The desert was unlike anything Grandma had ever experienced, a sprawling, shifting landscape that extended as far as the eye could see. Even in early summer, even this far north, the desert was hot during the day. The sun beat down relentlessly on the travelers, heating the air and drawing the moisture out of their bodies.

They traveled at dawn and dusk, huddling in tents under stone shelters during the hottest and coldest parts of the day. Nanur was astonished, then delighted, by their ability to transform sand into solid stone and build makeshift shelters along the way. It was the most physically demanding trip Mina had ever made. The land was thin on mana, tiring them out easily, and hunting was scarce, forcing them to rely almost entirely on dried rations that they had to pack in.

Grandma pretended to eat and drink to keep up appearances, and passed her share of rations onto Pluot to keep the large beast adequately fed and hydrated. Poor Pluot began to regret his life choices almost immediately, and Grandma, taking pity on the beast, used what little available mana she could pull from the desiccated landscape to keep his body at a reasonably cool temperature.

“I don’t understand why you want to go out this way,” Nanur said as they plodded along, their horses picking their slow and steady way across the sand and stone.

“It’s a research trip,” Fariel deflected easily. “We’re looking into some ancient magical phenomena. We suspect it’s in this region.”

“But there aren’t even animals here,” Nanur protested. “Yes the desert is a harsh environment, but even so, there are signs of life if you know how to look. But where you want to go? There’s nothing at all.”

“If there’s nothing there, we’ll take some measurements, write down our observations, and return.” Fariel smiled reassuringly. “No harm done, right?”

Nanur grunted in irritation. “I suppose as long as I get paid, one trip into the desert is the same as any other.”

A few days into their journey, they began to encounter rolling hills. Dunes reared up, then sank down again. Nanur tried to guide them along the hilltops, but based on their map, Grandma and Fariel both insisted on cutting across the ridges. 

“These hills form rings,” Nanur told them. “There’s less and less stuff the farther into the rings you go.”

“We suspected as much,” Fariel replied amiably. “We need to get to the center of the rings.”

Nanur threw up her hands in exasperation and finally gave in to their insistence. “I should have demanded payment up front,” she muttered in disgust.

The hills grew taller and more jagged. [It’s like ripples in water, only instead of water, it’s the land that grew ripples.] Grandma spoke silently to the other three to conserve her energy.

[This is good though,] Fariel said. [I was afraid it’d be a featureless plain here, but with these rings to guide us, we should be able to find the calamity site with relative ease and accuracy.]

[What will we do if these mountains get even taller?] Mina asked, highlighting the dark smudge on the horizon that foretold higher peaks ahead of them.

[Maybe we’ll find a gap, or make a tunnel,] Grandma said hopefully.

[You want to bore a hole through an entire mountain?] Fariel asked, stunned. [How do you say such absurd things with such ease?]

Grandma only laughed silently in response.

Nanur guided them through the desert, until they reached a sheer, jagged cliff that blocked their way like a stone wall. “I’m afraid this is as far as I’m willing to go. If you insist on going farther, you’re on your own. I won’t charge you full price, but I will be returning now.”

She had expected them to put up a fuss, but instead, Fariel calmly handed over the rest of her payment, thanked her for her services, and turned back to regard the cliff looming over them. Nanur sighed, shook her head, collected her horse and supplies, and left them staring at the impassable stone.

Once Nanur was out of sight, Grandma stepped forward. [It only looks imposing, but it’s actually fairly thin, isn’t it?] She glanced at Mina for confirmation, who nodded absently.

“There’s something weird about these hills and cliffs,” she muttered. “They feel out of place.”

Tanner placed a hand on the rock before him, stroking it thoughtfully. “Feels like mana,” he said.

