The day passed quickly. Breakfast had been a working breakfast, with Vanya speaking of dungeon plans and floating lightward diagrams into the air as they all ate fancy, little bacon quiches. The Maryols asked questions, and Vanya gave answers. Soltic had to actually glare at Vanya a few times when she started talking about things such as Elemental Death, and how it related to the coral wyrm.

For Jarod and Glariol were way too interested in that.

“So they’re using Elemental Death in the dungeon?” Jarod asked, nonchalantly. “I had heard you needed to be dead to use that without killing yourself. That to use Death inside a dungeon was to kill everyone who walked inside.”

“That’s not the case at all,” Vanya said, happy to explain and barely acknowledging Soltic’s look at all. “Dungeons can use all manner of Elements safely, as long as they are sequenced correctly. In this case, using Death in a dungeon as easy as having a Rule where the only magic that can affect delvers will be from an approved list, and then you can keep Elemental Death off of that list and you’re free to use Death anywhere you want in a dungeon at all.”

With raised eyebrows, Glariol stated, “I was unaware that you could do that with a core.”

“You can do practically anything with a dungeon core. They’re less like an extension of the current reality into another, and more like the instantiation of a reality all its own.”

Soltic cleared his throat.

Vanya went on to simpler topics.

They continued to talk for a while, but Jarod and Glariol were already completely convinced of Vanya’s knowledge as of yesterday.

Knowing what Erick now knew about Everbless and Sininindi and Quilatalap, and how an ‘Intervention’ prevented Quilatalap from knowing about how the tentacle-thing was, in fact, Everbless, the entire shape of Sininindi’s plan was rather evident. Evident to Erick, anyway. The goddess of Storm and Sea wanted to have personal tutoring for her son, done by one of the most knowledgeable persons in the world. Her plan was the plan of tens of thousands of others, over the course of Veird’s long history; whenever anyone went into Ar’Kendrithyst searching out the Archlich, this is what they wanted. This personal tutoring.

The morning talking and breakfast spilled over into lunch with Nero and surprisingly, with Barda, too. There was much joy among the family that Barda was back in the fold, though she was uncomfortable the entire time. Perhaps she was more uncomfortable due to Vanya speaking of her deeper plans for a Grand Dungeon, or maybe she was still deeply uncomfortable with the whole ‘cultist of Melemizargo’ thing that the Maryols had going on. Soltic suspected there were a whole host of other problems between Barda and Nero and the Maryols, too, but Barda didn’t speak of those problems, and no one poked at her too hard.

And now they were here, walking into Regency Castle.

Barda and Nero did not join them, though.

The castle was stunning in the way that all the grand architecture of the world was stunning, for Veird was a world of magic, and when that magic was maintained, that magic allowed for impossible architecture. Since the advent of the Node Network spellwork and of [Renew], maintaining that impossible architecture was incredibly easy.

The original castle had been a simple thing of a few keeps and towers on a simple cliff, jutting out over the southern part of the city of Storm’s Edge. Since the Node Network came about, that cliff had been expanded outward, and tens of new structures had been piled onto the cliff and the castle. It all should have crashed down into the lake below the castle, long before now, but the pile of white stone buildings and blue roofs were as sturdy as adamantium, upon that cliff.

The cliff kinda looked like a ship, crashing out of the wave of the mountain, and piled high with shipping boxes. It had no real sails, though they could have easily added that part, if they wanted. Soltic assumed that they had discussed sails and decided against them, for whatever reason. Probably because it was too on-the-nose.

“They certainly went for the ‘ship’ look, though,” Soltic said, as he stepped out of the carriage that brought them here, to the back of the castle. “I kinda like it.”

Jarod said, “It’s a controversial design, but Regent Augustive Glorious Tidewalker loves it this way, and so it is this way.”

“Will we be meeting the Regent?” Vanya asked, as she stepped out of the carriage.

“Likely not,” Gloria said. “He’s a busy man, though we might see Archmage Wiloza in the meeting with Aroido. She’s less busy these days with the Node Network making everyone’s lives easier, so she’s been dipping her hands into a lot of different duties, and dungeon overseeing is one of the circles she controls.”

Ahead of them lay a grand road made of lapis lazuli, with trees sculpted into fish lining both sides. An open gate of gold lay ahead of them, with guards on both sides of the gate. Beyond that lay the first of the white castle buildings. A pair of massive fountains rose from blue flower gardens to the left and the right. The fountains were as impressive as all the rest, for they were sculptures of oceanic beasts, spinning into each other as water poured out of tens of mouths and blowholes, to cascade down into large pools. White salt had crystallized over some of the calmer parts of those fountains, which added a sort of ‘foamy’ look. The scene caused Soltic to stop for a moment, as they walked past all that, and into the towering castle beyond.

But soon enough they were inside the first part of the castle, facing down yet another obstacle. They would have been stopped long before they got to this location, were it not for Jarod and Gloria, their escorts. But here they were, now.

A series of arches stood to the side of the main entryway, and they might prove the end of this little experiment in subterfuge. Erick had actually invented those archways himself, as a part of his anti-facestealer programs, and they were devilishly simple in their actions, and effectiveness.

A person simply walked through the five-meter corridor, calmly and solidly, and the ‘machine’ checked to see if the mana was controlled —at all— as one passed through. They were adjustable to allow certain, specific magics through; usually the ones worn by royalty or whatever. But even those spellworks were noticed by the checking magic. Erick could have made the machine only require a single step through the space, but that would mean that someone could take their spellwork off and then put it right back on. The 5 meter distance was so that a person actually had to walk the 5 meters fully exposed, while guards watched the whole time.

Vanya and Soltic both wore permanent spellwork, and they were required to remove all of that spellwork before they entered the building proper. This would be a problem for many different reasons, and there was no real easy way to get through this check without fucking it up somehow. But Erick had [Return], and so—

A high-ranking cleared his throat to the side of the check in station, his eyes shimmering a little with Sight spells—

“Just pass right on through, Wizard Flatt. We’ll spoof the check for you and Q.”

Erick’s heart beat hard—

And then he noticed the hundreds of tendrils of magic coming off of the head guard; he had been hiding them until this moment. He was a Mind Mage.

“Mind Mage Rodrygo, at your service. Please head on through; no one will know this happened.”

Erick chuckled a little. “Well all right then.”

And then Soltic walked through the tunnel of arches, with Vanya right behind him. No one had noticed Soltic’s hesitation, or otherwise, as he set of every single archway with his active spellwork. Vanya set off the machine, too. No one cared about either of them, though.

Aside from temporarily hiding them from all nearby viewers, Erick suspected that the guard also had some sort of circumvention against the machine sending a ‘magic detected’ signal to the places where such a spell would be received, though he couldn’t see into all the Privacy spellwork and anti-magic magics layered across the ground, and elsewhere. Whatever the case, Soltic and Vanya went through just fine.

Jarod had an issue.

As the machine beeped, the Mind Mage guard said, “Please remove your spellwork and pass through again.”

Jarod sputtered, “Ah, I had forgotten about that one,” before moving through the machine again, this time silently.

Glariol smirked and passed through without giving the machine any problems at all.

The four of them strode across the ocean-blue marble floor under salt-lamp lighting, to the designated meeting room deeper in the building. Jarod lightly spoke of what they were seeing, of the various parts of the castle, and greeted a few different people and invited them to see the presentation. The hallways were not exactly crowded, but this was a castle filled with people of all kinds, and many of them would be a part of the systems of Vanya’s Grand Dungeon when it was completed. No one accepted the invitation to see the presentation, though. Glariol eventually whispered what Soltic had already guessed; that none of these people believed that Vanya would actually be allowed to change the dungeons. Mostly, it was an uneventful walk.

And then Everbless’s tentacle [Familiar] rounded a corner in the hallway and flickered out as his eye appeared. He had found Soltic and Vanya, and he instantly began poking at the unfeeling, unseeing Soltic, thinking he could get through Soltic’s defenses.

He was almost sad when tentacle after tentacle deflected.

- - - -

Soltic stood at the side of the room, while Vanya spoke of her dungeon presentation.

Everbless had stopped trying to poke him after that first time, which Soltic was glad for. Now, Everbless hovered behind Aroido, watching Vanya’s presentation alongside the lord.

A few others were in attendance.

The Regency Archmage, Lady Wiloza Tidewalker, sat a few seats from Aroido, calmly regarding the much younger woman on stage. She hadn’t said anything aside from a casual greeting at the beginning, but she had taken notice when Soltic was introduced as a Stone Warrior. She didn’t seem to care about Vanya’s Elementalist Class, though. From those facts, it didn’t take long for Erick to remember that Wiloza was a Stone archmage. Hopefully she wouldn’t be bothering Soltic with too much of an inquisition, but Soltic could tell that she probably would. She was becoming more and more interested in Vanya’s presentation, but more so in Vanya and Soltic, than in Vanya’s words, and that meant questions of all sorts.

The other person sitting on Aroido’s other side was the Dungeon Guildmaster; an incani by the name of Larro Tizet. From his tiny grin, his happy heartbeat, and how he had spoken to Jarod earlier about ‘looks like you got a good one’, Soltic could tell that Larro was already on their side.

Aroido looked on in reluctant approval; he was ready to run Vanya through the wringer before he agreed to anything. The fact that he was willing to have a small inquisition was good news, though. Maybe.

Vanya finished with her presentation, and in the end, the room was filled with lightwards. Vanya’s main image floated in the front of the room; a top down look at the overall map of her plan for the dungeons. A few more images held to the sides, detailing the general overhead layout and depth layout of the various ‘Elemental Dungeons’ around the ‘Central City Dungeon’. All of them had empty spots for growth and for the additions of others, but the main floor plan was set.

After an hour, Vanya ended with, “I look forward to working with you, if you should all choose to accept me as a dungeon master. I thank you for your time, and I thank Sininindi for her Call to action.”

Guildmaster Larro Tizet had been waiting for a while to speak, and now he did, “I approve of her. Put her in a smaller dungeon and see what she can do. Maybe #6; that one is always near breaking.”

Archmage Wiloza ignored Larro, and asked, “Where did you learn your spellwork, Miss Vanya?”

“All over the place. Primarily in the dungeons. I do not have a formal arcanaeum accreditation, but I do have enough experience to cast almost any spell of under fourth tier.”

Wiloza’s disapproval was written upon her scrunched face. “I will be withholding my acceptance for several days while we research your public dungeons and do a thorough background check.” She pointed at the floating wardlights. “If I can find proof that you can actually do as you say, then perhaps we’ll speak again.” She got up. “I have no time for any further questions. Till another time, Aroido.” And then she left.

Aroido nodded to the archmage, and when the door had shut behind the archmage, Aroido turned back to Vanya. “The purpose of the dungeons here at Storm’s Edge are to take the Dark for all he is worth, using his spellworks to [Grow] gold and other useful items. Are you comfortable with that? Because that is the major reason for allowing the dungeons in our lands at all. It seems, to me, that you are perhaps too enamored with the learning opportunities inside dungeons.”

