Kai had expected some kind of confrontation.

The majority of the visions had shown some kind of confrontation about where Mira had actually come from.

But Temra just sat there and listened.

Kai was confused, he had to struggle not to reference all the time that she had argued about security risks, mental magic and charms.

Syl obviously picked up on his confusion and told him one of the key reasons he could not hope to rely on the visions. That everything both he and Mira had seen were events as they might have played out before they had been shown the visions. Now everything was unavoidably different, especially more so because of Kai's interference.

Kai tried to argue that that made no sense, how could Atheos have known to make the trials dungeon if everything about visions was so questionable once the visions had been witnessed?

Syl explained that the trials dungeon was likely the product of several premonitions. That being the reason why when the dungeon was completed and released into the multiverse, both Atheos and Trengor had nothing more than a vague notion of how things would end up going.

Kai revealed that Atheos was aware of Mira and her abilities, calling her little oracle of Alea of all things when Syl was explaining to Temra and Kardain that Mira was many things.

For some reason, that was enough to settle things.

Though, Alicia had to caution Temra and Kardain both in what they chose to report back to her parents.

For one thing, they all thought it would be hard for The Sage to resist the temptation of meeting a living, breathing oracle.

Kardain said he would make sure Mira had a viable cover story, that anyone who went digging into their team's past wouldn't come up with a reasonable story when it came to Mira.

Mira was likewise stunned, she had anticipated a bit more friction to her showing up the way she did. She had seen more scenarios of this conversation than Kai had, and she explained that it rarely went well.

Again, Syl pointed out that visions were more often than not, unreliable. Especially when someone like Kai came and interfered with things.

Mira confirmed that what Syl was saying was true when she revealed that in all her visions of what was to come, the Skyden that Kai created, her little hill home, and everything else, she had seen none of it.

That was when Syl impressed upon everyone present that it was in their best interests to tread carefully. That they had to trust in Mira and Kai. Trust that their decision to withhold what they witnessed was not made lightly. Further warning that seers like Mira were often treated unfairly because what they revealed did not come to pass as expected or, more often than not, hoped.

Everyone promised to trust them both and respect any boundaries they put in place.

It was a kind gesture, but both Kai and Mira shared a troubled look as, from their perspective, a promise like that just muddied as the prophecy they received hinged on a promise being kept. Or at least, they thought it did.

The next week was weird and scattered for Kai.

As time passed, it became clear that he was not built for hundreds of thousands of different random moments being inserted into his mind.

He slept long, fretful hours, waking up from dreams of things that would never come to be as he had witnessed.

In casual moments, he would start talking to the others about things they had to remind him dint happen.

He felt like he was going crazy, like some evil gaslighting wraith had latched onto him and was scrambling his brain.

He was worried that a week wouldn't be enough. But Syl checked on him often and reassured him that he was in fact recovering.

In some ways, Kai was just glad he had not hesitated in laying some groundwork so soon after the visions stole his sanity.

He wasn't too worried about going mad right at the moment.Kai was more concerned that the others could die if he didn't play things right.

Mira didn't seem to suffer in the slightest, and while the team embraced her, she always seemed uneasy when looking at Kai.

They all knew she was blaming herself for what he was going through.

But Syl reassured her he would get better with time, that the visions would fade so long as he din't engage them.

Kai was even encouraged to do something he had not seen in any of the visions so that his brain might actually form new connections over the mismatched information.

That led to him and Mira both taking up yoga with the others. It was weird, and he hadn't seriously considered doing it with everyone. But when he just relaxed and worked to clear his mind, it wasn't so bad.

When it became apparent that Cillian had been attending the yoga sessions from day one, Kai had to examine why he thought it was weird, and he disabused his subconscious of the notion that yoga was something women did.

Syl hadn't been wrong about him neglecting his meditation skill, and while yoga didn't suddenly improve the skill, using it again did help him with clearing his mind and separating what had happened from what was likely never to happen.

Things went on like this for the next few days. With Kai and Mira keeping their distance from one another, anytime something came close to something, they witnessed. But coming together whenever they happened to be doing something completely new for them both.

Mira started her training in earnest, picking up the spear just as fast as Kai said she would.

Ester and Aoife coming together and training with the surprisingly scrappy kitten.

Mira and the rest left to go to the city to attend classes only for them to come back with a ton of shopping that they would organise between themselves before Mira would eagerly disappear into her little home.

By the fourth day, Kai actually felt much better. For one thing, he didn't wake up in a hot sweet and actually felt rested.

The only thing that worried him was, as Syl had promised, the visions were fading.

Which only made him worry about how he was supposed to keep everyone alive if he didn't have the visions.

At least there was still the prophecy to work with. That remained clear as day in his mind, which was probably the point of the message being delivered the way it was.

Then of course there was the memory of the thing hidden in nothing… that only he had seen, and the memory of that didn't seem to be going away anytime soon.

Now that Niamh's birthday would be an all-day affair, and the first real pool party of the sky den came Kai's way.

With people making plans and discussing what they had got her, Kai was a little worried that his gift, the date, was lacking. Especially because he had shared it with Aoife.

He wanted to get her something or do something more.

His answer came when Mira declared her home was ready for guests.

