They didn’t leave immediately.
Nick lingered just outside the library, one hand resting on the cool stone of the building as the door eased shut behind them. The city noise crept back in, footsteps trailing under voices and the distant clang of metal. It felt muted, like the world was giving him a moment to think.
Kelsey noticed.
“You’re hesitating?” she said lightly.
Nick scratched the side of his neck. “I’m deciding whether this is the part where I do the responsible thing.”
Her lips curved. “And by ‘responsible’, you mean…?”
“Reporting in,” he said. “To Duke Jantzen, specifically. He told me that he needed to speak with me the last time we met.”
“And you haven’t gone back since?”
“I meant to,” he replied. “Then I took a quest for the Church of Beauty, wandered into a back alley, started learning an instrument, and then met you in the library. And somehow, I’m over a day late now.”
Kelsey hummed softly. “What a tragic tale.”
He chuckled. “It is what it is, I guess.”
“Would going to him now help the situation at all?”
Nick considered that.
He imagined the conversation—the raised eyebrow, the inevitable delay, and the excuses…
“…No,” he said finally. “It would probably complicate things.”
“And you don’t have anything to report yourself yet,” she added.
“Exactly.” He glanced at her. “You’re very good at this.”
“At what?”
“Making my bad decisions sound reasonable.”
She smiled. “I prefer the term ‘efficient’.”
Nick straightened, the decision settling into place. “Alright. We’ll tackle the dungeon first, and report after.”
Kelsey nodded.
“Good,” she said. “Then we should talk about where we’re going.”
He reached into his pocket and unfolded the map, the parchment creasing softly as it caught the light. It was marked with symbols and notes, some precise, others frustratingly vague.
Kelsey leaned closer, eyes scanning it.
“I already have a dungeon in mind,” she said.
“You do?”
She tapped a spot a little to the northeast of Cairel. The location near the lakeshore was circled twice.
He frowned. “This is the first time I’ve shown you the map.”
“It is!” she agreed pleasantly. “What a grand milestone in our relationship!”
“No, I meant…”
“It’s a great dungeon. I’ve cleared it before a few times myself.”
“…Huh.”
Nick stared at the circled mark on the map for a second longer than necessary.
“You’ve cleared it,” he repeated slowly. “A few times.”
“Yup!”
“The notes on the map mark it as an ‘unknown magical manifestation’. Which implies they don’t know it’s a dungeon yet,” he continued.
Her smile didn’t falter. “That’s just scholar-speak for ‘we don’t know what the hell it’s doing.’”
Nick folded the map partway, thoughtful. “So you’ve cleared a dungeon that nobody else knows about repeatedly?”
“I like the lake,” she said simply.
He blinked. “That’s it?”
“It’s a very nice lake.”
He studied her. She met his gaze without flinching, posture relaxed, hands folded neatly at her waist like this was all perfectly reasonable.
“…Is this a trap?” he asked.
“Are you a person worth trapping?” she replied.
Nick sighed and refolded the map, tucking it away. “Alright. Let’s say I believe you. What kind of dungeon is it?”
Kelsey’s eyes lit up, just a little bit too much.
“Water-themed,” she said. “It’s a flooded stone complex that used to be part of a coastal settlement. It’s a nice, gentle place.”
“…That doesn’t sound gentle?”
“It is,” she insisted. “Mostly. Like, seventy… no, forty percent of the time.”
“…Right.”
She clasped her hands behind her back and rocked on her heels. “Think of it less like a death trap,” she said, “and more like an adventure.”
“Do scholars usually like adventures?”
“Do dragons like gold?”
“Ah, yeah, that was a dumb question.”
“It really was.”
He paused.
“…Okay, then what lives in the dungeon?”
“Fish,” she said immediately.
He waited.
“And?” he prompted.
“And water elementals. Some crustacean-type monsters. Some animated stone constructs. Nothing too crazy.”
Nick raised an eyebrow. “That’s a long list of ‘nothings’.”
Kelsey waved it off. “They’re territorial at most. Very reactive. If you don’t disturb the flow, they tend to ignore you.”
“The flow…?”
“It’ll be fine. Trust me. The place isn’t dangerous at all!”
He exhaled slowly. “Sure, I guess I’ll trust you on that.”
She grinned sheepishly. “Any other concerns?”
He glanced toward the street leading further into the city, where the road curved down toward the lake. Sunlight glinted faintly in the distance, reflecting off water he could barely see from here.
“…I should tell you something,” he said.
“Oh?”
“I can’t swim.”
Kelsey stopped.
Then turned to look at him properly.
“…At all?” she asked.