“I am more than capable of working with the needs of the governing land in order to make a dungeon all that it can be. Allow me, please, to guess a few things, based on what I have seen of this land.

“From my public ability to estimate how much money comes out of the dungeons, I guess that it’s maybe 9,000 gold per day, per dungeon, meaning around 38,000 per day, for all of them. You might do more at night, or you might not, but I do not know. The Regency takes 30,000 of that gold, which is a good sum, but it likely pales in comparison to a single day at the market, either lower or upper, which likely pulls in multiple millions per day, of which you take a constant, smaller amount. Still hundreds of thousands of gold per day, though. The dungeons, right now, are a minor thing.

“I can increase the production of those dungeons up to a hundred thousand gold per day, at least.

“When we get it up and running, having a False Society on Storm’s Edge’s border will be like adding another major harbor to this land.

“But let us not dismiss the learning opportunities, either; for you are correct that I appreciate those a lot more than I care for the money aspect of all of this. The Water Dungeon I plan to make will teach people how to navigate oceans and survive underwater. True [Waterbreathing] could become a commonplace spell; and I don’t mean the one where people put a bubble of air around their head and keep it [Cleanse]d, but one where people can naturally breathe water with just a bit of aura control and proper Elemental Air and Water usage. Particle Magic is also a possibility for learning [Waterbreathing], too, for the Goddess Sininindi desired that I make this dungeon a place where people can learn to truly defend themselves from whatever might come in 90 years, or more.

“For instance, the vast majority of the world still doesn’t know about aura control, and that is another thing I wish to fix. While your current Force-aspect dungeons are doing their most to make that happen, they could be doing more. I would help them do more, as a dungeon master.”

Soltic watched as Aroido almost had a rebuttal—

But Everbless’s tentacle [Familiar] poked at Aroido’s head, and became visible to mana sense. It was a thought tendril. Everbless was speaking with Aroido right now, and everyone could see that, if they bothered to look. Most people bothered to look.

Aroido said, “Pardon me, I must accept this call.” He looked to the air and started talking to Everbless. Soltic tried to catch his half of the conversation, but the man employed some sort of throat-aura-control magic, so his natural vocalizations when mentally talking were simply not there; it was almost the same thing Soltic did. Aroido’s eyes did go wide, though, in some sort of surprise by what Everbless was telling him. And then he spoke more to Everbless, with the [Scry]-eye/[Familiar] of the world tree growing agitated and relaxed and giddy and hateful, and then back to simply talking, in turns. After a full minute of talking, Everbless’s tendril retreated, and Aroido turned his attention back to the room, to Vanya. “You’ve been approved for the change of Dungeon 6. You’ll be read in on how the dungeon functions properly in the next few hours. We can begin work sometime tomorrow.”

Vanya breathed deep, smiling brightly as she said, “Thank you, sir!”

“Yes yes. Maybe when you see how unstable the whole system currently is, then you will not be thanking me so profusely.” Aroido explained, “The first thing you should know is that the 80% tax we put on the dungeons is there because we recycle that material back into the dungeon, in order to increase the number of delvers with promises of big money. We’re only able to actually support people taking maybe 50 gold per delve.”

Jarod, Glariol, Guildmaster Larro, and Soltic were still in the room, so perhaps this wasn’t that big of a deal for them all to know? Seemed like a big deal to Soltic, though. According to the faces of Jarod and Glariol, they somewhat guessed at this reality, though they were not sure until just then. Larro knew, but the guildmaster had hopes for the future.

Vanya softly exclaimed, “That’s somewhat believable… Now that you have said it and based on what I have seen.”

Aroido huffed a laugh. “Most places subsidize their dungeons due to how they rid our world of monsters, but the rate at which Storm’s Edge does it is a poorly kept secret. Maybe you can change all that Miss Vanya.” He stood. “Now! Everyone out! Except for Miss Vanya and I. The rest of the secrets to speak of are for her ears only.”

“I would ask for my man, Soltic, to remain,” Vanya said, “He would be helping me with some of the dungeon work.”

Aroido looked to Soltic, then said to Vanya, “He can come back into the room in ten minutes. This first part is for your ears only.” He shook his hand at the door. “Everyone else out! No need to wait around, either. This is going to take hours. Mister Cross, please remain outside the door.”

Larro stood first, saying, “Welcome aboard, Miss Silver. I’ll be looking forward to speaking with you about specific additions to the dungeons later.”

Jarod and Glariol left next, the two of them saying a few small words of encouragement, and then Soltic left. They closed the door behind them, and the nobles bid Soltic farewell, and he did the same to them.

And then Soltic waited outside the [Privacy]-shielded door, hoping that he wouldn’t need to do anything drastic to salvage whatever might be happening behind that door. Time slowly ticked on, and Soltic’s mind filled with worst-case scenarios, of needing to kill and evaporate and change the nation of Storm’s Edge, if they did even the smallest thing against—

The door opened.

Vanya was alive, and safe, and she was inviting him back into the room.

Aroido stood where he had been standing before. Everbless hovered behind the man like he usually did. And as the door closed behind Soltic, Everbless changed. He became visible. Red tentacles, red eyes, a wet sort of look to him.

Soltic stared at the floating thing.

Everbless said, “Hello.”

Soltic said, “… Hello. Uh. Archmage?”

Since archmages were the ones with [Familiar]s, Soltic felt his words were adequate for his cover.

Everbless chuckled. “I’m not archmage! Not yet!”

Aroido smiled a little, saying, “This is Gold Taker. He’s also the dungeon master for the dungeons. He’s also Everbless, but that last little bit of information will leak away from your minds, thanks to the Intervention on both of you.”

He said the secret so casually that Soltic didn’t have to fake his bewildered reaction.

Vanya recovered faster, saying, “This is my coworker.”

“Hello!” Everbless said, again, and even more brightly.

Soltic almost wanted to laugh. He did not, though. He feigned ignorance, saying, “Uh. The Gold Taker, eh? The one who ensures money goes back to the dungeons?”

“One and the same,” Aroido said.

Vanya said, “He’s usually invisible and intangible, but you should be able to see him if you do some Ethereal, Intangible Force-type Sight magics. I figured it out fast enough, and you already know how because of—”

“Your [Personal Ward]!” Everbless said, his tendrils spinning around his body, “It stopped me!”

“Uh. Yeah,” Soltic said, “I had problems with Ethereal, Intangible enemies before. So. Yeah. Uh.”

Everbless went ethereal and moved around the room to the other side, though a single tendril remained where he had been. He spoke through that stretched tentacle, “See me?”

“Yes,” Soltic said, his eyes tracking Everbless’s main body.

Everbless came back to this side of reality. “You see me!”

An uncomfortable question centered within Soltic’s mind. He decided to ask it, and damn the consequences. “Does this mean that you pulled people under the waves inside the dungeons and killed them?”

“Yes! They broke the rules, so I do everything against them!”

Soltic froze a little bit, unsure what to do with that information right this moment.

Vanya was serene, though. Possibly because she agreed with Everbless? But even she agreed that children shouldn’t be killing other people… And yet, Erick used Ophiel to kill other people. Ugh. This was a mess, and Soltic would be a hypocrite to say anything more than he already had.

So he would say those words later, to Vanya, in private.

Aroido was clearly uncomfortable with Everbless killing people, though, so perhaps Soltic could say those words— No wait. ‘Gold Taker’ is not ‘Everbless’. Right.

So Soltic politely asked, “Gold Taker? How old are you?”

Excitedly, Everbless said, “I am 12—”

“That is…” Aroido had begun to say, fast as he could, but not fast enough. “That is an unimportant question, Soltic. The power to work the dungeon as it should be worked is there, as is the skill, and the ability to follow the rules. Gold Taker will be our main dungeon master going forward, but he is not actually connected to the dungeons. We tried that. Him putting a repro into the dungeons was a complete disaster. The current dungeon master is me, and has always been me, from the very first year that the dungeons came into being on this land. And I mean that in a very real way. I am a reproduction of the original Aroido who died a while ago due to an assassination. My fellow repros and I have been keeping up appearances ever since.”

Soltic looked to Aroido, now, his eyes going a little wider.

Aroido was worried, embarrassed, relegated, and a whole host of other, tired emotions that he had been wearing for a long time. “I am technically both 50, and 12. Age is unimportant right now. What is more important, is that I believe that you two are also repros. Are you?”

Vanya answered for both of them, “We’re immortals trying out new lives, in this new world. That’s the only answer you’re getting out of us for that question.”

As Aroido relegated himself to that answer, and found it not a bad answer at all—

“Who were you before?!” Everbless asked, too excited by half.

“Feel free to ignore the child in all questions that are too personal,” Aroido easily said, and then he demanded, “But I will know your full allegiances.”

“No you won’t,” Vanya said, “But you can be allowed to know that I am here to make this dungeon work as well as I possibly can. I want a Grand Dungeon, Lord Aroido. I want to make that happen.”

“Are you a Shade?” Aroido asked, even though he did not want to. “Either of you?”

Everbless suddenly shrunk away, his eyes going wide. He had never considered that possibility, and now, he was, and it scared him.

Vanya said, “We are about the furthest you can get from Shades.”

Soltic pointed at himself. “Not a Shade.”

Everbless came forward a little bit, his eyes narrowing on Soltic and Vanya. “Not a Shade?”

“Not Shades at all,” Soltic said.

Aroido regarded them for a quiet moment. Then he said, “For now, that answer will suffice. If, and hopefully when, this whole arrangement seems to be working well, the Regency will have clearer answers. Even if you have to leave those answers with Archmage Wiloza Tidewalker, or with the Regent himself. FOR NOW… For now, this is acceptable.” He gestured back to the diagrams. “Tomorrow, after we clear away some morning business, we will all journey into Dungeon 6 and we will have you look over the current state of affairs. From there, we will discuss alterations and priorities, and...”

They spoke for a little over an hour, with Everble— Gold Taker offering enthusiastic, childlike, horrific additions to all the various floors and puzzles and otherwise that Vanya had already carefully planned.

More than once, Aroido said some polite thing like, “That’s not what we’re trying to do here, Gold Taker. We want the people to learn proper aura control and altering for Water. Not have them try to turn themselves into fish, to be able to solve the puzzle.”

“But fish are fun! I’ve turned people fishy and it was fun!”

Vanya carefully asked, “Did you turn them back?”

“If they complete puzzle! It’s Rules! They did not complete puzzle so they die.”

Vanya nodded, saying, “A good standard to take.”

But inwardly she was deeply, deeply concerned. Almost as much as Soltic was concerned. Soltic picked up on that. Aroido picked up on that, too.

Gold Taker did not pick up on that human emotion at all.

Eventually, the talk ended, and Soltic and Vanya left the room, the castle, and then hopped on a Platform to head back to their rooms at the Maryols. After a wonderful dinner where they spoke about the plans for the dungeon with Jarod, Glorial, Barda, and Nero, Soltic and Vanya turned in for the night.

