Given the uncertainty with the group around Jack, I decided that a bit of a distraction would be a good idea. According to the plans they had given us, it would be about a week until they’d be able to return, so after creating a fairly simple cottage with a few prepared runes to provide heat and water for them, we headed out ourselves, leaving a short message in the open part of our tower. They would easily be able to enter the ground level, as they had been before, where they would find directions and a brief explanation in regards to their cottage.

Parts of that explanation were, amusingly, a bit of a challenge directed at Daniel and Samantha. There were brief, and fairly simple, explanations regarding the set-up, especially when it came to sanitation, with only cursory information in regards to their usage. Instead, there was a simple guide to runes and their functions, giving them just enough knowledge to puzzle together how they could activate the different runic formations in the cottage and how they could power them. If they managed to puzzle it out, they would have a wonderful place to stay but if not, they’d be a little miserable. A challenge, mixed with a lesson and its own reward, it was the perfect set-up, at least if we didn’t come back before them. And even if we did, I had a feeling that I wouldn’t give them additional help, only the guidance I left behind.

Another challenge, but one that I considered nearly impossible, was climbing the tower itself. I had taken just as much time to prepare security as I had taken to prepare their cottage, so the tower was fairly secure.

The first obstacle to gaining entry was as simple as it was complicated. The door to the stairs, or rather, the lack of it. Where the door had once been, there now was nothing but the wall and beyond it, where the stairs used to be, the walls were somewhat thicker as I had fused the stairs into them.

If somebody decided to forgo the ground floor and tried to climb, or maybe fly up the tower, and enter through a window, they’d find trouble there, too. Just as I had done with the door, I had shifted some of the stone making up the other wall and covered the windows, leaving nothing but a smooth and uniform surface. Sure, it made the interior completely dark but with nobody there, I didn’t care at all.

Lastly, there was the top of the tower, if somebody managed to climb or fly up to it. There just like everywhere else, the entrance into the tower was gone, as was my throne. Only the altar and the statues remained but anybody who decided that flying atop a tower to desecrate a shrine to Lady Hecate was a good idea would likely find the error of their ways shortly after. There was little doubt in my mind that Lady Hecate would register her displeasure immediately, maybe by turning off the magic that allowed the person to fly, therefore damming them to a long fall with a sudden stop at the end.

To make matters even more secure, I decided to add a few strategically placed Darkness Runic formations that would devour any Astral Power coming into contact with them unless the person doing the manipulation was aware of them and deactivated them first before erasing them with Earth Magic. Both processes needed to occur in quick succession or they would fail, meaning it would be incredibly difficult, if not impossible, for anybody unable to perform Earth and Darkness Magic at a fairly high level. Furthermore, the task was even harder as my Darkness Runes used the different runic script I had picked up on Mundus, making them different from the ones somebody who gained Darkness Magic on Earth would use. All in all, I was fairly certain that the tower was safe, though there obviously were no guarantees—only a high degree of confidence.

With the tower suitably secured, we could find ourselves a nice distraction. There were the graveyards to explore, the various military bases and numerous other fascinating locations, all of which might hold some valuable loot, a bit of experience or some other useful goodies we could acquire, depending on the foes we had to face.

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After a bit of careful deliberation and a few flips of a coin, we decided that the place we wanted to explore was the strange metal gate in the mountain, in other words, the old NORAD complex. Given that it used to be a fairly important military base, in addition to it being a literal underground complex from which I could feel a strange sensation, I was confident that something interesting was going on there. Maybe it was a dungeon, maybe some unique monsters had spawned in the extraordinary complex, with its inherent importance and various surveillance computers, there were almost limitless possibilities and I was curious which one had manifested. Sure, it was also possible that nothing had happened there but, amusingly, I considered that to be the least likely possibility.

Getting to the complex was straightforward and simple, the pine forests around our tower held nothing that we considered a threat, though we remained vigilant, even if we moved a lot faster than we usually did. That way, we only needed about an hour to get to the gate and could take a closer look at it, after we dispatched a few Undead who had risen after falling at the gatehouse. Luckily, the fence was only covered in barbed wire and used to have some voltage on it but by now, these defences were basically worthless. They stopped us for a few seconds but my magic was easily able to slice through them with ease. With the base being this close to a major city, there were no mines or any other active defences, though even if there had been some sort of automatic gun turrets or something like that, the lack of electricity would have spelt their death knell.

So, the only thing stopping us from intruding into the facility was the massive gate. And what an obstacle it was, the thing had to weigh a ton, or rather, many tons. Thanks to the Change, it was difficult to tell how heavy they had once been, their density had been radically shifted as different parts of the gate had been altered in different ways, turning what once was a precisely calibrated piece of engineering into a mess of ores, crystals and alloys. The way Alex was staring at the massive hunk of metal was quite amusing as if they were about to take a bite from the metal, but ultimately, we simply cracked open the small door and made our way inside.

Only to enter an almost empty tunnel, with nothing but a few more dead and Undead airmen to entertain us as we continued to the next blast door, a couple dozen metres further in. The complex was built to withstand everything humanity could throw at it, only to fall to a force nobody had expected, not even the Spanish Inquisition. But then, they were the ones nobody expected, so maybe getting caught off-guard was fair.

Either way, our advance ended before another massive door and this one held a surprise. Where the first door had been essentially normal, for a piece of metal exposed to the Change and the elements for months afterwards, this one most definitely was not. Instead, I quickly recognised the sensation I felt when trying to stretch my magic into the door and the area beyond. Just as I had sensed with other dungeons before, my senses couldn’t penetrate beyond the door but what we could do, was open the smaller door set within the blast door and pull it open, allowing us entry into the old complex.

Immediately, a blue box appeared, informing us that we were the first to enter ‘The Foothold’, as this particular dungeon was called, and would be getting bonus EXP for some time. With our repeated efforts in clearing dungeons nobody had entered before, it would likely be very worthwhile, even if the enemies proved themself to be disappointing in level. But, if they didn’t, this might just be the ticket to the second divide.

With that in mind, I made sure that all my points were spent, as I had a bad habit of letting them sit and ponder whether to put them into Intelligence as usual or round out some other attribute. Alas, once again, I put my points into Intelligence, taking the trait for having eighty-five Intelligence at level ninety-five instead of putting one into Intuition and one into something like Endurance and getting traits for having Intuition at fifty-five. Endurance at thirty-five wouldn’t be worth a trait at my level, that ship had sadly sailed.

Regardless, I took the Intelligence and got the trait, namely, Astral Resilience, a trait somewhat similar to the last one I got. This one made it harder for outside Astral Power to influence my magical constructs, so it would be harder for others to alter or remove things I conjured or disrupt my magical formations. Quite neat and useful, though I wasn’t sure if it would be useful in the dungeon ahead.