"Where am I?"

Those were the words that echoed through Illia's mind as she walked across the fog-covered landscape. She knew the forest was foggy but now it seemed she was no longer in the forest anymore as there were only plains all around her. Before she knew it, the trees disappeared, replaced by an eerily sterile grass that all had the same exact length. She knew that for a fact as she actually stopped and measured them. No plains would ever be like that. Not in a million years. She must have stumbled upon some magically designed place, she thought. A plant mage should be able to do this kind of thing, though she wouldn't know why they would. Perhaps they just desired uniformity that badly?

"Hmm, are those... voices?"

She stopped herself and steeled her ears. Indeed, those were voices. Human voices in fact.

Without wasting any more moment, she walked towards where the voice seemed to be originated, With these robes of hers, she couldn't really run. And she hadn't the stamina to run anyways. Even though she didn't look like it, she was 300 years old. And even though mages lived long lives, their stamina would decrease with age. And she was the oldest of them all.

There, at the source of the voice, she discovered that there was a crowd of people. And not just any ordinary people, as there were demihumans and other odd-looking humanoids as well.

Thanks to her gloves, they didn't see the mark on her left hand so they didn't swarm at her. Instead, she had to be the one who initiated the conversation.

"Excuse me sir," she said to a man closest to her, "What is going on here? Why are you all gathered like this?"

"Hmm, what? You... a newcomer?" he replied, looking surprised at her odd looks. "Do you have the mark on your hand?"

"Mark? What mark? I don't have any mark on my hand," she replied back. She was now even more confused than before.

"Take off your gloves, miss. The left one. Just do it."

Illia did as she was told, seeing no harm in the act. And when she did, she immediately discovered that there was now a tattoo of some sort on the back of her left hand. It looked like to be a magic circle, and one of the more difficult ones too.

"This pattern... I remember this. This is the magic circle they drew at the ritual when I was coronated as the leader of the mages. This is the symbol of the archmage! How did it get here?"

Before she could lift her hand closer however, the man shouted, "Hey, we got another one here!" And before she knew it, she was swarmed by the crowd. And they all pushed her forward.

"W-what are you doing?" she said to them, clearly looking distraught on this sudden treatment. She could feel her robe being stepped upon over and over again. Thankfully, it was not some ordinary robe as it was made by the fiber secreted by the legendary spider queen Shelob. Its toughness and magical properties were unrivaled, so it wouldn't rip by just something like this.

"We'll explain once we get there. Now go on and get to the front," the man explained.

She did as he said. She could just blow away all these people with her magic if she tried to lead her into some kind of trap.

She was soon brought to the entrance to the cave. Behind that was a massive white wall that stretched up to the sky.

"What is this?" Illia said as she stared in awe. In all her life she never saw a wall as tall as the one in front of her.

"Miss Archmage," the man then addressed her by the title she blurted out, "You have the mark on your hand. That means you can enter. We the ones here don't have it so we cannot. Watch."

Illia then saw a man with a marble skin ramming into the entrance with his shoulder, only for him to repelled back by some unknown force.

"A barrier..." Illia mumbled. She was quite familiar with something like this, since she could use it as well.

"He had been doing that for a while. Real stubborn. Refuses to give up even after we tell him to," the man commented. "So yeah, only the marked ones could enter. And we don't have any choice as walking back to the foggy plains behind us just makes us all end up here in the end. We have no idea why we're here right now. We just want to go home. So you have to do something, I beg of you. The other marked ones have already entered as well so you don't have to worry about going in alone."

"Hmm, a warped space? This is some powerful magic at work indeed..." she mumbled to herself. "Very well sir. Stay here while I investigate the heart of the matter. My hypothesis is that we're trapped by some powerful magic and to dispel that spell, we have to go into the cave."

[i]And that magic must have transported me and the others as well... Just what kind of magic is this? There must be a bunch of mages working together to achieve this effect.[/i]

Illia walked towards the cave's opening. As the others had said, she wasn't repelled at all when she tried to enter the it.

Carefully, she entered the cave. Dungeon-crawling had never been her specialty. But she knew that the main rule of dungeon crawling was to stay alert at all times. And she would make sure to adhere to that rule.