A few mintues earlier...

  Nicomedes El-Ecien arrived at the staging area outside the Dungeons entrance in a flash of light less than a minute after the wave of the Edict had washed over the camp. Normally a high Tier like himself using a Skill, even a harmless one like [Lightstep], in a town would be frowned upon. But thankfully there were some - okay a lot - of benefits to being a bishop of the Order. One of which was that people tended to look the other way to what he did most of the time. They'd often make excuses and try to justify his actions to themselves. There had to be something important going on; the Bishop's teleporting around the place. So while several heads turned his way in surprise at his sudden appearence, he could see them quickly coming to a conclusion about what he was here for, that it was important, and that they shouldn't bother him while he was doing it.

  He let out an amused huff. It just so happened that they were right in this instance.

  He scanned around and quickly found his Inquisitor party. ...Or what was left of it, it seemed. Judging by the haunted faces of the four he could see it didn't take a genius to figure out that the two he couldn't hadn't just walked off to go to the bathroom. He shut his eyes and sighed. Such a waste. Both of those two had been such promising recruits, with incredible potential. And now they’d both been cut down before they had even had the chance to bud properly. Boltar's loss was especially painful. He'd taken the boy in when he'd just recently awakened, during a time when the people around him had started acting scared due to the Skill his Glyph had burdened him with. It took a lot of time and effort to train that kind of thinking away from Boltar himself, let alone those around him, and turn him into someone that people could rely upon. And from a purely utilitarian viewpoint it wasn't every day you met someone with a 'cursed' Glyph that both needed saving and could be as useful as Boltar could have been.

  But sadly while this was unfortunate, it wasn't a shock. He'd had dozens of promising protegés die on him before their time. Untimely death was just something that came hand in hand with the Challenge. An inevitable end that lay somewhere down this road they had all been forced to walk down. The sadness of it was only due to the fact that it happened so early on in his journey. Nicomedes shook his head, this wasn't what he'd come here for. He could curse Boltar's loss later, at the Vigil. Right now he had two things he needed to make sure of. First, make sure his connection with the Aberrant hadn't been discovered. Second, find out what the Dungeon was doing. An addendum to the second was to find out whether what had happened had something to do with the Aberrant shard he'd accidentally provided the Dungeon with or not.

  A Dungeon willing and able to overcome the System-enforced revulsion that the Aberrant seemed to cause was a valuable ally, but a young and untrained one stomping about when they didn't really understand what they were doing could cause the house to come falling down on everyone. Him included. If that turned out to really be the cause of this Edict, he'd have to take steps to both set the Dungeon on a more steady path and make sure that nobody else figured out what had really happened.

  Which in Guild controlled territory would be such a headache. He hoped it wouldn't have to come to that.

  With quick steps he walked over towards the surviving members. They had been so down that they hadn't even noticed his teleporting in and only now that he was walking up did Aldrick glance up to see his approach. He froze and his face turned pained, but training and routine made him stand at attention all the same.

  "Lord Bishop." The party's first clergyman said, putting a hand over his heart, then forehead. His squadmates quickly followed his gesture, and Nicomedes waved his hand for them to be at ease.

  "What's happened, son?" He said, his voice taking on the kindly tone he used when speaking to those much younger than him. Aldrick′s face turned pained, and he sighed.

  "I'm sorry to report that captain Boltar and Inquisitor Seraphina both fell in the fight with the second Floor Guardian." He clenched his hand into a fist, then met Nicomedes' eyes straight on. "I also wish to say that Boltar and Seraphina performed exceptionally, and without their sacrifice we'd have never been successful. They both died with glory."

  Nicomedes took a few seconds to think through his response. "...He overused [Berserker's Fury], didn't he?" He asked, though the answer was obvious. At Aldrick's nod he shut his eyes and sighed.

  "That foolish boy always did try to shoulder everything alone." He muttered to himself, but loudly enough that those around could still hear every word. He clapped Aldrick on the shoulder in a comforting manner.

  "I believe you are correct." He said. "And you and I both know they'd be glad that what they did helped make your Challenge a success. They will make great strides on their Great Journeys. Of that I have no doubt."

  Waldemar sniffled slightly from behind Aldrick, but their reddish eyes gained a bit of life as they nodded at his words. Nicomedes smiled softly. This might prove to be a benefit for these four. A coal in their pyre that'd never lose its heat, always pushing them onwards along their path. It was sad that it had to be this way, but he had to salvage what he could.

  "Could you tell me what happened?" He asked. "I want a full report eventually, but for now the most important thing is whether you had something do to with the wave of intent that just happened."

  Aldrick blinked and looked between his teammates for comformation before he answered. At their shakes of their heads he turned back towards Nicomedes. "I don't know of anything we did that could be the cause. We'd been out for several minutes already when it passed over us... We were going to do an afterchallenge report ourselves, but..."

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  "...But it was too painful, laying out everything you could have done better like that." Nicomedes finished. Aldrick nodded. Nicomedes sighed. "I truly wish I could let you take your time and grieve, but this unfortunately takes precedent. I must know what happened during your Challenge. The fights you fought, the loot you found. Anything that might have caused the Dungeon to get upset." He looked Aldrick deep in the eyes. "I hate to ask, but we're still guests here. If this new Edict turns out to be harmful to the Guilders... They might be looking for a scapegoat. I want to make sure you didn't do something unintentionally."