Kai hadn't seen her home since he first helped her with the initial layout. Just as he had hoped, Mira had made the place her own. So much so that, in an effort to surprise Kai, she had at some point invited Syl in to make changes she couldn't make on her own.

The place was open plan now, with only her bathroom having its own separate room.

Mira had even done away with the glass wall. The space now open to the domain as her home led out onto a wide balcony that was open to the elements.

When Kai questioned the possibility of others accessing her personal space, Mira eagerly showed off what Syl called her privacy barrier and triggered a switch on one of the walls.

A barrier shimmered into place to cover the opening where Kai had first put the glass wall.

He was impressed and once again had to admit that when it came to Syl's understanding of the domain, there was still a lot for him to learn.

The central focus seemed to be a firepit in the middle of the room that crackled away on wood that looked like it would never burn out.

He was a little disappointed to see that the water curtain Kai had come up with was gone, but he couldn't argue that the constant shower of water that rained down over her balcony from the streams that split around her house above was a vast improvement.

Seeing a familiar wind chime that had transitioned from her old room to her new home, Kai asked about what accommodations had been made for the other friends, Chil, Brees and Pepple.

Mira happily explained that Pepple and Chill found comfort within the stone walls, while Brees could be found freely enjoying the open nature of the place.

When all was said and done, Ka had to admit he liked the changes.

The only other thing to say was how eclectic little Mira's interior design choices were.

Miss matched rugs covered the floor.

The cupboards and shelving all seemed to be carved out of the stone walls themselves, giving the place a definite cave vibe that Kai actually enjoyed as it gave the place a feeling of permanence when you couldn't just up and move a bookcase on a whim.

She had pictures hung on the walls, but they weren't of anyone thing or theme, stuff ranging from dragons in flight to a weird duck creature sitting on a boulder like it was its egg. Apparently, it was all just stuff she found interesting that they and picked up when Alicia suggested filling out the walls a bit.

The chairs that were positioned around the fire pit were all mismatched yet somehow worked together. Ranging from a stiff leather reading chair to something adorned in cushions that you sank into and struggled to get out of again.

Her outside seating was the same as what they had back at their house, and the place was full of weird objects that Kai could only guess Mira might have brought from home.

Stones and twigs held prominent places on shelves, and when they drew Kai's attention, Mira explained they were, as he thought, mementos she had brought from Mountain, and that she was grateful that her stuff had been recovered.

She even plucked a smooth, little, clear stone and offered it to Kai in thanks. Kai didn't know if the thing held any real value, but when he accepted it from her, he knew that he would value it for the rest of his life. Besides when he held it up in the light, he could see faint streaks of colour that reminded him of Mira's eyes. It was pretty.

Kai and, by extension, Syl and Alicia had been the first that Mira had invited in. But people soon got the news and started showing up to have a look. The faint knock from above alerted Mira that she had visitors.

Kai was mortified when he discovered the tradition of housewarming gifts was also an Alean pass time when people started showing up with plants and odd things like interesting picture frames, cushions and blankets that had apparently caught Mira's eye out in the city.

When Kai tried to apologise for having no gift, Mira just laughed at him as cuddled into his side as she explained that the place itself was his gift.

She then promptly asked for scratches.

Ka's predicament with gift giving was further abated when he realised Niamh was enamoured with the place. When he questioned out on the balcony what she thought of Mira's comfy little cave, she admitted that living in a place like this would make her feel like a princess.

That confused Kai until Alicia explained that the capital city of the twilight empire was actually built upon a series of interconnected sky stacks and that, yes, she did in fact have a room with a view not unlike this when she was growing up.

That settled it, Kai, with Mira's permission, offered to replicate the home. That he would personally spend time with her until everything was right. He said the original layout would be a good start and that they could easily link it to her lab and that adding an additional room for Aoife would be easy.

That's when Niamh turned a shade of pink and revealed that, like Syl and Alicia, she was now sharing a room with Aoife. That actually, if she was being honest, they had been for a while now.

But she loved the idea.

Kai was just a little miffed that his second gift idea had once again concluded with Aoife's involvement.

He wondered if something similar would happen on Aoife's birthday when that rolled around… he realised he might actually want to get working on that now because if he wasn't mistaken, and he was pretty sure he wasn't, triplets shared the same birthday.

Now Niamhs birthday was at this point, just two days away, the day itself was already going to be a pool party so Kai, not wanting to steal Miras thunder, offered to come by tomorrow when she was done for the day and they could make an evening of it.

That was when Niamh turned to Alicia and Syl to get permission to have Kai for the afternoon.

He was a little worried. Niamh asking for permission felt a lot like he was being kept and that he lacked personal autonomy.

Syl just gave Kai a knowing smile and said it was fine so long as Mira confirmed it had nothing to do with any of the visions.

Mira said that none of this was remotely familiar to anything she had seen. Openly revealing that in the visions, she had always been living with them in their home, and that in all but the rarest of visions she had never felt quite like she had her own place.

Aoife, who was sunk deep into Mira's comfy couch, suggested bringing Mira, Syl and Alicia along, hinting that while she liked the rustic, comfy feel of this place, she had always had a fondness for the alien aesthetic of Kai's home.

