“Fuck, fuck, fuck, and with reservation for the fourth one,” Dafur cursed as he bounced from the stairs with Stone in his hand.

Stone decided that quickly moving around felt good as it was certainly more interesting than sitting in one place.

Lucifer quickly scanned the place with Stone’s perception dome. Even though he could see through things anymore, it was still superior to the mere eyes.

“Nothing,” Stone reported after Lucifer gave him the green light..

“Really?”

“Yes.”

“Does yar Partner look too?”

“He was the only one looking. I couldn't care less.”

“Yes, yes… there was nothing, let’s go back and hide inside the deposit,” Lucifer answered.. Violet flux walls and bubbles were materializing and dissipating around Stone with increasing pace.

<Your technique Ambient Mana Refinement gained a level 2 times>

“He said we should go back to the deposit.”

“Fuck! Fine!” Dafur was getting exponentially more anxious with every second.

“Why are we running anyway?” Stone asked. He couldn’t understand at all.

“Ya know, probably ya woulda naet be discover’d, but I woulda end up as a specim’n in the lab,” he explained while running through the laboratory with the broken, black casket.

“And that’s my problem how?” Stone questioned with the same tone.

“… I can help ya, ya know! Ya can’t move prop’rly by yourself!” Dafur tensed as he almost yelled. He didn’t want to end up carved up and preserved in jars in some laboratory.

“Loud,” Stone menacingly warned and to bolster the threat he conjured a blueish-hand again.

<Your skill Mana Carving gained a level>

‘Slap!’

“Fuck! Can ya stop slappin’ mea?!” Dafur tearfully asked as he massaged his red cheek again.

“This time it didn’t stop his ‘loud’. Slapping will need more research,” Stone thought to himself.

“Stone, stop it, he can crush you easily…” Luci said worriedly. He was finally done with his training and registering what was happening around. Something he should have done long ago...

They ran through the gate. Dafur shut it behind them. A click echoed through the cave as the gate locked itself.

☁☁☁☁☁☁

Meanwhile, in the Gilded Runemaster Guild’s portal room, Master Therdreag observed the portal, surrounded by the three outer disciples standing on points of the crimson triangle, painted within a circle formed with dwarven runes.

The portal was a window through space, showing the other side, ripples on the surface as still it was not stabilized yet.

The disciples couldn't take it anymore and collapsed on the ground completely drained of mana, but not before the portal was stabilized. The ripples settled, the ellipsoidal surface became clear as a mirror.

A lifeless, white golem came to them.

“Sir, two disciples died over mana drainage. The third one survived but was severely injured,” the servant reported to the preparing Therdreag with an uncaring, mechanical voice.

“Good, I am promoting the surviving one to the half-inner disciple. Make proper preparations for him,” he instructed the Golem absentmindedly as he watched the portal. He wanted to be sure it was completely stabilized.

“Understood, master. Portal is stabilized. Four people can enter. It will stay open for half an hour,” the golem said.

“Tafur, bring two 3rd rank apprentices.”

“Yea, master,” Tafur answered without questioning and ran out.

In a mere two minutes he was back with two dwarfs, clothed in black robes engraved by nigh-invisible runes and armed with axes.

“Master, these two were sent by mae family,” Tafur introduced them.

Master Therdreag shot them a swift, judging glance and nodded. “Let’s go,” he motioned them to follow and stepped through the portal as the first one to lead.

On the other side, they saw a room similar to the one in the guild, however here the room had been ransacked and the corpses of the guards were laying all around the place.

“Dornus fucking dammit! The containment field failed! Fucking ancient trash!” Master Therdreag began to profusely curse as he went over his destroyed property.

“Master, seems like they went up,” Tafur deduced from how the remains were mostly positioned. It was as if someone ploughed through them with bare hands.

After ten minutes of very colourful swearing, Master Therdreag took control of himself, he made a decision.

