And into the fire, somehow.

John hit the "Enter" button, but was greeted with an error message.

Terrain unsuitable for selected enemies. Use alternate terrain?

John mentally shrugged. He wasn't sure how much difference it really made with bats, but it did seem out of character for them to all be hanging around in the middle of the plains. John hit Yes and watched the same rippling effect he had seen before echo outwards, almost invisible. This time, though, where the ripple traveled was much easier to see, for although the ripple was barely visible, its alterations were complete and total.

Unlike at the school and his home where things were identical, there was almost nothing similar about his old and new environments at all. Instead of an open plain filled with brush and tall grasses, he was standing on rough, lifeless ground, and where there was flat land before now he saw a massive, almost sheer cliff rising up ahead of him. In the center, almost directly in front of where he had been standing but several dozen yards ahead, John saw a massive cave nearly thirty feet in diameter that looked to travel slowly but steadily into the depths of the earth itself.

"This is… definitely not Kansas," John observed astutely, glancing around at the desolate world he had found himself in. Where there were not brown or lightly orange plants dying, there were little more than fissures, cracks in the earth signifying the true **** of the land. Despite the fact he was sure the environment wouldn't affect his battle very much, John couldn't help but be unsettled at the total change. He had expected the cave, but not the **** that surrounded it. What exactly was he walking into? Perhaps he had played one too many video games, but something told John that if he were merely up against a swarm of bats, it wouldn't justify this highly altered setting.

"Alright, let's go," John said, eyeing Maera and Mithra for the first time since they had all entered this plane. The two catgirls were standing by either of his sides, but they seemed as uneasy with the change as he was. Mithra was circling as Maera backed into his ankle, hissing wildly at the slightest movement. John tried not to think about what having two Nekos on edge meant for the nature of this shift, and instead focused on trying to minimize his own fears and head toward the tunnel.

Halfway there, John nearly tripped over a massive dead branch. At first he was about to step over it and continue onwards, but he thought better of it after a moment, wondering what he might be up against - and realizing he might need better weapons than a mere bat. Something gave John the distinct impression that this was far more dangerous than the encounter with the Werecats had been.

A small voice in the back of John's head called out for him to exit the dungeon, call Moira, and tell her what was going on. John stuffed that voice deep under layers of repression and tried to pretend it had never been there to begin with. John couldn't call Moira, much as he wanted to. If he did, it would raise too much suspicion. He had nearly died the previous night, a fact that Moira was too well aware of. If he was already pushing himself further into a world that had nearly killed him, Moira would surely expect an explanation, and John could give none except that he was now in possession of creatures that could not exist, and was responsible for feeding them. Perhaps he was wrong, and Moira would show up without question. Perhaps every new mage was expected to test their abilities and what they had been gifted with, but John was unwilling to test that theory, knowing that the consequences of being wrong were war and possible (likely) execution. Besides, he didn't have to get into too much danger - all he had to do was kill enough enemies to get some money and loot, and then he could leave without putting himself in danger like last time.

To focus his thoughts away from prying Paladins he grabbed the branch that he had tripped over and ignited it, ignoring the mana cost as he set it ablaze, giving him a torch with which to explore the cave with, one which would not cost him a constant amount of mana.

John thought about ordering the Nekos in ahead of him, knowing they were probably more durable than him, but he found it rather difficult to think of them as more expendable than him as well. Just thinking of the fact that his own intervention created them (in their current form, at least) kept John from ordering them to what could easily be an early grave. Instead, he led the way himself, leaving it to the Nekos on whether or not to follow him. The cave appeared relatively empty compared to what he was expecting - for nearly a full minute, he slowly journeyed further and further inside, finding no sign that the cave was inhabited at all.

He might never have found any sign at all, save for the fact that he was aware of what creatures he was to be looking for. It was due to that fact alone that, when John eventually entered a wide-open chamber, he looked straight up before checking any of his surroundings. Above his own head by nearly a dozen feet, at the very limit of his torch light, John saw a cluster of small mammals, hanging upside down in a peaceful slumber.

Peaceful, that is, until his torchlight touched upon their bodies. Even that might not have been enough to awake them, excepting for the fact that Mithra had apparently followed him inside. In the brief span of seconds that John had between entering the chamber and Mithra's excruciating hissing noise, John had enough time to count approximately two hundred bats that were easily as large as a man's head. He counted them, and then - as the sound of Mithra's hiss reverberated through the chamber - they all simultaneously opened their eyes and dove at him.