“Not even a little.”
Her lips parted.
Then she laughed.
Not a giggle or polite amusement, but a full, unguarded laugh that made nearby passersby glance over in interest.
“Oh man,” she said once she recovered, wiping at the corner of her eye. “That explains so much.”
“Like what?” he asked flatly.
“Nothing,” she said quickly. “Nothing at all. It’s just—” she caught herself, her smile still lingering. “—unexpected.”
“Glad I could surprise you.”
She straightened, composure settling back into place, though something warmer remained behind her eyes.
“Don’t worry,” she said. “I won’t let you drown.”
He eyed her. “That’s not reassuring.”
“It should be,” she replied. “I’m an excellent swimmer.”
“Of course you are.”
She glanced toward the road again. “We should stop by my place first.”
“Why?”
She smiled.
“I need to change.”
Nick frowned.
“Change into what?”
“Something more appropriate,” she said. “These robes aren’t great for a water-type dungeon.”
His gaze drifted briefly down to her boots, then back up.
“I guess that makes sense?”
“It sure does,” she agreed cheerfully. “I’ll meet you near the dungeon entrance?”
“Sure…”
She stepped past him, already heading down the street.
Nick watched her go, then looked down at his hands.
“A water dungeon…” he muttered to himself.
His fire probably wouldn’t be the most useful in there.
With a quiet sigh, he wandered in the direction where the dungeon was supposedly located.
As he crested a brief incline on the road, he was momentarily blinded by the sunlight reflecting off the lake that shimmered in the distance, calm and inviting.
“What are you even supposed to wear for a water dungeon…?”
***
The road thinned as it approached the lake.
Stone gave way to packed earth, then to a narrow path worn smooth by foot traffic. Reeds clustered along the shoreline, their pale green stalks swaying lazily in the breeze. The air smelled clean, like water and sun-warmed stone, with a faint mineral sharpness that clung to the back of his throat.
Nick stopped where the map told him to stop.
He turned in a slow circle.
There was no gate.
No archway.
No dungeon mouth yawning open like a warning.
Just the lake.
The water stretched out before him, impossibly calm. Sunlight scattered across its surface in broken shards of white and blue, the gentle ripples betraying no hint of depth or danger. A few smooth stones jutted from the shallows near the shore, half-submerged, as unremarkable as anything could possibly be.
Nick frowned.
“This is it?” he muttered.
He checked the map again, then the shoreline, then the map once more. He was absolutely certain that he was standing exactly where he was supposed to be.
And yet there was nothing.
No pressure in the air.
No hum of magic.
No sense of wrongness or anything of the sort.
If anything, the place felt aggressively normal.
Nick crouched and dipped his fingers into the water.
It was cool, clear, refreshing. It soaked into his skin without resistance, indifferent to his presence in a way that fire never was.
“…Great,” he murmured.
He straightened and stepped back, folding his arms as he waited. A pair of birds skimmed low over the lake’s surface, briefly disturbing the water before vanishing toward the opposite shore. Somewhere farther down, he could hear the voices of fishermen laughing, distant and mundane.
If this was a dungeon, it was doing a very good job of hiding.
Footsteps approached from behind.
Nick turned.
Kelsey emerged from the path leading down from the city, dressed for travel—light boots, loose trousers, and a long outer shirt cinched at the waist. A small pack was slung over one shoulder, and her hair was tied back more neatly than before.
She looked… normal.
“Waiting long?” she asked.
“Long enough to be confused,” he replied.
She smiled and stepped up beside him, gazing over the lake. “Isn’t it lovely?”
“I guess so,” he replied. “Are you sure there’s a dungeon here?”
She glanced down at the water, then back at him. “There is.”
He gestured vaguely at the scenery. “Y’know, it’s not really giving off that kind of vibe.”
“That’s part of its charm.”
Kelsey shrugged off her pack and set it on a flat stone near the shore. She unfastened the ties of her outer shirt, sliding it off her shoulders and folding it neatly before placing it atop the bag. Beneath it, she wore a sleeveless top and snug travel shorts. It looked less like dungeon gear and more like something chosen for a day by the water.
Nick looked away out of politeness. Mostly.
“So how does this work?” he asked. “Do we say a password? Step on the right rock? Wait for a magical hour where the mist rises and consumes us?”
She giggled. “Nothing so dramatic.”
She dipped her toes in the water’s edge. The lake lapped at her skin without reaction, as though welcoming her back.
“When you’re ready,” she said, glancing over her shoulder, “you just go in.”
Nick stared at the water.
His reflection stared back.
“…I really don’t care for water,” he said.
