The first group arrived at Avora Dungeon within a few minutes, it was mostly long fields of grasses and wilderness, and a road nearby leading past them. With the dungeon in her sight, Rina signaled Pearl to get their gear out. A magical staff, a wooden bow and quiver.

“We could have sold this.” Rina whispered, looking at her [Interdimensional Quiver], remembered it’s a rarity that could be sold well.

“No, not worth it second-handed, the price would drop seventy percent.” 

Following his claim, the hem of Pearl’s cloak spreaded out in a circle, being blown up by the wind—Pearl levitated himself upwards onto a nearby tree and started looking around for a better look, he was once again impressed by Rina’s ability; his eyesight was nothing compared to hers, being able to barely even make out much from up here. 

“Do you feel anything?” Rina asked, while leaning underneath the shades.

“No danger, not any high volume of magic noticed, no significant change in the air of eye-view. Let’s go.”

Pearl jumped down and made their way closer towards Avora Dungeon, as the mage looked at his palm to make sure he could still feel the connection between him and Mei.

Meanwhile, at Chalk Town, Mei, Esmeralda and Marc found themselves at an inn where they could park their horse after renting a room until tomorrow morning.

To avoid much suspicion, Marc stored his armor on the carriage and only brought a sword, which was also concealed by Mei’s magic along with her own staff; leaving the two as ordinary civilians with the exception of Mei’s oversized magic hat, which might indicate more of an very inexperienced mage. But that was just how she always dresses, didn’t need to blend in when you already look like one. And for Esmeralda’s case, they thought about giving her a hood, but that might be very weird with Mei’s long skirt that the kid was wearing, so best case was to not do anything out of the reasons. 

The three asked around the city for a while, before they finally got where they wanted to be; a big, two stories wooden building was in view. The plan was to get Mei and Marc inside first, order their drinks and food, acting as normal as possible, then Esmeralda would enter after a minute or so; expecting some eyes considering how she’s dressed, her natural appearance and how out of place she could be, considering this is her first time doing this.

“Okay, let’s test this…”

After linking Mei’s magic to Esmeralda, the mage stood from afar and whispered, surprisingly enough, the kid could hear her voice without the help of any additional equipment.

“I can hear you, can you hear me?” Esmeralda quietly answered back.

“Yes Es, but don’t talk to me at the counter, they could see your mouth moving.”

“I will try, uncle Mei!”

“...What?” Mei raised her eyebrows.

Marc, who was standing next to Mei, didn’t catch that without any magic help, but upon seeing her reaction, asked Mei.

“Did she say something?”

“Maybe this is my karma for supporting Es calling Marc ‘mom’ afterall…” Mei swiped her face top to bottom in disbelief.

“...What?”

“Nothing, let’s… Let’s go, the magic’s working.”

Back at the Avora Dungeon, passing all the signs saying “dangerous do not proceed”—Pearl and Rina saw themselves at an entrance, not a cave nor a portal or structure, yet two giant trap doors leading downward to a staircase, calling it giant was not an exaggeration considering you can fit at least eight grown adults human standing side by side going down the stairs and there would be arm space for each of them. One of the trap doors was already opened, downwards was complete darkness.

“Give me your eyeball, I will go down there and see first.” Rina opened one of her palms while looking down.

“Don’t put my magic like that.” Pearl answered, closing his hands together and rubbing in a spherical motion, from his palm came out an eyeball made off a leaf he picked earlier. He then kneeled down beside the entrance and covered his left eye, prompting Rina to send her own air magic into it.

“Test.”

Releasing the leaf eyeball, it floated in the air and started to float around in place, needing Rina’s air magic for that.

“Remember, I could only see, if anything happens, we’ll regroup. And it’s just scouting, don’t get greedy.”

“Never was I the greedy one, so I might find that offensive.” Rina chuckled calmly to reply, before hanging the bow around herself and made her way down. “Good luck watching up here.”

“Thank you for being here.” Rina whispered to the eyeball floating beside her, knowing full well that Pearl could not hear her, “It’s comforting knowing you wouldn’t let a woman wander alone in the dark.”

She chuckled with a torch on hand lighting ahead, of course with her eyesight it’s possible to spot everything in the dark, yet it’s better to share with Pearl too.

“And… here we go.”