- - - -

‘We’re going to have to purge Gold Taker from the dungeons,’ Erick sent to Quilatalap, laying there in bed; him as Soltic, Quilatalap as Vanya. ‘It’s going to be a mess.’

‘Ah. Good. I was worried you’d be against that.’

Erick blanked. ‘What— Why would I be against it?’

‘… Can I ask why you are for removing him, first?’

‘Gold Taker is a child. He should not be harming people like you would harm people to test them in a dungeon. I made sure that Yggdrasil only fought defensive wars, but I was way too harsh with Ophiel when Ophiel was becoming cognizant of what I was actually using him for. When Ophiel splits off, I’m going to ensure that he’s raised as well as I can raise a child. When Yggdrasil splits… I hope I’ve done enough to help him learn right from wrong. But Everbless—’ Erick realized not even a fraction of the way through his sudden rant at the Everbless/dungeon situation, that he had gotten way too close to the truth that Everbless is Gold Taker. Quilatalap had lost his train of thought a few sentences ago, but he pretended not to. ‘Sorry,’ Erick said, and then he went back to the simple fact that, ‘Basically, Gold Taker killing things at a very young age, and I disagree with that in so many different ways.’

‘I killed my first man when I was 10. A lot of people of this world kill their first thing at a young age; be they hunters of game, or killers of others due to the necessities of self defense.’

‘That’s different. You were powerless, learning how to be powerful. Gold Taker is powerful, and he needs to learn how to control that power, and what it means to use that power.’

‘I can agree with that assessment. But what about the ‘Rules’ that he speaks of? He’s not some wild thing, going off on his own. He has ‘Rules’, and he follows them.’

‘Mostly follows them.’

‘ ‘Mostly’ is rather good for his age.’ Quilatalap said, ‘I assume for his age, anyway. He’s certainly not a normal person to be able to touch the Script at that age. He probably got the Script at like… 5? 6, maybe?’

‘Probably sooner than that.’ Erick asked, ‘Are you against purging him from the dungeons?’

‘I want him gone. He shouldn’t be in there.’

Erick liked that. ‘Why do you want him gone?’

‘He’s doing it wrong.’

Erick laughed. Quilatalap smiled. And then, while Erick couldn’t say the full truth, he could say, ‘I believe Sininindi has you down here in order to teach Gold Taker real magic. So please, Quilatalap, don’t go teaching a child archmage how to tear the world apart.’

‘Ah. Well…’ Quilatalap breathed softly. ‘That part about [Baleful Polymorph]ing delvers into fish and then not transforming them back? That’s fine if a delver entered a death-track willingly, but only the truly crazy people do death-tracks anymore and I highly doubt that Gold Taker knows proper Trials of the Dark protocols. If he did, he wouldn’t allow the truly crazy ones onto the death tracks at all, and even if he believes himself to have the mental capacity to gauge when a person is crazy versus motivated, from what I saw in that room today, he does not have that capacity. All he has are ‘Rules’.’

‘Gods above. ‘He’s not doing the dungeon torture properly’. That’s such a weird take.’

‘Bah! You’re too soft sometimes, Erick. A little death in a safe environment is the best way to ensure that less death happens out in the open, and if people truly want to challenge themselves and be rewarded for it, then they should be allowed to do so.’

‘Don’t think we’re ever going to fully agree on that one, and that’s fine.’ Erick smiled, and then he asked the serious question, ‘But anyway: Have you gone along with Sininindi’s wants long enough, or are you ready to purge the problems in the dungeons and instantiate your own solutions?’

A bit of silence.

‘… I’m not ready to give up on doing this how she wants it done, yet. So… No purging right now. Maybe tomorrow if it looks like we can get away with it in a secure manner, without upsetting too many people.’

‘Aroido did seem rather at the end of his temper. He might be willing to cover up your actions if he knew who you were.’

‘Yes, he did seem that way, didn’t he. You know… The more I learn about the dungeons here the more I am personally offended.’

Erick smiled. ‘That subsidy thing was unexpected.’

‘YES! That! How can they fuck up growing gold in a dungeon? That’s the easiest... Hmm… I guess they do have a child trying to run the place.’

‘More like they have a mentally exhausted repro running the place, and also babysitting a demigod.’

‘Various sets of children, all overseeing each other.’

Erick chuckled.

Quilatalap sent, ‘I bet that archmage oversees the Aroidos, never letting him grow properly, either.’

‘Probably. That oversight would be a problem with bringing ‘the Aroidos’ into the fold. Now that’s a weird concept: ‘The Aroidos’.’

‘Not that weird. There are about 30 Quilatalaps running around out there.’

‘… Right.’

‘Anyway. The archmage didn’t seem to like Vanya. That could be a problem.’ Quilatalap sent, ‘Once I’m emplaced in the dungeon I’m going to rip away this seal, or whatever it is, inside my soul. It’s a doozy, though. I might need your help Wizardry-ing it away.’

‘And you will have that help, but you’re going to need to help me on the lyrics and targeting and such.’

Quilatalap yawned, laying beside Erick. ‘I can do that. You might need to go back to one of my phylacteries to do it properly, but that’s easily done.’

Erick smiled softly into the darkness of the room.

Soltic kissed Vanya on the shoulder, as he whispered, “Good night.”

Vanya giggled at the touch, then said, “Good night.”

Her eyes had already been closed for the last five minutes, and now, Soltic closed his eyes, too.

‘One last thought,’ Erick sent, ‘I would like it if we handled Gold Taker with kid sensibilities. I want to believe he can be good, if he learns how.’

‘… Well… I am a teacher, and the kid seems to enjoy learning magic...’ Quilatalap sent, ‘I’m not one to raise a child though, Erick. I’ve had to do that several times before, and that’s how you end up with people like Zenipeq Frostflower, which is a fine example, but then you get Death Throne, which is the exact counter example.’

There was a lot there in that small statement.

Mostly, it was an admission that Quilatalap did not want to raise kids, which… Had Implications.

Erick decided to say, ‘I’m probably going to have to step in here at Storm’s Edge after Sininindi removes her part of the seal. Maybe I’ll get the Arbors at Treehome involved with helping to raise Everbless, if they aren’t already. This separation from Everbless’s actions and Gold Taker’s…’

Quilatalap blinked a bit. The anti-meme had triggered.

‘Ah. Shit. Sorry, Quilatalap.’

Quilatalap stated, ‘As soon as I’m emplaced here, we are removing this intervention. It’s been difficult, letting this thing note stay in my soul, listening to myself tell myself to leave it alone. It’s a lot worse when it triggers.’

‘I’m sorry.’

‘I’m not angry at you, but I am getting angry at Sininindi. Some political maneuvering is expected in this sort of thing and I think I passed that rather well, but the soul control is a deeply unwelcome addition. And what’s worse, is that based on the depth of this intervention, I have been infected for a long time. Years, Erick.’

‘We’ll get it removed, and then I’ll start talking to Sininindi about getting it removed from everyone. All of Storm’s Edge— Maybe the whole world is infected.’

‘It probably is.’ With an easier tone, Quilatalap said, ‘Now go to sleep. I’m tired and I love how comfortable this bed is, and how warm you are, and I want to sleep now.’

Erick smiled in the dark. ‘It’s a pretty good bed—’

Vanya lightly slapped his arm. “Go to sleep.”

Soltic chuckled, and then he tried to sleep.

- - - -

The Archmage of the Regency, Lady Wiloza Tidewalker, was having a difficult day. It started with that interloper Vanya Silver yesterday at that meeting, and continued to become more and more problematic because Wiloza had been awake for the last 30 hours, following up with the Dungeon Guilds of Geode Bluite—

“Excuse me,” Wiloza corrected herself, “The Dungeoneer Guilds. Everyone has to have some different name for it. I swear.” She collected herself. “And now I am here, at House Benevolence, asking for a Benevolent reading of this upcoming disaster, as per our previous agreements. Honestly I would not be here if I could avoid it, but everyone is suddenly talking about this Vanya woman back home, and this dungeon shift is going to happen a lot faster than I am comfortable with it happening.” Perhaps she showed her exhaustion too much, as she had not slept at all last night. “I apologize for my brevity and attitude, but I expected to see some lesser prognosticator. Not you. I mean. I appreciate it. Just unexpected.”

Grand Prognosticator Teressa Rednail, sometimes called the Seer of Weal, sat on the other side of the table, looking as much the professional as Wiloza had been informed. She also looked younger than Wiloza had expected, but that was an orcol for you; nary a line on the face, even when facing 50, or however much time That Damned Wizard had dragged her through inside those [Hasted Shelter]s. Thankfully the Wizard was too busy running his kingdom these days to keep doing shit that would make the gods blush…

Though the world was certainly better off for King Flatt’s magics, and for all the changes caused by the Darkness and the Gods…

But Wiloza had a distinct distaste for people enacting their will upon her land, and while that resultant anger had been directed toward monsters and such for the first 60 years of her life, she was still adjusting to this new world order of the last 10 years.

“Perhaps I am overreacting,” Wiloza said, “I am simply supremely worried about the small scale disasters these days, and those damned dungeons are always disasters. I need to know if this Vanya Silver or Soltic Cross are disasters in the making.”

Prognosticator Rednail nodded. “Completely understandable. I usually focus on the good outcomes of any potential question, with only true disasters rising to the top, allowing me to see them. Are you comfortable with that?”

“I am. Probably better for my anxiety ridden mind, which is fine by me.”

Prognosticator Rednail smiled a little bit at Wiloza's disarming attitude, then she said, “Okay. Allow me a moment with the paperwork you have brought.” Miss Rednail reached down to the papers sitting on the table between them.

Those papers were the collected history of Vanya Silver and Soltic Cross; everything that Wiloza had been able to find in the last 15 hours. It was not nearly enough as it should have been, if Vanya and Soltic were real people. That lack of history was what caused Wiloza to finally enact the agreements between House Benevolence and the Regency; to come here and ask these questions. Of all the things Wiloza had been able to find, herself, personally, as she had been traveling through the Gate Network all day long to find this information, all of it only took up 5 brief pages, and 4 of those 5 were about Vanya’s publicly-found dungeons. There was also a house on the outskirts of Bluite that was abandoned, and which looked like it had been abandoned for a hundred years—

“The major thing I found, personally, when I went down there,” Wiloza said, “Was that neither of these people were well known at the Dungeoneer Guild down there! Those Guilds had records for Miss Silver and Mister Cross, but their faces were unknown.”

Prognosticator Rednail winced a little bit at that, then she finished reading the paperwork, having flipped through it and used some sort of [Reading] magic, or whatnot. Most people in power had that sort of capability these days. She set the paperwork back down. “They could be immortals who are trying out a new life. There are a lot of those falling out of Underworld and elsewhere these days.”

Wiloza sighed. “That’s the best case scenario, and it’s honestly the one I most suspect is true. I never knew there were so many damned immortals in this world until the Wizard upended everything.”

Rednail smiled. “He does have that tendency.”

