It was the next day, and kirito had woken up earlier than usual due to the dreams that he had been having, and wanted to go ahead and take the day to relax around town before night came, when the harvester showed up again. He went and got out of bed and headed down the creaky stairs as he usually did, seeing the living room and kitchen lay out before him with wooden chairs and tables. It wasn’t a big house but he took pride in it as it was the only house he has ever owned. As he made his way outside the morning fresh air hit his face and he sighed in content, making his way into the main part of town. He could hear rumors and whispers going about talking about what the harvester was or why he even existed in the first place, but everyone seemed to have their own tale about how everything went or why. Instead of giving out the information of his experiences with the harvester, Kirito went ahead and kept walking and kept to himself as he went to his favorite food stalls and went under the big shadetree to eat and relax. During the day, everything seems so lively and chipper, but as soon as it gets near dusk you start to see everyone almost in a panic this time of year as not anyone wants to be out when the harvester shows up to do his deeds. The black courser wasn’t sure if he was a neutral being or if he was good or evil. So far he hasn’t really seen him do anything that hurt the living, it seemed like he was collecting all the soul power or something, but didn’t know for what. Once he finished his meal, kirito went ahead and went to the familiar shops around town, so he could stock up on supplies. He was planning on going into the dungeon at night, during this dreaded event so he had to make sure he was stocked up on supplies in case something horrible goes wrong. Casper followed along in his shadow in content as other courses would probably freak out in seeing a ghost or spirit. The sun started to get lower into the sky as all the coursers started making their mad dash to the safety of their houses, the sounds of hooves clacking all along the brick roads like a stampede rushing through the town. Once the dust settled, it was quiet once again and empty except for the lone courser as he made his way to the dungeons entrance and laid in wait for the moon to rise. Once again the shadows of the dungeon hit its entrance and appeared the harvester. The skeletal figure showed its deep red eyes as it pointed to the dungeons entrance. Kirito nodded with hesitation and made his way down into the earthen furnace dungeon. Kirito used his torch to make his way down into its depths as the path leading to it was dark, and if one didn’t have a light source then they would most definitely end up getting lost and dying down here. Eventually he made it to the opening of the main endless chamber of molten lava lakes and rivers with lava falls all over the place. The dungeon however had a different air to it, it didn’t feel like the usual dungeon kirito was familiar with. Upon further inspection, he could see off at the edge of his horizon the blackened soul vines that he saw coming off of the pumpkins the previous night. They were a ways away, so it was going to be a trek deep into this dungeon. Once kirito made it to a stone brick bridge, he saw in the middle was a humanoid figure draped in fire with black eyes and a black mouth that seemed to be smiling at him. The swordsman drew his weapon, unsure what lay in wait and cautiously made his way to the figure in front of him. “Are you friend or foe?” kirito asked as the figure just stood there, staring at him for a moment then responded. “Catch fire with me and suffer forever down here in these depths” with that the creature raised his hands and shot flames of fire from its palms and directed them right at the stallion. Kirito quickly raised his sword and spun it quickly as it started to glow blue, indicating a sword skill as it spun so fast it almost disappeared. The flames clashed against the spinning blade and Kirito's body got pushed back a foot from the blast as his hooves dragged along the bridge, but he managed to block the attack and lung forward for a counter attack. Once again, the courser's sword glowed blue and did four quick jabs in quick succession as he hit his target dead in the body, sending it flying back along the bridge. Not wanting to give him any time to react, kirito then jumped into the air and slashed his sword down right onto his head and sliced the fiery figure in two and spun his sword to fling him off the sides of the bridge. He wasn’t sure if that had killed him or not but he wasn’t going to stick around to find out, so he rushed across the bridge and through the fiery landscape until he was a good distance away from his foe. After he knew he was in the clear for now, he went ahead and holstered his weapon and continued to the location that he needed to get too. Once he was there, he saw that there was a ton of these black vines as far as the eyes could see, almost as if it was a plague sucking the energy from the dungeon itself. It makes sense though, because there is always death in the dungeons from the present and even in the past, so there would be tons of soul energy to collect, even from the dungeons that the coursers don’t even know about yet. One particular vine stood out among the rest in the distance, it was a thicker vine and had more leaves coming off of it, and as he got closer he could see a figure, what appeared to be a dwarven spirit in front of the vine. He remembered the dwarf that he had encountered before wasn’t harmful so he made his way to him to see if he could get any answers. Once the dwarven spirit saw kirito, his expression got excited as he ran to meet him and was able to utter two words before it disappeared into steam. “The Forge? The Forge?” At that, kirito was confused on what he had meant but then as he listened for a bit, he could hear heavy clanging of metal off in the distance. He wondered if it had anything to do with the words the dwarf had said, so he went ahead and headed down the path with the loud clanging. Some distance was traveled, but kirito finally found what was making that loud metal sound. It appeared to be giant metal pistons going up and down quickly and as he went around the back of it there was a huge lava fall powering the contraption by a lava wheel. “Could this be what the spirit was talking about?” he mumbled to himself as Casper came out from the shadow and formed a ghostly humanoid apparition and pointed to a spot on the ground near the huge forge. Kirito went ahead and dug a little into the earth and his eyes widened when he hit something. After digging a bit faster now, he had uncovered what appeared to be a rusty pitchfork in the ground. It had odd inscriptions running down the handle that he had never seen before as it looked ancient. “Was it made from this forge? And why was I sent here to collect this weapon?” he asked his companion but he shook his head, not knowing the reason as well. After that casper went ahead and went back into the courser’s shadow and the stallion examined the weapon further to see if he could figure it out, but to no avail. Stashing the weapon away into his extra holster, he figured it was time to head back to the surface before anything else happened to him, to prevent him from going back. He made the trip back to the bridge with no issues as he went ahead and leaned over the edge to see if he could see the fiery figure anywhere, and off in the distance below he could in fact see its figure sitting and staring at him, as if it knew he would be back. Walking along the path, through caverns and other obstacles, Kirito finally made it back to the entrance of the endless cavern and lit his torch once again before making his way through the cavern above. As he walked through the cavern, it reminded him of when he was a little colt, and as training he would be sent into the overgrown dungeon for a few days to see how he would handle the dungeon's darkness. Even back then, he had no issues navigating as his instructors were all shocked at how well he would perform. One of his instructors actually sent word that he should be part of the royal guard, but kirito declined the offer because that wouldn’t line up with what he wanted to do. As he came to the entrance to the dungeon he snapped back to reality and looked around the entrance to see if the harvester was there so he could ask him about the weapon that he had found, yet he was nowhere in sight. He would have to wait till the next night to figure out the answers to the questions he had, so he went ahead and made his way back home and rushed for his bed. This night however, instead of having dreams about the adventure that he had been on, it almost was like he was seeing into the future. He could see something that seemed like a giant wolf-like creature and he was fighting for his survival. Right before he could see the climax of the battle however he woke up, heart racing as he looked around his room seeing nothing. As he saw nothing he layed in bed lost in thought as to what that dream could have been, and that he needed to be prepared if it were to ever come to pass.