Laurel saw that the children gathered around her had no idea of what she was talking about. Even Flint had his head tilted as though confused, copying Rebecca. She tried again.

  “A labyrinth?”

  Still no glimmer of recognition.

  “Huh, I’m surprised that’s not a story that was passed down, it’s a good one. Ambient mana of a region scales with either sapient life or influxes of cosmic mana. There are some exceptions but that is, broadly speaking, true. When enough people live in the same place for long enough, a Core is formed. More people means more mana, which strengthens the Core, which can in turn strengthen the people who protect it.

  “If you do nothing, the ambient mana becomes harder to cultivate. The flows are too fast and too strong to interact with. You can have random manifestations of spirit beasts within the city, or other phenomena. Then it will be harder to fix later and require stronger cultivators. At least most of the time.”

  Laurel paused for a moment, reveling in the curiosity on everyone’s face. Her mana theory lectures at the sect rarely got this kind of reaction. When Flint made his odd mooing noise again she moved on.

  “On rare occasion, something else happens to the Core. No one can really say why or how, but a Core can invert into something else. They aren’t alive in the way we think of that term, but a sort of rudimentary intelligence kicks in to defend the Core. It will form an anchor, underground usually, and fill the area around it with traps or spirit beasts. The longer it goes on the more elaborate the dungeon.

  “Um, Madam Stormblade, you sound excited, is this a good thing?” Oro was meeker than the other dragons she’d met, maybe because he grew up alone in human society.

  “Ah, well, it's fascinating isn’t it? I grew up on stories about these things. The quality of the beast cores you find in them are supposed to be better than anywhere else. And sometimes there’s other treasure as well, though that’s less clear. And of course the situation itself is endlessly interesting. Why does it happen so rarely, how does the core go about acting on its own?”

  Rebecca cleared her throat and Laurel cut off her rambling.

  “Right. Anyway we can’t leave it as it is. It will get more and more dangerous until monsters flood the city. It will be fantastic for training though. How handy are you in a fight, Oro?”

  The dragon’s hands were wringing together and Laurel noticed slightly pointed nails. “I can’t say I have much experience, Sectmaster. I can use my abilities but I’ve only had to scare off some minor beasts the last few years.”

  Flint decided it was time to make a new friend. He hopped across to Oro’s shoulder and peered at his face from about a fingers-width away. Rebecca went over to try and coax him off but it did little and he scampered to the other shoulder.

  “That’s fine. Who are you in contact with in the city, we can have them send a few people as well.”

  “What do you mean in contact with?”

  Laurel paused and really assessed the young dragon before her. If she took away everything she knew about dragon society, who was this boy? He continuously addressed her by her title, he was nervous to the point of obsequiousness, and as confused as Rebecca or Leander. Points for being nice to Flint but it was clear he was in over his head.

  “Oro, who is in charge of cultivator affairs in the city?”

  “The council maybe, or the military? I’m sorry but I don’t know.”

  “That’s fine. Kat and Maria should have finished their conversation by now, let's talk to them. We’re going to need to act quickly and I’d rather not the leaders of this place think they’re under attack when we do.”

  She turned to walk away. Leander and Rebecca trotting along behind. “You too Oro” she called over her shoulder.

  They walked back through the grove but most of Laurel’s attention was underground. This time instead of rushing headlong towards the Core, she skirted around edges of its domain. Finding the breadth of the area and trying to gauge how far the situation had progressed. The stories usually said the cultivators ‘entered’ the dungeon as though there would be a door with a sign. Maybe there was one, but she didn’t know where it was or how to find it. This was a rare enough event Laurel wasn’t confident it had ever happened before in the history of Decorra. That meant she was going to be leading an expedition mostly based on old stories and half remembered rumors that they told as children to scare each other before bed.

  The soldiers were waiting around the planes. Tarps had been pinned down over the vehicles and everyone had shouldered their pack. Laurel noticed they’d set Rebecca and Leander’s things aside and lightly pushed the two towards that pile. Oro she led directly up to everyone.