With that, Kai's next afternoon was planned. He was making another hill home. He didn't mind. He was already making plans to move Niamh and Aoife's current home to the edge of the platform to then sink it down so it became part of the landscape, before adding a big balcony and possibly some other renovations that took the group's fancy.

That's when Ester walked in and rattled all his preconceived notions as she announced the place was a home fit for a dwarf, and that someone better get her damn workshop somewhere nice before she thought she was being neglected.

That was how with a roll of Syl's eyes, Esters workshop ended up in the Skyden itself, buried deep within the rock, complete with an adjustable temporal distortion, soundproofing and explosion dampening, a magical ventilation that Kai couldn't fathom and windows and doors that borrowed loosely from Kai's nexus arch's giving both a pleasant view and easy access.

Luckily, the sudden move barely disturbed the little Kitsuné that was currently camped out on a cushion in front of Ester's warm forge. Though he cried for help when he came up from a stairway near their house an hour or so later and was a little confused about where he was.

Ester put on her fireproof gear and took the little guy home to apologise to his parents.

The next day started out well for Kai, he had one of the best sleeps he had had in days.

He joined the others for an early run around the lake and then used the communal kitchen to make breakfast for everyone else. Bacon, beans, sausages, eggs and some hash browns made from something that wasn't quite potato.

It wasn't quite the full traditional breakfast from Earth that he was trying to make as it was missing a few things like black pudding and the toast or eggy bread, but he felt he had the soul of the meal if not the full boy.

He was a little worried it would be a bit much. But with everyone being adventurers and having all stared into a bowl of adventurer's stew questioning its contents with a cautious examine, they ate it eagerly and complimented his effort before they went on with their day.

For team Korabain, judging by the gear they were getting into, the first thing on their day's agenda was a dungeon run.

He wished them luck and promptly informed him just how sick they tin level restrictions were. With them all hitting level twenty, it wasn't even worth their running the low level dungeons at this point, but their manager insisted they kept at it as, to quote her, experience trumped essence.

Kai couldn't argue with that as his team had only gained levels because they were in a dungeon with a team applicant and didn't want to expose their ability to share experience. They didn't mean they hadn't fallen behind with Syl's damaged core soaking up a lot of the essence they gained from running dungeons.

Fortunately, the stats they were gaining from the constant training was helping them close the gap and Kai had a running theory that there might actually be issues with levelling too fast and missing out on stats gained through simply adapting to any changes that were made as a level change settled into your core

They admitted that they were mostly running dungeons these days was to even out their levels with the newly discovered ability to share experience and figure out new team tactics that weren't so focused on everyone having to tag targets or rotate fights just to get a somewhat even essence share.

The conversation was illuminating. Kai had never really thought about the effort a team of adventures might have to go through to keep party members in the same level range. Issues where the fighting core of a party gained significantly more essence than the team healer or support mage were unfortunately quite common.

This, of course, led to support classes bouncing from one low-level team to another while other eager adventures pushed on without them, often resulting in shorter careers when they suddenly found they needed the support they had left behind.

Again, another point to Kai's theory that pushing too hard too fast might be an issue and that Team Korabains elusive manager knew what she was on about.

When it came to what his team were up to, Mira had a morning class on spell delivery methods that Alicia and Syl had decided to sit in on, while Ester needed to hand in some commissions she had completed.

They asked him if he wanted to come along, but the moment he thought about leaving the domain with them all, he had a spike of anxiety that he couldn't quite explain.

There was no vison, no hazy memory of something that hadn't happened.

Just an uncomfortable tightening in his chest and an impending sense of doom.

He knew he had to work through this or it might become an issue, but both Syl and Alicia took one look at him and told him he wasn't ready.

After they left, Talious turned up with Sicily on her back to take the three eager hatchlings on one of their, how to be a dragon lessons.

That left him alone on the Skyden feeling like a broken spare part.

A quick glance over the edge told him Kardain was fishing again.

But he wasn't in the mood to join him.

Instead, Kai pulled out his martial manual and got to work, he practiced movements from the kata he knew. Making a point to write down what felt right to him and noting what was off while he referenced a second notebook filled with Mira doodles and scribbles of her interpretation of Kai's movements and what flowed right or wrong to her unique, surprisingly insightful, eyes.

He was halfway through the second notebook, making adjustment to the conclusion he'd come to in the first, when he realised he had gathered a crowd of onlookers.

Syl, Alicia, Mira, Aoife, Niamh and, for some reason, Talious were all standing near the edge of the clearing he was practicing in.

Niamh rocked on her tiptoes and asked him if he was forgetting anything.

It took a moment for him to realise it had just turned evening . He wanted to blame how hard it was to track time in the domain if you weren't paying attention. But the key point was, he just wasn't paying any attention. He had been so focused on figuring out his martial manual he had lost track of time.

He apologised, and a moment later Niamh and Aoife were looking at him in genuine panic as he dangled the majority of their home precariously over the edge of the Skyden's top platform.

They only actually relaxed after reassurance from Syl that Kai had a plan, when his asking them to trust the process didn't work as he had hoped.

In the end, with a little bit of input from everyone, their home was successfully sunk into the side of the upper platform.

Their upstairs bedrooms were converted to a single bedroom with the internal stone opened on either side to accommodate a separate toilette, a sizable on suite wet room that featured a ridiculous tub and, as suggested by Syl, two massive walk-in closets for each of them.

