The first sign something was wrong was the increased number of lower ranked dire beasts. Dire was usually the first stage of an animal evolving into a full blown monster and there shouldn’t have been this many in this area, but they avoided the party for the most part. Corva and Ed kept them apprised of the things they couldn’t see moving around them.

  Magnus was sure this was a mob overflow from the dungeon. Sometimes as dungeons grew, stronger mobs that would drive out the weaker ones. This happened more frequently with newer dungeons that developed quickly.

  Then came the Tyrannical Turkey.

  Corva was the first one to sense it. They were hiking uphill towards the part of the mountain that flattened out around the fae forest, when her head shot up and looked to the left.

  “Guys there’s a big fucking turkey to the west, up hill of us and I think it just spotted us.” She pointed in the direction with her right hand as she summoned her composite bow out of her storage ring into her left hand.

  “How big is it?” Magnus asked.

  “I can’t see it, the sun is in my eyes.” Victor said.

  “Yea Victor, I think that's the point, this is the perfect natural ambush point for this time of day. Magnus, as big as a horse. It’s heading our way, we have maybe fifteen seconds.”

  Sophie pulled something out of her storage device.

  “Everyone put this wax in your ears, it will protect them from my gunfire while still letting us talk.”

  Magnus was busy casting Shield on each of his non-adventurer companions. Shield would create an invisible web-like bubble around each person that would register incoming attacks and slow or stop them. It wasn’t as good as his force armor but it had the advantage of Magnus being able to cast it fast and more than twice without running out of mana.

  “Corva take these.” Sophie said she handed the dark haired woman a spare pair of goggles. “They’ll help you see despite the sun and focus your aim.”

  “Do you have another pair?” Asked Victor.

  “No, and before you ask she needs to see to shoot you don’t need to see to cast.”

  Celeste's sword and shield appeared in her hand and on her arm respectively, equipped from whatever storage item she was using. Corva donned the goggles and knocked an arrow from the quiver at her waist. Victor summoned his staff. Sophie pulled out her shotgun from a pocket that was definitely too small for it. Once Magnus was done casting he took the wax.

  “Mana Potion?” He asked. She handed him one and while chunging it, he drew his sword.

  “I told you-” Victor started

  “Not now Victor.” Celeste cut him off “Magnus, Jeremy, up front with me, leave enough room for the ranged members to have clear shots. Flank it if you can. Edward you…”

  Ed was already gone.

  “Don’t worry about Ed, he knows what he’s doing.” Magnus told her.

  They could hear it crashing through the forest now barreling towards them. Victor cast a spell on himself and Sophie took a potion. Magnus and Jeremy flanked Celeste while she took point. The bronze skin on Jeremy’s arms and fists shifted to metallic bronze scales. Magnus prepared to cast his spell. Then the monster was on top of them.

  Corva hadn’t been exaggerating about it being as big as a horse. Its black beady eyes were level with Celeste and Jeremy the tallest members of the party. Magnus cast his spell. Corva took the first shot as soon as it came into sight. Its beak blurred as it caught the arrow out of the air and snapped it, causing an explosion in its face.

  All of Corva’s arrows were enchanted. Magnus had helped enchant them. The runic style of enchantment tended to realise the mana contained within them explosively when broken. This could be more of a feature than a flaw in the proper situations.

  “Firing” Sophie called out just before the giant turkey silently burst into flames from one of her alchemist cartridges.

  “Charge!” Celeste ordered

  A bolt of lightning flashed over their head briefly connecting Victor's staff with the bird’s chest. Casting while moving wasn't easy but Magnus had practiced for moments like this. Then Celeste slammed her shield into the monster's chest, knocking it back. giving Jeremy and Magnus time to flank it while it was thoroughly stunned.

  Jeremy started to pummel the now smoldering monster. The bird opened its mouth and Magnus could feel the ripples of mana in the air. But whatever sonic attack it was attempting couldn’t get through Sophie’s ear wax.

  “Clear contact.” Magnus called out before swinging his sword, trusting his friends to understand.