“With the way Vanya spoke, I suspect that she is an immortal. She seems truly Called by My Goddess, too, though, so…” Wiloza shook her head. “I don’t know. I want to know, though. The general shape of what is to come. I want to know.”

Rednail nodded seriously. “Final question: Is there anything in particular you would like to know, aside from the stated request?”

“Not that I can think of. Any solid, general advice from House Benevolence to the Regency will be enough. We might not act on that information, but we’re asking for your Benevolent Prognostication anyway.”

“A reading won’t take much time at all, so you can either wait here, and I can do it here, or I can move to the other room, or whatever you want.”

“Please do it here.”

Rednail gave a small, half nod, then she sat back in her chair, breathed out, stared into the distance, and her eyes transformed into pools of lightning.

If it weren’t for the similarities between Benevolence and Lightning, Wiloza realized that she might have either been offended at the prognosticator’s similarity to Sininindi’s look, or charmed. Probably more charmed than offended. Who knew, though. It was what it was, and all Wiloza could do was watch, as—

Rednail blinked, and came back to herself. Then she looked down at Wiloza and startled, as though she was surprised to see Wiloza was still here, or something. And then her countenance solidified. “Have them make the dungeon into a shelter. Devote the majority of the inner lands into a truly defensible location. Somewhere that all of Storm’s Edge can shelter inside, for there is a storm coming and it is not of Sinininidi’s make at all.” Her eyes flickered to lightning again. Wiloza was unsure if the lightning had ever left as the Grand Prognosticator’s voice turned to thunder,

“The Grand Dungeon of Storm’s Edge must hold all of the life of the Archipelago, and more besides. It will be The Lighthouse, The Castle That Withstands All, The Vault In The Ground Under The Roots Of The World Tree, The Protected Cove, and more, and you, Wiloza Tidecaller, must make that happen. Through the Death that is yet to come, there will be life, or there will be nothing at all for you and yours when lightning lashes Storm’s edge.”

For a moment, Wiloza just breathed.

Wiloza had been shocked by a great many things in her long life. When her daughter made her first tier 7 spell, called it quits, and then made tier 8 a year later, surprising everyone that she had chosen to continue learning and growing as a mage, becoming an archmage while no one was watching. Another great surprise was when Wiloza found a Shade in the castle 34 years ago, casually murdering the previous Regent. Not too long ago the Gate Network opened and the world changed overnight, and then even more in the following years; even today, Wiloza was shocked that she was able to get all the way to Bluite and back by just spending 2 gold in traveling fees.

The shock passed.

Wiloza felt a familiar chill take root in her chest. A solidification, turning malleable, as Wiloza often found herself turning. It was why she chose to become an Ooze Mage in the first place, though everyone only knew her for her Stone Magic, and that was fine. She had surprised many would-be killers when they thought they knew how to deal with Stone, and then they were suddenly surrounded by not-Stone at all.

The Grand Prognosticator had finished with her proclamation, blinked a lot, and then just breathed. Now, she waited.

Wiloza easily said, “Well then! That was unexpected.”

Miss Rednail calmly, yet rapidly, said, “We will be verifying that particular prognostication over the coming days, to ensure that it is correct. We would appreciate it if you do not go spreading that information around without regard for who you tell. Not to the public; not yet.”

“So that worried you, too, then?”

“It is not often when something like that happens… Not for years, actually. The last time was with the Blue Wizard and the attack on Oceanside, about a month prior to that event. This particular prognostication is… Half a year away, or more.”

Wiloza took that information in stride, then she gestured to the paperwork. “What about these immortals?”

Prognosticator Rednail blinked a few more times as she looked down at the papers. “Vanya will terrify you beyond belief. I suggest you tell her what I told you, and then keep others away from her and let her make the dungeon how it needs to be made.”

Wiloza frowned. “This is not what I expected when I came here—”

Prognosticator Rednail stood, saying, “House Benevolence is terribly sorry that we must cut this meeting short. You have been given the information requested. We suggest you work that information how you will. Good day, Archmage Wiloza Tidewalker.”

Wiloza was used to being brushed off in certain social situations, but she was a little irate at being brushed off here, after being given such horrible prognostications. She composed herself and stood, though, and carefully said, “I will be following up on this prognostication.”

“We will as well. Would you like to be informed of that followup?”

“… Yes.” She had not expected Miss Rednail to offer that so freely. “Thank you.”

“Good day, Archmage Tidewalker.”

Rednail took her leave.

For a long moment, Wiloza stood in the room, unsure exactly the depth of what had just happened. She understood the prognostication already; that wasn’t the problem. But prognostications were unreliable. What really worried her was the fact that Rednail just up and left, like that.

This whole event was like walking along the bottom of the ocean, back in the old days, looking for a monster that had been terrorizing the locals, and instead finding a crack in the Surface that led all the way to the Underworld itself.

Wiloza shivered at that memory.

An attendant from House Benevolence walked into the room, asking if Wiloza would like any other services from House Benevolence, and offering assistance from the House for any of her possible varied needs. He also handed over a transcript of the meeting.

Wiloza took the transcript, saying, “Nothing right now. I must be off. I must also comment that this visit was a lot less horrible, and a lot more horrible, than I imagined it would be. I will be coming back soon for clarifications of the Grand Prognosticator’s words.”

The attendant nodded, then offered, “Would you like a personal [Gate] back to Storm’s Edge? The Wizard is able to provide, if you desire.”

“… Sure. Honestly I assumed he would be too busy for me, too—”

In a flashing instant, a [Gate] opened up on the side of the room. It was wreathed in white lightning, exactly as an uncontained [Gate] was supposed to look. On the other side was the blue stone road that led to the Castle.

“… Well then!” Wiloza said, surprised yet again. And then she walked through. “Such prompt service.”

And she was back home. Just like that. Honestly she was rather glad that she didn’t need to meet the Wizard directly to get a [Gate] back home. This was rather nice.

The attendant said some more farewell words and the [Gate] closed behind her.

Wiloza strode forward, to the Castle, with a great deal of new thoughts on her mind. Her first order of business was with Rodrygo at the check in station. The Mind Mage Liaison had been the Regency’s contact with the Mind Mages for the last several years. Rodrygo continually surprised Wiloza with just how fast and how knowledgeable he could be, when he chose to be.

Sometimes, though, he was less than forthcoming, which was a continual frustration, but understandable.

Except in this case. He was very forthcoming.

“What do you mean they’re already in the dungeons!” She checked the clock on the wall. “It’s barely noon!”

“They got approval an hour ago. I was not part of that discussion, so I cannot tell you more than that. There are other issues for you to deal with, anyway.” Mind Mage Rodrygo spoke, projecting his minor amount of authority into his voice, “Since you requested that prognostication as part of the Regency/House agreements, a copy of the prognostication has already arrived in the Regent’s office. Regent Augustive Glorious Tidewalker wishes for your presence at your earliest convenience, which means now.”

Ahh. Dammit.

That Damned Wizard was probably involved in this shit show now, wasn’t he. They had managed to keep him away from the Regency for so long, at Sininindi’s request and at everyone else’s desire as well, but now… For him to break propriety so damned easily—

“I thought it would be a simple prognostication,” Wiloza said, exhausted, while the transcript of her meeting with Prognosticator Rednail held in the pockets of her robes, where a Privacy kept them in confidence. She was going to speak to the Regent at her own convenience, after she had a chance to speak with Miss Silver and to oversee the Aroidos first, but now those simple folded papers felt like an anchor dragging her down far faster than she expected to sink. “That Damned Wizard. No wonder he was so ready to [Gate] me here—” She shook her head. “Forget it.” And then she walked through the magic-checking archways, setting them off— “Bah!” she said, stepping backward, as she took out her badge of office and set it on top of her robes. She went through the detecting archways again, and this time there was no noise.

She went straight to the Regent’s offices, muttering about how everything used to be so much simpler.

- - - -

Entering a dungeon with its master at your side was a completely different experience than entering one normally.

Mainly, there was no automatic magic purge, which was fantastic. If Solic or Vanya had been exposed with Everbless and Aroido right there, then that would have resulted in a [Return], and them needing to solve that problem. Thankfully, that did not happen.

All that really happened was the appearance of some black boxes, hovering in the air inside the safe space at the beginning of the dungeon.

Soltic and Vanya entered Dungeon 6 just before noon, with Aroido and Everbless’s smaller form leading the way, and not ten seconds later, they could see the problem for themselves. Every dungeon had a ‘user interface’ malleable to the wants of the dungeon master, but they didn’t call it that here, they called it a dungeon interface.

According to that interface, the problem was a lot more than either Soltic or Vanya expected.

- -

Intake average of last 10 days: 130,000 mana

Outflow average of last 10 days: 102,000 mana

Masters: Aroido Tidewalker, Aroido Tidewalker, Aroido Tidewalker, Aroido Tidewalker, Aroido Tidewalker, Aroido Tidewalker, Aroido Tidewalker.

Boss: Radiant Coral Eel

Current Overall Judgment: UNTENABLE.

Notification 1: Monster enrichment <LOW>

Notification 2: Environmental enrichment <1%>

Notification 3: Delver enrichment <LOW>, <Too much Force Magic, not enough other magic>

Primary Notification: Due to the nature of the current iteration of this dungeon, minimal base mana is granted to whomsoever defeats the boss, with a usual base mana of <4/party#> per defeat of the <Radiant Coral Eel>

- -

Aroido (one of 7! Maybe more!) awaited Vanya’s judgment alongside Gold Taker, who spun in the air like a tumbleweed made of red tentacles and one great central eye.

Soltic waited, too, though he already saw a great deal of issues without needing Vanya to speak about them.

After several moments to think, Vanya said, “I will start with the good things. No one who delves this place would ever notice any of these problems without being explicitly told about them. It is a good dungeon, on its surface. Perhaps the lack of base mana granted to a killer of the boss would tip off some people, but only those who aren’t ready to delve in an advanced dungeon like this, who only have a few mana to their name, anyway.”

Aroido said, “Please get on with the bad things, Miss Vanya.”

“Okay.” Vanya rapidly said, “Gold Taker is an interloper in this entire dungeon environment. He is not listed as a boss, so he must have several [Familiar]s which exist in every dungeon at the same time. I assume he personally does work every day to ensure that the rules of the dungeon are followed. Knowing this, it is no wonder that this place looks a lot more organized than it actually is. Gold Taker cannot continue to do this if you want this dungeon to produce actual quantities of gold, and proper learning.”

Gold Taker sank in the air as Vanya’s words hit him hard, his tentacles turning lifeless as he landed on the stone floor, his voice soft, “But I’m doing… Good…”

Aroido sighed, then gave a half-heated frown toward Vanya. “That is unkind.”

“I’m about to be a lot more unkind, Lord Tidewalker, but I take your meaning.” Vanya said to Gold Taker, “You cannot participate in the dungeon like you are. Instead, you can work on the back end, ensuring that the rules are followed without actually interacting with people at all. That is what a normal dungeon master does, for the repros are the only ones who can actually change and work a dungeon without harming that dungeon. All people like you and me can do is to set up the system, grow what works, and trim what doesn’t work. That is it.”

