In central Darshanna, a plague was spreading. It wasn’t anything magical or enchanted. In fact, it kinda looked like whooping cough.

It had struck before, decades ago, and on both occasions it had been spread through the river water. Many villagers, Lark included, knew this because they’d had the sickness as children.

But they had been cured when Lark’s mother, an herb-gatherer, experimented and devised a cure from two common plants and a rarity. She had even taken Lark to the tiny, mushroomed patch where that rare herb, the most essential part of the remedy, could be found...

So years and years later, Lark returned to the patch, only to find it overrun by nothing but the common plants.

Frantic, she asked her fellow villagers, pulled them all through the wood, scoured it, to no avail. Most were positive that she had the right coordinates. The bitter ones were sure she’d dreamed it. Had the herb somehow been driven out by the wyrms migrating across the woodlands? Or by the pack of dragons making their way toward the neighboring villages Lark knew as the Band of Seven?

In any case, the herb was gone...maybe.

“Have any of you heard the story of that adventurer who claimed to see the dungeon core with his own eyes? And then died?” said Lark to the sleepy crowd of divers.

Ragnorre shook her head no, but the rest nodded.

“That’s not the only ending these stories can take. Loads of powerful dungeons have tales of ‘the people who never came back’ or ‘the ones who came back wrong,’ but there’s a story from this very village, centuries ago, of a man who talked to the dungeon core.”

This was meant to be her big surprising line. Nobody, however, seemed surprised by it.

Except Nyx, of all people. They scanned the divers’ faces and said, “Don’t act like you all knew that already. I didn’t know it and I’ve seen a bunch of underworld shit.”

“I didn’t know-know, but it makes sense,” said Ragnorre.

“Also! Not underworld,” noted Lark. Each dungeon core is very much here on Gaia.”

The mental activity going on in Ethel’s curious head was almost palpable. She stared at the ground, glancing past theories on the nature of dungeon cores.

“Could they be connecting...nodes? Or even...spirits of the planet?”

Lark looked away. “I don’t know for sure. But I do know that they’re intimate with the planet—including its surface. If anyone would know where a long-forgotten flower had traveled, it’s the cores.”

“What makes you so sure?” said Nyx.

“I’ve talked to one before.”

“Oh...”

Hue moved to Lark’s ear and whispered. For the first time, Nyx realized a resemblance there...

“Hey, what about you?”

Lark nudged Hue aside. “We’re twins—both witches, except he traded his mortal ties for power. Comes back to Darshanna to look after me on occasion.”

“Wait, another demon?” said Nyx. “And you just let him come along?”

“I’m not a demon, I’ve just killed a lot of people.”

“...Oh...”

“So far as we know,” said Lark, raising her voice with impatience, “this is the final truth about all of us, correct?”

Several eyes glanced over at Ragnorre. She had no response and looked perfectly vacant.

“Okay? Alright? Good. Let’s get going.”

“Or sleep,” said Ethel weakly.

“Wait!” said Ragnorre. “What about cleaning the room?”

“Who cares about that anymore!?” Lark snapped.

“I don’t mind doing it, miss. There—did I do a good job?”

“Did you do wha—” Lark stopped herself and glanced around the room, at the ceiling, below her very feet. “U-uh, yes, it’s spotless.”

Of all the secrets the group had been hiding, none were as painful as the fact that Ragnorre could have been moving and warping at light speed this entire time, saving them a metric ton of fatigue.

***

One last day-night’s sleep in the bowels of the dungeon, and then they were headed for the very end. Nyx looked forward to it, but couldn’t help but feel nervous. Either someone was going to pull out a new cockamamie power that would get them there fast, or they would have to steamroll through more slimes and get freshly exhausted.

Hue had used a new cockamamie power to surround them all with a force field as they slept. Nonetheless, it was clear that nobody could get more than a fleeting flicker of sleep. Hue, Lark, and Ethel chose to lie down and rest their head as if it helped. This gave Ragnorre and Nyx a false sense of privacy as they sat up and, at Nyx’s request, scooted over to the far edge of the force field.

“Ow,” Nyx whispered with a jolt. “Don’t touch the barrier, it feels like a billion tiny buzzsaws.”

“The what?” said Ragnorre. Her back was currently being shredded, but also being pixelated, so it kind of didn’t matter.

“Anyway, are you sure that you don’t have...any other secrets? Anything at all? Because you can tell me. And if you don’t, I might...stab you. Maybe.” It was a weak threat that they instantly regretted.

“Why are we whispering?” said Ragnorre, who was plainly not whispering.

Nyx sighed. “I guess it doesn’t matter,” they said at normal volume. “I just wanted to try and find out what kind of demon you are, that’s all. I made a big list and everything. And I’m trying to figure out whether I’ve seen glitch powers before—outside of Earth, I mean...”

“Wait!” Ragnorre’s eyes widened. “You mean ‘Earth’ the planet?”

Nyx blinked. “Yeah. Ethel mentioned it. W-wait, she mentioned it even before we got here! It’s not even a secret! Why are you just now—”

“I thought she was talking about clumps of dirt and stuff.”

“That’s almost fair.”

Nyx leaned in, sensing they were getting somewhere. They also wondered if Ragnorre might have also been among the Twelve Poppers or whatever people were calling them now...could she have been a face transformed or a face long forgotten?

“I’ve heard about Earth,” Ragnorre hummed, “but I can’t really remember. It’s like the big demons were talking about it. Or maybe it was a dream...” Suddenly she looked pensive. She held a gloved hand to her head.

A fire started in Nyx’s chest. They snapped an arm around Ragnorre, looked her in the face, and said, absolutely grave, “Try your best to remember.”