With the changes approved, everything then had its position altered so that it was actually below the general living area so that when you came down from the entranceway, it would not be their private space that they first encountered.

Niamh's lab was then given a similar treatment to Ester's workshop and hidden within the rock itself with all the magical tweaks that made it feel like it was on the outside.

Then, Aoife's meditation garden was moved to be on the top of the hill the home now formed.

The pièce de résistance was, of course, the open balcony that could be accessed from their living area.or one of the side gates on either side of the building.

There was some quibbling about having it accessible from the same floor as the bedroom, but that was shot down when Niamh and Aoife both openly admitted they preferred the privacy of the one-way window that covered both their room and onsite.

Feeling like he had genuinely given Niamh something new for her birthday, everyone else turned up.

This narrative has been purloined without the author's approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.

Turns out everyone wanted a view.

Luckily, Syl was there to give everyone a basic model, telling them they should have a think about what changes they wanted and get back to them later.

When Ester turned up, she surprised everyone by asking if Mira was ok with a neighbour. She ended up with a copy of Mira's place with the only addition being easy access to her workshop.

Cillian caught wind of his own place, suggesting it would be nice to get away from his team once in a while, that those with their own places could stick together.

Kai shot that down with the easy explanation that it was better for team cohesion at this point if they stayed in their respective camps before, with Maeve's permission, he had Syl put their new home on the far side platform.

As far away from Mira's place as possible.

Saoirse, the most stoic of all of them, admitted she felt a little left out.

Ester stepped up at that point, not romantically or anything like that, but she promised that having her own place was more to follow Saoirse's own advice and take more breaks from her work. That she fully intended to pop by whenever she was in the mood.

That was how the top of the platform opened up again with all but Kai's home moved to the perimeter of their respective quadrants. And in one evening, the new Skyden went from looking like an upside down traffic cone with houses on it to the beginning of a castle in the sky equipped with gardens on its surface and private apartments built into its side.

Kai wondered if they should make the move, transitioning their home to be near the edge.

All Syl and Alicia said to that was, not yet, and they would need a solid plan before making any more changes.

Kai's best guess, there hesitance had something to do with having to accommodate three little dragons and figuring out a future proof plan for their home that would fit the aesthetic they had all come to enjoy.

Besides, now that their home was the focus of the top of the platform. It gave their home a kind of focus in the new landscape.

Kai woke the next day feeling fine, better than fine actually, he felt normal for once. There were no lingering feelings that he had forgotten something or that something had happened the day before that actually conflicted with the reality of what had, in fact, happened.

Niamh's birthday went well.

Kai had to admit she looked good in her new adventuring gear, that armoured corset Ester had made for her had a surprising number of pockets. And she wielded the quarterstaff she was given as a joint gift from Syl and Alicia with a frightening amount of grace once Syl shared her skill with her.

The pool party part of the day was going well until someone pointed out Cillian on his way over to Mira, who was standing on the high platform looking down on the water nervously.

Kai travelled through the domain to appear behind her, thinking of pushing her just like he had the others. But when he got there, he had a weird feeling that Mira would just jump out of the way.

Sure enough, one of her ears flicked to point in his direction, and she looked over her shoulder at him.

He stepped up to her side and took her hand, telling her they would jump in three, and he started counting back from the number before she could think to back out.

When they hit the water together, Kai discovered that while Mira had said she could swim, that didn't exactly mean she was a strong swimmer.

He had her doing the forward crawl within half an hour and eagerly jumping off the top of the communal area with others shortly after that.

Kai had no real clue what to expect that morning. Niamh's gifts ranged from the personal to the useful with the odd gag gift added on such as secret package Syl handed over to her late in the evening that made Niamh turn a lovely shade of pink and run away from him in embarrassment when he asked what it was.

He thought about using his domain sense to peek, but Syl and Alicia told him to rein his curiosity in.

Which of course only made him more curious, but he did as he was told and let it go.

The next day, when everyone was getting ready to leave the domain, Alicia sat Kai down while Syl put Mira in the seat across from him.

Nothing was said, but Mira had a good idea of what was happening, while he remained clueless. She stared at him for a long time, eventually nodding and saying he was fine.

At this point, Kai guessed it had something to do with the visions he had shared with Mira and his confusion that followed.

He explained he was fine, that if he remembered anything it was at this point a weird sense of déjà vu.

That didn't stop Syl from coming over to do a closeup inspection of his core. She too, begrudgingly, decided he was fine.

With Kai cleared, they set out to run the list of dungeons that the Guild had set up for them as part of their investigation turned experiment.

When Kai got to the new nexus platform and could see the inside of the room, the domain portal was hidden away within the Inn they were staying at, he hesitated just before stepping through the archway. He was anxious, and he couldn't quite understand why.

Again, he realised it had something to do with the visions he had forgotten over the last few days.

Knowing from experience anxiety could grow unless you faced it, he looked around cautiously for anything amiss as Syl and Alicia gave him concerned glances. They hoped he didn't notice, but their uneasy feeling through the bond said it all. Satisfied nothing was wrong, he clamped down on his anxiety and stepped through to find he had to encourage Mira things were fine from the other side.

