Ar'Kendrithyst

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

Notification 2: Environmental enrichment

Notification 3: Delver enrichment ,

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 per defeat of the

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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 intervention 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 intervention 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 intervention 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 intervention 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 intervention, 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 ‘interventioned’, 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 intervention 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. But if 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, when 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, muttering, “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 charitability, 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 interventioned!”

“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

Current Overall Judgment: UNACCEPTABLE.

Notification 1: Monster enrichment

Notification 2: Environmental enrichment

Notification 3: Delver enrichment

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 per defeat of the

Primary Notification:

- -

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

- -

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, 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, Melemizargo,” 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. But now you’re backand I can tell you how you did that wrong so that you will never do that 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, obviouslythat 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.”