyline?’ I willed myself to ask.

  “You will answer me. What is the leyline?” I intoned. “Answer, or I will take your head and hang it from my saddle.”

  Silvermane snorted.

  Anabeth cocked her hip. “Oh, there are many ways to ask a lady to give you head without barking orders, Sir.” She then strolled over. “A leyline is the physical manifestation of the aether in the human realm. Think of it as a river of invisible current running beneath the world. Magi and artificers draw from those currents to amplify their aetheric output. But of course, the great Sir Knight must have known all of that and is merely testing me.” Then she handed me the stone. “Would you like to inspect?”

  I lifted the stone. Immediately, an apparition appeared in front of my eyes.

  Ah. An actual good boon. My fingers itched. I could already feel the energy buzzing along my gauntlets, ready to be channeled. Having enough AP to finally wield the Lightning spell, and this dungeon seemed—at least theoretically—well within my capability.

  Anabeth kept her grin on her. “I trust this pleases you, Ser? Nothing like a little practical acquisition to brighten one’s morning.”

  “I am in the mood for murder.” I flexed my gauntlets. “We slaughter slimes. Now.”

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