They met up with Ester on the on the way to their dungeon, where they found one ridiculously bored guard waiting for them.

Every other dungeon that Temra had arranged for them had some queue, or a slot they had to wait for. This dungeon's waiting area was, for lack of a better word, a graveyard.

The dungeon was boring, tedious and busy work.

When the guidebook said the farm, they found themselves on was being raided; it was being generous.

They arrived to have an old man come running out of his farmhouse screaming about damage to his crops and how many people were counting on his harvest.

Taking this seriously, the team set up a defence, expecting some kind of horde to come down on them at any minute.

Six level five goblins showed up and started towards the farmer's house.

The goblins were all dead in moments, the farmer coming out to complain in the middle of the fields.

And that was it.

They waited a bit to see if anything else would happen, besides the farmer repeating his dialogue and nagging them to leave, nothing happened.

There seemed to be no reward, and they tracked back to the dungeon's entrance to find that it had changed to an exit.

Kai suggested they could take the crops and the farmer's livestock to recoup their time.

That's when they figured out that he hadn't done his homework and read the dungeon guide.

The crops were unfortunately out of season, and harvesting them now would be pointless as they had yet to develop any nutritional value. That, and there was something off about the livestock that made them difficult to sell for anything more than their material value, which wasn't much.

He thought, at least it was quick, and they could get on with their day.

Unfortunately, upon returning to the waiting area, Kai discovered they were expected to run it again.

They changed their approach this time, looking for some kind of hidden side mission. They didn't find one. However, when the farmer happened to die, they were all notified that they had failed the dungeon, and people were likely to die when the crops weren't brought to market.

That's when Syl hypothesised this was a cautionary dungeon, meant to teach a lesson.

When they left and reported that the second attempt still had not caused the dungeon to upgrade, they were asked to run it again.

And again

They ran the dungeon a total of six times.

On the third attempt, they cleared the goblins out before they even reached the farm, and they received their first reward.

A skill book on crop rotation and a profuse thankyou from the farmer.

The fourth time, they let Mira take the lead and run the dungeon with just herself and her five automata companions.

While easy, it was good for them to see how she could, with her friend's aid, work with or even alongside the team in the future should the need arise.

On the fifth run, Mira took the lead again and was actually able to secure another skill book on crop irrigation.

On the sixth run, they let Gift, Castiel and Fayriel loose.

The hatchlings were eager to prove themselves and earn a skill book of their own. Only they learned that setting the farmer's field alight with dragon fire, whether it was an accident or not. Did not in fact earn them a reward but a scathing chase by a raving farmer who had been pushed over the edge.

The man did not turn out to be a secret boss, and killing him after he turned a crossbow on the three hatchlings earned Syl an angry system notification about collateral damage and controlling her companions.

They reported the second skill book and left.

When Syl made her official report, she concluded her thought on the dungeon being the system's version of a cautionary tale. One set up to educate low level adventures that things should be taken seriously.

The lesson she believed was that even the simplest of tasks could have long reaching consequences. That the value of a farmer or their fields was not something to be trifled with and when treated with respect, even within a dungeon, there could be unforeseen rewards. Submitting that the value of an easily accessible source of agrarian skill books could be invaluable to some cultures and was not to be overlooked in smaller villages or townships that wished to cultivate the land.

Her conclusion, this dungeon was exactly as it was intended to be, and would never upgrade.

The only issue was that Alea, due to the abundance of rifts and dungeons, was not an agrarian world, and the two skill books they earned had very little value outside academic circles.

Kai was glad when they were dismissed for the day.

That was when he discovered that Mira's afternoon was booked solid with rudimentary lessons. As it turns out, her being isolated on a mountain most of her life left her with gaps in her knowledge, which was only equalled by Kai coming from a completely different world.

This led to him once again sitting in a small classroom with a bunch of wide eyed, low noble girls who were more enamoured with him than learning something Kai really should have learned years ago.

At least this time he had Mira there with him to politely advise the ones who tried pushing propriety, Informing more than one love-struck girl that Kai was really just being polite when he complimented them on one thing or another and that it was not, in fact, an invitation.

Castiel, however, loved the attention from the students, so much so that Kai was asked to keep his familiar hidden as it was, according to the teachers, an avoidable distraction.

Kai, for his tried to be polite where he could but he unfortunately found himself playing big brother a couple of times as he stared down anyone who even thought to question why Mira was wearing a mask to class whenever he happened to detect innocent curiosity slipping into childish derision.

He actually kind of pitied the girl who thought mocking Mira's nervous stutter was worth social points with her friends. Before Kai could even turn in his seat, Casteil had appeared in front of the girl, sitting on her workbooks, four or five times larger than she usually was, to stare the girl down.

When she made the mistake of saying it was just a joke, Castiel spoke up and said her first audible word, Stutter, with a short, sharp blast of her draconic aura that washed over anyone who had thought her joke was worth a laugh.

When Kai called her back, she shrank back down to her usual size and then jumped over to his desk to crawl into his shirt like she hadn't just been far too large to comfortably fit.

The girl called on the teacher to complain that Kai's familiar had just scattered her work all over the place. However, she suddenly found she couldn't string two words together without breaking into a difficult to control stutter of her own.