  The massive beast tensed up as Magnus’s shocking touch spell traveled from his sword and into the monster stunning it again. Letting Celeste step up and slash at it, followed immediately by Jeremy punching it in the face. The massive beast went down, forcing Magnus to back off or be crushed as it hit the ground hard. Victor hit it with another lightning bolt to keep the monster down.

  The melee combatants backed off, not sure if the turkey was dead, in shock, or faking.

  “Clear lines!” Sophie called out “Approaching!”

  The three standing around the beast made sure they weren’t in the ranged party members' lines of sight as they moved up. If it so much as twitched then they were ready to fill it with lightning, arrows, and lead respectively. Magnus noticed an arrow sticking out of the tyrannical turkey, which meant Corva had gotten another shot off at some point.

  “Anyone have a life detect ability?” Magnus asked

  They all looked at each other, apparently none of them had the mana types, or had prepared spells or potions to let them check if something was dead at a distance. Something of an oversight Magnus noted for when he was back in town.

  “I’ll check,” Magnus announced.

  As he approached two black figures darted down and began attacking Sophie and Victor. As Magnus turned his head he saw the head dart at his legs. Then the massive turkey’s head jerked back. Ed melted from the shadows as though ink were sliding off his dark skin. He was gripping the turkeys head by its loose hide and was holding his narrow razor sharp dagger in his other hand. From his position there was no way Ed could avoid the arterial spray coming from the turkey as he slit its throat. Yet, he made sure to direct the rest so that it covered Magnus.

  The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

  “Thanks for the save.” He said dryly.

  “Don’t worry brother, I got you covered.” Ed said with an infuriating smile.

  Magnus turned back around to find two dead pheasants.

  “What the hell got into those birds?!” Victor screamed angrily.

  “Dire and Dread breasts have been known to exert control over other animals in their family group.” Corva explained.

  After the turkey had bled out, Magnus and Ed received a lucent wash potion. Magnus had a spell that should just make the blood and grime slide right off them, but that was a lot of blood and he had already taken one mana potion that day. Since lucent wash went over their bodies rather than in it, the potion didn’t count towards their daily potion limit .

  Sophie handed Victor a mana potion, the cork had a small piece cut out, just a nick.. Sophie made eye contact with Magnus as Victor drank the potion.

  “That thing was called a Tyrannical Turkey and it was a dungeon mob.” Magnus told the rest of his party. “I got an identify on it just before the fight got started.”

  “That shouldn’t be possible. My father said the dungeon was only a few weeks old. It shouldn't be strong enough to start producing iron stage mobs yet.” Victor said, looking surprised.

  “You knew and didn’t tell us?” Ed said, a bit theatrically, but with just the right amount of surprise and outrage.

  Which kicked off the storm of accusations and recriminations thrown at Victor as Celeste tried to calm everyone down and get things back on track. Sophie stayed quiet and out of the line of fire. To his credit Victor didn’t try to drag Sophie under the cart with him.

  “Ok! Ok! Do I need to remind you all where we are? If there's a new dungeon around here then it’s even more dangerous than we knew.” She said the last part while glaring at Victor. “We’ll deal with this when we get back to town. For now we still have a contract to fulfill that might have just gotten a lot harder.”

  “Theres a good chance the local fae teamed up with the dungeon.” Corva said, “That would explain why there are so many mobs around here.”

  “That's something that can happen?” Jeremy asked incredulously.

  “Minor fae have been known to seek residency in dungeons. Similar to how they will bind themselves to a family as servants.” Sophie explained.

  Corva grimaced, but Magnus was pretty sure he was the only one who caught it.

  “So we’ll probably need to find this dungeon then and the chances of them actually leaving are non-existent” Celeste said with a frustrated sigh “At least the contract is just to deliver the message and not actually force them to leave.”

  “Hey Corva, do you have enough room in your storage ring for this thing?” asked Ed, indicating the giant turkey.

  Corva hesitated then Sophia volunteered to carry the overgrown bird in one of her storage devices. After that, Celeste got them all moving toward the last known location of the fae village on the off chance that they were still there.

  ?