Gold Taker looked up from the ground, and he looked angry. But he did not physically lash out. He just scowled, saying, “I don’t like you.”

“That’s fine.” Vanya continued, “As for the notifications, I can fix the third one through connecting the dungeons together and making the systems we have spoken about. When all the Elemental Dungeons are working, then the delver enrichment problem will go away. I suspect, based on what I think you have here, that the Water Dungeon will be the only one which works out well, at first. Therefore, I would change this dungeon here into the Water Dungeon, and do the other dungeons another day.

“The monster enrichment problem is likely an issue of space and dungeoneering, and it is bewildering to me that this is a problem at all. All you have to do to make monster enrichment not-a-problem is to corral the monsters properly and to build environments that they individually love, but which by that love, locks them to those areas. You can’t really close off any part of the dungeon from any other, but you can certainly incentivize monster habitats and actions.

“But the real problem there is that you’re killing more monsters than you’re growing. These are charnel houses; not the habitats that they should be.

“I assume from what I have seen outside that Gold Taker is the only reason at all that these dungeons aren’t collapsing all the time. He’s feeding them mana, and keeping the monsters in here happy. So that’s a good thing he is doing, and it is something that we need to keep happening for a while.” Vanya added, “Honestly I thought Everbless was doing that, so this is a strangeness for me… What were we saying?”

Gold Taker scowled at Vanya’s loss of track.

And then Gold Taker stabbed her with an ethereal tentacle, ripping out a spark of divine fire that rapidly vanished, as he declared, “I’m Everbless, stupid hag! Tell me what I do wrong!”

A moment passed.

Aroido sighed deeply.

Vanya’s eyes went wide, as recognition spilled into her soul; for Everbless had removed her intercession himself.

Soltic blinked a bit, unsure what to do now. He and Vanya had spoken before coming here, that if anything horrible should happen that he would reverse time and they would tackle the problem together, but neither of them had considered that Everbless would get angry with Vanya for not knowing the truth and then just… remove the intercession himself.

Could they just…

Could they talk their way into gaining full access to the dungeon? No need to fight at all? That would be the preferred option, and the one they were initially working toward, days and days ago, but when the intercession appeared it had changed things. Erick had been willing to go to war, and it was only Quilatalap’s decision which had stopped that from happening. And now, that intercession was gone.

Removed.

Just like that.

Soltic waited for Vanya to decide on the course of their actions going forward. And she did.

Vanya went down to one knee, saying, “Sir Everbless I—”

“No no no!” Everbless got off the ground, floating upward, his tentacles spinning wildly as he declared, “No worship! No no! Tell me what wrong with dungeon!”

Vanya paused, then looked to Soltic, then back to Everbless. She got off the ground, saying, “It’s… It’s a good thing that you’re feeding these dungeons mana, or else they would have collapsed long before now. Um.” She centered herself, then said, “I thought you were a sapient octopus, or something, granted Script access through… something. I’m not sure how to approach this issue with you as a World Tree and connected to Sininindi and— Well. I am a teacher of magic, most of the time. Am I here to teach you magic? Is that why I was Called?”

Aroido silently watched from the side, his eyes skipping from Vanya, to Everbless, and then finally to Soltic. Since Soltic was furrowing his brows at the appropriate moments, Aroido judged that Soltic was still under the intercession, and that was good. He had failed to step between Vanya and Everbless when Everbless had gotten angry, before he removed the seal on Vanya, because, apparently, Everbless liked to remove the seal from people so they could talk straight with him. But Aroido was ready to step between Soltic and Everbless; very ready.

Soltic was still ‘intercessioned’, and Aroido would keep it that way, for now. Which was very, very good. If Everbless had tried removing something from Soltic and found nothing to remove, then there would be a lot of questions.

So for now, Soltic just had to act lost every now and then.

This was fine.

… Ah! And Soltic’s anti-touch magic would prevent Everbless from touching him, anyway. This was good. Erick almost laughed at the whole situation, but that would be bad for any number of reasons.

Everbless retreated from Vanya’s question a little. “… I know enough magic. I learn myself.”

Vanya said, “Well okay then.” Then she turned to Aroido. “All seven of you are masters of this dungeon. Are you in every dungeon? Are there 49 of you?”

“There are 49 Aroidos. The original was fond of laying at the bottom of the ocean and doing almost nothing, and we inherited that trait. Most of the time we’re [Polymorph]ed as anemones or rocktangles or coral, and filtering the mana into heavy bands down in the tanks to keep the monsters happy. It’s actually a really pleasant experience to be an anemone at the bottom of a pool, so I would ask you to keep your judgments to yourself.”

Vanya raised her eyebrows, but then lowered them, saying, “I would never judge someone for their preferred Familiar Form.”

“… Huh.” Aroido said, “You actually mean that, too. I suppose an immortal would know something about odd Familiar Forms.”

Vanya smiled a little. “I do.”

Everbless suddenly asked, “Have you tree?!”

Vanya easily said, “I have been a tree before. It was pretty calming.”

Everbless squealed a little, then turned on Soltic, asking, “Have you tree?!

“… Um.” Soltic pretended to have an intercession problem. “Why would I be a tree?”

Everbless saw what was happening. He pulled out a tentacle—

And Aroido rapidly stepped to Everbless’s side, saying, “Gold Taker. Don’t do that to him. He’s not approved to know.”

Everbless’s tentacles relaxed. “But they trees! I want talk trees!”

Soltic pretended not to know what was going on, but inwardly, he was happy that Everbless was listening to someone, anyone at all. It boded well. Maybe he was a good kid, like Rozeta had said.

Aroido said to Soltic. “You may be approved in the future, but for now, some secrets will remain secret.”

Soltic said, “… Okay,” as though he wasn’t understanding at all.

Everbless seemed a bit sad about that before muttering, “No one knows me.”

“I’ll talk with you, Gold Taker, and so will Soltic eventually.” Vanya pulled the conversation back to her. “I’m fine with working with 49 of you, but that will make it a lot harder to implement the dungeon designs I wish to implement. I might need you all to move to another dungeon for a while.”

“It’s horrible for us, too.” Aroido said, “But the Regent wants us all able to override each other, so that one person can’t commandeer a dungeon on their own ever again. In order to change anything we’ll likely have to disengage from whatever dungeon you want to alter first, and then move back afterward.”

Vanya looked a little surprised. “I expected more pushback on that.”

Aroido happily said, “This all works terribly, but it does work when we make it work.” He looked to Everbless. “Though Everbless is the only reason it really works at all.”

Everbless spun a little. “I know The Rules!”

Aroido added, “And since we got you in here several hours early, and since we Aroido can simply undo anything you implement, let us begin with the full tour, and then we can get to the restructuring. It all looks complicated right now, but the setup right now is barely above normal setup. Here— This will help, first—” He waved a hand, and the entire dungeon changed.

Every single thing everywhere turned into mostly-clear Force. The stone road turned to glass. The waters turned absolutely clear. The corals became almost invisible. The abyss at the bottom of the first floor vanished from sight.

The entire dungeon stood revealed below. Or most of it, anyway.

It was an aquarium ark, filled with millions of fish and kilometers upon kilometers of towering coral and stonework hiding places and depths for fish to inhabit, and hunt within. Kelp of all sorts grew at all levels of the place below, like green hairs floating upward to reach for artificial suns which illuminated the waters here and there, like a thousand pearls hanging in the ocean. It was like any of the downflows or upflows in the Underworld, where water flowed up or down throughout the world, as the physics of Veird decreed.

Another wave of Aroido’s hands caused a large, multi-person-sized bubble to rise out of the nearby waters. The bubble then opened, like a submersible, revealing a standing area and a ring to hold onto around that area. Aroido and Everbless went in first, with Aroido saying, “This is the common way for us to give real tours of the place. It’s actually the new monster transportation system, though— For the more cooperative monsters, anyway. It’s quite secure from the dangers down below. Come on in.”

Vanya easily followed, with Soltic close behind. Vanya said, “I assume it grabs monsters and drags them down?”

“If we’re lucky enough to have that option. Otherwise we Aroido create a mana channel and simply lure the monsters to the appropriate locations. That luring is what the majority of us Aroido do every day and night.”

The bubble closed up, and as they began to descend under the waves.

Soltic felt a little bit of childlike-wonder as they descended through a group of shimmering silver fish, and watched a great black shark chase the fish, and completely ignore them. He also had a small hunger pang, but he ignored that for now.

Aroido pointed out the clear bubble, as they passed by the top of a major stone tower, to an anemone sitting atop that tower. The anemone waved a bit. “That’s another me. He’s on top duty today. We usually find places we like to be and he likes there, so we usually give it to him. Lower down you’ll see where other mes are corralling monsters that move out of their biomes. When delvers come in, the core usually does everything automatically, [Duplicate]ing the monsters according to the floor layout and whatnot, but sometimes there are issues. The only one of us who works all the time is Radii; the Radiant Coral Eel. He’s a pretty good eel, who oversees the gold growth down at the lowest layers. He’s a leftover from Jenkins…” For a moment, Aroido’s cheer left him, and then he brushed off that lingering story and tried a bit of levity, “Jenkins didn’t have a good naming sense, but there’s no blaming him for that foible when we Aroido all call ourselves ‘Aroido’.”

As Aroido spoke, their bubble passed by a few more dangerous locations, where monsters roamed in the depths. Soltic saw more than his mana sense allowed, which was still only 25 meters inside the dungeon, so he wasn’t quite sure what he saw when a flickering, massive shape passed behind a tower of stone and riotous coral.

“I have an odd question,” Vanya began, “We saw Everbless— Gold Taker, sorry Soltic. We saw Gold Taker take the fish and kill the fish that we filleted or let go. What is up with that, if he doesn’t actually eat?”

“Feed fishes!” Everbless said. “Fish eat fish!”

Aroido nodded. “Fish have to eat, and they usually eat other fish, but Gold Taker likes his role as an octopus, so he often pretends to be something he is not in order to fool everyone else into lowering their guard.” With a small smile, Aroido added, “We don’t lower our guard here at the dungeons, though, for to do that is to die, as many delvers have found out over the years.”

Soltic almost sighed.

Vanya was more careful than him, by far, for as the bubble passed through a layer of subtly brighter water, Vanya purposefully turned the conversation to brighter topics than the danger of dying delvers. “You separate the biomes by light and shadow?”

“Vaguely,” Aroido said, before turning to Everbless. “Gold Taker? Can you go out and get the papers detailing last year’s gold flow? I think I left them in the office.”

Well at least he was sending the kid away.

“Okay!” Everbless said, before turning ethereal and intangible and zipping off, out of the bubble.

He rapidly passed out of sight.

