"Alarion?"

The word was fuzzy. Indistinct. As though spoken from some great distance. It meant something; he knew that. But what? What could such a word possib-

"Alarion!"

"Mm?"

"Oh, thank…" Sierra's voice buzzed through his Simu, along with her sigh of relief. "Where are you?"

"I'm in the pit."

There was a brief pause.

"What do you mean you are 'in the pit'?"

Another pause. This time followed by a different sort of sigh.

"Why are you in the pit?"

"I lost the fight," Alarion explained, before his recollection stabilized somewhat, "Or I won it. I think."

"Are you alright?"

"I will live," He replied, mentally pulling up a log of recent notifications.

You have suffered moderate bludgeoning damage. HP – 52. You have suffered slight bludgeoning damage. HP – 8. You have suffered severe fall damage. HP – 149

New Condition! [Fracture (Left Arm) – Major] [Survivor's Endurance] has taken effect. The secondary effect of [Survivor's Endurance] has taken effect. [Fracture (Left Arm) – Major] has been resisted due to user's VIT score. Condition reduced to [Fracture (Left Arm – Moderate)]

New Condition! [Concussion – Moderate] [Survivor's Endurance] has taken effect. The secondary effect of [Survivor's Endurance] has taken effect.

You have been incapacitated for 11 minutes.

"I think," he clarified, "What is a concussion?"

"Do you still have a healing potion?" Sierra asked, ignoring his question.

"Yeah," Alarion replied. He winced as he turned his head. The world wobbled in his vision, making him want to be sick. His arm was bent at a terrible angle, the elbow a distressing shade of red and purple that made him want to be sick in a different sort of way.

He had still fared better than his opponent.

The obliterated body of the fiend lay a few feet away, Alarion's greatsword still stuck in the top of its head. Alarion had braced himself for impact, while the fiend had landed in a jumble of limbs that had fractured and torn the sickly pink membrane that passed for its skin.

"Thank goodness," Sierra said, "take it now."

"In a second," Alarion responded as he struggled to his feet, suddenly full of purpose.

"Now, Alarion. If you have a-"

"I will," he cut her off with a poor attempt to mollify her protests, "I just have to do something first."

He ignored her further protestations as he limped his way over to the fiend and grabbed the hilt of his greatsword. The weapon shrank on command, and Alarion shuffled a few feet over. His whole body ached as he shifted the sword back to full size, hefted it with one arm, and dropped it onto the fiend's ruined torso.

It took eight swings to cut far enough through the fiend's rib cage to get at the brute's very intact core, but destroying it rewarded Alarion with a flurry of notifications.

You have slain [Ravenous Lesser Fiend – UCL 42] – Bonus experience earned for slaying an opponent above your UCL.

Level Up! Congratulations, your Orphan Class has advanced to Level 5! STR +10. VIT +5. INT +5. PER +10. WIL +10. Luck +126.

Skill level increased. Imperial Greatsword Mastery is now Level 5. STR +8.

Alert! You qualify for one or more new classes. Please see your system menu for more information.

"Alright. Potion," Alarion mumbled to himself as he let his sword drop into the dead fiend's viscera without a second thought. Given its location, strapped to his severely broken arm, it took some effort to retrieve the vial one-handed. Fortunately, the potion itself was only slightly cracked, a testament to the durable crystal the potion flask was made of.

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The contents went down smoothly, and Alarion felt his pain diminish in a heartbeat while the befuddling fog cleared from his head. As the world shifted back into focus, Alarion realized how lucky he'd been. If he'd taken one more hit from the fiend before falling into the pit, if it hadn't been beneath him when he fell, if he hadn't gained all that vitality from training [Survivor's Endurance]. If any of half a dozen things had been different, he wouldn't have woken up.

Most of all, a single thought resounded in his head. Why hadn't he used the escape icon?

"Alarion?" Sierra pressed.

"I am okay," he responded quickly, "I had to finish off the fiend before it got up."

He was overselling his condition somewhat. The potion had mended the worst injuries, but could not fully heal his broken arm. The condition had been downgraded to minor, but he'd still be disadvantaged in using the limb for at least a few hours. Perhaps just as importantly, the after-effect of taking two potions in quick succession struck as the last of the healing energy faded. It came as a new notification, a 20% malus to all attributes for six hours and a general malaise, as though he'd instantly come down with the flu.

"See. I may be harsh, but my lessons stick in your head even after you hit it a few times." Alarion could almost feel the relieved smile in the girl's voice as she forced some levity into the conversation. "Stay where you are. I'm coming down to you."

"Mm," Alarion agreed. Then he turned his attention to his surroundings.

The bottom of the pit was not what he had expected. The hole appeared to have a natural roughness, as though it had been worn down over the years, or dug by inexpert hands. Those imperfections ended at the arched ceiling, for the massive chamber in which Alarion stood was entirely artificial.