  Ed crawled out of the goblin tunnel. Which was almost impossible to see if you didn’t know it was there. Corva had to show him where it was before he went down.

  “They’re definitely not down there, it’s surprisingly clean for a hole in the ground.”

  “The wood-elves are also gone.” Corva said, climbing down from where she had been checking the smaller elves' hidden tree houses.

  “Remind me again why I had to be the one to crawl in the hole?” Ed asked

  “You're the only one with an essence that lets you see in the dark,” Magnus shot back.

  Magus was sitting by a tree meditating again trying to regain as much mana as he could. He was nowhere close to his limit for the day but his mana pool was so small he could only cast a few spells before needing to regenerate mana. It was times like these he really envied the mana pools of class holders like Victor. Who could cast spells all day and only need to be topped off by a mana potion.

  “Next essence I get. I'm not telling any of you what I can do.” Ed said.

  “You do realize most things you can do with essences is public knowledge right? I’m pretty sure if I started looking up the abilities the shadow essences gives you, darkvision is one of the first things that will come up.”

  “As entertaining as this little comedy routine is, we need to focus on what to do next. We need to confirm that the fae are in the dungeon and report back. Victor, do you have a ritual or spell to help locate the dungeon?” Celeste said.

  “Yea, my mom gave me one to locate it before we came out here.” He said with a sigh. Earning him more glares at the reminder of his deliberate omission of important information.

  He pulled out a flat board then pulled out a bottle of ink and a brush and started to draw out the ritual circle.

  “What's that ink made out of?” Magnus asked as he worked

  “Charcoal made from cassandra hazel wood, ferrous sulfate, and spirit Acacia tree sap.” He answered gruffly. “It should be able to channel the mana without burning up too quickly while helping me get a more accurate reading.”

  He stopped drawing the circle for a moment, pulled out a compass, looked around and then reoriented the board and his position before continuing the circle. Magnus watched in fascination as the others stood around looking alternately bored and watching out for danger.

  After drawing out the circle Victor pulled out a pendulum, some mana stones, and a jar with a giant hawks’ eye, placing each item at various places in the circle he just drawn. Then he placed eight candles around the circle and sat down in front of the board. He lit the candles with a wave of his hand, set the pendulum swinging and started waving a wand over the board as though directing an orchestra no one else could see.

  The first indication the others had that something was happening was the mana stones dimming, then the hawks’ eye in the jar began moving. It seemed to look around before it stopped in one direction. One by one the candles went out except for one in the same direction as the eye and lastly the pendulum stopped swinging, pointing as though being pulled by a magnet in the same direction.

  “Wow, that's a really solid reading, we must be close to the entrance.” Victor said.

  Then he put his hand on the board and put it into his magical storage device.

  It only took a few minutes of walking to find the massive stone doors to the Dungeon in the side of a cliff face. Over the top of the doors it stated:

  “Welcome to Holly’s Woods”

  Every letter was made in a different material and style, some were carved from wood, some from stone, others were made from metal. Metal that had been hammered flat, or forged into intricate shapes to form the letters. Some of the letters were carved into the cliff face. The rest of the letters clung to the wall in a haphazard mix of methods—some tied down with fraying cords, others bolted in place with heavy iron studs, and a few simply hanging there with no visible means of support at all. It was as if the surface itself refused to let them fall. It would have looked childish but no child had the skill, dexterity, or strength to make those letters or would have had the ability to put them into place.

  “Correct me if I'm wrong, but that's kind of weird right?” Ed asked.

  “Yeah, Dungeons don’t usually have signs.” Sophie answered. “Also, is Holly the name of the core? If it were only a few weeks old, then it shouldn’t have that much personality yet. It can sometimes take dungeons years to form a discernible personality. Did the fae name it maybe?” She looked to Corva for an answer.

  “I don’t think they would name it or put its name on the outside where everyone can see it unless the core asked them to. Names are pretty important in our culture and tied up in our magic.” Corva answered her stoically.

  “Whatever is going on with the dungeon can wait until tomorrow. It’s going to start getting dark soon. We need to set up camp.” Celeste announced.

  Just then, the door to the dungeon started to swing open on its own.