“I will go after them. They had to gain powerful bodies to tear the guardians like that, enough to make you three unusable in a fight. Instead, you will go and inspect the laboratory,” with this order, the 5th rank runemaster conjured a whole set of runes, forming a word and injected the refined mana into it. Air concentrated all around him and he shot out of the chamber with an incredible speed, annihilating what was left of the main gate.

“Ye two, come. Ye’ll never speak of what ye saw or will see here,” he instructed his two minions and went down the stairs.

In the laboratory, he saw the broken casket and a marble gate that wasn’t there before.

“What in the…? Dornus dammit! These ancient labs… Master’ll be fuckin fumin,” he cursed and made his two bodyguards wait there, while he examined the gate.

“Hmm, simple nature rock with the lifeforce as medium…” he mumbled.

He turned to his minions and issued, “bring mea som’ stone and a few rats.”

“Yea, master,” they replied and promptly completed Tafur’s order.

He put the unconscious rats and random piece of rock in the tile with ancient rune depicting earth and made the bodyguards to stand on the rest. He conjured the required elements with his own runes easily. A little bit of lifeforce was drained from them as the gate opened.

“Search the area.”

“Yea, mast’r.”

☁☁☁☁☁☁

“Did ya hear it?” Dafur paused as he heard a loud ‘click’ and glanced over his shoulder, “the gate opened.”

Stone ignored him as he was lectured about Druegars and Ethereals. Thanks to his raised intelligence, he was able to grasp it quickly.

“Finally, you can comprehend like a normal person, Stone… But after your first evolution, you won’t be able to raise your intelligence with learning, at least not learning about mundane things. What is your limit now again?”

“15.”

“So eighteen on the 10th level… damn that’s quite a boost. You should be able to evolve at level 10. On that level, requirements should be clear to you as most of the Monsters know them instinctively. I wonder what happens…”

“Hey! Mister Stone!” Dafur put him before his face and attempted to gain his attention.

“What?!” Stone’s annoyed, high-pitched voice echoed several times.

“Loud,” Luci said with a certain amount of satisfaction.

“Ya’re being loud, mist’r Stone,” Dafur said while grinning.

“…” Stone felt strange. He decided that he should ignore this. Probably for the best.

☁☁☁☁☁☁

“Did ya hear it?” The guard who was closer to the shaft asked.

“Nae. Wanna report?” The other shrugged.

“Yea, I’m sure I heard somethin’.”

They caught up with Tafur who was examining the gate lights.

“Mister Tafur!”

“Found somethin’?”

“Yea, a long shaft and there was a voice comin’ from inside.

“Hmm,” Tafur pondered about it, “Shoulda I wait for master? When I think about it, they shoulda not need to hide if they are strong…” In the end he decided to go inside.

“Master, I’ll go first, ya second and Trag last.”

Tafur nodded and they stepped inside as they heard echoing hurried steps.

“Master half a kilometre ahead, someone’s runnin’.”

“Speed up,” Tafur conjured a double-rune, his speciality, learned by many months of experimentation and drowning a fortune into it until it became a technique. At the moment he showed it to runemaster Therdreag, the runemaster accepted him as a personal apprentice.

The double-rune landed on his ankles. He conjured two more of them for his bodyguards. As the runes’ glow intensified they all sped up by 2 times.

“I’ll be able to handle it for two minut’s and mae mana’ll be depleted. The rest’ll be on ye two.”

“Understood, boss.”

☁☁☁☁☁☁

“Dornus ass! They heard us!” Dafur panicked and accelerated.

“Loud!” Stone protested. Fruitlessly.

“Shut the fuck up! If they catch us, we’re done!”

Stone pouted. Never before his minion talked back. He did not appreciate it. Before he could conjure the bluish wall, he was stopped by Lucifer.

Dafur erratically ran towards the deposit, but they already could hear the echoes of their pursuers' steps.

Right before the entrance to the small cavern filled with mana crystals, they heard, “Fuck! It’s a crystal deposit! STOP!”

Dafur leapt towards the deposit’ and hid behind a cluster of large crystals. He conjured his earthly rune and a thin film of dust covered him. He put Stone nearby and lay on the ground.

