Tess rolled over in her sleeping bag after reliving her first date as a couple with Arthur in her dreams. Her eyes slowly opened, and were met by Sylvie's staring right back at her with a smile.

"Good morning Sylvie," Tess greeted groggily.

"Good morning mama," Sylvie replied.

"Ahhh," Tess yelled, momentarily forgetting Sylvie could talk.

"Mama are you ok?" Sylvie asked urgently, her voice full of concern.

"Yeah I'm all right," Tess replied as she calmed down and remembered. "I just forgot that you can talk now."

"I know, isn't this exciting mama?" Sylvie asked excitedly.

"Yes it is," Tess replied with a smile as she petted her head. A thought then occurred to her. "Sylvie, why do you call me mama?"

"Because you're my mama," Sylvie replied innocently.

"And what do you call Arthur?"

"Papa."

"Is...is Arthur ok with you calling me mama? I mean, does he ever tell you not to?" Tess asked, not sure if she even should have asked, almost afraid of what the answer would be.

"Hmm," Sylvie thought for a moment. "He's never told me that. He's only ever said that I shouldn't forget about Sylvia, my mother."

Tess then picked Sylvie up and held her in her arms. "That's right, even though I'm your mama, you should never forget about your mother."

Sylvie then snuggled in Tess' arms happily. Tess then exited her tent with Sylvie, and noticed Arthur's tent was already taken down.

"Where's Arthur?" Tess asked as she looked around.

"He left with Jasmine to train about an hour ago," Helen replied as she, Durden, and Angela prepared breakfast over the fire.

This training for Arthur was nothing less than necessary after last night. Normally a mage only progresses one stage at a time, so they don't need to work that hard to get used to their new core level. However Arthur progressed three stages in an instant, so he had to put a little more work in. Jasmine was of course the most logical person to help him with this, due to the fact that she was at one time his mentor, and because she was the closest to Arthur's level at the light yellow stage.

Tess wished she could have helped Arthur, but due to her core restrictions, her strength was only at the mid yellow stage. This of course wasn't anything to be ashamed of, as she was at the light orange stage at the beginning of the school year, and just being in the yellow range at her age was quite the achievement.

She looked beyond the campfire to see Adam and Theo doing some intense sparing. Despite Adam being at the solid orange stage with no elemental affinity, and Theo at the light orange as a deviant gravity mage, Adam's superior experience was allowing him to keep Theo on his toes.

"Wow, they are really going at it," Tess commented as she watched the intense match.

"Yeah we all are now," Claire said as she walked up with a towel over her shoulder after washing up at a stream. "Curtis and I were sparring earlier, and Feyrith and Lilia are over that way dueling with Elijah and Kathyln." Claire shook her head. "Three stages in one night. I've never heard of an elixir that strong before."

"I doubt anyone has," Helen commented. "I just wish I knew where he got it from."

"We all do, but I have a feeling Arthur won't ever tell anyone," Curtis said as he also walked up, his voice sounding annoyed.

"If Arthur isn't telling us then he has to have a reason," Tess said in Arthur's defense.

"What kind of reason? Do you realize how big this is? The best elixir can take a mage from the light red to the dark orange stage. After that it takes a lot more, and not to mention the side effects, and it's supposed to be painful. But Arthur got all the way to the light silver from light yellow, and he doesn't seem to be having any issues at all. Whoever made that elixir could literally ask for any amount of gold and no one could call it unreasonable," Curtis argued.

"Then the question is why doesn't he?" Durden asked as he poked a log in the fire.

"I'm sorry, what?" Curtis asked.

"Why doesn't the creator sell it for a fortune? Anyone could see the value in an elixir that effective, but instead it ended up in Arthur's hands. I don't know if Arthur paid for it or if it was given to him, but Arthur doesn't walk around with full pockets like the nobles do, he gets by on what most nobles would consider pocket change. This means the creator doesn't care about money, he or she is driven by something else, and gave it to Arthur for a reason. Whatever that reason might be we may never know, Arthur may never know, but he received that elixir and used it just like anyone else would. If you ask me, the person asked Arthur for discretion when he received it, and Arthur is someone who keeps his word. So we shouldn't bother him over something like this, but instead work harder to catch up to him. Because if Arthur could tell us, if he could get these for his friends, don't you think he would?" Durden explained, speaking more at once than anyone had ever heard before.

Everyone was left silent by this. Even Adam and Theo stopped their match to listen in. Several of Arthur's friends felt some resentment towards him over this elixir. Arthur was the youngest in their group, but he was the strongest even before he took the elixir. Those friends now felt ashamed of themselves for how they allowed their jealousy get the better of them.

"Good morning everyone," Arthur called out as he and Jasmine walked up, both of them drenched in sweat. "What's going on? Did I miss something?"