Once Kai confirmed that, after feeling it out with Castiel through the bond, the effect of Castiel's first command in dragon tongue would not last to long, the teacher actually leaned into the punishment and made a point of directing a litany of questions the girls' way.

Kai later found out the girl had been pushing things for a while now and the teachers were finding it difficult to leave a lasting impression on the girl and her friends that their attitude towards others was inappropriate.

It took them the better part of a week to shake their stutter though specialists actually confirmed the actual effect of what Castiel did only lasted an hour, and that after that they were simply suffering from the same thing that made Mira stutter in the first place.

No one dared to mock Mira after that, and as it turned out, she was actually a bit of a social butterfly, often invited to have tea with the others or to go to some pastry shop for a sneaky treat.

Kai was a little worried that some of those invitations were trying to take advantage of Mira but it turned out Mira had a much keener social perception than he ever had and he decided he needed to relax after he heard her dressing down one girl down for thinking she was an avenue to him.

Their days went on like this for a while.

They would have a day of running some unpopular dungeon. Followed up by a mandatory day off, which was often filled with lessons or training organised by Temra.

Then they would run another unpopular or resource dry dungeon. To then do more training and attend more lessons in what was technically their mandatory break from dungeons.

Day after day this went on until eventually weeks had rolled by.

There seemed to be no sign or hint of a dungeon upgrading on them again.

That was of course until they were asked to run one of the city's most unpopular dungeons.

It was a water dungeon, insofar as they had to kill an adolescent leviathan that had established its territory over a series of interconnect locks and lakes and was threatening a small fishing community.

Their first run had been sloppy. But with them all knowing how to swim, it was just a case of combining swimming and fighting a monster that didn't want to come out of the deep water.

The rewards were good for anyone who could fight a leviathan, recover its corpse from the water before it sank into the deep, loot the surprising amount of treasure from the murky bottom and somehow fish out the tons of surprisingly tasty fish in a timely manner and find a way to store them so that they wouldn't spoil.

Luckily, they were one of those few groups in their level range that could even hope to achieve such a thing.

So when they were asked to go back into the water dungeon, they went in eagerly to work on their coordination and hopefully loot more than they had on their first run.

Only the damn dungeon upgraded on them, and they spent their afternoon fighting off a significantly larger Leviathan that kept attacking a small costal village in hit-and-run tidal attacks.

They killed the damn thing but then were hit with the difficult question of explaining how they managed to loot every valuable bit of material including things like the rare alchemically valuable spinal fluid without tipping there hand to the fact they could maybe do things they really shouldn't be able to do at their level.

Later, when they were talking about their dungeon run with everyone else, Talious provided the solution. It was simple, really. In exchange for a sizable portion of the meat, she walked into the guild one day and simply said she wished to sell the materials from one of her hunts.

No one questioned the gold ranker that everyone was wary of.

Temra just rolled her eyes and said they were overthinking things as she pointed out there would have been no issue with disseminating the materials through the Houses just like she had been doing for weeks now.

The news spread that it had happened again, that the same team had caused a dungeon upgrade.

The Guilds reaction to their party upgrading another dungeon was to extend their little experiment.

They were all now technically out of their tin probation and could now, according to The Guilds on rules and regulations, run low-level bronze dungeons if they wanted to.

However, they had a long list of shitty dungeons to run and a hefty commission waiting for them. And as they were still part of an active investigation could not yet return to the life of a normal adventuring team.

The guild wasn't too pleased with this dungeon upgrade.

Nobody wanted to fight a leviathan when they risked a watery grave.

That was at least until it was discovered that if you killed the leviathan without too much damage to the village, the villagers would actually pull the monster out and dismantle the thing for you as a reward.

The Guild's opinion changed once rare materials hit the city markets and guides on how to safely kill the leviathan and which villagers to impress for the best materials were published.

It was around this time that a rumour about Team Spectacle started to spread.

The first thing was yes, they had gained a team name without them asking for one or submitting their own.

The second was that they were being punished for something Kai specifically was doing to dungeons.

Third, Kai was a no good hack that relied on artifacts, relics and his team to achieve his spectacular feats.

Kai and the others just ignored the rumours. They didn't have to guess where those rumours were coming from.

The confusion it elicited was likewise humorous as the keen eyed observers pointed out Kai was in fact one of the new dragon riders and it was unlikely for a dragon to choose someone such as the rumours indicated.

In reality, they were actually running more dungeons in a week than most tin level adventurers could afford to run in a couple of months. And had already been told they would be fast tracked to mid bronze when everything was concluded.

That was on top of Kai and the others working together to find ways to exploit the basic dungeons they were being sent into.

They had little success, which was probably when these almost ancient dungeons were so unpopular in the first place.

They got their first real break when they were told their slot in a particular bronze dungeon would be next week, one day before it was Kai's birthday.

Kai was looking forward to running the endurance dungeon. Reading the dungeon guide had given him a number of plans to exploit it for essence to repair Syl's core.

Syl was a little uneasy about the plan, but she agreed to at least test let him test it.

The only real issue, they ran in to Lycaster and his new team waiting outside the, and he did not look so good, which for Lycaster meant his hair was out of place and his clothes weren't as bright as Kai remembered.

