I was kind of curious what exactly the Nether Vein expeditioners had experienced, but my interest had initially just been academic at best. That was, until I learned that Khagnio had signed up and gone along with them, and had come back injured as well.

  “He seems to be in fine spirits regardless,” Ugnash said. “Scaly bastard is already preparing for the next trip down there.”

  “Didn’t he literally lose another limb?” Cerea asked.

  I winced. First the tail, thanks to my mana core awakening in Eversight dungeon. Now… well, I wasn’t sure which one he had lost this time, but it couldn’t have been pleasant, regardless of what Ugnash said about Khagnio’s state of mind.

  The three of us had met up to go pay him a visit. Apparently, the Councillors had ensured that everyone who had gone on the Nether Vein expedition was welcome on Ring One, as well as anyone associated with them, like friends or family. So it was that Ugnash, Cerea, and I didn’t need any letters or invitations or anything of the sort, except for our Adventurer’s Guild badges.

  Ring One was more packed than I had ever seen it before. Citizens were scurrying here and there, populated by people of all the Rings, from the shoddy work clothes of Ring Three, through the gaudy nobles’ attire of Ring Two, to the crisp uniforms of Ring One.

  “Quite the gathering,” I said.

  “That’s the power of the Nether Vein for you,” Ugnash said. “The healers’ pavilion is this way.”

  The smell of sterilization guided us towards a wide pavilion that had been sectioned into tiny areas, each one housing a single patient. I didn’t know the specifics of how many people had gone on the Nether Vein expedition. Going by how many injured lay in the pavilion, I guessed there had been at least thirty to forty people.

  Right. This was an expedition. Not a simple dungeon delve.

  We spotted our target before long. I once again winced. Last time, Khagnio had lost his tail. This time, his left forearm was missing entirely. Though, like his tail, a facsimile made of Netherthreads was stuck in place of the actual limb.

  “Oh, it’s just you fools,” Khagnio said, shaking his head dejectedly when we made it to his little section.

  There wasn’t a whole lot of space, so I was kind of getting squished by Ugnash.

  “Good to see you too, Khagnio,” I said.

  “Who in the Pits were you expecting?” Cerea asked. She sniffed. “It’s alright, this just means I get to keep all your get-well-soon gifts for myself.”

  Khagnio’s slit pupils thinned. “You brought gifts?”

  “He was probably expecting a visit from one or more of the Councillors,” Ugnash said, looking around. “I heard a few have already come to pay their respects, and one of them was in the pavilion too.”

  “Yeah, no wonder we’re being treated like downgrades,” I said.

  We poked and prodded Khagnio about the expedition, while he started perusing all the gifts that we—well, alright, Cerea—had thoughtfully bought for him.

  “You know exactly what it was like already, mageling,” he said, munching on an insect-snack. “It’s more of the same. We just went deep enough to face a lot of the bastards.”

  That wasn’t a great answer and he knew it, which was why some more prodding got him to loosen his tongue.

  Khagnio went on to explain how they had taken several days in the Nether Vein not by choice, but because time started to get strange once thresholds within it were crossed. One of the expeditioners had actually attempted to keep track of the passage of time and had nearly been driven mad by the inconsistency when they had returned.

  Fascinating. I recalled not having felt much of any temporal weirdness, but then again, the expedition had gone a lot deeper than we had.

  It was the obstacles they had faced that were more of the same, as Khagnio put it. Wildly powerful monsters, occasionally accompanied by oddities like a mist that somehow always made them turn around to end up back where they had started.

  That was why there were a lot of people involved. For one, tackling more powerful monsters needed greater numbers if the adventurers themselves weren’t strong enough on their own. For another, the accompanying Councillors were powerful enough to get past the Nether Vein’s less straightforward obstacles, while also holding enough firepower to beat any monster.

  I also learned how they were progressing. Apparently, the Councillors had figured out a way to make sections of the Nether Vein completely safe by using material and mana cores found within the passages.

  These essentially set up checkpoints that safeguarded wide swathes of areas against both the Netherthreads and any monsters or other obstacles the Nether Vein could throw at them.

  “What about the treasures?” Ugnash asked. “Didn’t you all acquire a decent amount of loot down there?”

  Khagnio tutted dismissively. “Calling what we found in the Nether Vein mere loot is why I’m the one braving the dangers while you’re stuck here, you big oaf.”

  “Right, right, grouch later you scaly skulker. Tell us about the Pits-cursed treasures.”

  Exhaling some further grumbles under his breath, Khagnio went on to relay what sort of treasures they had found—mana stones of such quality, even the Councillors were awed, small deposits of the exact metal that the Nether Vein itself was made out of, which turned out to be a crystallized form of mana itself, and even contraptions that drove the Nether Vein made of the strange manametal and Netherthreads.

  “Wait,” Cerea said. “None of that sounds like the typical treasures we’re used to from dungeons. Which I guess makes sense since the Nether Vein isn’t exactly a dungeon.”

