“That wasn’t there before, was it?” Tanner stared at the dungeon door. “I mean, we didn’t see anything glowing down there. And there definitely wasn’t this much mana before.”

“I do believe you’re right,” Fariel murmured. The air was filled with the sound of his pencil scribbling across the page.

“Did we just,” Mina gawked, “make a dungeon?”

[The Frog and Gray did say dungeons formed when too much mana accumulated in one spot,] Grandma recalled.

“How do you even remember stuff like that? That was ages ago.” Tanner glared at Grandma.

Grandma only shrugged.

“You don’t think there’s a miasma in there, do you?” Mina breathed, half awed, half horrified.

“I’m not ready to be a father!” Tanner wailed melodramatically, drawing a snort of unwilling laughter from Mina.

[Should we go take a look?] Grandma sat down at the edge of the crater and dangled her legs over the side. [I could go first and report back on what it’s like on the other side.]

“Be careful,” Mina said, giving Grandma a fierce hug.

Pluot shook itself and padded over to Grandma, nuzzling her. [I want to go too!]

[Fine, you can come too,] Grandma said, not feeling up to arguing with the beast.

The pair skidded down the slope of the bowl until they reached the rock filled bottom. Based on the curvature of the crater, Grandma guessed they were only about halfway to the true bottom of the bowl. The collapsed cliff had filled the bowl quite a bit. Grandma climbed onto Pluot’s back and let it pick its own way across the uneven ground to the dungeon door. Then, as one, they stuck their heads through and looked around.

It was very misty on the other side. Grandma thought she caught a fleeting glimpse of an open grassland, before she was assaulted by a torrent of memories. The land screaming in agony as it split open. Precious life-giving mana surging out in a raging torrent, transforming to death and destruction, shattering across the plains. The earth heaving as the massive wave of mana blew away everything in its path, then reforming into strange new shapes. Desolation and emptiness. A vast, echoing loneliness. The memories reached its conclusion, and started over from the beginning, an endless loop of pain.

[Shh,] Grandma soothed, [it’s all right now. It’s over. Everything is all right now.] She shared up a memory of a flower blooming in the garden, at their house in Bow Harbor. A flicker of a fox’s tail disappearing into the evening gloom. The plop of frogs into water, startled by some other critter passing too near. Closer to the desert, she shared memories of geckos, their tails plump against the walls. Lizards, darting across the sands. Beetles rolling balls of dung back to their burrows. [It’s all right. We live. We’re here.]

The torrent of pain and loneliness slowed to a trickle as its source took in Grandma’s memories. Grandma shared everything she had seen and done in the handful of years since she’d come to this world; all the life she’d encountered, and all the living she’d done. 

[Stay,] the world whispered. [Stay.]

[I will,] Grandma promised, and walked into the dungeon.

[Grandma? What’s happening?] Mina’s voice was faint and attenuated across the dungeon boundary. 

[The dungeon is in a great deal of pain, dear. I’ll be staying here a while, but you and the others would probably do better to stay out. Go ahead and make camp nearby, there’s no immediate danger.]

As the world expanded slowly to take in Grandma’s memories, Grandma was able to see again. The dungeon she stood in was filled with a pale fog. The interior was quite small, but expanding even as she watched. The landscape was a pale, wintry grassland, though the tufts of vegetation underfoot had a brittle, fake quality to it, as if badly reproduced from a worn out recollection.

[Help me.] The little cloud of mana shivered around Grandma, clinging to her. [I want to be alive again.]

Grandma gave the miasma memories of grass, warm in the sun, vibrant with life. She gave it the soft susurrus of wind through its blades. The glint of light reflecting off collected morning dew. She could feel the landscape brighten around her, the grass losing its sheen of unreality, becoming more solid and concrete.

[I don’t know what it was like here before,] Grandma said, gently cupping some of the mana cloud in her hands. [You’ll have to remember that part on your own. I’m sorry.]