When the pompous idiot made a point of graciously greeting Syl and Alicia, looking both Mira and Ester up and down, then proceeding to sneer openly at him when Kai made the mistake of asking how he and his new team were getting along. Kai found himself resisting the urge to

"I knew you were a waste of space," Lycaster said as he examined Kai. "Look at the lot of you, you should be at least five levels higher than you are by now. Look at me."

Kai humoured the idiot and examined his team.

Lycaster had in fact hit level twenty while most of his team were hovering around level eighteen.

Recognising the group was the same group of human adventurers that had followed Lycaster out of the guildhall that day but not knowing what level they all started out at, Kai assumed Lycaster was perhaps taking the majority of the essence on their dungeon runs.

"I'm open to taking you ladies into some dungeons. Get your levels up to where they should be… do something about your tin badges," Lycaster said, puffing out his chest to draw attention to the brass badge on his slightly frayed jacket. "Everyone knows bronze is when the long road to becoming a real adventurer, some might say a real man."

Kai started to roll his eyes but stopped partway through as he had to clamp his fingers around Castiel's muzzle before she did or said something that would make Lycaster wish he had held his tongue.

Lycaster, of course, saw Kai's effort to hold Castiel back and sneered, "I didn't think the rumours were true, even if they were. I knew something was going on. To think you've tricked such a noble little creature. How the Riders association hasn't come down on you like a landslide I don't know. But I promise you I will report this mistreatment."

Castiel fidgeted in Kai's grasp, and he could only sigh at Lycaster's continued provocation as he resisted the urge to let Castiel have her way.

It was then that Alicia stepped forward, Gift appearing at her side to glare at the fool as his mother spoke in the diplomatic tone she reserved for speaking to idiots, "Lycaster, old friend, what my husband doe's he does simply to protect your pretty little face, that I'm so sure your mother loves dearly from having itself exempt from such well kept brows due to a sudden if not provoked a burst of expertly controlled dragon fire."

"See, this is exactly what I'm talking about, he has no control over the creature. He's not fit to raise a dragon. That little creature would be much better with someone like me."

Alicia sighed and gift blew a soft plume of fire in Lycaster's direction as he flared his hood aggressively.

Lycaster backed off at that and turned to his team, giving them a nod as he muttered, "You'll regret this under his breath."

"He's a bit, how should I put it, two dimensional," Syl said when the idiot had returned to their position in the queue.

"Who knows, maybe he has a troubled backstory," Kai said jokingly.

"Temra told me he complained to his master. Lycaster didn't expect the woman to strip him of his apprenticeship with her out of embarrassment. Does that count as justification for his poor character?"

"No, I was joking, he was a prick before, now he's just a bitter prick. Same thing, different flavour, no development," Kai said thoughtfully.

"So no redemption arc for Lycaster and our friendship?" Alicia asked playfully.

"Does he need it? So long as he minds his business and we mind ours, we should have no issues with each other."

"So, don't ask Kardain to take action on behalf of the state," Syl said with a nod.

"It's a good thing I know you are joking," Kai chuckled.

"You know, the houses have their ways too," Ester said, staring at the man's back.

"Down, dwarf, down." Kai said jokingly.

Ester flicked him, and his arm went limp.

"A dead arm? For a bit of playful alliteration, really?" Kai complained as he cradled his limp arm with his good one.

"If you weren't considered Kin Kai," Ester said warningly in thick tongue.

Mira just looked at Lycaster warily. "Something dark has its hooks in him."

"Anything we need to worry about?" Kai asked.

She shook her head. "It's of his own making. N-nothing external."

"Nothing a good head shrink won't fix."

"W-why would shrinking h-his head help?"

Kai tried to explain the euphemism for therapy, but he couldn't really explain where the head shrinking part came from. The best he could come up by the time it was their turn to enter the dungeon was that shrinking Lycaster's head would at this point be therapeutic for himself.

Putting the confrontation with the idiot aside, when they got into the dungeon, it turned out to be everything Kai hoped it would be.

The dungeon setup was simple.

They had to maintain control over some magical device at the top of a hill.

The longer they defended the hill from periodic waves of ever increasingly difficult waves of random beasts the device was apparently driving mad, the better their reward would be when they retreated.

The guild had limited access to the dungeon in such a way that only teams that had proven they could handle themselves and weren't going to take too many risks were allowed to reserve a slot.

This normally meant that anyone running the dungeon could, if they didn't make any mistakes, easily reach the upper limits of the monster waves' difficulty.

Which then meant it became a case of seeing how well supplied any given team was and how long it was until they decided they could no longer hold the hill.

Most teams lasted a few hours, with the record being just over two days.

Technically, Kai's team lasted a week on the inside. But only a little over six hours to those outside the dungeon. However, they cheated by abusing Kai's ability to create temporal distortions to trick the dungeon and the way it spawned monsters.

They took an hour getting used to the dungeon and its waves. When they felt comfortable, they increased the difficulty by placing a temporal distortion that slowed time over the top of the hill and the area they were fighting in.

This caused time outside their little bubble, from their perspective, to increase, which of course meant monsters were spawning much faster, racing up the hill then bunching up in greater quantities as they transitioned into their much slower pocket of time.

It was a slaughter, and just as Kai had hoped, essence came pouring in.

There was, however, one issue with this method: they could be in the dungeon for days.

