Grimwater Swamp was, on paper, still a Class One dungeon. Rookie-friendly. The kind of place a first-year team got sent to build confidence before anything real. Nobody in the courtyard that morning believed that, but the paperwork hadn't caught up to reality yet, and paperwork, I was learning, moved slower than anything else in the Empire.
We met Silver Fang in the courtyard at dawn.
I had expected to be impressed. I was still impressed, somehow, despite expecting it.
They stood in a loose formation that managed to look effortless and deliberate at the same time — five of them, which felt like an unreasonably small number to have built an entire legend around, and also felt like exactly enough once you were standing close enough to feel it.
Varkas at the center, the black cape doing whatever it did that made it look like it was moving in wind that wasn't there. Duran a few paces back, robed, still, watching us with an expression I couldn't read and didn't try very hard to. Veyla near the rear, and when her eyes found mine for half a second, something in them flickered — recognition, maybe, or the discomfort of two people who shared a secret standing in a courtyard pretending they didn't.
Beside her, a dwarf built like a small building, a warhammer slung across his back like something that belonged on a war memorial rather than a battlefield, armor covered in ridges and spikes that seemed less like decoration and more like the honest expectation that he'd be using his own body as a weapon at some point.
And nearest to us, arms crossed, watching our approach with the same all-business patience I remembered from a dim room beneath the streets of The Tangle— Stevie.
I hadn't expected her to be here, but was relieved she was. Having two people in Silver Fang that weren't allies, but also not enemies, would be good.
The dwarf caught me looking and grinned — a wide, gap-toothed thing that had nothing friendly in it.
He spoke in Dwarvish, in a voice like gravel being poured down a hill.
I recognized the line. I'd heard it once before, months ago, on a street I hadn't thought about since: "Smells like trash out here today."
"Uld Battlehorn. Charming," Tessa muttered. We had all made a point to learn the names of the members of Silver Fang. Tessa and Kael had no idea I already knew almost all of them.
Hask stepped forward before anyone could say anything else, and whatever conversation had been about to happen simply didn't.His presence changed something in the air the moment he made himself present— not dramatically, nothing so obvious as that, but a subtle recalibration, like everyone in the courtyard had quietly adjusted their estimate of the situation.
"Foreman Hask," Varkas said.
"Sir Aureyn."
Nothing else passed between them. It didn't need to. Two men who had said everything that mattered to each other in an office three days ago, standing in front of an audience neither of them would ever tell the truth in front of.
Stevie's eyes moved over our group with unhurried attention. When they reached me, she held the look half a second longer than she had for anyone else — not suspicious, not warm, just present, the way she'd been present across a table in a room under a laundry. I kept my face as blank as I could manage.
I wasn't sure I managed it very well.
Duran's gaze found me next, and I felt something cold settle in my stomach. He didn't react outwardly — no flicker of memory, no recognition — but I had no way of knowing what he remembered from the courtyard and what Veyla had wiped clean, and the not-knowing was its own quiet horror.
Veyla, for her part, kept her eyes carefully forward, addressing the group at large rather than any one person within it, which felt like its own kind of message.
"We've reviewed your report," Varkas said, to Hask, though his eyes moved briefly across the rest of us. "Unusual findings. We'll proceed with standard clearing protocol and adjust as the situation demands."
"Standard protocol," Hask repeated. Flat.
"Until we have reason to believe otherwise."
I could see, even from where I stood, that Hask didn't believe that for a second. Neither did I.Hask nodded to Varkas. "Sir Aureyn. You're the leader. Let's get the official briefing done."The Paladin smirked smugly, knowing that Hask hated saying those words. "Fantastic idea, Foreman." He turned to the group. "Esteemed Silver Fang comrades, and –"He looked over at our team with no attempt at hiding his disdain."–janitors."