[Then let’s return it to mana.] Grandma placed both hands on the stone jutting up before them and pushed, dissolving the stone into raw mana as she went. Where had these cliffs come from? Had they been pulled from the land? But the earth felt stable; there were no gaps under their feet where the stone that comprised these cliffs could have been hauled out of. Had the land settled to fill those gaps in the thousand years since they'd been formed? Or had these stones been created out of pure mana in the first place? Even inside a dungeon, that was a feat that took an impossible amount of power. All of Grandma’s little earthen huts had been simply moving dirt around using mana, rather than creating it from scratch.

It was too much power for Grandma to hold onto, so she directed the overflowing mana through her body and down into the parched ground. The earth was only too glad to lap up the magic. They pressed on, with Grandma in the lead dissolving the stone and feeding the power back to the land. Mina, Fariel, and Tanner joined in on either side of Grandma, widening the tunnel she bore into the rock face.

They punched through the seemingly impenetrable cliff, and found themselves in a desolate valley. To either side stretched the cliff wall, curving gently into the distance, and before them, another cliff loomed. With a shrug, they crossed the valley, and repeated the process.

As they became accustomed to dissolving the stone back into mana, they were able to pick up the pace. At some point, Pluot also joined in, which shouldn’t have surprised Grandma as much as it did, honestly. None of them wanted to stop, so they used what mana they needed to fuel their bodies, and pushed on without rest until finally, they broke through the last of the jagged cliffs ringing their destination.

On the other side yawned an enormous pit. Over the past millennia, it had filled with fallen rocks and debris, and the swirling breeze that stirred up the dust obscured the bottom of the bowl. They all stopped to stare into the giant crater, bemused.

[Well that sure is a big old hole in the ground,] Grandma said at last.

“Wonder what’d happen if we all threw mana at it,” Tanner mused, kicking a pebble over the lip of the bowl.

They watched and listened as it clattered down, then was swallowed by the billowing dust cloud.

“I’d like to give that a try,” Fariel mused. He raised his left hand and pressed it against the inner edge of the stone, then held out his right arm so that his palm faced down into the bowl. Slowly, the wall disappeared under his left hand, and mana streamed out, pouring from his right palm into the crater.

Tanner looked at the imperial mage, then shrugged and copied the man, dissolving the stone in a different area and pouring it into the crater. Soon, everyone had joined in, and they walked in a slow, wide circle, breaking down the stone that surrounded them and pouring it back into the land as power.

The earth drank and drank of the life giving mana, and as they went, Mina noticed a subtle change in the air. [Something’s happening,] she whispered to Grandma.

[Something “interesting”, or something “run for our lives”?] Grandma asked.

[Interesting, I think, but I’d never rule out running for our lives.] Mina grinned as she glanced at Grandma over her shoulder.

A resounding crack split the air, throwing them to their hands and knees and kicking up more choking dust. Their excavation had destabilized the rock formations, and parts of the mountain were caving in. Fariel and Tanner threw up a slanting sheet of stone to cover themselves and divert any falling rocks away, and on the other side, Mina and Grandma did the same, hiding Pluot and themselves beneath solid stone and hoping it would be sturdy enough.

As the cliffs around them crumbled, Grandma did her best to convert as much of the falling stone to mana as she could. The others, catching on, joined in as well. The noise and shaking went on and on, until Mina felt the bulk of the mass had passed over them at last.

[Is everyone all right?] she asked, reaching for Tanner and Fariel.

[Yes, we’re both fine,] Tanner replied.

[Is it safe to come out yet?] Fariel asked.

[I don’t sense anything moving out there,] Mina confirmed. [Let’s take a peek.]

Grandma dissolved a bit of the stone that had shielded them to peer outside. Half the cliffs they had come through had crumbled, leaving a wreckage of tumbled rocks. There were two pockets of relative emptiness around each of their two shelters, where they had successfully converted the falling stone into mana.

Something in the crater was glowing. Tired of the obscuring dust cloud, Grandma wove mana through the air and pushed until the wind stopped. Gradually the dust settled down, and they finally got a clear view of the bottom of the bowl.

Shimmering amidst the tumbled stone was the unmistakable swirl of an open dungeon door.