Halfway down the stairs, Rina paused and looked down, she carefully observed around before casually tiptoed down to the next step, causing a tripwire to activate—from four dispensers, from behind, front, top and right side to shoot out arrows towards—To which the elf simply just… Walk left once, walk forward once, lean left.

All arrows missed.

Through the front gaps of the dispenser, in the darkness covered and blended in stones, Rina could make out more arrows getting in place, waiting for the next person to activate them. It might have worked a few times considering the amount of dry old blood on the floor.

“Huh?”

Just as she worried, it’s not like there’s only four arrows in four directions but not the left for no reason, there was indeed one more trap to her left, that was another arrow dispenser with way quicker speed. Rina did not have the speed to evade with her own body, so she decided to raise another arrow she just pulled out and with the tip; perfectly collapsed both arrows mid air and broke the flying one.

“That’s it?” She said, confidently.

The elf looked at the flying eyeball which was spinning around slightly, trying to signal to her something; it was when Rina looked down to see the end of the stairs, a stoned hallway made underground, leading into more unknown darkness. Though Pearl couldn’t see from this angle with the torch, Rina definitely could, as she also sensed something dangerous, as she walked down a few more steps to slowly reveal a giant statue blocking the path.

“No way…”

The statue was of a giant black-stone creature, it had two giant bat wings with sharp fangs and in a guarding pose with four limbs down to the ground. Staring directly forward with an anticipation of intruders.

“Pearl, I got the information, I’m going back now.” Rina said to the eyeball.

In an attempt not to activate or provoke the thing, Rina slowly backed away, which proved effective since she wasn’t in its view yet. So she turned around to face the stairs and walked upwards.

When suddenly…

“thud”

A giant enchanted rock emerged from the walls to her left and quickly charged forward; slamming Rina to the wall without her being able to acknowledge its presence. It was hidden completely from any senses, by not existing in the first place.

“Aggh- Golem? Get off me!”

None of her wind attributes was going to work against a rock, she can feel her ribs being pushed harder and harder when she relaxed and slipped out of its control. Dropping down to the ground she kept her back low in order not to get easily grabbed; retracting her bow back into a long stick, Rina Wenswood jabbed it from below down to the rock creature’s jaw but nothing happened.

The golem swung its fist downwards, breaking multiple stair steps yet Rina was able to dashed away, careful not to get close to the stone statue in the hallway; she tried going upstairs instead.

“Elves’ Vision: Wind Dance”

Following her was the golem which was running full speed, with every move it took completely destroyed the stairs steps, before lunging itself forward to try and grapple Rina, to which she jumped up, flip frontwards for more force and slammed her heel on its head, causing the golem to be knocked down on its belly.

The only problem was, golems don’t have a definitive “front” or “back,” so when it was on the ground with Rina on top, it simply twisted its rocky head and hands one eighty to turn around without moving and finally: grabbed a hold of Rina’s right leg.

“Wha-” 

“slam”

Rina dropped her stick on the staircase as her entire body was slammed on the walls, blood started running out of her nose and ears.

The golem paused to check if the elf was still conscious, before raising her up to slam once again aiming downwards.

It was when a big boulder flew from above the stairs down, slamming the golem on its head, causing it to drop Rina and fall through the flight of stairs.

“Elemental Spell: Earth Generation.” Pearl rushed towards with sweats. “Let’s go!”

“Wait, stop!” 

Rina widened her eyes on the ground and tried to warn Pearl, but it was a bit late, as four arrows were tripwired and flew out from the walls; Pearl did know they were there, but to normal eyes it’s impossible to know where.

“Magic Spell: Barrier.”

He quickly mumbled and covered himself with the cloak, causing the four to be parried off and fell to the ground. But the moment he let his guard down, the fifth one flew out later to penetrate his calf.

“Gah!” Pearl exclaimed in pain, while making his way downwards and leading Rina up.

Rina was supposed to warn him, but another look showed she was coughing out blood and slapping herself to get her vision back together in one piece.

“Come on, stay with me here.” Pearl swiped a sweat off of his forehead and led her up the stairs, that was when he heard rumbling noises, the golem was back, chasing them.

“Go… Let’s go! Let’s go!” Pearl got his arm across Rina’s waist and started producing fire behind him. “My mana, we have to call Mei…”

“Elemental Spell: Fire Torch!”

Using the combination of air and fire, he sent himself flying up while holding onto Rina.

The golem was, surprisingly, not slow. The moment they got past the trapdoors and was calling Mei via their magic connection, the golem catched on delivering a straight punch towards the two.