Hask grimaced and let him continue."Today's mission is a joint endeavor between the Adventurers and Janitors guild. This is a rare occurrence, but I am told that it is important in this instance. There have been a series of escalating events in the area of the Grimwater Swamp Dungeon. You already informally know all the details of what we know, so I will keep it short; the Guild administrators have determined that the escalation has warranted a dungeon clearing followed by an immediate cleaning and reset. This dungeon has been classified as Class One for a very long time, but we have been advised to expect anything. We have also been advised to respect the 'spirit of comradery' that the Guilds work to maintain. We in Silver Fang will clear the dungeon efficiently and protect our Janitor 'comrades' with the 'respect' and 'deference' they deserve."He didn't accentuate the quotations with a gesture, but we could all hear it."Anything to add, Foreman?"Hask shook his head, "Not a thing."Varkas grinned in a way that made me wish I could punch him square in the face. "Fantastic."Uld hefted his hammer off his belt with the ease of a man testing the weight of something he'd carried a thousand times before, spinning it once before letting it rest against his shoulder.
"Rookie dungeon," he said in Common, to no one in particular, "Ought to be fun."
Nobody corrected him.
We set out within the hour.
The journey to the swamp's edge was shorter with two full parties traveling together, if only because nobody wanted to be the first to suggest slowing down.
Hask and the rest of us took our cart again. Silver Fang were all individually mounted on beautiful, well-groomed horses, except for Uld, who sat in a cart hitched behind ours. His armor made him ill-suited to long travel and was too heavy for a horse to bear.
The dwarf spent most of the walk telling a story about a previous rookie-dungeon clear that had, by his account, taken him less time than it took to tell the story about it. Nobody asked him to continue. He continued anyway.
By the time the trees began closing in the way I remembered from three days before, the sun had climbed high enough that the swamp's usual stillness felt almost aggressive by comparison — too quiet for how much noise we were collectively making.
And then, ahead of us, the air began to shimmer with a faint iridescent light. Varkas held up a hand to stop the group. The carts and horses slowed to a halt."The dungeon barrier."
I had never actually noticed a dungeon barrier before. All dungeons had them – they kept the monsters inside – but most of them were underground, so much of the containment was natural. Seeing this faint shimmer in the air was odd.
I nudged Kael.
"How's this even work? Above ground, I mean. Is it just... a wall floating in the air? A dome over the whole place?"
Kael squinted at the shimmer, tilting his head like he was trying to gauge its edges.
"Dome's probably the right idea. Has to curve somewhere to close itself off, or the swamp on the other side wouldn't be contained at all. My guess is it follows the dungeon's actual boundary underneath — wherever the thing decided its edges were — and just... continues that shape upward instead of stopping at the surface like it would underground."
"Can you see where it ends?"
"No. And that's the part that bothers me a little." He nodded toward the shimmer, faint and endless-looking against the treeline. "Underground, the rock does half the work. The barrier just has to plug whatever gaps the stone doesn't already close on its own. Out here, there's nothing else holding this in. It's doing all of it by itself.""Tell me why we go into these things again?""Money.""Right."I heard Varkas call to us from the front of the group. "Callister. Lithwell. Something to share?"I could hear the contempt in his voice and swallowed the surge of anger I felt rising. "No, Sir Aureyn. Apologies."Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.The paladin sniffed. "Good. We'll be leaving the carts and your horse here. Once we pass this barrier, we'll be in the dungeon proper. While Silver Fang will have no trouble clearing this place out, make sure you continue to pay attention. We're adventurers. Not babysitters."My fist clenched. "Yes, sir."I watched as the Silver Fang members recited incantations to their mounts, who promptly vanished into magical light. Hask considered tying our horse to a tree, then thought better of it.
"Poor thing would get eaten if there are loose monsters around here.""Let's hope Varkas gets eaten," I said quietly.Hask patted my shoulder encouragingly as we all followed Silver Fang in.
The barrier looked, up close, like almost nothing at all.
A ripple in the air, faint enough that I could have convinced myself I'd imagined it if I hadn't already been told what I was looking at. There was no sound to it, no resistance when Varkas walked through first without breaking stride, no visible seam where the world on one side stopped being the world on the other.