  "I understand." Aldrick said. He began his report, starting with describing the initial room with the portal based Floor skip and continuing from there. They took out their respective notebooks and went through them page by page, explaining everything they had encountered, what they had done in each situation, and whether the Dungeon had shown any sort of reaction to it. The short answer to which was no. While they were speaking he sensed the presence of the Guild's Hallmaster approaching, and looked up. The woman had an expression on her face as if she'd eaten something much too sour, and was looking for someone to blame for it. Which considering this place was her responsibility wasn't exactly strange. If this Edict made Challenges too risky or changed how often they could be done there'd be no end to the complaints she'd receive from the other higher ups in the Guild.

  For once he was grateful that he wasn't the one officially in charge. As his Inquisitors had continued with their reporting, most of it backed up by [Image Crystals] thank the Lady, it had become increasingly clear that they hadn't done anything wrong. There was nothing from their Challenge that the Guild could use to lay the blame at his feet, in the case that blame needed to be laid anywhere of course. But it was better to be prepared in these sorts of situations. Unfortunately as far as he could tell the party hadn't found any sign of the Aberrant Shard, so he wasn't any closer to an answer regarding that whole mess. At least the Dungeon didn't seem to be holding it against them, as the Challenge itself had seemed fair so far. He turned his attention back to Aldrick as the report got to discussing the Guardian.

  "...The Guardian's a spellcaster type. A Necromancer, specifically." Aldrick was saying. "It had relatively low durability for a Guardian, but is backed up by minions, which will be continously summoned throughout the fight. He fights almost like a berserker, going fully offensive with damaging and debuffing Skills trying to end the fight as quickly as possible. None of his minions focused on defence, and he stayed on the offensive even while under attack himself."

  "...An atypical strategy for a spellcaster." Katherine said as she came walking up to stand beside Nicomedes while giving him a polite nod. Aldrick blinked, but nodded and continued the story at Nicomedes' signal.

  "Yes it is." He said in response to her comment. "It definitely took us all by surprise." His face turned solemn. "It was the biggest mistake we made in there. We got thrown off our rhythm and took too long to adjust. We just kept getting thrown off when the skeletons didn't even attempt to defend the Guardian at all. That enabled the minions to surround Seraphina, and..." He fell silent, shut his eyes and took a shaky breath.

  "I tried getting to her as fast as I could." Tyree said. "We all did. But we'd been spread too far apart. And the damned creatures wouldn't attack us at all." Her fists were shaking, knuckles turning white from being shut so tight. "By the time we got there she was down, we had to focus everything on just blocking the damned skeletons from cutting her head off."

  "We still managed to deal with them." Mirielle said. "But that left the Guardian itself free to act... Which it did... And then Boltar..." She trailed off, but Nicomedes didn't need her to continue to know what had happened.

  "He managed to deal with the Guardian at the cost of his own life." Aldrick said. "After which we were teleported back to the large room at the start." He paused. "We managed to make our way outside eventually, and the rest you know already."

  Nicomedes took a deep breath, then nodded in acceptance. "Thank you all." He said. "You may go and grieve in peace. I shall prepare a proper Vigil for this evening."

  Aldrick saluted once more, hand over heart and forehead, and moved what was now his team back towards their tent in what had become the Order's section of the outpost. Once they were out of earshot he turned towards Katherine. He held up a hand to forestall her when it looked like she was about to speak.

  "I can guess why you came over here." He said simply. "But I can assure you whatever has happened, my people had no part in causing it, nor do we have any guess as to the effects. I am bound to organize a Vigil for the fallen, but that does not mean the Order won't help in this investigation, should the Guild request it."

  The Hallmaster studied his face for several seconds, then sighed as she no doubt saw nothing but his earnestness and willingness to help. "Thank you. I might take you up on that, at least in helping to keep your members in their tents until we've gotten a better understanding of the situation."

  "Naturally." Nicomedes said with a nod. "I will set someone on..." He paused as an uncomfortably familiar pressure descended down... not on top of him but somewhere nearby. It was faint, barely there unless you'd felt it before and were high enough Tier to even be capable of doing so in the first place. Judging by the lack of a look on Katherine's face she hadn't felt anything. He ignored her questions and walked in a small circle around where he'd been standing, straining his senses to try and pinpoint a direction, if not a target. He focused all his attention on it, shutting out all other sounds, smells, and even thoughts. It was faint, almost undetectable, but he could feel several different focal points where the pressure seemed to coalesce. Most of them were scattered all around the camp, but the strongest and closest was almost right in front of him. At the entrance to the Dungeon.

  ...That probably wasn't a good sign. He peered in that direction, scanning across the faces of those standing in the area before landing on a familiar one. He remembered Noracin from the meeting, a previous member of the Order who'd decided his path lay in the Guild. He didn't condemn or even really blame the boy at all for making a choice like that; everyone deserved the right to choose their own path in life. And, if his guess was right, it seemed the boy had made the correct one judging by the expression of reverence and outright panic on his face.

  It also unfortunately meant that the chances of this being solved quietly was as good as zero. The Deva didn't intervene often, but when they did they weren't known for being quiet about it.