  “A bit of an unexpected twist to this part of the journey. This is Oro, he’s a local cultivator and a dragon. The City Core is slowly building a dangerous maze filled with monsters and traps, which we need to deal with. How close of an ally is this country again?”

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  The reactions to that bombshell were varied but a bit more controlled than the kids. The soldiers were confused, but held each other back from blurting anything out. Laurel spied Reina literally hauling Reynard back when he went to hurry forward. Maria smiled and slowly shook her head. Trip was still fiddling with the planes and had missed the whole conversation. Luckily it was the unflappable Kat who broke the silence.

  “We’ll need to loop the city leaders in on that, I’ll go talk to our contact to set something up.” She ambled off without further comment. One day Laurel might actually shock the woman but it wasn’t going to be any time soon.

  *********

  Rebecca navigated through the winding streets with Leander and Flint. Their instructions were to “walk around and feel for anything weird.” It wasn’t clear what that actually meant but Laurel was also doing the majority of the search herself from their room in the guest spire. After meeting the dragon – a dragon! – things had moved quickly. Major Kat had called over some of the locals and the whole group was hustled in to meet with the Council. It was a very serious group of old people that listened to Laurel explain, thanked them, then ordered the military to handle it. That kicked off hours of discussion while Laurel tried to convince them to let her help. Then they called in even more serious old people that knew some magic to have the discussion all over again. The two of them had tried to sneak out, but Laurel had grabbed them, whispered that if she was suffering through it so would they, and forced them to pay attention.

  The two students ducked into a marketplace to cool off for a while. The large buildings were spread throughout the city, engineered to pipe some of the cooler air near the underground river up into the stall area to combat the scorching heat. They kept to the edges, both instinctively avoiding taking up too much space. It was a mass of indoor shops, interspersed with smaller stalls and carts. A few pickpockets got close, but they were easily dodged or smacked away when questing hands got too close. People pointed at Flint where he was sitting on her shoulders occasionally, but most didn’t seem to care at all.

  A tug on her wrist caused her to look around where Leander was pointing. At that same moment squawk came out of the vibrantly colored bird perched above the stall. Inside she could make out cages with a few more animals. Exotic pets were just one of the infinite things being sold.

  Leander led her over to a staircase at the far end of the building. It went up to three more levels of shops, but instead of exploring he went further down into a basement level. The air cooled to something bearable as they made their way underground.

  Shadows dominated the basement. Windows and cleverly placed mirrors had the upper levels bright and cheerful, even while being indoors. This level had none of that. Dim lanterns lined the walkways, some with colored glass that gave an eerie feeling to the area. Even so, it was just as well kept as the upper level, with no refuse or grime that she could see. People bustled back and forth or called out to each other between stalls with all the enthusiasm of the upper levels. Leander was still leading and they turned into a less crowded side hall. Fewer lanterns lit the way and Rebecca struggled to see where they were going. Another few turns and she was holding her hand against a wall to avoid walking into anything. Leander pulled his homing stone out from under his shirt. The dull glow was enough to navigate by in a pinch. She followed suit and a bit more of the tunnel was revealed.

  Away from the crowds, she could hear a dull roar, getting louder the further they went. They came to the end of the passage, which was taken up by a storage room. A rarely-used one if the amount of dust was to be believed. They slipped inside and closed the door behind them.

  A few crates were leaning in piles around the room, but they hadn’t been moved in years, by Rebecca's guess. The rest was just a nondescript room. A few shelves. A broken table. Nothing interesting.

  “Why are we here?” She turned to look at Leander. It was hard to make out his facial expressions in the harsh shadows thrown by the glowing rune. He gestured a bit but frustration or impatience had him pulling out his sound stone when she didn’t understand.

  “Felt something weird, like Laurel said. It leads here.”

