The crystals held Serenity’s attention. There was something about them, something familiar. Something important.

It wasn’t until Raz set a hand on Serenity’s arm to get his attention that Serenity was able to stop looking at them. Naturally, that was also when he realized what they were. The crystals were the reason he kept thinking this was almost a dungeon. They, and the enchantment they were set in, did the same things as a dungeon. They took the surrounding bits of Affinity-tainted mana and essence and filtered it into the ley line as raw mana along with … something else. Serenity couldn’t quite tell what. Power, maybe? Something was powering the Arcanum, though it was possible that was the ley line itself.

The crystals didn’t have any intelligence and they couldn’t create monsters. They also didn’t have the capability to self-repair; the enchantment required regular maintenance that hadn’t been done for the past year. It needed…

Raz shook Serenity’s arm. “Serenity? You’re not normally this distractible. Is something wrong?”

Serenity carefully averted his gaze from the crystals. They weren’t dungeon cores but they were apparently close enough to be an active hazard to him. If he had to guess, they were an attempt to reverse-engineer the effects of dungeon cores. An attempt that was generally successful but still left something of their heritage on them. Something he was apparently vulnerable to when there were dozens of the crystals in front of him.

Every Path had its problems and it looked like he’d just found one of his weaknesses. He should have expected it; he’d used gods’ limitations against them as the Final Reaper, after all. It simply hadn’t occurred to him that there were nonsapient objects that could hit him that way. He’d expected dungeons to be his weakness but it seemed that it was broader than that.

“The enchantment is degrading,” Serenity stated as he waved a hand at it without looking. He’d tell Raz the full truth if he had the chance to do so while they were in private, but he wasn’t going to talk about the apparent downsides of his Path with anyone he didn’t fully trust. It would be good to talk about it with the best actual expert on dungeons he had available. “Not enough to cause problems while we’re here, but it got my attention. It needs maintenance soon.”

Raz tilted his head at Serenity and shifted his tail. Serenity recognized that motion; on a human, it would have been a frown. He’d seen it enough times to recognize it. At least, he thought he had.

Or maybe he was feeling something from Raz that told him what Raz was thinking? Raz was one of his followers, after all. It only made sense he’d be able to understand his followers better than other people; if he couldn’t understand them, how could he know what they wanted?

“You should probably do something about the glow,” Raz commented quietly. “It’s not obvious in the light, but it will be if we go into a dark area. I know it’s something that happens to you in high-magic areas, but I also know you figured out how to stop it from happening.”

Glow?

Serenity looked down at himself and realized Raz was correct: he was glowing. The glow was odd; it seemed to wash things near him in a deep shade of purple. It wasn’t bright, but it also wasn’t the same as the glow from too much mana running through himself. That problem was fixed, at least for a planet as relatively low-Tier as Asihanya. Earth was even lower Tier, so he’d probably never have the problem there again.

No, this glow was something else. Something new. And the only thing that was new here was the not-quite-dungeon-cores.

Now that he thought of it, one other thing was different: he couldn’t help but think of himself as the Dungeon Deity. He normally thought of that as a strange Path, one he wouldn’t have chosen deliberately, but right now it seemed not only reasonable but inevitable. That fact, combined with the fact that he was suddenly glowing, should have given Serenity a bad feeling but right now it just made him certain he’d figured out what was going on. He was being influenced by the presence of the crystals.

He couldn’t even bring himself to dislike it. It was simply reality. They weren’t dungeon cores but they were close enough to affect him. There were enough gathered together that he couldn’t help but be influenced.

Now wasn’t the time. There wasn’t anything he needed to do to deal with them; instead, he needed to help Raz. Raz was important; he was one of the few worshipers who wasn’t a dungeon, knew who and what Serenity was, and still followed Serenity’s Path.

Unlike the false dungeon cores, Raz did have a task he needed Serenity’s help with.

Raz was worried about the glow. It was easy enough to stop glowing. He should, because Raz asked.

Serenity tried to clear his mind. Something was very, very wrong but he couldn’t quite process what it was. This wasn’t who he was, yet at the same time it was. It might be only some of his personality, only part of what he valued, yet it was still his.

Serenity wanted to hide this and it was simple enough to convince himself that Raz did too. After all, Raz had quietly asked him to stop glowing. Who wanted what was quickly muddled in Serenity’s mind, but he knew he needed an excuse. Fortunately, there was an obvious one to use. They were in a ley line.

“Raz? While we’re down here, I need you to tell me when I’m acting strange. I need you to tell me if I need to do something and I’m not taking it on normally. I’m…” Serenity paused and looked over towards Esme. Raz would understand what he wasn’t saying, wouldn’t he? Raz was better at this than he was. Everyone was better at this than Serenity. “I think I’m getting mana-drunk. It’s thick down here.”