“I heard steps. Look around, they must be near,” one of the guards stated.

“Wait, cast a shield over mea… I don’t wanna catch blight,” Dafur deeply frowned as he recognized that voice. Tafur! What shitty luck...

“Sorry, master, right away,” a translucent, watery shield made by the 3rd-rank apprentice surrounded Tafur.

“Fuck! That’s mae twin! Dornus dammit, what shitty luck!” Dafur internally cursed.

Meanwhile, Stone asked Luci, “What would happen if they would find Dafur?”

“Death… In the end.”

“Hmm, I don’t like that.”

“Me neither. We can only hope they won’t find us.”

“Would not they find Dafur?”

“They are apprentices and their master will not be far in a place like this. Trust me, they have ways to extract memories easily, so sooner or later they will know about you.”

“Hmm… I guess that would be bad, right?”

“Yeah! Even your Universum said you are the first sentient mana crystal. Imagine that they would lock you up in a secret laboratory, then they would tear you apart to the point before death and force you to regenerate over and over again. You are an almost unlimited amount of low-grade mana crystals…”

“Oh… I don’t like that! Not even a little bit.”

“Yeah, and me… thanks to your blabbering, they will know about me too… and that's bad. Very, very bad.”

“Why?”

“Rules… Well, I am no longer connected to the source, but still have an extensive amount of knowledge about the world, plus thanks to you, I am turned to anomaly too,” he sighed. “No thank you, I don’t wanna be extracted and be experimented on.”

“I have an idea. How strong can you make a proper shield with your mana shaping,” Stone asked and if...

“Not much. I didn’t have time to train it properly. Why are you asking…” Lucifer’s mind spurned and he could tell what Stone was planning. “Oh, no! No! No! No! We are not doing that!” Luci shouted.

“Loud! And do you have a better idea?”

“... No… Shit…”

“Anyway, it will not be big! Just a little.”

“It can evaporate the whole mountain, you fucking moron!”

“I will be careful, I promise!”

“Stone! Please! Anything else! Anything!”

“But you said that if they catch us, it will be bad!”

“Fuck me sideways! No... Please…” Lucifer pleaded with imaginary tears on his non-existent face.

“Dafur?” Stone whispered. It made him extremely hard to hear, however, dwarfs always had a great hearing.

“Yea?”

“We will make a little explosion.”

“…”

“Dafur?”

“Ya’re insane, aren’t ya?”

“Well, you can try to talk to your twin…”

“I can create fairly strong shield that can protect us but not for long, and it’ll drain all of mae mana. I coulda die from overdrain,” Dafur quickly changed his mind.

“Please, Stone! Don’t do this! It will rip us apart!” Luci cried out in Stone’s mind.

“Loud!” Stone complained in his mind and continued with a whisper, “I will create my maximum powered <Mana Point> from refined mana, but it will take a few seconds to power it.” Then another idea transpired to him, “can you create a fire? I will absorb heat and mix it.”

“I can. Damn, ya’re really strang’. Ya can absorb fire…” Dafur wondered for a bit, but the pressuring situation forced him to focus, “they’ll notice. I’ll try to delay them.”

He created a tiny fiery rune with heat emanating from it.

“Hey! He’s her’!” One of the dwarfs detected a ripple as the ground nearby suddenly rose. The bodyguard tightened his fingers around his axe and readied himself.

“Tafur!” Dafur shouted as the dust fell from him.

“Dafur?” Tafur’s eyes bulged. “Dornus dammit! What happen’d to ya?” He exclaimed, noticing his twin was hairless and grey-skinned; he resembled a filthy Druegar!

“I… I’m blight'd, brother…” Dafur whispered with a lowered head.

“Hahaha! Ya look like a Druegar!” Tafur snickered and ridiculed his twin.

Dafur’s eyes shot up and while glowering at his twin, he angrily said, “go fuck yarself Tafur!”

“Haha! Finally, I can get rid of ya! Boys! Chop his head off!”

“Yea, young mast’r,” they leapt towards the blighted dwarf and one of them grabbed him from behind before Dafur could react. Dafur tried to resist, but the difference in strength was too big.

