Despite Rosato immediately rounding on Dorothea to tell her not to tempt fate, nothing approached them for the next few minutes as they spread out throughout the room and looked around. The first time Lindle and the Nine-tails had passed through here, Dorothea had scanned everything in sight for hints about the people who had inhabited the academy while everyone else had been searching for loot, but her ability to gather information from the banners and rubble had been limited. This time, however, they had an advantage. A local.

  Well, Notwick was only sort of a local. Dorothea had asked to steal some of Notwick’s time early on after they had retrieved them in order to interview a first hand witness about the elves and people who had lived in their era, but to limited success. The fact that Notwick had still been learning Helvitician and could only communicate verbally with Lindle had been issues, but the main sticking point had been that before going into their millennia-long hibernation, Notwick had only been conscious for a couple of months. Technically speaking, they’ve been aware for less than a year in total. The only structured form of education they had ever gone through was entirely focused on artificing and directly related subjects. They had never been outside of the academy, had only directly spoken regularly with a small group of people, and were fairly ignorant of what the wider world had been like.

  Dorothea was sure there were plenty of pieces of valuable information Notwick had picked up through general interaction, but finding the right questions to ask combined with the other issues had been extremely tedious, and Dorothea wasn’t the most patient person. She had given up and settled on waiting for Notwick to be completed before continuing the interviews. However, there was one thing that Notwick had always been able to do that they were exploiting now. They could read Elvish.

  Not that the elves had called their own language Elvish, or even that only elves had used it. Apparently, it was actually called Apxaia, but Notwick wasn’t very stressed about the particulars. Nonetheless, Notwick could read it, and Lindle was helping them read aloud every written symbol and word they could find by holding the hedgehog up to the walls, rubble, and banners while Dorothea transcribed everything into a notebook. Not everything they found was an actual word, but instead a name or heraldry of some kind, but even that in of itself Dorothea found interesting.

  “That bit means ‘of enlightenment.’” Notwick translated as Lindle held them up to the largest banner in the room. They tilted their head as they looked over the first half of the string of symbols that were the most tattered, mouth moving silently as they sounded it out before a look of realization crossed their face. “Ah, it’s Goetiasar. Not really a word. It’s the name of the academy. The Goetiasar Academy of Enlightenment.”

  Dorothea’s lips scrunched in concentration, and she quickly scribbled out a line of symbols on her notepad before showing it to Notwick. “Is this what the symbols would look like normally?”

  When they nodded in confirmation, Dorothea began to vibrate with visible excitement. “These symbols were found in several other elvish ruins! They must have all been referring to this place!”

  Her enthusiasm was infectious enough that Lindle couldn’t help but smile as well. He lowered his arms and looked down at Notwick. “Looks like you were made in a place that was a pretty big deal, huh?” He looked down the hallway into the rest of the dungeon. Just how much more history was hidden down there?

  Lindle felt some pride begin emanating from the homunculus. “Well, of course. Not just anywhere could have designed and built homunculi as advanced as me.” They crossed their forelimbs smugly, though the gesture was a bit more awkward than it would have been on a humanoid.

  They continued the translations as the two parties continued down the hallway to the library. Even though they had cleared the hallway of traps the first time through, they still kept their guard up for any changes the dungeon may have implemented in the meantime. Lindle noticed that Humphrey was paying especially close attention to the motions Theodore went through as they moved. He supposed that traps meant for monsters and beasts were pretty different from traps meant for delvers. He appreciated that Humphrey was taking learning their party role in the whole adventurer thing seriously. Though, he still did need to tease him about it obviously.

  Lindle gave his friend an exaggerated thumbs up with a smirk, to which he responded with a sigh at being caught before pointedly looking away from Lindle. That was how Humphrey noticed the slight distortion in the wall further down the hallway. “Huh, hey, wait a minute,” The ranger called out, causing the group to pause as Humphrey peered at the wall. “That section of stone looks sort of blurry.”

  A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

  Theodore looked too, and nodded. “Illusion on the wall.” His mask shifted in Humphrey’s direction for a moment. “Good catch.” The human stalked ahead of everyone to inspect the illusion while they waited. Lindle caught the small smile on Humphrey’s face before he could hide it.

  “Good job, man. Maybe Theodore’ll give you some pointers later. I might be able to make you a pair of daggers later if you want to ask for lessons from him too.” Lindle ribbed him.

  “Shut it,” Humphrey grumbled as he elbowed Lindle in the arm.