[Give me back more of myself, and I shall,] it murmured, soft as a trickle of water spilling down a leaf.

[I will. I’ll be back.] Grandma stepped away, and returned to the outside world. Pluot was sitting by the exit waiting for her, and puffed a hot breath across her face as she emerged. She climbed onto its back, and they leaped back up the side of the bowl, scrambling until they crested the lip and could flop down on the ledge they had created when they dissolved through the cliffs.

“So, what did you find?” Mina asked. She tried to keep her voice light, but Grandma could feel the tension thrumming in her. To either side of her, Tanner and Fariel did their best to pretend they were busy, rather than waiting with bated breath for Grandma’s answer.

[A dungeon, of course. Small, but growing very fast. The miasma inside must be quite old. It could speak, and seemed to remember the calamity.]

Predictably, Fariel took notes. Tanner blew out his cheeks and sighed gustily, then asked, “What did it say?”

[It wants more mana. I think the cliffs are a part of it.]

They camped beside the dungeon door, all five of them working together to release the mana that was bound up in the cliffs. They nourished themselves and their horses with pure mana, and though their mouths were constantly dry and their bellies sagged with emptiness, still they remained in good health. 

Grandma worked on the innermost ring of cliffs, wanting to stay near the dungeon as much as she could, so Mina, Tanner, and Fariel left Pluot with her and went out to work on expanding the passage. The excavating group was careful to control the cave-ins they caused, and converted any stone that fell as well.

Several days later, the trio made their way back to the outermost cliffs where Nanur had left them. As they approached the opening in the cliffs, they heard strange sounds echoing down the length of the tunnel. Mina sent her awareness out, and warned that there were many people on the other side of the cliffs. Cautiously, the trio crept through the tunnel, and were dismayed to find a squad of soldiers camped in the mouth of the passageway they had opened. In the back of the camp lurked Nanur herself, looking deeply annoyed at the circumstances life had sprung on her.

“I knew it was you,” Jiyon cried as he spotted them in the gloom. Mina’s blue hair fairly glowed in the dim light of the stone passage.

“What are you doing here?” Mina asked, reaching for the mana she had just poured out and sinking into a stable, athletic stance. Had the crown prince come to arrest them? Had he been pursuing them all this time?

“Whoa, hey, wait a minute.” Jiyon put up his hands. “I just wanted to make sure you were safe.”

“As you can see, I’m quite safe,” Mina said flatly, not rising from her ready stance.

“So um, what brings you here?” he tried again, desperate to make conversation.

“That doesn’t concern you. I strongly recommend Your Imperial Highness return to the empire, and leave us alone.”

Jiyon’s soldiers tensed. Mina’s rudeness was fine when Jiyon was pretending to be just another young soldier, but now that she had called him out by his title, they grew uneasy with her sharpness. Tanner sensed their shift in mood and reached for mana as well. But the crown prince only sighed, and nodded. “Very well. We can’t win against you with force anyway. If you’re well enough to fight us, then that’s good enough for me.”

“There is one thing you can do for us,” Fariel piped up. “Could you send a letter to Bow Harbor, and also bring our horses back?”

Jiyon’s head snapped back up, delight spreading across his face. “Yes, of course!”

“Then, please wait here, and we shall return shortly.”

Mina, Tanner, and Fariel darted back into the tunnel. For completeness’s sake, they also sealed the passage with a slab of stone they pulled from the earth, so that Jiyon couldn’t get any ideas about sneakily following them again. A short while later, they returned, leading their mounts and a stack of paper. Fariel handed the letters to Jiyon, while Tanner passed the reins of the horses to Nanur.

“So you didn’t die after all,” she told the boy as she checked over the horses. The animals nosed at Nanur, and seemed especially eager to lip at her pockets, hoping for something to eat.

“Life finds a way,” Tanner said with a bland smile.

Mina didn’t relax until she sensed Jiyon and his retinue decamp to return to the empire.