“Trag! Korag! My father… oh…” Then it hit him what Tafur meant by he could get rid of him. He was blighted. He lost everything and everyone because he wanted to leave the city for the first time. “Hurry mister Stone, I dinna wanna die yet!” He prayed to the pebble as he found a resolve to live. He hadn’t lost his mind... even when his race changed and his level dropped back to the 1st level, he was still himself. Mostly. The beard would be missed.

An axe shone in the glow of mana crystals as it fell towards Dafur’s neck. Tafur happily laughed, because he would not need to share his inheritance nor resources anymore.

“Stone! NO!” Lucifer shouted.

“Loud! Concentrating!”

A heated <Mana Bubble> exuding blue rays appeared near Dafur and compressed.

“Back!” Tafur yelled at his minions as he retreated himself. He was able to safely distinguish refined mana. The bodyguards released Dafur, bouncing towards their boss.

Dafur leapt back too and cast a more powerful iteration of the earth rune around them. He depleted almost all of his mana on this.

Lucifer closed his imaginary eyes and with a sigh signalling a capitulation, he created a thin purple cover around Stone.

Mana was chaotically flowing all around the cavern and all of the mana crystals’ radiance intensified.

<Refined mana sends you to berserk. Reason: You are Mana Crystal>

“Pretty,” Stone whispered as the heated, blueish <Mana Point> pulled all of his attention towards itself.

He became a mana crystal himself, so he could feel the flow of mana and had the same reactions to mana too.

“For the god of… Stone! Wake up, you moron!” Lucifer attempted to wake him up. The idea was simple; be as noisy as possible!

<Berserk status suppressed>

“Loud!” Stone reflexively protested.

Ambient mana condensed around the red and blue crystals as they reacted to the refined mana and released pulses of heat mixed lightning arcs.

“Oh, here we go,” Lucifer closes his eyes in defeat, praying to all gods he could remember.

<Your spell Mana Point gained a level>

Stone read the message and pumped even more refined mana into the <Mana Point>.

The two 3rd-rank runemasters conjured all the protective runes they could muster. One rune had floating droplets of water around it and the second rune pulled dust around to itself. A two-layered shield materialized around all three of them.

‘Booooooom!’

The heated <Mana Point> exploded. In reaction to that, the crystals released more and more powerful waves of mana mixed with fiery tongues and electric arcs.

Tafur and his two guards were thrown deeper into the shaft and pushed to the ground by the violent waves, alongside their rune shields. Fortunately, the watery and earthen shield still held, successfully blocking the powerful radiation. Tafur’s two guards picked themselves up with some difficulties and slowly retreated with Tafur between their arms as far as they could.

On the other side, Dafur’s shield slowly cracked. His face contorted in pain and concentration as he was violently pushed to his knees.

‘CRACK!’

The ground and wall ruptured and a few crystals fell from the wall. The powerful waves broke the ground apart, revealing another deep rift filled with attuned crystals.

Needless to say, they began another descent into the illuminated unknown.

“Again! Fuuuuuuuuuuuu…” Lucifer screamed in horror, this time able to see way more clearly as the Stone’s perception sphere enlarged to 15 meters.

“There is no grooouuuu...!"

"Loud!" Stone stated with his classical stony face. He inwardly sighed. Not because of danger, or fear… But because he truly disliked flying. It felt so… unnatural.

Meanwhile, Dafur lost his consciousness from overdraining his mana and his shield completely collapsed, but something strange happened. Right before he fell, surrounded by the pulsing crystals, golden mana strings emerged from his chest and connected to them.

Stone could see as the mana was flowing inside the former dwarf. They even attempted to connect to Stone, but he instinctively raised protection around himself, completely blocking them.

After minutes of falling and Lucifer’s screaming and wailing, an embarrassing atmosphere fell between them. Stone was pouting as the Lucifer was way too loud and Lucifer was embarrassed so much, he could barely look at Stone, which was frankly quite hard as he was living inside of

“Are you done?” Stone patiently asked, ignoring the whistling air around.