I went through just behind Hask.
Entering the barrier was not like entering previous dungeons. It felt like the magic of this barrier had a solid property to it that felt like passing through a spiderweb. I felt itchy.
The swamp on the other side didn't feel the same.
The air was heavier. Wetter, somehow, in a way that had nothing to do with humidity. The trees grew closer together, their roots tangled and half-submerged in black water that didn't reflect the sky properly — the light hitting it looked distinctly unnatural, refracted at angles that made my stomach turn if I looked at it too long.
Our boots made the worst sucking and squelching sounds as we trudged through the mud. All of us, save for Stevie, who seemed to have some sort of enchantment on her boots that let her move freely.After a couple of minutes we stopped on Varkas's orders. "This seems like a good place to begin. Janitors: get to work."Hask's voice was irritated. "Right. Team, usual tactics. Lithwell, make sure SCRUB has flotation devices ready to deploy. Tessa, Alara, you know what to do. Callister, on me."Kael unfolded SCRUB and activated him. As the little machine booped and beeped to life, I heard a short, high pitched squeal that I could've sworn came from Stevie. She approached us, kneeling next to the little bot."Oh, he's adorable…you build this, kid?"Kael teetered somewhere between bristling and beaming with pride. "He's not for sale."She grinned. "Wasn't the question, but good to know. He's impressive."Kael blushed, unable to meet her eyes. "Thanks," He busied himself with giving SCRUB his scanning instructions.Stevie leaned into me. "You have good allies, Callister.""The best," I corrected her.I felt her gloved fingers brush my chin and heard her voice in my ear. "Well, that's because you haven't made me your ally yet…"My face burned. Before I could respond I felt someone grab my hand and looked down to see Tessa glaring at Stevie."Lorne, come help me?" Her voice was cheerful, but I was pretty sure I saw murder in her eyes.I coughed, flustered. "Yeah, of course."I walked away with Tessa, who walked over to a fallen tree, away from the rest of the group. Its trunk was completely rotten out, blackened by moisture and decay. The smell was intense. The halfling pulled her red hair into a ponytail and tied it off with some string."I don't like her," she stated, matter-of-factly."I can see that. Why?""Well she's Silver Fang.""Is that the only reason?""Do I need another?"I could tell there was another. I just shook my head and let her get to work."Cleansing Art: Mana Sight. Activate."
The world went strange at the edges, the way it always did — and then Tessa made a small, awful sound, and I understood why.
Out past the barrier, near the outpost, the sick-colored mana had been thin — hanging in loose threads through the air, pooled faintly where something had lingered. In here, it was both worse and more of everything at once.
The same grey-green disturbance hung thick in the air around us, clouds of it drifting between the trees in slow, directionless coils. But it wasn't only in the air anymore. It had settled into everything — clinging to bark, sunk into the black water, layered over the ground itself like a stain that had soaked all the way through instead of sitting on the surface.
None of it was moving. Not really. The air-clouds drifted the way smoke drifts in a closed room with no draft — aimless, going nowhere, folding back on themselves instead of dispersing. The surface-layer didn't move at all.
"It's not leaking anymore," Tessa said, her voice gone flat. "This is where it's coming from. This is the wound."
She reached out with one hand, fingers spread, the way I'd seen her do a hundred times before a cleansing — and then stopped, her hand hovering, uncertain.
"I can't clean this."
"Why not?"
"Because cleansing needs it to move." She turned to me, and for the first time since I'd known her, she looked genuinely lost, like a problem had presented itself with no visible entry point.
"When I scrub mana, the clean mana circulates — it thins out what's around it, and that draws the bad mana in closer so I can scrub that too. It's a current. A cycle. This isn't a current. This is just... sitting here. Rotting in place. There's nothing to draw on and nothing that's going to draw toward me. I could stand here scrubbing for a week and more bad mana would just keep flowing in and pooling here."I pondered that. "So what's the answer?"Her frown was not encouraging. "I don't know. But pooling mana likes this can cause premature respawns, mutations and stronger monsters in general.""Well we don't have any dead monsters to respawn just yet –"As if on cue, the murky water and mud around us exploded into chaos. From beneath the murky surface, three creatures emerged.
