The six of us stood in line to enter the Ironcastle dungeon. Maxwell, Piper, and Luna all seemed relaxed and calm. Aria seemed curious and interested... but poor Iris looked terrified.

  "Are you sure this is a good idea?" Iris asked hesitantly as we got one step closer to the entrance. She was wearing some light leathers and held the wind Grimoire Maxwell had found for her yesterday under one of her arms. Iris hadn't had any opportunity to attempt any magic from it yet. Everyone else had agreed that she should kill a few monsters first. Iris had stayed up late reading it though, and had finished skimming most of it already.

  Aria slapped her back, which almost made the poor girl fall flat on her face. "Relax, Iris! Where'd all that confidence from yesterday go?"

  "That was before I looked into the mouth of a dungeon," Iris admitted.

  Unlike the Fallow dungeon, which had a reasonably non-descript stairwell as its entrance, Ironcastle's dungeon had large vaulting walls with overhanging stalactites that gave it an ominous fanged look at the entrance. Large stone doors had been constructed into the side of the mountain at its mouth, with a portcullis in front of it to keep anything from escaping out into the city. The entire courtyard area we were waiting in was surrounded by stone walls with the city's soldiers manning them. After experiencing the last dungeon, it all seemed like reasonable precautions against monsters escaping into the city. Except...

  "I thought monsters couldn't leave their floors. Why does the front of the dungeon look like a castle anyway?" I asked.

  Maxwell looked back at me. "Sometimes delvers can accidentally pull out trains of monsters when they get overwhelmed on the first floor in some dungeons. There are also rare events where all the monsters inside of a dungeon can spill out in what's called a 'dungeon break.' It doesn't happen often, but it can completely wipe out a city if people are unprepared for it. Ironcastle's dungeon has been exploited for a long time now, and I've never heard of it having an actual dungeon break here though. Still, with a city of Ironcastle's size, it would be a gigantic disaster."

  "What monsters do we have to look forward to on the first floor of this dungeon?" I asked.

  Piper laughed. "Your favorite, slimes and giant rats."

  I frowned. "That sounds awful."

  "They aren't as difficult as the rats or slimes you fought in the other dungeon. The slimes are less acidic as well," Piper reassured me.

  "Not my favorite monsters to eat," I commented quietly.

  Iris turned to me with a disgusted look. "Why would you eat monsters?"

  "Shush, not so loud," Aria said while flicking the girl's mouse ear.

  "Oww, that hurts," Iris pouted.

  I realized that while I had told Iris a little bit about my abilities, I hadn't told her the... messier parts of it. "I'll tell you with the rings," I said aloud before switching. ("I told you about being able to take the form of a bipedal umber hound, right? To fuel that power, I need to eat monster meat because it contains a lot of magic. If I encounter new monsters, I can also eat their hearts to gain some of their power.")

  "That sounds horrible," Iris said with a disgusted look.

  I grinned. "It's not so bad. I get to try all sorts of exotic foods."

  Everyone else laughed when Iris scoffed.

  "It's our turn now," Piper said to refocus our attention on the front.

  "Papers," the draco guard said.

  Maxwell handed him a sheaf of papers that the guard pulled out, checked, and handed back. "Good luck in there," the guard said as he stepped out of our way.

  Iris clutched her book and held her breath when we stepped through the portcullis and walked through the large stone door. At first the path looked like a cave, but slowly the air became more humid. At the end of the path as the cave opened up, it was as if we had been transported somewhere else entirely. The rocky interior faded into lush grass covered in thick and cool fog. Despite having walked through a cave early in the morning, there was an open sky above us and the familiar scent of rain that wasn't present outside.

  "Those dark purple clouds in the sky look really ominous," Aria said while looking up. I couldn't actually see the clouds or their color with the blindfold on, and there were too many people around to transform here, so I would have to take her word for it.

  I looked around. There were several groups of people preparing their gear before they seemingly walked in random directions out into the fog. There were several rows of stone pillars that seemed to form paths or trail markers in different directions. They weren't close enough together to call them walls, but they created distinct landmarks to orient yourself around. Like the previous dungeon, everything including the floors, the stone pillars, and even the fog, glowed with enough mana to see them clearly with the blindfold on. Luckily the fog wasn't as difficult to see through as it had been with my natural eyes.

  "Why didn't you tell me there was fog?" I asked.

  "I forgot that it was relevant... Not that you can use that on this floor anyway with other people around," Maxwell replied.

  "Will I be able to use that at all in this dungeon?" I asked.

  "The dungeon is large enough that the groups thin out a lot on later floors, but we're much more likely to run into others than in the Fallow dungeon past the sixth floor," Maxwell said as he adjusted the strap of his new shield. It glowed faintly with magical light to my blindfold. It wasn't as large as Maxwell's previous shield, which was unfortunate, but he would be able to block things that he hadn't been able to properly fight before.

  ("On most floors you should be able to hear anyone coming before we run into them. Most of them aren't open like this,") Luna said to all of us.

  "We-we're not going that deep today anyway, right?" Iris asked.

  "No. We're just going to track down a few monsters for you to kill today. This trip is mostly to help your growth along," Maxwell said, reassuring her. He turned to me. "Can you track anything? Rats or slimes?"

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  I tilted my head up and sniffed the air. "It's hard to smell anything over the smell of rain right now. Let's head deeper into the dungeon first and maybe I can do something to make it easier."

  "Sounds good. I'll lead for now." Maxwell said.

  As we walked forward, I used my ring to pull out my axe and rested its familiar weight on my shoulder. Iris's eyes widened a little as she looked up at it.