“Ehm… Yes. Certainly… For now,” Lucifer answered, ashamed.

“Luci, I really don’t like falling,” Stone stated, noting Lucifer’s discomfort. He attempted to steer the conversation somewhere else. What a nice pebble...

“Nobody does,” Lucifer sighed while trying to make himself calm. “We did not hit the ground. Still. That’s a good sign,” he paused for a moment while mulling over something, “or a very bad one…”

“I learned a new spell, Mana Shield,” Stone boasted while disregarding Lucifer’s muttering.

“Uhuh. Good, and you did it by yourself? Or you somehow knew how to do it?”

“Hmm… The second one.”

“Haaah, you little stony Monster… I knew it. Now please excuse me, I will panic into that corner again,” he said with a strangely calm voice, took an imaginary deep breath and screamed in horror and exasperation, “AAAAAAaaaaaa!”

“Loud!”
“AAAAAaaaaa!”
“Loud! Too loud!”
“AAAAAaaaaa!”
“Looooud!”
“AAAAAaaaaa!”
“Laut!” {A/N: German}
“AAAAAaaaaa!”
“Jor!” {A/N: Hindi}
“AAaa?”
“Gromko!” {A/N: Russian}
“What now?”
“It worked! He is not loud! Thanks Universum!”
<Yup! No problem! Anything for my pebble! Don’t forget! No more strange thingies!>

Stone observed the unconscious Dafur who was still absorbing mana from the flickering crystals. It felt strange when he was near the golden strings. Like he should fear them.

He vibrated, an equivalent of shaking head.

The ground was rapidly approaching. Beautiful ground! He liked ground. Still, this one was... odd. It was moving. Not like when it collapsed or stupid dwarves broke stound. No, it was… watery.

“Oh, it’s a big pool of water, like Luci described, what was that name…” Stone mumbled as it was the first time he saw so much water at once, “Lake!” he exclaimed, remembering the word.

‘Splash! Splash! Splash!’

They broke the tranquil surface in the middle of the lake and slowly dived deep under the surface.

Lucifer continued to yell for a few moments but then registered he was not dead.

“I hope you are done shouting. I have quite enough of your loudness,” Stone grumpily stated, sulking.

“Oh, good, we did not die,” Luci said with a tired, flat tone, “and now we are diving who knows where.”

“There is something below us,” Stone highlighted an area under them.

“Where are the times when I was bored while you were killing ants… I miss that,” Lucifer sighed and examined the hinted area.

A big eye slowly opened the moment Lucifer turned his attention to it and several tentacles shot towards flickering mana crystals that were around. Including Stone, who was still covered with Mana Shield.

“Well, this is it. Goodbye Stone, it was a terrible experience with you,” Lucifer said with the surrendered tone, but an inward large smile, “now if you excuse me, I am going to scream again,” he takes an imaginary deep breath, but Stone sharply gave an order, “do not even dare to be loud!”

“Help meeee! I am going to be eateeen!” Was what Lucifer wanted to scream. However, something stopped him. Something in the Stone’s voice.

Stone created a shield around himself with 10 RM points.

<Your spell Mana Shield gained a level>

As he heard it, he pumped another 2 points into it.

The tentacles surrounded them and pushed them towards the beak filled with small, sharp teeth.

‘Gulp!’

The Monster gulped with great gusto.

☁☁☁☁☁☁

Half-Insane, Half-Even-More-Insane Dafur’s eyes shot open. His heart hammered in his heart, adrenaline raced through him as he was woken up by the freezing water. Dwarfs and water were not good friends and when they are supposed to go bathing… It was a national Day of Sorrow. Yup, they had even a holiday for it. Runes did not count.

His instincts saved his life and he swam to the surface. He looked around, seeing a rocky shore a few strokes afar and rapidly kicked to get out of this cursed, cold water.

As Dafur calmed a little bit on the shore, he noticed something, well, someone was missing.

“Stone!”

