A few seconds later, everyone was gathered before Alonak, who reached out with his gauntleted hands. Sparks of exotic energies leapt from his fingers, and with a sudden flash of light, everyone was standing in another place. Alonak stumbled, but caught himself quickly enough. His ruddy skin was a bit paler than normal. It seemed that his teleportation ability had its limits.

  Jonathan paid little mind to this, though, as his locale was far more interesting. A mountain towered over him, with a massive cave leering at him like an open maw. Strange, ethereal flickers of light danced around within it, casting the stalactites and stalagmites in an ominous glow, as if they were teeth.

  He cracked his knuckles, and smiled. Now, this is what I call a dungeon.

  “Enjoy yourselves in there,” Alonak said caustically. “It is a rare offer from the queen that you have received. Generally, only the greatest of warriors are allowed into this dungeon.”

  Jonathan looked over at the man, raising an eyebrow. “Why is that?”

  “It’s an adaptive dungeon. Within a reasonable level, it has no maximum or minimum. How else do you think I attained my level? Killing mere Tier 3s?”

  “These types of dungeons quickly fall off in essence production, though,” Eva observed.

  “Yes,” Alonak replied. “Do you have experience with them?”

  “When we were first ascending the Tiers, I was a bit behind the leveling curve. I thought I would be able to level up rapidly, but it took weeks.”

  “Weeks?” Alonak said bitterly. “I’ve been stuck in Tier 5 for centuries. This dungeon barely provides a fraction of a fraction of the essence for a single level. I will eventually reach Tier 6, but past then, my lifespan will not be sufficient to become a Tier 7.”

  “Perhaps you could join us in the Hells?” Jonathan suggested, already knowing what the answer would be.

  “I will not desert my queen, no matter how tempting the offer might be. Unless she accompanies me, I will stay here until the end. Now, good luck. I have been gone for too long already.” With a snap of his fingers, Alonak teleported away, leaving Jonathan and the others standing before the gaping mouth of the cave.

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  Jonathan shrugged. “Let’s get to it then, shall we?”

  He led the way into the cave, feeling a chill begin to permeate the air as he delved deeper into the earthen maw. In contrast to the heat of Tartarus, the cold was shocking.

  “Damn,” Hushar exclaimed. “If I was a mere mortal, this would be dangerous! How is it that I can feel the cold with durability hundreds of times beyond the norm?”

  “Most likely some sort of elemental effect,” Edgar said. “My elemental affinity is suppressed here, as if there is some greater force surrounding it. My guess is that this dungeon is imbued with the power of Elemental Ice.”

  “So all of us will be even worse off?” Arkanon asked, pointing at the other Uthraki. “Now that you mention it…” He raised his palm, trying to summon a flame to it. The fire did appear, but it was meager, guttering in the air of the cavern. The man curled his lip in disgust, shaking his head.

  “This will be annoying,” Edgar replied. “My guess is that only Jonathan will remain unaffected. His element doesn’t exactly follow the normal rules.”’

  In response to this, Jonathan summoned the Void around himself, not finding any sort of interference from other elements. He nodded. “It seems that way.”

  With nothing else to do but continue, the party headed deeper into the cave. The darkness spread and spread within its confines, and the twinkling lights fell away, leaving only an empty expanse. At some point, they passed an invisible threshold, and suddenly, were standing in a new place.

  An endless tunnel stretched out before them, lit by regularly spaced torches hanging from the walls. Mossy bricks made up the tunnel, and the ground beneath was weathered and cracked. A notification appeared as soon as the locale changed.

  You have entered Fear’s Labyrinth, a dungeon of Tartarus.

  This dungeon is an adaptive dungeon, meaning that it will change its difficulty to match the average level of challengers. Average level of 250.

  Error. These challengers are significantly stronger than their level suggests. Calculating new difficulty level.

  The average level of this dungeon has been set to level 275.

  The notification said little about the dungeon save for its level, but that was helpful enough. The first section was without monsters, as far as Jonathan could tell, and instead seemed to be some sort of puzzle. With his advanced senses, he could see that the tunnel did seem to be truly endless. Although there was a convergence point, tens of thousands of miles away, there was no way that something this large would exist in a dungeon without there being some sort of trick to it.

  “Any ideas?” Jonathan said. “There’s got to be something more going on here.”

  Edgar closed his eyes, and raised his hands, sending out a wave of wind down the hallway, scanning it. He pursed his lips a few seconds later, and seemed to strain against something, before he opened his eyes once more. “My senses stop after a dozen miles. Either the tunnel somehow ends there, or the local elemental field is still interfering with my elemental control.”

  “Well, I guess all there is to do is to continue.”