  “A mask should be possible too.” Lindle continued before Thalia walked up next to him and gave him a light flick, though he was pretty sure the only reason she didn’t elbow him too was because he was holding Notwick with that arm.

  “Be nice.” She sighed. “I don’t know why you gotta make fun of him when he’s getting along with instead of complaining about someone from Soarstrum.”

  “Not my fault you lucked out meeting one of the only decent Soarian partys with a tracker worth a damn,” Theodore mumbled before looking at Chip, Rosato, and Dorothea. “No offense.”

  The older adventurers looked at each other before shrugging. “I mean, you’re not entirely wrong,” Rosato responded.

  Lindle raised an eyebrow. “What do you mean? Are rogues rare or something in Soarstrum?” He thought about the various adventuring parties that he had seen pass through the Reach over the course of his life. He supposed he did see rogues a lot less than the extremely common warrior and caster types, but he figured that was because they were, you know, stealthy.

  “Eh…” Rosato made a so-so gesture. “It’s not usually the most popular option for a class type, at least if you’re in a position to make that choice.”

  “You mean, if you were born too poor to learn magic or combat.” Chip interrupted.

  Rosato shrugged. “Yeah… It’s not like there’s a lack of rogues running around Soarstrum, but not too many of them get classes suited for adventuring over, well, stealing. They’re pretty invaluable for dungeons though, so they’re usually snatched up by the wealthiest groups. I suppose not a lot of those teams come south to the Glacial Reach very often.”

  Dorothea nodded. “The Reach has a decent amount of dungeons, but not nearly as many as back home, especially since most of the ones we know about are only reachable every several years, depending on where you all settle down in that Cycle of yours. Most adventurers come to the Reach for the EXP. The climate and monsters mean it’s a good place for journeymen to gather a good chunk of EXP for the push toward veteran if they’re willing to take the risks.”

  Lindle raised an eyebrow. He wasn’t sure how he felt about that. Before the conversation could continue, Theodore called out. “No trap!”

  They all turned to see the rogue waving their hand through the illusory wall, sinking into the false stone. “Dorothea, can you get rid of this? I think there’s a door behind this, and I want to be able to check for surprises.”

  The kitsune joined Theodore, casting a spell over the wall as the rest of them gathered behind them. The wall faded, revealing a small alcove with a wooden door. Theodore gave her a nod before kneeling in front of the door.

  “No lock…” He murmured. “No wards either…” Theodore stood up. “If everyone could stand back.” He said before slowly opening the door, poking his head inside. Before Lindle could see what was inside, the rogue stopped.

  They all waited in confusion as Theodore didn’t move for a few seconds, before the rogue suddenly pulled back and shut the door. Lindle noticed that even though he practically slammed it, the door made no noise.

  “What was it?” Rosato questioned.

  “Big.” Theodore seemed to silently take a few deep breaths before continuing. “Big sleeping manticore. Right behind the door. I practically put my head in its mouth.”

  They all absorbed that information silently, manticores were a solitary species of monster that lived in the mountain ranges crossing the Glacial Reach, the same ones that Madam Holly had Lindle trek into for their milestone right. They usually were near the peak of what a journeyman monster was capable of.

  Dorothea suddenly straightened up in excitement. “Did you say sleeping? Was it glowing?”

  “Yeah. Glowing and fast asleep. We should probably be quiet if we don’t want to wake it up.” He whispered.

  Dorothea suddenly rushed forward, and before anyone could stop her, she threw the door open wide. They all stepped backward as a massive body of fur, wing, and chitin was revealed. Snoring peacefully in front of Dorothea was a manticore, glowing with a soft blue light. Its main body resembled that of a lion as big as the Spear Tyrant or White Mammoth, but with big, leathery wings and a hanging scorpion's tail hanging overhead. The strangest feature however in Lindle’s opinion was its face, which resembled that of an ape but also with feline features and oversized fangs like that of a sabertooth.

  “Dorothea!” Rosato. “Get away from it before it wakes up!”

  Ignoring her cousin, Dorothea gasped in delight. “This is so rare! I can’t believe we came at the perfect time!” Finally, she seemed to notice everyone standing ready with weapons. “Oh no, everyone don’t worry, it’s harmless.”

  She turned around. “You remember that pangolin?” Lindle and the older adventurers nodded hesitatingly.

  She raised her arms as if demonstrating a grand discovery. “Well, we came just in the middle of the dungeon creating its replacement!”