He stared at the water, weighing if it was worth it. In the end, he took a very deep breath, a few steps back and stopped as he heard footsteps echoing from the shaft nearby.

“Heya! What’re ya doin’ her’?” A druegar, wearing some kind of dark leather armour and holding a simple lantern made from metal with a glowing mana crystal inside, emerged from around the corner and spotted the preparing-to-jump-into-water Dafur.

“Heya! Mae Stone fell into the water…” Dafur answered automatically, still kind of dazed from the overdrain, fall and water.

“Ah, ya’re one of those crazy ones, huh… Poor guy. That’s the home of Shul-Gahat,” druegar said, stopping next to Dafur. Together they watched the rippling surface. It was all nice and calm.

“Shul-Gahat?” Dafur asked, a horror creeping into his head. It did not sound like a nice, welcoming host. It sounded more like the name of someone who would happily take you as a sacrifice.

The druegar turned to Dafur with a question in their eyes. He examined Dafur more closely, noticing he has no hair, no clothes and visible strange golden runes engraved on his chest.

“Wher’re ya from?” The druegar asks with wariness and a bit of interest.

“Better not to tell I’m from surface…” Dafur thought and while he was trying to figure out how to answer, the druegar sharply turned to the lake as bubbles arose on the surface.

“Shul-Gahat has awoken. Let’s go back to the shaman,” he grabbed Dafur’s arm, dragging him away. Dafur peeked over his shoulder at the surface for the last time, sighing.

☁☁☁☁☁☁

Meanwhile, near the mana crystal deposit, after the violent reactions stopped, frowning Tafur and his two guards examined the rift.

Korag got too close to the edge, his legs slipped and he almost fell. Trag caught him just in time and pulled him back while whispering, “idiot! Watch where you step!”

“Thanks,” Korag whispered back and this time was more careful.

“Fuck!” Tafur cursed, half angered and half in awe as he saw the deep rift and the thousands of kilograms of attuned crystals. “We need to go back to the city and report,” he ordered.

“What about master Therdreag?” Trag asked.

“No option her’. T’is rift probably leads to the Abyss. Laws’re clear,” Tafur frowned while conjuring a fiery rune and sending it down. The rune travelled for around 20 metres, then flickered a few times and in the end, disappeared.

“Let’s go,” he turned back and started jogging back to the portal.

Korag and Trag glanced around the former cavern for the last time, sighed and followed their boss. After a while, Trag whispered,” Korag?”

“Yea?”

“We coulda kill the young master and take reward for the report… We coulda say that he fell, which woulda not be a lie,” Trag quietly and carefully proposed.

“Now who’s idiot hee’. Master Therdreag woulda interrogate us… Ya dinna wanna be in his hands,” Korag whispered back, shaking his head.

“But look at the deposit and ya know master Mafur! He gave us order and with this discovery we would rise under him even further. Even if small, the deposit is incredibly ri…”

Of course, the apprentice of the 5th rank runemaster was no one to scoff at and had trained senses beyond normal.

“Swish! Swish!”

Trag was interrupted in the middle of a sentence by two mudballs hitting them squarely at their helmets. Their trained reactions were fast enough to conjure protective runes. Still, the sheer power of impact dazed them.

“Tche!” Tafur spat on the ground and said with a voice brimming with wrath, “loyalty of a rat… Seems like ye two’re bribed by mae eldest brother. Fine!”

He conjured another two runes, and two balls of clear liquid materialized before him. A few drops fall on the ground and hisses as it dissolved a few pebbles.

“Fuck! Acid! He's able to conjure fuckin’ acid!” Korag exclaimed in surprise and hastily conjured another earthen shield, but as he was still drained from the radiation, it was not too strong.

Trag activated the few engraved runes on his robe he had and a translucent mana shield enveloped him. However, he was dangerously close to his limit too.

“Splash! Splash!”

The two acidic balls landed on the shields and were constantly hissing as the solution ate away the two traitors’ protections. They knew that Tafur was one in twenty years genius, but did not expect he had so much mana left after using two double-runes and to be so powerful.