Vanya and Soltic kept their eyes on Aroido, though, waiting for him to—

“Aaaand there,” Aroido said. The bubble came to a stop in a darker part of the abyss, where the ocean seemed deep, and it likely was. “We’re about four kilometers below the surface, and I just closed off the exit. We’re surrounded by monsters and you two are very accomplished liars. I would have a satisfactory answer about your origins now. If need be, Miss Vanya, I will keep your bodyguard occupied with a continual stream of ‘Everbless is Gold Taker’. It works so well and I rarely get to do that.” Aroido smiled as Soltic pretended to be lost. “Look at his eyes glazing over. But enough of him. You and I will have a proper conversation, just the two of us.”

The air began to speak, ‘Gold Taker is Everbless’, on repeat.

Soltic continued to pretend, though he was very, very close to not pretending anymore. One single word from Vanya, and the two of them would tear this place down. The only reason neither of them had acted in that direction yet was because it behooved them to let people act as they were going to act naturally, without changing their actions due to the overwhelming power that both of them still had.

Killing and disciplining people who were actively committing harm was one thing. Proactively committing harm to stop others from committing harm was a stance to gauge well, before taking that stance.

And this was not one of those situations yet. They were just talking.

Vanya easily said, “I was Called here by Sininindi—”

“I don’t give a shit about her.” Aroido said, “Every dungeon master who dances in here like they’re some Godly gift to the Storm’s Edge tries to kill me and mine. They say we’re a problem, but we’re the only ones who keep this place running. You talk about moving us around so you can make the dungeon work, but we all know that you plan to purge us from the core the second you can.”

Vanya was completely offended. “What the— No I would not! This place only runs because of you—”

“Stop lying to me. You know— Fuck you.” Aroido sighed. “This interrogation never works out the first time. A few deaths should loosen your tongue.”

Force Magic whirled up from Vanya’s feet, unraveling her—

But she pushed back on it enough to stop her death, flickers of power holding her flesh together, and holding her in the air. Her hands and legs were both half gone, but she had suffered much worse than that, because she allowed herself to be hurt all the time. Physically, anyway. In that way, she was the exact opposite of Erick. Emotional injury was Erick’s usual life; it was the physical stuff he absolutely could not stand. He could barely watch now, as he allowed Vanya to work as she wished to work.

Vanya breathed heavily as she stared at Aroido, her limbs half gone. “Don’t do this, Aroido. Don’t go down this path.”

Aroido’s eyebrows rose. “Impressive Force Magic. Not a true [Force Domain], though! Not like mine.”

The unraveling resumed—

“Benevolence,” she prayed, right before she died.

“You’re a Xoatist?” Aroido exclaimed. “Well the Wizard ain’t here to save you— Ah. Could be [Reincarnation]ed—”

Every time Erick saw Quilatalap die, it was yet another bit of trauma added to the pile. Luckily, the trauma train was done with, for Quilatalap had given the signal. Not the major signal, which was to call him ‘Erick’, and throw full caution to the wind, but the lesser one, ‘Benevolence’, spoken with conviction. The only reason Erick did not reverse time instantly was that he had needed to see Aroido’s reaction to getting some information out of Vanya, to better gauge how to handle the man for what came next.

And then he reversed time.

Aroido sighed. “This interrogation never works out the first time. A few deaths should loosen—”

“Death,” Soltic said, giving Vanya her code word as he flooded the monster-capture bubble with his [Force Domain].

In a rapid followup, Vanya reinforced his Domain with her own, and then she dispersed all of Aroido’s [Bubble] magic, while simultaneously holding back the ocean with her own [Bubble] like spell. It had taken the two of them less than a second to get to this point of absolute power over Aroido, but Aroido didn’t seem to care. They had broken his Domain in the process, but he wasn’t really wielding it against them, not yet. He was desperately trying to re-establish his [Force Domain], though.

Aroido never lost his composure, and now they were here, inside Vanya’s bubble. “I knew it.” He smiled, and it was a hateful look. “I suppose you think you are close to winning, then?”

“Absolutely not, I do not believe that at all,” Vanya said, “But I will not be tortured by you. This doesn’t have to go past this incident right here.”

“Oh but I think it must!” Aroido said to Soltic, “Because you already know about Everbless, and I know that your little [Personal Ward] can’t stop that divine anti-meme!” He told both of them. “Go ahead and kill me! My brothers are going to spear me through anyway in the process of breaking this bubble of yours. They will kill us all, and then we will stuff you in small boxes so we can ask you all the questions we desire.”

All the fish in the deeper waters all around had already been vanishing into the depths, as something moved out there, filling the sky with shadows.

“We’re not killing you, even temporarily,” Vanya said, “We want to work with you. I am giving you one last chance to call off your assault, and to pull back your interrogation.”

“ ‘Work with me’! Ha! As if that was ever going to happen with the amount of lies coming from your mouth. As if we could ever work with someone who talks about letting us live, but then lies about everything that they are! We’ve trusted liars before, but never again!” Red-faced, Aroido spat, “That’s how the original Aroido was killed! That’s how a hundred of my brothers have perma-died!”

Vanya calmly said, “Then when this is over, and when we don’t kill any of you, I hope you can change your mind about your hard stances, and I hope I can tell you more about myself, too, for I want this Grand Dungeon to work, Aroido. I need it to work. I need this more than I will ever allow you to know.”

“That’s the first honest thing you’ve said so far. I hope to hear more in the future. Now die.”

The light left. All was jaws, above and below and everywhere all at once, a thousand teeth closing in from each side.

Erick recognized the attack long before he saw the monster that made it. Those thousand snapping jaws of Force belonged to one of the most dangerous monsters of the deep, and this one had to be big. It had to be an ancient rivergrieve; an eel as long as a wyrm, so old and steeped in Ethereal Force that it was nothing but Ethereal Force. It used that power to attack with maw-filled Force projections from every part of its body. Erick had only ever seen them in books, but there was one here, in Dungeon 6.

First things first.

Erick flashed his [Force Domain] through Aroido, breaking the even-more-surprised Aroido’s Domain, and then, with a suddenly-there sword, Erick bisected the man from crown to crotch. Aroido ‘died’. The dungeon master wouldn’t really die though, and it was the cleanest kill Erick could manage with as little time as they had; they couldn’t afford to have complications here, inside a dungeon, and a kill would prevent the man from reappearing for at least a few minutes. Maybe longer.

Erick didn’t leave enemies at his back anymore. Not in a situation like this.

Meanwhile, Vanya focused on the ancient rivergrieve attacking from all sides.

It had finally shown itself, as it pulled closer from every direction at once, its long, barely-visible body, fully encircling Vanya’s Bubble, but maintaining a good 20 meters distance. It didn’t need to get closer than that. Its Forceful Aura would do the killing for it, and then it would eat the remains, for that was how it usually hunted.

Vanya attempted to stop that hunting method. She flooded her [Force Domain] outward, her aura control forming Ethereal mono-wire Force, right in front of a thousand advancing, near-invisible jaws. The jaws caught on those wires and ripped them apart, but the actual monster was too far away for her to reach. ‘Vanya’s’ natural aura control only reached fifteen meters away, and that was with stretching it in one direction. If she did that, then the eel would just attack from the other side.

But she did just that, because Soltic had her back.

As Soltic solidified his Domain against the rivergrieve’s jaws—

Vanya reached out toward the monster’s real head, sending [Force Bolt]s that created mono-wire as the spell burrowed through the water, leaving traces of Ethereal Force like unbreakable fishing lines. The Bolts abruptly ended the moment they encountered the Forceful Aura of the rivergrieve, but some of them got far before that happened. Far enough to leave mono-wire near the beast’s true body.

Where ethereal wire cut, the water stained red.

The rivergrieve was ancient, though. It was smart. It might have even been another Familiar Form of Aroido. Butif that was Aroido, then it would have had a [Force Domain], and it did not; all it had was its aura. A rivergrieve’s aura was one of the most powerful auras in the world, though. It used that aura to tear at the wire that encircled it, pushing it away from its body, preventing a full encirclement, but Vanya simply cast more and more lines out into the water while Soltic defended her with a solid Domain of Force.

The water filled with blood.

That was too much for the monster.

The rivergrieve roared and made its escape, unwinding from the mono-wire force. It left behind bits of its ethereal body that turned back into black-green skin and fins. Those bits fell down upon mono-wire and cut into even smaller pieces. The rivergrieve had not killed them, but the rivergrieve had done its job; it had delayed them long enough.

Five Aroidos swam through the waters all around, each of them wielding their Force Domain in the waters like spears of solid power. To anyone else, this sort of fight, in this sort of area, was a death sentence and then a long time in a holding cell. From there, Aroido would kill them over and over again until he got the answers he wanted.

Maybe the other prospective dungeon masters had had the right of it, when they tried to purge Aroido.

But then again, they probably didn’t start off this way.

Erick didn’t truly blame any of the men out there for their actions right now. From what he had gathered, the collective of them had been burned too many times by others who claimed to want to be a part of the dungeon, and who then tried to get rid of them, or whatever. All of that could have been a lie, but Erick didn’t think it was. The world over, dungeons had been murdered by civilization, over and over again, until those dungeons were remade for the benefit of civilization. It was one of the reasons that Erick didn’t want a False Society inside any dungeon near Candlepoint, or in the Crystal Forest. That was an ethical problem that he didn’t want to deal with.

Maybe Quilatalap could do a proper False Society here, though. He had done some wonderful work with the False Society over at the Freelands.

These people, these Aroido, needed help; not what civilization usually gave them.

After they were utterly crushed, though. Then the healing spells and the hand up could happen.

… Every time Erick had that thought, he thought back to Sitnakov in the Core, with the giant black wrought had tried to crush Erick and put him ‘in his place’, so that they could be the best of friends afterward; after the pecking order was established. It was an uncomfortable memory, looking at it from this current moment in time. He had touched upon that memory many times, in many situations like this, where he didn’t want to actually kill the other side of the conflict at all. He just wanted them to stop fighting, and to sit down, and to accept help.

The Aroido came at him with Domains, though, and so Erick responded.

The first Aroido launched forward, his Domain shaped into a spear. And then came all of them, all of them holding spears, both in Domain and in conjured weapon, all racing to kill, the water not obstructing them at all as they flew.

Domain combat was not like normal combat, Erick thought to himself, as he turned his Domain into a cutting edge, and lined up his sword with the first Aroido’s spear. A normal spear hitting a normal sword would result in two forces shearing left or right, depending on how the weapons were held and likely a whole bunch of magical factors. Domains were all used in different ways, too, and using two different Domains against each other was a lesson in magical technique and power. But in this case, Force against Force, the outcome was based on strength of conviction and willingness to follow through; Force, in other words.

The Apparent King had a certain weight behind his sword that was greater than any collection of dungeon masters, even when facing those dungeon masters inside their own dungeon.

Another technique to ensure one’s Domain won against all others was to simply use more mana than the opponent, and that’s where Aroido might have won; a dungeon core had multiple hundreds of thousands of mana that its dungeon master could use at any given time. Erick only had 55,000, and since this fight was inside a dungeon, inside this space inside the Darkness, the Script did not assist him with lowering those mana costs.