Earlier, Chalk Town…

The three were there at near peak hour, which meant more people were there trying to grab lunch or a cold drink. Marc and Mei got in first at a table near the receptionist and ordered some drinks so Marc could hear the conversation, while Esmeralda—dressed in white buttoned shirt and long black skirt, with dark greenish hair and amber reptile eyes—walked in minutes after.

As expected, many people stared at her as she anxiously walked in, though not that extreme knowing Alcray was not too harsh on racial problems.

“Man, I've heard those kinds have very sticky saliva, you know what I mean though? Hahaha.”

“Dude you’re freaking stupid, just stick to vampires so they can bloodbend whatever you did out and no responsibilities.”

Comments were spewed across the room and into Marc’s ears, causing the young man to grip the cup of his orange juice tight, but Mei eyed him to let him know it was not worth it.

“Hello…” Esmeralda sat down on a chair on the front desk. “I would like to sell an item.”

“Over there.” The female clerk, who was a wolf hybrid of some kind, pointed to her right where there was another receptionist there.

The talk went quite well with the help of Mei supported from behind via noise transportation magic.

“This is not stolen right?” Another one, this time a female human carefully inspected it.

“No… My friend got it at… dungeon, and he’s gone and, and I needed money.” Unable to hide her nervousness, Esmeralda gripped tight on her skirt.

“In order to sell stuff. You would need a membership, then you will get an adventure badge.”

“No no, I just want to sell, I don’t like traveling. I don’t want to test anything…”

“But there’s these benefits like…”

“No please, I need to be home soon, I left my stove on…”

The conversation was going back and forth for a while, which irritated all of them, and it was just going to get worse when a bearded man, strapped with a long iron sword got up from his seat; clearly drunk and started to get close with Esmeralda, hanging his hand around her shoulder:

“Hey girl, are you here alone by any chance?”

“Hash, you are sick man, she looks underaged as fuck.” Someone spoke up from a table behind.

“Come on you wet blanket, one lizard year is like 20 of ours, she could be older than me for all I know.”

The man laughed loudly, which prompted the clerk to sigh in disbelief.

“Please do not bother our customer sir, I would advi-”

Before she could finish her sentence, her eyes caught something, a man in a red suit came in with threatening auras. The whole room noticed it too and kept silence it was an AAA, or Alcray’s Above Authority’s member, he was not the same one the team met back at Lariak, but a normal, average looking man with white mask and spiky hair, through the gaps were very intense sharp eyes, followed by a guard in chainmail.

They directly came towards Marc and Mei’s table. The AAA didn’t speak however, yet looked over to the guard.

“Are you two the owners of the horse carriage outside? Please come with us, we need questions, this is a direct order from an authorized member.”

The two was shocked, but looking at their condition, they were not about to do something stupid, so Mei pretended to turn away and cough, while in reality she sent a message to Esmeralda quietly.

“Wait for us, calm, I trust you.”

Before the two nodded and walked out with the guard and the AAA member.

The adventure guild and the guests did not have any comment about the subject, and went back to their business only Esmeralda was sweating like a shower underneath her white shirt, afraid that without support she could not do anything.

“So cutie, you live here? Do you want a ride home? Don’t worry I’m new and just trying to make friends.” The man started again, Esmeralda instinctively pushed his hand away, looking at the clerk for help, but she did the minimal of just warning.

“Don’t be so nervous, let’s grab a drink, on me. We just finished exploring today and we could help you sell that stuff if the adventure badge was a problem.” He winked at the clerk.

“I’m scared of you, please go away…”

Outside, there were two more guards waiting by the carriage, Marc and Mei were abruptly ordered to get their hands on the carriage with their backs turned for frisk, of course nothing could be seen as dangerous evidence other than Mei’s hat.

“You are under arrest for suspicion of being the one responsible for destroying the Sulkos-Alcray bordering forest. The tracks was led to this town, and the wheels type was similar to yours, made from the wood founded in North Sulkos.” A guard said while the other two searched, the AAA just stood there watching.

“Hold on, you can not-” Marc tried to turn around, but immediately got pushed to turn back by the one searching him, and a spear pointed straight at his chest. At that exact moment, Mei’s palm started to ache, it was a signal sent from Pearl, an emergency at that, he was in trouble, and she was not prepared to make the teleportation circle.