They looked warped, like something long-bodied and low, built for gliding through water with teeth doing most of the talking — but they weren't built that way anymore. They surged upright as they broke the surface, rising onto two legs that bent at angles no natural spine should have accommodated, mud sluicing off scaled hides the color of old bruises. Each one stood taller than me by a large amount, hunched forward with the weight of a jaw too large for the skull it was attached to, packed with teeth that overlapped in uneven rows like something had tried to fit twice as many as would fit and forced the issue anyway.
Their forelimbs had gone strange too — too long, ending in hands rather than the stubby, dragging claws they should have had, fingers tipped in curved black talons that flexed and curled like they were testing a grip they hadn't had reason to use until recently.
One of them opened its mouth and made a sound that started as a hiss and ended somewhere closer to a scream.
"Swampjaws…They're not supposed to walk like that," Kael said, somewhere behind me, in the strangled tone of a man cataloguing a horror because cataloguing was the only thing keeping him upright.
"Focus," Hask said, and drew his mop.
Varkas interrupted the tension. "Stand down, mop-jockeys."He waved a hand. "Duran. Take care of them."The monk was a flurry of motion. One moment he was standing maybe forty feet away, near Varkas, and the next, he was in the middle of the three monsters.The fight probably took all of twelve seconds. A rapid whirlwind of flying fists, gnashing monster teeth and guttural hissing.As soon as it had begun, it was over. Duran stood triumphantly over the three dead lizard monsters, arms crossed, not even breathing heavily. I was impressed, despite myself. I thought back to the courtyard the other night, how he had disabled Veyla before I could even blink. This had been done at a snail's pace compared to that."Nice work, Duran," Varkas stated. "Callister, clean it up so we might move on."I bit my tongue once again and set about it. Grime Reaper; mop and bucket, wipe, wipe, scrub. Rinse and repeat until done.Since we were unable to clean the mana, our progress was swift. We encountered more frequent monsters as we went: shambling, vaguely humanoid plant creatures; giant, bloodsucking insects; spiders with legs as long as I was tall, and so much more. Each encounter was handled swiftly and efficiently by the members of Silver Fang. The one that stuck out to me the most was the fourty-five-foot snake that burst from the water to menace us. Uld had taken that one. Standing about thirty feet away from the thing, he had thrown his hammer into the creature's face, dazing it. While the hammer was in flight he was already charging. He leapt on the thing's body, thrashing his limbs violently, and I saw what the armor was for. Each punch, kick or headbutt shredded more flesh free from it, gouts of blood pouring from every wound until the beast finally fell. When he was done, he waved a hand and the hammer shimmered and reappeared in his grasp.Truly impressive. Truly a nightmare to clean.One thing I had noticed was that for every monster we encountered, somebody commented on something being strange about them. The Swampjaws had been bipedal. The flying insects had been larger than usual. So many things were wrong. No one had answers.The traps had been strange too. I watched Kael get more and more frustrated as Stevie found and disabled every single one before he could even move toward one. But every once in a while we would encounter one that she would disable, and when we moved to proceed, it would spring on us anyway. That once in a while slowly became almost every trap, to the point that Kael and Stevie had to collaborate, using SCRUB as needed.We traveled for another hour into the swamp, the heat and moisture wearing us down. Tessa stumbled into the mud at one point and I hoisted her onto my shoulders to give her a break. She seemed perfectly okay with that.The signs of real trouble came shortly thereafter. Varkas once again stopped our group as we heard thundering footsteps echoing somewhere from the left. He bid us form up behind him.
The thundering grew louder, closer, each footfall shaking loose a fine mist of standing water from the leaves around us. Whatever was coming wasn't trying to hide.