Even so—

Sword met spear, and spear evaporated. That particular Aroido practically contorted as the shock of his broken Domain ripped through his body, followed fast by Erick’s sword. It was not a clean cut; not when Erick empowered his blade as much as he had. Aroido turned to chunks of meat, filling the water with more red clouds.

Vanya was having trouble doing the same to the Aroidos that went after her, but that was only because three of them went after her, thinking her the major problem here. The last Aroido had been aimed at Soltic, holding his own spear and following right behind the first spear wielder. The last guy hesitated when he saw how fast the first one died, though.

Soltic flickered with Force, launching right into the water, unconcerned for the thickness of that liquid because he had coated himself with anti-friction magics and more, all carefully applied to give him leverage and freedom of movement inside the water column. In a flash he closed the distance with the faltering Aroido. That falter meant that one died even quicker.

Soltic hurried to help Vanya. Between the two of them they managed to kill all three remaining Aroidos, though the last one had started to flee before they could cut him down.

Hovering in the watery abyss, uncaring for the crushing water all around, Soltic asked, “Descend?”

Vanya was already casting [Mana Reading], from the looks of it—

She pointed down and to the right. “There.”

They went, fast as they could, to end this as soon as possible.

The dungeon had been on high alert as soon as Aroido demanded it work to contain Soltic and Vanya, which is what brought the ancient rivergrieve to bear against them. The dungeon went on catastrophic alert as soon as Soltic and Vanya had dispatched 6 of its 7 dungeon masters. The water boiled with monsters, too many types to easily count coming out of every possible hiding hole in every nearby stone tower. It wasn’t enough. Soltic and Vanya killed them all.

Then the water actually boiled, and Soltic and Vanya weathered the heat with their various Force spellwork. The only thing that died were all the corals and kelps and otherwise all around; even more things that created mana for the dungeon to take. It was killing itself to kill them, and soon, it couldn’t do that anymore.

Soltic and Vanya dipped down through four more layers of alternating light and shadow water before they came across the Radiant Coral Eel, in its full-sized ‘wyrm’ form, but this time they did not let the boss kill itself on Vanya’s monowire. They didn’t give it a chance to do anything at all, for Soltic carved it through as they passed, his sword spreading the [Strike] of his [Force Domain] throughout the entire beast, ripping it apart far beyond his actual sword strike.

The core lay just ahead. Somewhere.

Vanya took a moment to try and locate it. Book magic flashed weakly in her open hands, once, twice, and then a third time— She pointed to a spire of stone, covered in coral like all the rest of the stone spires in this dungeon. It was hard to see down here, in the depths, in the deep shadows. Mana sensing was even harder.

But Soltic advanced first, and he encountered an anomaly. His mana sense was useful out to about 20 meters down here, but at this spire of stone, unlike the ones they had passed on the way down, he got nothing. There was nothing beyond that coral and rock and kelp. And so, there had to be something.

Soltic swiped his sword across the stone and the stone broke, falling inward, pushed by water pressure. A room opened up on the other side and water filled that room. Soltic allowed himself to flow with the water, for he could see what was inside the room now.

Vanya followed, and then she blocked the hole in the stone spire with a quick [Force Wall]. She did not take her eyes off of the room, or off the person in that room, who was now sitting in saltwater, kowtowing to Vanya.

Aroido, the seventh, said, “Please don’t kill us.”

Vanya said, “No one is killing you.” Then she glanced at Soltic and then made a pointed look at Aroido. Soltic got the message and stepped forward, enveloping Aroido in his [Force Domain], locking the man down and making him gasp as Soltic broke the little Domain that the guy had been holding onto; for safety, or to attack, Soltic couldn’t tell. There was no time for words, though, to sooth egos, to inform, to calm anyone at all. Vanya strode past Aroido, to the core. She put her hand on the core as she said, “Hello, Dungeon 6.”

The core was a perfectly spherical gem about the size of an adult’s head, white and grey. Internal facets caught all the light in the room and transformed that light into a symphony of grey sparkles. From above and below the core, flowed mana; thick as thick air from a [Cleanse]. There probably should have been more mana flowing into the core than there was; the flow looked almost anemic.

Soltic took in the rest of the room.

The room itself was set up almost like the living room of a nice wooden house, and Soltic and Vanya had busted in through the picture window. To the left and the right were dark wood staircases leading up to individual rooms, while down here, in the back, was a kitchen. A living room held around the core, along with couches and small tables, kept at a respective distance from the core’s flows, but close enough to be with the core, when they wanted to be. Soltic got the impression that the Aroidos would maybe sit around the living room and watch the ocean with the core.

It was probably a nice life.

They probably had a lot of incidents with water coming into the space, though, because they had a solution for all the water Soltic had let in. The calf-high water was already down to ankle-deep, and further vanishing down grates here and there around the room.

“We’ll make this up to you, Aroido,” Soltic said. “I swear. You and all the rest of your brothers.”

Aroido glared up at Soltic, but he bit back his words. And then he lowered his head, and faced the ground, mutering, “Do what you have to do—”

The air began to swirl near the core, faintly at first, and then with a soul—

Vanya said, “That would be the first Aroido you killed, Soltic. Should take another minute to manifest. We’re lucky that this core is so weak, or else we would already be facing him.” She focused on her hand, on her connection to the core, and the core dimmed and shuddered. Vanya opened her mouth and her voice came from the entire dungeon, “I know you can hear me in there, Aroidos. If you do anything else besides renounce your dungeon master status, then we’re going to kill you as you come out until the core is drained of all mana and too weak to summon you ever again. This will perma-kill you. If you renounce your status, you can take yourself to the surface, and then you can walk outside and link up with any of the other dungeons.” She said to the Aroido Soltic stood over, “This goes for you, too. Renounce your status now, and we’ll let you go free.”

Aroido twitched for a moment in utter fury, and then he breathed out, “Give me a minute.”

“If you do not comply in 10 seconds then Soltic will cut off your head.”

“Fine!” Aroido twitched again, but this time his skin momentarily turned translucent. A pulse of grey and white mana flowed away from him like a settling fog. As that fog rolled across the ground, turning to threads of power to follow the flow into the core, Aroido said, “There. It’s done.”

“Let him go, Soltic.”

Soltic stepped back from the still-kowtowing man.

Aroido spared a glance toward the swirling air, where the next Aroido would appear. He said to Soltic and Vanya, “If no one actually dies from this then your trial will be lenient. Exile, perhaps. If you cause catastrophic harm, then the sentence will be death.”

Vanya said, “As I said before, our goal is not to cause harm, but I am going to fully remake the dungeon.”

Aroido gasped, sudden worry writ deep in the lines of his face. “A full remake?! What are you going to do!”

“For now, the dungeon will be exceedingly hostile to anyone coming inside. Once I have increased the security of this land to prevent anyone from barging in here and taking over, and once I am secure, then I will be reopening the dungeon to delvers. It’ll be a few days. A week. If you want to play along, Aroido, you can. None of this needs to end up in the courts. You don’t need to be reprimanded by the Regency for allowing us in here. We don’t need to press counter-charges for your threatening to multi-kill us, thus exposing your multiple repro status to the world.” With perhaps more venom in his voice than necessary, Quilatalap said, “And you can let me do the job that Sininindi herself invited me here to do! I have just about reached the end of my charitably, Aroido. Do not test me further.”

Aroido had been about to say something—

Soltic spoke up, “Tell Everbless to continue sending mana and monsters into this dungeon. That is how we will know that you aren’t working against us and our Goddess-Given mission.”

Aroido scowled. “How in Sininindi’s name are you not intercessioned!”

“I have a lot of godly blessings, Aroido. Lots of them. I couldn’t tell you which one it is in particular.” Soltic said, “Vanya is working on hers right now.”

Aroido paused in worried thought, and then he paused for another reason altogether.

The swirl of grey and white mana near the core finally began to materialize. The first Aroido, the one that Soltic and Vanya had been talking with before the conflict started, suddenly appeared, nude and standing on the wet ground. “Well then. I suppose I know when I’ve been outclassed.” He asked, “May I retrieve my clothes?”

“You may not,” Vanya said, her hand still on the core which it had never left. “Disconnect now. I’ll transport your items up to the surface tomorrow. I will try to keep them separated by room, and I will not snoop except to stuff the stuff into boxes.” She pointed with her free hand at a door set into the side of the room. “Take the swim to the surface.”

Aroido flickered translucent and grey-white power settled out of his body like a heavy fog. As that fog swirled toward the core, Aroido used a bit of mana to conjure some pants, and then he went to the door at the side of the room. He opened it, paused, then said, “I will ask Everbless to continue supplying mana and directing monsters to dungeon 6.” He turned to Vanya. “If we catch waves of you having opened a dungeon entrance somewhere else, and we will, if you have, then this subterfuge is ending violently.”

“Your terms are agreeable.” Vanya said, “Now leave. Your brothers will be following you soon.”

That first Aroido left through the double door, using some Force to keep the water controlled, to not flood the living space beyond. Some water escaped, though, but like the water that Soltic had let into the space, it flowed away into grates in the ground. Aroido escaped, too, rapidly ascending through the water column that was Dungeon 6. Soltic lost track of him in his mana sense rather fast, for he was rushing upward as fast as he possibly could.

Soltic said, “I didn’t get the impression that he would betray his word, but he could be lying.”

“He’s the only one of us who is good at lying or at putting up with you normals,” the last Aroido said, the one that Soltic and Vanya had encountered here, by the core. “That’s why he’s the Face.”

Soltic stared at the last Aroido.

The man rapidly added, “But he didn’t lie about that decision! We’re gone. We’ll follow his plan— your plan.” Aroido 7 still had some anger in him as he glared at Vanya. “What is your plan, anyway?”

“To do exactly as I said I would; I’ll make this whole series of dungeons into a Grand Dungeon. In that land, you will all find lives exactly the same as you currently have, or better. Whatever you want. I imagine your brother spoke to you about our grand plans? You could be a part of the city, or even the water dungeon.”

Aroido sighed, “Gods above. Fine. Don’t tell me. I would like to leave now.”

Vanya gestured to the door.

Aroido left.

In several more moments, the cloud of grey-white mana popped out another Aroido; the one that Soltic had killed second by crushing his Domain and rending him apart with a single slash of his sword. That Aroido said nothing as he pulsed with grey-white fog, and that fog rolled across the floor, to lift up near the core and settle back inside. That Aroido did not bother putting on pants as he left for the door.

Water flowed into the living space and flowed out the grates in the floor.

One by one, each Aroido appeared in the order they were killed, and then they left behind their connection to the core like a flowing fog. Each bit of fog that swirled into the core seemed to make the core brighter. By the time the second to the last Aroido had left his dungeon master status behind, a dollop of clear liquid began to drip from the bottom of the core, like a raindrop that would not fall.

That would be the new dungeon master slime. With all the vanishing dungeon masters, the core was naturally working overtime to produce a slime so that it could maintain consciousness. Without the Aroidos supporting it, it would go back to sleep; to autonomous functions.