Serenity heard the last line echo a little and realized he’d said it louder than he intended. That was embarrassing. It’d probably help sell the drunkenness, but that didn’t make it any less embarrassing.

“I didn’t know half-dragons got mana-drunk,” Esme commented. “You do seem a bit off, though. Don’t worry, we won’t hold it against you. Much.”

Serenity was certain he was flushed. He still had to at least try to hold his own. “Did you know dragons are manavores? We all use mana to sustain ourselves, but dragons are a bit more direct. It lets such large creatures gather in surprisingly large numbers, sometimes.”

Now that he thought about it, he really did feel a little drunk, too. Something was definitely off.

“Open the book,” Raz told Serenity. “I don’t see a way down to the next basement.”

The book. Right. That was the next step, wasn’t it?

Serenity opened the book and tapped on the <<Student (Combat)>> header. The book flipped itself again, but it didn’t go to the same section. This time, it seemed to turn only a few pages.

==Validation Failed==

User Integrity Failure: Compromised Judgment (Cause Unknown). Please hand the book to someone who is not compromised or wait until you recover.

That definitely wasn’t what Serenity was looking for. He gaped at it for a long moment, then handed the book to Raz. “You try. It won’t let me.”

Raz took the book carefully; as he did, it flipped back to the selection page. Raz tapped the <<Student (Non-Combat)>> header. Serenity wasn’t certain why he’d picked that over Combat, but then Raz’s path wasn’t Serenity’s. It was true that Raz had very few Skills that were intended for actual fighting; he had a broad set of general abilities but other than that he was focused distinctly on dungeons.

==Validation Failed==

Incorrect Category Selected. Please select the correct Category.

Serenity heard chuckling; he’d have joined in if it weren’t already his own laughter he heard. It was only natural that bad UX design existed everywhere. The book was clearly not designed to be used by anyone who didn’t already know what was going on, even though whoever made it clearly tried to put some thought into it or it wouldn’t have been able to lead them this far.

The book flipped back to the selection page. This time, Raz chose the blank option. Serenity wasn’t certain why he picked that instead of trying <<Student (Combat)>>; the other Student option seemed the most likely, didn’t it?

==Information==

I don’t know what to say here; I don’t expect this section to ever be used. I hope it’s never needed. Since you’re here, though, it’s clear I was wrong.

Please follow the steps given; I’ve tried to add possibilities to cover everything you may run into. If I missed something, I’ve also included keycodes to allow more control directly from the Tome. Try to avoid using them if you can; using them directly from the Tome will destroy significant parts of the Academy’s enchantments. With that said, do use them if you have to. That’s why they’re there.

==Defense System Acknowledgement==

Defenses: Engaged

Attackers: Not Found

User Acknowledgement In Process - Arcanum Entry

Current location: 2nd Basement, Power Corridor Stairwell

Look to the right of the Empowering Enchantment and you will see a series of three horizontal lines on the wall. Press this book to the left portion of the lower line to open the door to the third basement.

This was almost as bad as a scavenger hunt!

Almost as much fun, too. Serenity looked forward to seeing what they’d find in the third basement. The second one held a unique almost-dungeon-core-controlled enchantment harnessing the power of a ley line and the magic used in the Academy, which was a huge step up from the everyday maintenance enchantments of the first basement. What might the next one hold?

Raz hurried towards the wall and did exactly what the book suggested. The wall a few feet away from the spot Raz pressed opened and revealed a staircase that seemed very similar to the one from the floor above. It must have had the opening mechanism separated from the false wall specifically to be different from the one above, in case someone went looking for the same thing that opened the previous wall.

Serenity found his attention being pulled back to the “Empowering Enchantment”. What exactly did it do? It seemed a lot like the way a dungeon processed mana, but how did that work without an actual dungeon? Serenity had never even heard of an enchantment that did that; he didn’t know how to do it with a ritual or a runescript. Sure, he could use a ley line for power, but how did a dungeon cleanse mana?

Raz looped his arm around Serenity’s and turned towards the door. The others must have gone ahead; they weren’t present anymore. Raz tugged on Serenity’s arm to tell him to move; Serenity followed willingly, floating forward.

About halfway down the staircase, floating became hard and Serenity started to actually step forward instead of just floating. A couple steps after that, he was walking down stairs instead of mostly floating. The world seemed to spin in front of him; he kept a hand on Raz’s shoulder now for balance.

By the time Serenity reached the bottom, he ached all over and had a serious headache. Maybe his excuse of being mana-drunk was more accurate than he’d thought.

He didn’t think that was the only thing that had happened, however. The false dungeon cores had affected him somehow. It wasn’t their fault, exactly; they weren’t sapient. Still, he didn’t want to go back up the way they’d come in. It hadn’t been at all unpleasant at the time, which somehow made it worse.

Lillene

UX = User Experience. It’s designing a product to be easy to acquire, understand, and use.