“Ya’re 3rd rank apprentice! Why have ya hidden it?!” Korag yelled. He thought Tafur was a mere 2nd rank. He was preparing his last trump rune; a lightning rune.

Trag had difficulty holding up his shield as he pumped every little bit of mana he had left into it.

“Ha! No need to talk traitors, don’t ye worry, yer families’ll be executed with ye. I’ll make sure of it!”

“No! Please!” Trag pleaded, but his shield collapsed and the acid fell on his robe, rapidly melting the fabric. A few uncovered tattooed runes on his body shimmered and disintegrated as they released mana that spread on Trag’s body. The acid landed on it and flowed down without damaging Trag.

A crackling echoed as the lightning rune appeared in Korag’s hands. The lightning bolt struck Tafur’s shield. Fortunately, it held, even though Tafur twitched a few times as electricity bypassed the shield, ravaging his muscles.

“Now, ye shoulda be without mana. Die!” Tafur screamed, his face completely red from anger and pain, veins across his forehead were in the danger of popping.

“Master Tafur! Leave us! Otherwise yar brother’ll naet forgive ya!”

“Ha! Die!” Tafur laughed them off and conjured ice spears. They pierced through their chest, struggled a bit against their naturally tough bodies. In the end, the spears won and went right through the hearts and spines.

‘Thud, thud’

Two bodies collapsed. Tafur half-sat half-collapsed on the ground as he himself was drained. If he would have to expend any more mana, he would be in danger of death.

“Haaah, fuck… lucky!” He proclaimed, stood and searched the corpses. Each of them had some coins and even one small, translucent mana crystal each in rune-engraved pouches, which were blocking the weak radiation from escaping.

After that, he meditated for a while to regenerate his mana. He conjured a rune that increased his raw strength by 25% and put the two dead dwarfs on his shoulders.

He went back to the rift and dropped them to the darkness while deeply frowning. No one, not even his father could know of what had occurred here. Fortunately, his master did not hold an interest in these struggles.

Then he went back, meeting his returned master. The latter was holding a dead body of a blighted dwarf and bearing a furious expression.

Tafur explained to him the situation, the gate, the shaft, his brother, rift and deposit and how his two guards died in his protection from the violent mana.

“Dornus dammit!” Master Therdreag swore and the whole complex slightly trembled. When he calmed down, he said in a little bit better mood, “let’s go, my little apprentice! At least some good news, haaah,” he sighed and continued in a grave tone, “I need to report to the Assembly of two runaway blighted dwarfs and you about the rift leading to Abyss,” they walked towards the portal that was slowly nearing its limit. He grinned, “and what did you say about the mana crystals deposit?”

☁☁☁☁☁☁

Encyclopaedia Stonia

Abyss – addendum
Where the Abyss starts is arbitrary for every race and government. Dwarfs consider the first layer of Abyss around 50 kilometres underground. Elfs 30 kilometres, Humans don’t care much, and Undeads consider Abyss as part of their dominions. Of course, with the severe disagreement of many other races…

Double-rune
An extraordinary technique that the most talented runemasters could master. It's similar to wizards' (and other similar classes) double casting, which allows creating two superimposed runes that enhance themselves. This technique can be trained to higher tiers, allowing it to cast two words. If it's usable for runic sentences, nobody knows.

Runemasters' families
Runemasters are merciless and efficient. The resources are scarce, and only those with the best aptitude can enjoy full treatment (like Tafur). This situation creates sociopathic researchers and brutal fighters which is one of the many reasons why the other nations do not war against dwarven lands. Even if stronger, the losses of troops and resources outweigh the possible benefits.

Ancient laboratories
Left by ancient scientists all over the continent, often underground. They are as rare as mana crystals deposits but valued even more. The labs hold incredible treasures (at least compared to modern technology) and valued research data. Some of the laboratories and fortresses have programmed automatic expansion that slowly gathers ambient mana over the years. How ancient runemasters did it, dwarfs don't know as this art is lost in times and many wars. Of course, it's being furiously researched, but to little success. Imagine a self-growing castle…