Syl suggested they work out where the dungeon had its spawn triggers and tried placing a temporal distortion over them.

They struggled for a while, placing distortions over the areas the monsters spawn in with no results, and Kai was a little disappointed that the dungeon would be a bust for his plans to return to essence grinding to repair Syl's damaged core.

That was until Mira said she spotted something high above them that seemed to pulse in time with each wave of monsters.

One small temporal distortion later, and Kai had complete control over the rate at which the monsters spawned.

And the slaughter resumed, at least until they decided it was time for lunch.

A quick discussion of the mechanics of what was going on, the main concern being breaking the dungeon while they were inside it, Syl had to admit she didn't honestly know if it was possible.

There were chronomancers out in the multiverse that could easily do what they were doing, so why would it break things?

That was when Ester pointed out that if they added back in the original temporal distortion but set it to the same speed as the waves, they could effectively condense days into real time hours.

The slaughter got much faster after that, and the essence poured in.

They discovered early on that anyone who had entered the dungeon could freely make use of the domain. This made toilet breaks a lot more pleasant than people standing off to one side to borrow Kai's magical chamber pot.

A fate he reserved for himself as he was technically the domain's anchor in the dungeon, and they didn't want to ruin a good thing by having Kai stepping physically into the domain and braking the setup they had going.

It all reminded Kai a bit of his time in the trial dungeon. Only this time he had a full team and access to good food on a whim.

Even with the access to the domain, they ate and slept in the dungeon as the team worked on their group coordination, trained skills they rarely used and occasionally experimented with different combos like just Syl and Kai, or Mira and Ester when things grew tedious.

By the fourth day, they began to question how long they were going to keep this up.

They had allowed themselves to level up a couple of times each, which made things a little easier, even with Kai adjusting the temporal distortion to compensate.

On the fifth day, Kai was beginning to think everyone was humouring him and his desire fix Syl's core but they admitted while things were getting boring, they too felt it was a good opportunity to catch up with team Korabains level and repair Syl's damaged core.

On the sixth day, Kai was busy soloing a wave of giant beetles while everyone was off having a toilette break when Syl came through the portal and gave him the signal to pause the next wave.

He killed the last big bug and turned to her as his raiment cleaned its self of ichor.

"My Essense is overflowing," she said, looking at him.

"Really? Didn't think I was killing them that fast."

"No, Kai, I mean it's overflowing, even now. Speed up time, ten minutes maybe an hour, I'll be right back."

Kai did as she asked and adjusted time around himself as Syl walked down the hill.

As soon as Syl was out of the area of effect of the distortion, her physical projection slowed to a crawl.

He set a timer in his personal and spent an hour practicing his kata and taking notes. All the while, a sluggish sense of joy built through his bond with Syl.

His timer went off, and he cleared the temporal distortion.

To find Syl jumping up and down with joy.

"What is it?" he asked as he ran up to her and took her arms in his hands to steady her before she fell down.

She broke free, and wrapping her arms around his shoulders, placed her lips against his.

Kai was lost, the kiss consumed him as much as his own confusion.

Syl pulled back from his lips, tears running down her cheeks as she grinned at him.

"What?"

"You did it, you crazy, system exploiting mad, persistent idiot, you did it."

"You don't mean?"

"Yes! My essence is no longer being pulled into my core… well, a tiny, tiny amount over time, but you were in the distortion for a good hour, right?"

Kai nodded.

"My core is anchored to your core, so I should have seen an hour's worth of Essence get sucked into my core. But there was barely a trickle."

"Your core. You are saying it is healed," Kai said, not quite believing it himself.

"It only took the coordinated effort of five people, three dragons and six days of abusing a dungeon, but yes. What should have taken years… Kai… I…"

He kissed her, their embrace only interrupted by a grinning Alicia. Ester and Mira were busy making kissy faces.

With no more reason to stretch things out any longer, they made the decision to retreat from the dungeon.

The strangest part was their reward, as the chests were empty for some strange reason.

Syl saw the chests and just chuckled, saying they would know why when they left.They stepped out of the dungeon to find Lycaster waiting for them.

"How the hell did you get so many fucking levels?" Lycaster said with scornful surprise.

Kai gave him the middle finger, the gesture didn't translate apparently, as Lycaster just looked confused and walked off.

They had all reached level seventeen.

It honestly didn't feel like much of an accomplishment for six days of on and off fighting. At least not compared to their real achievement of repairing Syl's core. That alone made the lack of any reward from the dungeon fell inconsequential.

"What did you do this time?" someone said behind them.

The Guild guard was standing next to the dungeon portal, checking it over.

The usually vibrant entrance dungeon entrance looked like someone had drained it of all colour, It was as clear to anyone to see that it was a monochromatic shadow of its former self.

"Dungeon core in low-power mode? Never in all my years…" the guard cleared her throat, "Sorry everyone, dungeon's closed until it restores its energy."

Syl tugged on Kai's arm, "Come on, they will call us in later. We need to get you home. It's your birthday tomorrow, and we really need to celebrate our dungeon run. Do you have any idea how freeing it is knowing I'm not going to drain the party anymore?"

"Of course, Kai, you know this means no more long dungeon grinds… at least not for a long, long time," Alicia said, coming up to take his other arm.

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