  I frowned when I looked down at her. "Iris, hand me the grimoire for now. You need your hand free in here."

  "Oh! R-right," she paused before handing me the grimoire, which I whisked into my storage ring. All of us had contributed to buying the grimoire, so she didn't really have the right to refuse me and it wasn't like she should be looking at it in the dungeon anyway.

  We walked through the dungeon for around a half hour before Maxwell stopped and placed his hand on one of the stones. "This should be far enough away from anyone for now," Maxwell said.

  I nodded and pulled the hood of my armor over my head. I carefully regulated the mana to partially transform my head again so that I would be able to better track things by scent. Like last time I was in fog, the area in front of me lit up as my glowing eyes reflected off the water in the air.

  Iris squeaked and shrunk back when I glanced at her with my transformed face. "You look like a beastkin... a scary one with those eyes though..."

  "Don't worry, it's still me," I tried to reassure her. I wasn't sure if my wolfish grin was that helpful based on the facial expression she had.

  I took a deep breath and caught the scent of a rat. My transformed ears took in the nearby sounds and I could hear the telltale sound of squelching from one of the slimes too. "Rat or slime? I can hear both," I asked.

  "Rat would be better," Aria suggested. "She'll have to kill something that looks like a normal animal, but it'll be easier for us to restrain it for her."

  "I uh... really apologize if this is offensive. But killing a rat monster won't be a problem for you, will it, Iris?"

  "No? Why would it be offensive?" Iris asked while furrowing her brows.

  "Uh, never mind. Don't worry about it," I replied sheepishly. I wasn't sure how to ask if killing the animals that resembled her was something that would usually bother beastkin. It felt like an embarrassing enough question that I didn't even want to ask Luna about it.

  "There's a rat that way," I said while pointing off in the distance. "Once we get closer I'll be able to track it better by sound."

  My wolf ears twitched before pushing through the hood on my head. The feeling was odd so I reached up to touch them. I couldn't feel a hole. It was as if they were just going right through the hood.

  ("Luna, something weird is happening to my ears, can you look for me?") I asked.

  ("Sure, crouch down.") I followed her instructions and felt her hands touch my ears and trail along them until they reached the hood. She pulled the hood up a little which also felt rather odd but I couldn't really compare the feeling to anything, it just felt weird.

  ("Your ears are going right through the hood like it's not even there,") Bella said after a while. ("It's pretty difficult to even find where your ears start and the hood ends. They look like they're made of the same stuff, the smoky magic that trails off of you.")

  ("That's weird, isn't it?") I asked.

  ("Well... Yes. But your transformation came from the umber hound this armor is made from. Perhaps that has something to do with it?") Luna suggested.

  ("Maybe...") I replied.

  "Are you two okay? You're falling behind." Piper asked.

  I touched my ears. "Just noticed something strange with my armor and my ears. Nothing concerning though, I think."

  Piper nodded. "Well, okay. Can you hear the rat yet?"

  I perked my ears and nodded. "It's that way, let's go get it." I fully closed my lantern and shifted back everything but my ears now that we were closer.

  The six of us approached the rat. It was pretty weak so I wasn't that interested in eating it really. Which was a relief since the idea of eating rats still felt gross even though I knew they were fine. It hadn't noticed us yet.

  Aria activated her stealth ring and seemed to blend into the shadows even more. ("Iris has to be the one to kill it. I'll go grab it since I think I might be able to sneak up on it the best with this new ring.")

  I pulled a length of rope from my ring and waited for her to go for it. She crept forward. Her new ring was doing an amazing job of hiding her in the fog and shadow. It was impressive how effective the ring was at improving her already strong stealth skills. Once she was in lunging range she crouched down and with an explosive dash, tackled the rat and pulled the struggling monster against her chest. Side by side, it was even more apparent how much more magic Aria had in her body than this giant rat, and that was reflected by how easily Aria was able to hold it still despite its wild struggling. I quickly approached with the rope and worked to hogtie the monster for her. I may have broken some of its legs by accident, though.

  Placing the hogtied monster on the ground, I took a step back away from it and wiped off the water that had collected on my face from the fog. "Okay, what's next?" I asked.

  "All of us get away from it and let Iris kill it before any other monsters come by," Piper said.

  "Are you sure that rope will hold it?" Iris asked hesitantly.

  "It's not going anywhere, don't worry," Aria said while grinning at me. She may have heard a few bones snapping.

  Maxwell nodded. "Alright, we'll take some distance on all sides. Helena, listen for other monsters and be ready to step in if the monster somehow does wiggle out of that tie. Iris, once we tell you, take your dagger and push it through the rat's skull."

  "Okay!" Iris said more confidently than she looked.

  All of us took some distance away, surrounding her on all sides, and I kept my eyes focused on her in case I needed to intervene and save her from the monster for any reason. Iris pulled the dagger out of its sheath, held it up, and slammed it down into the monster's skull.

  My eyes widened as I watched the mana explode out of the monster. I had never witnessed it this carefully before. There was a small point in Iris's chest that began to suck up a lot of that magic, but I could see even more of it being wasted. It spread out in every direction and thinned as if it had been blown away by the wind. Once all of the loose mana had faded, the magic she had absorbed flowed back into the rest of her body, and her mana signature notably deepened to my magical sight. Iris was now empowered and took the first step in becoming a true delver.

  Hello! We're finally headed back into the dungeon and get to see the process of Iris becoming empowered! Iris needs a bit of help at first, but she'll definitely get the dungeon experience before long! I hope you enjoyed the chapter, thanks for reading!

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