  “You don’t get it,” Khagnio said. “The treasures we recovered are so much more magical, so much more powerful than your typical dungeon treasures, they don’t even compare. They’re out of this world!” He glanced at me. “Not—not the mageling kind of out of this world.”

  I snorted. “Yeah, I get it.”

  As in, I got what Khagnio meant with “out of this world”. I doubted I’d get the appeal of the Nether Vein treasures without seeing them first-hand. It definitely sounded interesting, but was it really so amazing that the Councillors were willing to hold an auction that drew in people from all over Falsient?

  We chatted lightly for some time afterwards. Khagnio really was raring to go again, despite having lost another limb. The guy was nuts.

  “Are you sure you’re not getting any further nightmares or anything from them?” I asked him. “At this rate, there’s going to be more Netherthreads than flesh-and-blood Khagnio.”

  “So what?” Khagnio tutted with a hiss. “I’m still perfectly me. And no, I haven’t been plagued by nightmares since the Blight Swarm incident. I told you that crazy crap you pulled in the Nether Vein affected me too, didn’t I? Plus, I never had a centuries old vampire stuck in my soul.”

  He knew the whole deal with my Netherthread-driven Heart Demon somehow having Zoltan Kalnislaw’s soul trapped inside it.

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  I sighed. “So long as you’re sure.”

  “My wings are fine,” he said, patting his leathery wings fondly. “That’s all that matters.”

  He was the only one among us who seemed perfectly okay with it. Cerea and I exchanged dubious looks, while Ugnash just shook his head disapprovingly.

  With our little catch-up pretty much done, I thought I’d be taking my leave, but it turned out I wasn’t done on Ring One just yet. A Se-Targa floated over to us, wearing the same deep blue uniform as the rest of the Ring One officers serving under the Councillors.

  “Lord Moreland?” he asked after locating me. “Or is it Cultist, Adventurer, Mage, Saviour, Workaholic—”

  I held up my hand. “Alright, alright, geez. I’ll come with you. Just please stop Councillor Se-Vigilance from… doing that.”

  The rest of my teammates were either chortling or smirking. All except Khagnio, who looked a little glum at not being called in as well. I understood him. After all, he was the one who had gone on the expedition, not me.

  “You better tell me what’s going on, mageling,” he called out as I left.

  “Yeah, yeah, and you better stop losing your Pits-cursed limbs.”

  Se-Vigilance was working. I thought she looked a little tired, a little paler than usual, and there was a nasty wound right below her neck that was weirdly bleeding what looked like Netherthreads. But despite all that, she was still poring over a strange map with little pins and other markers all over it.

  “Ah, you’re here,” she said. She didn’t look up to greet me. “Would you like a seat, or is standing preferable?”

  “If I really get to choose, then the choice depends on how long this will take, Councillor.” I frowned at the wound on her neck. “Excuse my frankness, but shouldn’t you get that looked at? You’re starting to remind me of Khagnio… which isn’t a good thing, trust me.”

  “Ah, yes. Your Scalekin adventurer friend. I regret his condition but as you can see, we are all suffering similarly.”

  “Is that why I’m here?”

  Se-Vigilance finally looked up. “Not quite. I assume you’ve heard about what’s happened in the Nether Vein.”

  “More or less.”

  I explained how much Khagnio had informed me, which didn’t feel like a lot. Khagnio was a terrible storyteller.

  “Ah, that’s missing a rather crucial detail.”

  “I knew it,” I grumbled.

  “While we have erected several of these, er, checkpoints as you call them, we are now stymied from making any further progress because I suspect that the Nether Vein is tricking us.”

  “Tricking you?” I frowned. “How?”

  “We were making good progress for a while, but eventually, we found a dead end. Dead ends, rather.” Se-Vigilance was getting more worked up with every word she spoke, which made the little spout of Netherthreads at her neck flare stronger. The other Se-Targa raised a concerned hand, but she ignored it. “Every direction we went, we only found solid walls.”

  “A trick…” I did my best to ignore how those Netherthreads at her neck writhed like worms trying to escape her throat. “You think those dead ends aren’t real?”

  “I’m positive. I just haven’t found proof of it.”

  “Wait, so how am I supposed to help? Are you saying I could… I don’t know, Sacrifice away the dead end to reveal the real path forward or something?”

  Her glimmering eyes fixed on me with avid interest. “Could you do such a thing?”

  “I don’t know. Couldn’t tell you without testing for myself. It’s technically not mine, you see.”

  “But this can be yours, yes?” She proceeded to hand me a strange chunk of metal. I got the impression she wanted me to use Soul Sight, which wasn’t going to work on something that had never had a soul to begin with. But then I turned the surprisingly heavy chunk of storm-grey metal and blinked.

  “Is that… a mana core?” I asked.

  Embedded within the metal chunk was glowing liquid that had hardened into a crystal, pulsing gently with energetic light. Having figured out that it was a piece of the Nether Vein’s walls, the only conclusion I could draw was that this non-metallic portion had to be the remnant of a mana core, especially since Se-Vigilance wanted me to Sacrifice it with Soul Sight.