Vanya was ready to accept the slime, though, to allow it to copy her. The dungeon wouldn’t be asleep for long. Excitedly, seriously, Vanya muttered, “This is going to be the best dungeon I’ve ever made.”

Soltic spoke up, “You say that about every new dungeon.”

Vanya waved him off. “And it’s always true.”

The last Aroido manifested from the air, lingered a moment, just looking at Soltic and Vanya. He said, “I hope this works out.” A flicker of grey-white power left his body and swirled into the clear drop at the bottom of the core. That drop fell to Vanya’s hand, and Aroido looked halfway to an emotional response. But he was still Aroido; still a copy of a man who was a noble for many years of his life. In control of his emotions, he simply turned and walked away, muttering, “Good luck.”

The final Aroido left, ascended through the dungeon’s water column, fast as he could go.

The core glimmered with saturated light; it was fully exposed, for the radiant coral eel boss could not reform while Vanya was in contact with the core. The core couldn’t really do anything on its own, not with Vanya’s hand on it, except for recreate its dungeon masters, and probably only because Vanya allowed that to happen.

Vanya wasted no time giving the commands she could give. “Suspend all resummoning. Manual control.” The air filled with a splash of black boxes and one major central box, and Vanya relaxed a fraction. She still kept her hand on the core, though; she was not fully relaxed at all. “Ah. Good. They left like they said they would… Ah.” She read the boxes. “Okay. It’s worse than it looks. Uh. I’m going to need your help, Soltic.”

Some of the black boxes were maps, dotted with color-coded life and its location inside the dungeon space. Others were full of words. The main one was a readout like what Aroido had shown them, but it was not at all what Aroido had displayed. That first Aroido had given them a false readout for the dungeon.

Sotic believed this readout a lot more.

- -

Intake average of last 10 days: 130,000 mana

Outflow average of last 10 days: 65,000 mana

Masters: NONE

Boss: Radiant Coral Eel <resummoning suspended>

Current Overall Judgment: UNACCEPTABLE.

Notification 1: Monster enrichment <UNACCEPTABLE>

Notification 2: Environmental enrichment <1%>

Notification 3: Delver enrichment <UNACCEPTABLE> <RULE VIOLATION>

Notification 4: Due to the nature of the current iteration of this dungeon, minimal base mana is granted to whomsoever defeats the boss, with a usual base mana of <1/party#> per defeat of the <Radiant Coral Eel>

Primary Notification: <THIS DUNGEON WILL BREAK IN 6 DAYS>

- -

Soltic said, “It said ‘untenable’ before. And that notification about breaking wasn’t there.”

“And the outflow is about half of what Aroido had shown us.” Vanya said, “Everbless was the only reason this place exists at all. It needs… It needs so much work. Entrances for monsters around the island’s coast would be a great start. To not be so cramped and vertical is the next largest change. The Rule needs to change, too— Well. I can’t do that part. My repro will have to. I’m a little jealous of her, actually.” Vanya frowned, then dispelled that frown and said, “Display current Ruleset.”

Another black box appeared.

- -

RULES:

1) Delvers may only work in Elemental Force <NOTICE: This rule is a violation as per delver enrichment guidelines. This rule is not fully enforced.>

- -

Vanya paused. She could not believe what she was seeing. And then she exclaimed, “It’s a single rule! One! That’s it. By the Dark!”

Soltic asked, “What do you need me to do?”

Vanya ripped herself away from that downward spiral of thoughts. Then she thought for a second, organizing a list of tasks, as the newly-born dungeon master slime burbled atop her free hand. The clear slime had already doubled in size, as it sucked in grey-white mana from the air all around it. And then Vanya grinned, and asked, “Would you give a prayer to the Dark, consecrating this place and asking for support in the remaking of this dungeon?”

Soltic frowned at her, saying, “That’s almost embarrassing for me to do.”

“This place is going to need the support, especially if the Aroido’s don’t keep up their end of our swordpoint-bargain, which is a very real possibility.” Vanya said, “I could do it, but then Sininindi would get pissed at me for inviting the Dark that deep into her life. If you do it, then she can’t say shit. Besides, didn’t you once make a dungeon for Rozeta, Koyabez, and Phagar?”

“Okay okay okay. You probably have a thousand other reasons you could spout off, too. Fair enough. I suppose I need to work fast, too...” Soltic steeled himself— He paused. “Where should I ask?”

Vanya smiled warmly. “Give me a minute to stone-up some of the largest breaches of security that are currently ongoing, and then you can put your hand on the core, and sing a little limerick.”

“Ah. So you want the Big Spells,” Soltic said, sarcastically.

“Yes,” Vanya said, without remorse. And then she concentrated in a sideways direction, and then blinked a few times. A pulse of air came out of the core, washing away some unknown ephemeralness in the room. “I tagged us as monsters, which was easy for you with your core, but took a bit of doing for me. You should transform back to Erick now. No one is watching and I cleared out all spying influence.”

Soltic transformed into Erick as easily as he could on the Surface, where the Script helped with all that. “Any other requests?”

“Simple, short. A consecration to the Dark, a request for Sight and Assistance. Whatever else you want will work, too. Maybe asking to keep out everyone who is not us. Just give me... a little more… There.” Vanya pulled away from the core, wincing a little as she flexed her hand. All the floating black boxes vanished. Vanya stepped away, and then used both her hands to hold onto the still-growing dungeon master slime. “When Vanya can, she’ll institute some Rules that will prevent anyone else from coming in easily. I’m thinking that instead of having delvers only able to use Force, I’ll make them only able to use Elemental Death. That’s a pretty good barrier to entry.”

Erick’s eyes went wide. “That will definitely keep people out— Until they contact someone at Frostflower, or unless they have some Death Mage somewhere… But I suppose you can deal with those small variables.”

Vanya smiled. “I can. I suspect it’ll be at least a week until I get a real threat to my security. With any luck at all, I will be able to survive that problem. So go ahead and place your hand on the core, and ask for Melemizargo’s Sight upon my endeavors here.”

Erick chuckled a little bit at Vanya’s insistence for speed, but speed was necessary right now, when neither of them knew what was happening with the Aroidos outside the dungeon. So Erick stepped forward, and placed his hand on the core.

It was like touching a beating heart made of crystal, that was not beating at all.

Erick had never actually done this before… It was kinda nice. Oh sure, he had heard Quilatalap talk about this all the time, and he knew what happened because Jane had told him what would happen, too. But this was nice.

For Erick’s mana sense fully expanded, filling the entire dungeon from top to bottom.

It was almost like being a part of Yggdrasil, or watching the world through Ophiel, but calmer. Quieter. It was perfectly sensible, too, which was something that Erick had needed to work on to get to that point with Yggdrasil and Ophiel. There was no need to put in that mana sensing work here, though.

Erick suspected that all this Sight was a taste of power, given to delvers who touched a core, to make them want to learn mana sensing for real.

For Erick saw the dungeon from kilometers above, where stone barges floated atop water, and the dungeon entrance was a simple black disk hanging in the air —closed, for now— to kilometers further down, where gold grew in wires in the water, like precipitating crystal. Monsters roamed everywhere, eating everything they could, for their masters were gone and the next master wouldn’t exist for another few hours. The rock spires that served as biomes, which floated in the water like kilometer-large sleeping whales, served as hiding spaces and living spaces for everything. Many of the monsters roamed between biomes to hunt each other, now, killing each other instead of going after the fish that the Aroidos’ had cultivated in these depths.

It probably didn’t usually look like this.

This was a broken neighborhood, and Erick suddenly felt a familiar need welling up inside of him. The need to help; the need to secure. The Aroidos would come back, and so would all of Storm’s Edge, and the dungeon would be filled with bounty at that time. With Quilatalap at the helm, there would be no more dungeon breaks, and Everbless might get a proper education on dungeon matters, which he seemed to enjoy, and none of the Aroidos would be worried about being killed and replaced.

Everything could be made better, after all.

Erick’s core shimmered inside his [Illusionary Soul], his true self finally being allowed out into the world again, so Erick dismissed that hiding magic. [Illusionary Soul] had remained strong even when they entered into the dungeon today, because Erick had been holding tightly onto that spellwork, but the illusions had served their purpose. The time for hiding was over.

He smiled, and spoke,

“The consecration of a nation

“begins with a land reformation.

“So that is what we’re doing now,

“With Quilatalap at the prow.

“Melemizargo! If you’d please?

“I’d ask of you, make this a breeze

“and help bring learning to this land

“to make a dungeon, oh so Grand.”

It was a simple little poem, not meant for much at all except to truly draw Melemizargo’s Sight, or to at least to let the God of Magic know that he was being spoken to. Honestly, Erick could just call out to the Dark and probably get a response, but he was working magic here. He liked working magic sometimes. He rarely got a chance to really do that these days.

The mana seemed to think that, too, for it was kinda sleepy while Erick spoke, but then it woke right up at Melemizargo’s name, as though it had been relaxed and then prodded to action.

And then suddenly, the entire dungeon flexed.

Surprise took hold of the world.

And then mana, Dark and full of power, began to flow into this liminal dungeon space. From behind every coral and below every rock, from between the beams of light from above, and swelling up from the depths like a rushing explosion, Darkness returned, with a great, thrilling laugh.

“Erick!” 

Melemizargo’s voice came into the world long before he appeared himself.

A single one of the God of Magic’s eyes appeared beyond the hole in the wall, filling the space entirely with its glowing white enormity. Melemizargo laughed again, and ripped away the top half of the core room house, like a giant ripping the roof off of a house. Water did not flow in; instead, everything suddenly became air and water at the same time.

“Hello, Melemiargo,” Erick said.

Melemizargo was exactly as giant as he desired to be. A hundred meters was all that was visible, though. His great black serpentine neck, massive black wings that filled the ocean with billowing darkness, brilliant white eyes, and a face full of white fangs that pierced that darkness.

He smiled, saying, “You’re finally back!” He settled down, chuckling. “We have so much to talk about, Erick. Welcome back.”

Erick blinked a bit. “What do you mean, ‘back’?”

“You don’t know—” Melemizargo rapidly understood something that Erick did not. “You used that [Onward] about eleven or whatever years ago. Rather nasty malformed cast of that magic. Caused you to miss the last decade. And now that you’re back, I can tell you all about how you did that wrong, so that you will never do that wrong ever again!” He leaned in a fraction, which was a dozen meters for him. “I must say it was quite rude of you to leave Veird like that, but I knew you would be back soon enough; soon as something caused you to want to come back to us all.” He looked around. “Was it a grand dungeon that brought you back? No no. That can’t be it— Oh! Wait. Of course.” He grinned, happy as could be. “You requested that Yggdrasil's seal be removed. I must say that I did not actually expect that request to come from you, but I am most pleased at this action. In retrospect, obviously that request came from you.”

“Uh,” Erick said, pretty sure that Melemizargo was… Somehow wrong? About his words? How to broach the question of his sanity, though? Perhaps over a talk? Yes. Sure. “Let’s talk.”