The long edge of the rectangular room was set with V-shaped columns, each placed slightly closer to the room's center at fixed intervals. These columns naturally funneled the eye to a raised dais on the far end of the room, upon which sat three thrones. Each was emblazoned with unfamiliar markings and its own unique emblem: an hourglass, a skull, and a flame, respectively. Notably, someone had vandalized the central seat, the one with the flame emblem. Its original motif was scratched through almost to illegibility, and numbers had been carved in its place.

0, 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34, 55, 89, 144…

Above the three seats was a beautiful sculpture in dark grey metal depicting a man in anguish, curled nude upon the ground, his head in his hands. Other arms reached out from around the man, perhaps those of a crowd, all reaching for something just outside their grasp. Curiously, the sculpture appeared unfinished, leaving the object of their desire to the viewer's imagination, perhaps by design.

The room looked… expensive. That was the first word that came to Alarion's mind, for every little thing in the chamber was just so. The floor was elegant black marble interlaced with walkways of white and gold, the walls a similar white marble that gave the room a regal air. Every surface was polished and smoothed, as though no person had ever stepped foot inside, save for the dead fiend and the boy who killed it.

And eventually Sierra. It took her longer than he'd liked to secure a rope and climb down into the pit, but Alarion had never been so happy to see another person.

"What… is this?" Sierra asked as she joined him. Her voice should have echoed terribly, but something about the room's design seemed to funnel her words, to make them clearer than she should have otherwise been.

"I was hoping you would know," Alarion said.

"I have no idea," Sierra replied, "it looks like a throne room."

"Buried underground?"

"That was one of my many concerns, yes," the girl winced as she spoke, one hand moving to her temple, "how are you okay?"

Alarion gave her a curious look. "I took a potion?"

"No. Not that. The pressure in this room. Do you really not feel that?"

Alarion shook his head.

"It is definitely why the fiend was here," she explained, "and why it was so strong. It could probably feed from the surface off of this much residual power. Not that it matters. We need to leave. Now."

"Why?"

Sierra's expression turned incredulous in an instant. "Alarion, this is a well-charted island. The Governor had it culled three days before your arrival to be sure that it would be safe for you to train here. Someone would have noticed a giant hole leading to… whatever this is. Especially one in the middle of a forest clearing."

"Maybe the fiend dug its way down?"

"And then what? Jumped twenty feet in the air to climb out?" Sierra snorted at the idea. "Presumably after eating all the dirt it dug up making the hole?"

She had a point.

"So it is what? A trap set to catch us?" Alarion asked.

"Not us specifically, no," she answered. "This room is old. No one after your life would go through the trouble of uncovering a buried room on a fiend-infested island when they could confront you on the surface. No, this feels opportunistic."

"But who else could it be?"

Sierra looked back at the carcass of the dead fiend and frowned. "I think we may have a revenant on the island. One smart enough to hide from higher-level Awakened, then put out bait for the neophytes that come to practice. I do not believe the extra fiends that ambushed me in the forest were coincidental."

"… And the thing was trying to force me into the hole." Alarion had heard enough. He nodded to the rope. "I'm a slower climber. You first."

Sierra was happy to take yes for an answer from the otherwise stubborn young man as they turned back toward their escape route.

Only to watch in horror as nearly one hundred feet of rope tumbled out of the hole in the ceiling and fell to the marble floor with a chilling thump. Sierra didn't even need to look at the end of it to see that it hadn't snapped.

It had been cut.

"Alarion. Break your icon. Now!" Sierra said sharply, her tone brooking no discussion.

The boy did as instructed, plucking the small silver rod from his hip and snapping it cleanly in two. He was relieved to see Sierra do likewise, as he'd been unsure if she had a similar escape route.

Then they waited. One second. Two. Three. Four. Five.

Six.

"Damnit!" Sierra swore as she sent the broken remains of her escape icon skidding across the floor.

"We're too far underground?" Alarion asked.

"What? No!" Sierra rolled her eyes, allowing her anger to get the better of her. "These should work almost anywhere. Anywhere that is not warded against dimensional magic. Anywhere that is not a trap."

"Ah," Alarion winced, "what is the plan?"

"The plan?!" Her voice was incredulous, but something about his tone gave her pause. He was right to ask. She was in charge, after all. "We can not wait to be rescued. It will be weeks before anyone comes looking for us, and if this is a trap, I do not think the revenant expects us to starve to death. We rest and recover first, then decide how to proceed. If we get outside the suppression's radius, the effect should activate. How long do you have on your potion sickness?"

"About six hours," Alarion answered as Sierra paced, "should give us plenty of time to figure out which class I should pick."

"You got your class?! Finally, some good news." The girl made it another five steps before the implication in his words struck her. "What do you mean, which class?"

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