John cried out in fear as he dove for the pathway he had come through, Mithra barely keeping up with him as his feet kept him mere inches away from the ravenous fangs he swore he could feel nipping at his nape. John didn't stop until he cleared the mouth of the cave, Mithra landing on his legs and lower body as she jumped free of it a second after he did. Maera had beaten them both, fear propelling her. She was several feet away, glaring at the cave entrance and hissing. He laid on his back, having just enough distance ahead of the cluster of bats to hear the sound of their wings approaching as he funneled mana into his hands.

"By fire be purged!" John shouted, willing his mana forth. Surprisingly, it was not his hand but rather the torch he was still desperately clinging to that he was summoning fire forth from. The fire grew and expanded until it covered the entire cave entrance, and then flooded even further within, until the sound of wings was overwhelmed by the constant sound of searing meat and the sick smell of putrefied flesh permeated the air. Even then John did not relent until his mana was depleted and his fire consumed all that he could see.

Seconds passed like hours, with John's eyes firmly locked onto the entrance, checking for any signs of living creatures as his already partially depleted mana vanished rapidly. Bats were still flooding the entrance but were dying just as quickly, even the hardiest of animals only making it a few flaps out of the depths of the cave before succumbing to the torrent of fire John was summoning - those that didn't die in seconds fell to the ground, screaming and smashing themselves into the dirt. In the moment, he had no care for the notifications that were popping up about the experience he was gaining, but when the last of the bats finally disappeared, he did note that he had gained about 5 EXP per bat he slew. He didn't get a chance to see how far his gauge had filled though, because another, far more important notice came up.

Mini-Boss spawned!

John's torrent of fire had stopped a few seconds before the message popped up. Not due to his own will, but due to his lack of mana. A quick glance up was all John need to confirm that, yes, his mana was sitting at a whopping zero. He cringed a little as the sounds of wings flapping started to grow closer and closer. With his current Wisdom score, it would be at least eight minutes he had to wait for each second he controlled the elements, and that ratio had quickly overwhelmed what little he had saved up between classes.

Now the bats flew free, Maera and Mithra each batting futilely at the shadowy figures as they emerged from the depths of the cave and started to circle the area. Mithra seemed almost unperturbed, treating the bats as any other quarry, but Maera was doing her best to avoid touching them at all. These bats, however, did not attack - instead they flew past all of them, landing in a literal pile some fifty yards away, back from the cave and started to writhe, flailing their bodies around wildly.

"Wha- did I blind them with the fire?" John asked nobody in particular, glancing at the still-burning stick in his hand. It was burning brightly, surprisingly, but the fires it had sprayed forth were long since gone, and there was no way that would cause what vaguely resembled a massive bat orgy.

John noticed something, though - blood and flesh, sinew and tissue that should not have been there. At first he thought they were tearing into each other, driven insane by perhaps the sudden intrusion, **** of their colony members, or just the insane noise and light… but none of the bats were dying, judging by the fact that the pile continued to move. Instead, he saw some of them start… melting? No - fusing! They were becoming something else. Whatever it was, he couldn't allow it.

"That is not good!" John shouted, hefting up his bat. Unlike every RPG character ever, he wasn't just going to sit there and let this weird black magic take full effect - he charged forward, bat in hand as he eagerly brought it smashing down onto the pile of bats. He saw damage notifications but had no way of knowing if it was for whatever was forming out of them or individual bats, so he kept swinging until something large enough to knock him away finally formed.

He had been sort of hoping to leave before anything like a mini-boss showed up… but that was out the window now. It was a wing that had batted him away like a child, a massive wing - almost longer than he was. A bat now the size of a huge dog or a small bear was standing there, mouth open in a squeaky hiss that left trails of drool across the ground in front of him.

A new window popped up in front of him.

New Quest Available: Under the Radar
Requirements: Kill Mini-boss. Don't let your HP drop below 75% to alert Moira of your exploits. Please dungeon responsibly. Don't drink and dungeon.
Rewards: +10 Relationship with Moira, 500 EXP, +Channeler's Earrings

John mashed accept, knowing he had no way to regenerate enough mana to escape this Barrier before either he or this boss would be dead.