"Yeah, we were all just talking about you, and how pissed off you left us," Theo replied.

"Theo!" Claire shouted, ready to shut him down, as Tess and Sylvie were just ready to just knock him out.

"Oh," Arthur replied, sounding down. "Sorry if I'm causing you guys trouble."

"Yeah you are," Theo replied, a smirk forming on his face. "Here we all are busting our tails to try and catch up to you, and now you just set the bar even higher overnight."

Arthur saw the smirk, and wasn't sure how serious to take Theo's words. "Sorry?" Arthur replied.

"That's right you should be sorry." Theo then took Arthur into a headlock. "I'll forgive you this time, but now you are banned from getting any stronger until at least one of us catches up to you. Deal?"

"Yeah sure whatever, just let me go, you stink so bad down here," Arthur replied as he pinched his nose closed.

This lightened the mood instantly as everyone laughed. The others soon returned and everyone ate breakfast before they had to get ready for their dive. During breakfast Sylvie talked up a storm like a hyperactive child, and the way she kept referring to Arthur and Tess as Papa and Mama, made it seem that she was their hyperactive child.

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Everyone was making preparations for the dive. Conjurors were meditating to absorb mana, while most of the augmentors were securing their armor and doing an inventory of their supplies. Arthur was right behind Tess, as they leaned their backs together and both meditated, while Sylvie rested in her mama's lap.

Curtis was struggling to get his armor on, unable to get the straps on his side threaded and tightened down. Lilia noticed this and stopped meditating to help.

"Let me help you," Lilia said as she moved his hands out of the way.

Curtis didn't say anything as he raised his arm up and looked down at her smiling. Slowly he moved his other arm and ran his fingers through her hair.

"Stop," Lilia said quietly.

"It's so soft, I can't help it. Do you not like me touching your hair?" Curtis asked. Lilia didn't reply as she continued to secure his armor. "I could really get used to this."

"Used to what, someone dressing you?" Lilia asked, as she finished one side and moved to the other.

"Having you this close to me," Curtis replied.

"I thought we agreed to take it slow," Lilia stated, giving the last strap one last good tug.

"It's hard. You are so close to me, I just want to hold you, to touch your skin," Curtis whispered smoothly as he leaned in closer. "Just tell me to back away and I will."

Lilia didn't reply as she looked up at him, his eyes staring into hers. Her heart was racing, her cheeks flushed, her mouth slightly open as she leaned in closer. One of Curtis's hands gently caressed her cheek as it continued into her hair. They were so close they could feel each others breath on their lips.

"Jeez, get a room you two," Adam said in annoyance. "What is up with all you hormonal teens?" Lilia broke away and rushed off to meditate in the shade of a tree. "This is real life not some romance novel, if you're going to kiss, then just kiss."

"Thanks a lot Adam," Curtis spat angrily. "Now I understand why you're afraid Arthur's going to kill you in your sleep, because I'm tempted to do the same."

"Adam, leave them alone," Helen ordered.

"What? We're about to dive into a new dungeon, a tunnel that's never been explored before. There's nothing romantic about that. They need to keep focused. All I'm trying to do is keep them grounded in reality," Adam said defensively.

"Is that why you never seem to have a girlfriend?" Angela asked.

"No, it's because no girl would want to see that face up close," Jasmine added.

Adam just crumbled down defeated as everyone had a laugh at his expense.

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Once ready they made their way through the outpost to the dungeon entrance. All eyes were on them, most jealous that they themselves weren't going in. As they approached the entrance they saw four armored guild guards, and Kaspian himself waiting for them.

"I haven't seen you sending off any party's before, is there a problem?" Helen asked as they arrived.

"No, no problem. I just wanted to see my niece off, and wish you all good luck," Kaspian replied. He then walked over to Claire and gave her a two way communication scroll before giving her a hug.

With that out of the way the party got into formation, with Adam taking point and Curtis and Grawder at the rear, and with a single step, they began their dive.

—————————————————————

It only took a day to reach the third level boss chamber, due to the little resistance from the lack of mana beasts. But this was to be expected, as the previous team probably wiped most of them out. Upon clearing the third level they decided to make camp to be well rested when they proceeded into the new tunnel.

The following morning they proceeded down the tunnel, all well rested and ready for whatever the dungeon may throw at them. All that is except for Adam, who was too paranoid to sleep, scared that Arthur or Curtis might actually kill him.

After a few hours walking, and a few skirmishes with some mana beasts, they came across a set of massive metal doors blocking the next chamber, and in front of those doors were several dead human bodies. Upon seeing the bodies they rushed to them, cautious for the fear of a possible trap. The bodies were all in pools of blood, some missing limbs, others with gashes on their chest or back.

"This ones dead," Adam announced as he checked the first body.