  “Indeed,” she said. “A piece of metal with an old mana core taken from a dead end. You can do it, correct? If I haven’t terribly misremembered your particular Sacrifice Affix, then you should be able to peer into whatever this chunk of metal and the associated mana core have seen, yes?”

  I slowly nodded. “If you consider mana cores as proof of life, then this should work.”

  “You aren’t our only option to get through the Nether Vein. But it would be foolish not to admit that you have the power to make future progress very… convenient.”

  “Thanks. I’m relieved to know everything isn’t riding on me. Just convenience.”

  Se-Vigilance smiled softly. “Before you go, please take this with you.” She didn’t actually hand me the prismatic feather. It just burst in front of me, wrapping me in opaline threads. “One of my assistants with the Aspect of Divination tried to look into it, but he is sadly wracked with nightmares now. This should help safeguard against them.”

  I stared, wishing I had been told that information a little earlier. “Thanks.”

  With the Councillor and her assistant looking on expectantly, I sent threads of Sacrifice into the chunk of metal and mana core.

  “Let’s see what the Nether Vein shows,” I said.

  [ Sacrifice

  You have Sacrificed 1 [Minor] Remnant of the Nether Vein. Windfall bonus activated.

  Reward: Soul Sight activated ]

  As ever, hot pain ricocheted through me before I was lost in another vision.

  So much of what I saw was all too familiar. The cavernous halls and passageways, the boundless metal lining every wall, ceiling, and floor, and all the mana cores dotting the Nether Vein like stars. I had seen it all twice now. Once when I had visited in person, and once before when I had sunk myself into another vision.

  At least this time, there were no Path Interaction shenanigans sending me spiritually into the past.

  I did my best to remain patient. Time was hard to tell in these visions, but no matter how much I witnessed in Soul Sight, not much real-world time ever seemed to pass. As such, I didn’t have to worry.

  What was worse than the actual passage of time was how boring it was. Not a lot happened. The last time, I had at least been saddled inside a creature whose life I could take some meagre entertainment from. Now, I was just stuck on a wall, shining down on everything below.

  That did make me wonder about the nature of the mana cores embedded in the Nether Vein walls. Normally, I thought of mana cores as energy storages or engines that ran on mana, a concentration of magic that formed within a living being.

  The Nether Vein wasn’t living. That was for sure. It wasn’t even as sentient as dungeons.

  Then where had these mana cores come from? With how the vision had started as part of the Nether Vein and not within the chest of a person, did that suggest that the mana core had been created in or on the Nether Vein directly? That seemed wild.

  Then there was the other implication. Se-Vigilance had said that she had taken this from a dead end. Yet… there was no dead end here.

  Just the constant, endless passageway big enough for a cruise liner to sail through.

  So, Se-Vigilance was right. Potentially. Either whatever blockade the expedition had faced was a trick, or something that appeared much later. I supposed waiting was the only way I’d be sure, so I did just that. I stayed patient and watched as the years lengthened to decades. At least, I assumed it was decades, if not centuries. I didn’t know when the Nether Vein had been created, or how long it had stood.

  The only bit I was pretty sure of was the fact that it had gone up after the Rupture.

  My battle against boredom was aided by the occasional passerby in the Nether Vein, or some strange event or other. I wasn’t surprised to see gigantic bugs that would go on to form the Blight Swarm. I was fascinated by the passing of more glowing figures, of strange beings I had yet to see on Ephemeroth, of big battles and even what looked like construction work within the Nether Vein.

  It was made harder by the way the Nether Vein was trying to seep into my mind, though I didn’t feel any of it. Either Se-Vigilance’s feather was powerful, or my visions were safe anyway, or maybe it was both.

  I hadn’t felt that sort of intrusion the last time I had gone through a vision of the Nether Vein. But then, I had Sacrificed a piece of a monstrous bug. Not a Nether Vein mana core.

  Trying to remember it all would be bad. I was here for a specific purpose, and the constant series of events was starting to hammer on my mind. I knew time was passing at a significantly accelerated rate in between events, or I’d probably have lost my mind by now. But the sheer volume of the Nether Vein’s history was starting to drag on me like a heavy weight.

  The best way I could keep my mind from turning into goo was by holding tightly onto my main goal—finding out what had happened in the Nether Vein that was stopping the expedition.

  I still hadn’t seen anything that could really present the kind of obstacle that could stop someone like a Councillor. It was hard to tell how long I waited, how long I had to struggle to keep my wayward mind on track. I even started thinking the whole exercise was futile and I had just wasted my last Soul Sight.

  Until I spotted a strange figure. Even from my high vantage point, I recognized that it was a person. A human.

  Someone who possessed enough power, who had a certain artifact or material or some kind of treasure, to change the very topography of the Nether Vein. I watched, mentally gawking, as a wall of metal shimmered into existence, an avalanche of steely threads emerging from the glowing substance.

  Well, looked like I had something interesting to report to Se-Vigilance.