  Rebecca, abashed, let her own spiritual senses spread out. Laurel made them both practice as part of their daily training, but keeping them active was overwhelming when they got near other people. It was more comfortable when they were in between cities or towns, alone with the open sky and nature. Leander didn’t seem to have the same problem. She was convinced it might have to do with the Heart of the Wild she had absorbed, but she was delaying asking Laurel about it. The sect lived and worked in a city after all. She gritted her teeth and spread her own senses out. The same discomfort was there but she forced it down and kept going. Breathe in, breathe out, she tried for the cultivation rhythms they had been taught. A few minutes later, her heartbeat had slowed down and she felt the same ripple that Leander must have been following.

  The teens wandered the room listening to their spiritual senses. Eventually, they converged in the center of the far wall. Rebecca stared at the bare stone in consternation. There was definitely something behind there but no door was in sight. Leander started tapping at varying points along the wall.

  “I’m pretty sure that’s only a thing in stories.”

  The boy shrugged and made a gesture Rebecca interpreted as “any other ideas are welcome”. Not being able to come up with any, she also walked up to the wall and began tapping, the stories had to be based on something. A moment later she tapped a panel and the sound changed. Instead of a dull thump of skin on stone, she heard the clang of struck metal. Leander whipped around and joined her. Both of them started frantically knocking on the wall until they had mapped out the shape of a narrow door. They scraped their fingertips raw trying to find a seam or latch. Rebecca grabbed a shard of wood from the broken furniture and even tried scraping to reveal the metal, but nothing worked.

  After a few more minutes of fruitless struggle, Leander grabbed her arm and pulled her back from the wall. He stood a step away and stared at the rock in silence. She was about to ask what his plan was when he dropped into a fighting stance. Rebecca’s spiritual senses were still extended, and she could feel him cycling mana. It concentrated in his hand as he thrust towards the wall. Rebecca watched as the mana hit the stone and seeped in, like water into soil. Nothing happened. Leander’s shoulders slumped as he straightened his knees.

  “It was a good idea,” Rebecca offered.

  The boy slumped. Out of ideas, they got ready to leave when they felt mana spiking behind them. Turning back to the hidden doorway, they saw a golden glow trace its outline. Before their eyes, the rock melted back to reveal a matte black metal. A design was inscribed in gold but Rebecca didn’t recognize it. She glanced over at Leander who looked back and made a few hand gestures.

  “Yeah, yeah, well done. This definitely qualifies as something weird.”

  He faced the door again, preening as the mana pulsed. Silently, the door swung outwards. Beyond was pitch black, the sound of rushing water in the distance. A flame appeared in the darkness, far enough that none of its light reached their storeroom. When Leander walked towards the door, Rebecca yanked him back.

  “Absolutely not.”

  The two of them stared back and forth. Rebecca had grown used to the silences however and refused to break.

  “That is asking for trouble.”

  Instead of mounting a counterargument, Leander’s head snapped to the side. He peered into the darkness as though it held the secrets to life. Rebecca went back and forth between the darkness and Leander, ready to grab him again if he tried to run for it. His eyes widened as Rebecca felt something moving towards them. A moment later a skittering sound like claws on stone echoed out. They both grabbed for the door, Rebecca chanting “close it, close it, close it.” Both of them together could barely budge the slab of metal. It had swung open easily enough but didn’t want to close. Adrenaline and cultivation were enough in the end, and they heaved the door shut, just in time for a loud clang to echo from the other side.

  They were both panting when they stepped back. “Maybe we pile this stuff in front of it?”

  Leander agreed and they started dragging the crates and broken wood over to the door. They had a respectable pile going when the rock melted back into place, covering the door as though it had never been there. It wasn’t enough to stop them and they kept going until the entire thing was blocked off.

  “We found it. What are the chances you think Laurel lets us wait out here while she goes in?”

  Leander chuffed as they slipped back into the populated hallways and up into the city to report back.