"Same here," Arthur added, as well as Elijah and Angela.

"What in the hell is going on here? There wasn't supposed to be anyone else down here," Helen thought out loud.

Arthur was examining the bodies, hoping for some clues as to what was happening.

"What are you doing?" Tess asked Arthur upon seeing his actions.

"Beyond the fact that these people are here, something isn't making sense, just look at them. Two augmenters, two conjurors, and a tank, all of them appear to be wearing near identical armor, and have similar tattoos on their backs," Arthur pointed out.

"There are parties that do dress alike, kind of like wearing a uniform," Jasmine commented.

"Maybe, but then wouldn't they have some kind of emblem to identify their party? And these tattoos, this is no language I've ever seen," Arthur argued, confident these guys weren't adventurers.

"That's not our job to determine. Let's head back to the surface and report this. Something happened down here and now we are supposed to notify the guild so they can investigate what happened," Helen replied.

"I might hold off on that if I were you," Theo stated by the door. "It looks like there's a trail of blood leading to this door, and it looks like it was opened recently."

"What are you saying? That seems like more reason not to go in and to report to the guild," Helen replied.

"Their party size is too small. What if they were in there," Curtis said pointing to the large metal doors. "What if the rest of their party is still in there, maybe still alive?"

"If they're alive then we need to try and save them," Feyrith added.

"We don't even know if anyone is alive in there, or if they even came with more people," Helen argued.

"You're right we don't know, but shouldn't we at least make sure?" Lilia stated.

Helen had no argument to that. She stared at the door, weighing her options, trying to decide if it really was worth the risk to open the doors.

"Arthur, what do you think?" Helen asked, deciding to take the opinion of the other leader in the party.

"We don't know what's beyond those doors, or what happened. We could find an S ranked beast, we could find more dead bodies, we might find survivors." Arthur stood up and looked Helen in the eyes. "I honestly don't know if I could live with myself if I learned there were survivors and we just abandoned them without even checking for them."

Helen sighed. Despite the potential danger, she couldn't help but agree, they needed to at least take a look.

"Ok, but at the first sign that we could be in over our heads, we get out of there," Helen told them, then looked up at the door. "However, first we need to get this open."

"Leave that to me," Theo stated, and walked up to the giant metal doors. "Elijah, Kathyln, cover me."

Theo placed his right hand on the door as Elijah and Kathyln stood behind him and prepared their spells in case something tried to attack as soon as the door opened. Theo used his gravity magic to make the door lighter, and grabbed it at the seam and began pulling. The creaked and groaned as it moved, despite using gravity magic to lighten the door, Theo still had to work hard for every inch the door moved.

After only a minute the door was opened enough to see inside. So far there was nothing to see except an empty chamber, so Helen and Arthur moved to the opening to investigate. As they looked in their eyes followed a trail of dried blood on the ground, which led to another body off to the left, slumped over against the chamber wall. The body appeared to be wearing the same armor as the others, with a large broken shield beside him.

"Looks clear," Helen stated as she and Arthur walked further in.

Everyone else filed in as they all kept their heads on a pivot, constantly looking for threats. As they moved closer to the body they saw what looked like a campsite further down and moved to investigate.

"Papa, can we not stay here long?" Sylvie asked as she covered her nose. "It smells really bad in here."

"I don't smell anything," Arthur commented as he looked around.

He then saw Grawder shaking his head and hitting his nose with his free paw. He then looked back to Kathyln to see her baby ice falcon burying its beak in her hair. Even though he couldn't see anything, Arthur's own instincts were kicking in, telling him they needed to get out of there.

"This site hasn't been used for a while," Jasmine stated as she put her hands into a pile of ashes. "The ashes are all cold."

"There's blood splatter over here," Claire announced as she pointed in a direction deeper into the chamber.

"I've got a bad feeling here, we need to get out of here," Arthur told everyone.

"I agree. There's clearly no survivors here, so let's call in the recovery team and let the guild investigate," Helen stated and began to lead everyone back to the entrance.

No one argued, they all agreed something didn't feel right there. The tunnel only being discovered a few days ago, a campsite that hadn't been used in a while, then all the dead bodies, it didn't take Arthur's instincts to know things weren't adding up.

Suddenly Arthur felt a shiver run down his spine. At the same time Grawder crouched down and began growling, the baby ice falcon began screeching, and Sylvie jumped down from Arthur's shoulder and began hissing.

"Something scary is coming!" Sylvie warned as loudly as she could.

Everyone immediately took a defensive stance, the augmenters held their weapons at the ready, as the conjurors began preparing spells. They stood there for a moment, nothing was happening, it was completely silent. Adam opened his mouth, about to question the danger when the ground started shaking.

"GRROOOAARRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!"