Her expression softened, just a touch.
“That’s alright,” she replied. “You don’t have to like it.”
She stepped forward, ankle-deep now, then paused.
“Oh—and Nick?”
“Yeah?”
She smiled.
“Don’t keep me waiting for too long.”
With that, she waded a little further and the water swallowed her reflection, leaving him alone on the shore.
Nick sighed, tugged his hoodie down instinctively, and stepped forward.
After seeing her outfit, he couldn’t help but notice his own.
Dark clothes made of heavy fabric…
Entirely the wrong choice for a lake.
Standing next to her, he looked like he’d wandered into the wrong genre.
He took one last look at the empty shoreline.
Then he stepped into the lake.
The water closed around his boots without ceremony. He tensed instinctively, half-expecting resistance, pressure, or something to mark the transition.
Nothing happened.
He waded a little deeper.
The lake accepted him with indifference.
By the time the water reached his knees, the world began to feel… thinner. It wasn’t noticeably distorted; he just had the vague sense that the world was less solid. The distant sounds of fishermen faded first, their laughter stretching and thinning. The breeze died next. Even the sunlight lost its warmth.
Nick swallowed nervously.
“Okay,” he muttered. “That’s a new one.”
He took another step.
The water rose to his waist—
—and then the ground was suddenly gone.
Nick yelped, arms flailing as his feet slipped forward into empty space. Instinct screamed at him to jump, to release his aura, to throw a fireball, to do something to force the world to behave.
But there was no time to cast, no leverage to push against—
The lake inverted.
Water rushed up instead of down, pulling him through a sudden cold weightlessness that lasted no more than a heartbeat before gravity reasserted itself sideways.
He hit stone.
The impact was hard enough to knock the breath out of him, but not hard enough to hurt.
Nick rolled onto his back, gasping, heart pounding as water sluiced away from him in thin rivulets that vanished into cracks between the stones. Above him was not a sky, but a vaulted ceiling of pale stone threaded with veins of softly glowing blue crystal. Light refracted through shallow pools carved into the ceiling itself, casting slow, wavering patterns across the chamber like sunlight through water.
He lay there for a second longer than necessary.
“…I hate this place already,” he decided.
“Aww,” Kelsey’s voice said. “You haven’t even given it a fair shot yet.”
Nick pushed himself upright.
She stood a short distance away on a raised stone platform, completely dry, hands on her hips with a relaxed posture. The lake water that had swallowed her moments ago was gone, replaced by a wide, gently sloping chamber that opened out in multiple directions. Each direction was an arched corridor that was partially flooded, with stone walkways hugging the walls. Here and there, he noted shallow pools dotted with smooth pillars worn round by countless years of erosion.
And Kelsey—
Nick’s brain almost short-circuited at the unexpected sight.
She had changed her outfit again.
Her travel clothes were neatly folded on a nearby stone bench. Now, she wore a fitted deep-blue two-piece swimsuit.
It was entirely impractical for a dungeon dive.
Not that her previous outfit was significantly better or anything, but this…
She glanced over her shoulder at him, smiling easily.
“You made it,” she said.
He stared for half a second too long.
Then he looked away.
“Y’know,” he said, clearing his throat as he stood, water dripping from his sleeves. “I feel like you missed a warning about the ‘sudden loss of ground’.”
“Oh, I didn’t miss it,” she replied cheerfully. “You just don’t get it until the second time.”
“Ah…”
She stepped closer, peering at his soaked hoodie and heavy pants with open amusement. “You’re going to be miserable in that.”
“I’m already miserable,” he said. “This is just thematic consistency.”
Kelsey laughed and crouched near the edge of a pool, trailing her fingers through the water. It rippled around her, faint motes of light swirling beneath the surface like lazy fireflies.
“Try not to fight it,” she said casually.
“Fight what?”
“The dungeon,” she replied. “Force isn’t the answer here.”
He looked around again, taking in the serene geometry, the soft light, the absence of immediate threats.
“It feels peaceful,” he admitted. “When do things start getting bad?”
“They don’t,” she said. “Unless you treat it like a battlefield.”
She straightened and looked at him properly now, her expression gentler than before.
“Think of it like a tide,” she continued. “You can swim with it, or you can exhaust yourself trying to fight it.”
Nick snorted. “I can’t swim either way.”
She grinned. “That can be changed,” she said. “Come on. The first chamber’s easy. Just… follow me.”
She stepped into the water without hesitation, moving smoothly, like the dungeon was an old friend rather than a hostile space.
Nick hesitated.
Then, with a resigned sigh, he followed her in.
Project Knightfall 