With the thread established, Serenity assumed he’d be able to withdraw to the surface and talk to Senkovar about the next step, but when he tried he didn’t move. It was like Berinath’s World Core had a firm hold on him.
Confusion radiated from Berinath. “What’s happening? Anchors are supposed to be slow, working my way to the surface, not this outpouring of magic.”
Serenity had a sudden suspicion. Gaia thought in terms of years and centuries, not days or even months. If Berinath had only built anchors on her own, she might not have connected that timespan with the faster-living creatures of the surface. Maybe he hadn’t been fast after all, at least not compared to Senkovar. The World Shaman had said he used massive mana supplements, after all, and that probably meant he didn’t take the time a World would. Beyond that, Senkovar had mentioned that he simply couldn’t get the mana together to build a ley line on a world of even moderate Tier like Berinath. “You’ve never had one made by anyone else, have you?”
“Why would that matter?” Berinath still sounded confused.
Serenity decided to answer the easy part of the question. “We do things faster. Most people can’t spend years slowly working on a project, at least not easily.”
It was an overstatement, of course. If anyone came up with a way to create ley line anchors that was cheap enough, Serenity had no doubt that there would be people hired to watch over them for years if that was what it took; for all that they appeared naturally, nexuses were very useful if you could control them and a ley line anchor sounded a lot like a place a nexus would form.
It would be even more valuable if they could control what formed there, but as far as Serenity knew not even planets could control what actually formed at a nexus. Maybe the Voice could, but other than that he wasn’t certain it was possible.
Well, maybe it was possible for a god that had dominion over something that could form at a nexus, like … say … a god of dungeons. That would be amazing, yet at the same time Serenity knew that if he was actually able to make dungeons to order he needed to be very careful about who knew. It was the opposite problem from being undead; instead of being unwanted, he would be all too wanted.
It would probably be fine on Earth; Earth had several times as many dungeons as other planets, whether he counted them by land area or population. It was a good thing they didn’t overflow as easily or there would have been far more issues with dungeon breaks.
At a guess, the lower overflow rate was probably mostly because there were more dungeons; they each filtered less mana and therefore didn’t have to produce as many monsters to stay healthy. From experience, Serenity knew it wasn’t linear, but it was generally true that planets with more dungeons had more time between dungeon breaks. They also tended to have more overall. Serenity didn’t know if that was because there were more dungeons or if it was because some dungeons were undesirable and didn’t get much attention when there were enough other dungeons around.
As he thought that, Serenity realized he was back on the surface. He could still feel Berinath, but what he felt was her presence in the ley line anchor rather than the direct presence of the World Core. He was still bleeding both mana and essence at an incredible pace, dumping as much mana as his entire mana pool into the ground every couple of minutes, yet it didn’t come from his mana pool even though it ran along his mana channels.
A small ball of dungeon crystal sat in his hand; it looked almost exactly like the Crystal Seed he’d gained from the human level at the end of the Trial Dungeon in the Tutorial. He hadn’t thought about that in years. Just as importantly, he hadn’t thought about the woman who gave him the Crystal Seed. She was nothing like a dungeon monster; she was too real.
Maybe he should change his opinion on that. The kobolds were also unusually real, even though they were dungeon monsters. They’d even managed to move dungeons to join Aki’s dungeon, yet they remained dungeon monsters and could be temporarily killed without suffering true harm. Perhaps she was a dungeon monster, simply a far more developed one than most.
For that matter, Desinka was technically a dungeon monster; he’d bound her to his first dungeon back on Tzintkra to save her from the perils of her vampirism. Serenity had no doubt whatsoever that she was a real person. Perhaps the shaman who gave him the Crystal Seed was like Desinka.
Hadn’t she said something about seeing him later? Serenity wasn’t quite certain; it had been a very long time. There was no reason he should assume he wouldn’t find her eventually. He had Tyche’s blessing; he’d probably stumble across her at either the most or least opportune time.
For that matter, hadn’t the Crystal Seed held the opportunity to define what a node became? He’d used it to create a node for himself rather than one for a planet, but it had still worked. Maybe he could do the same with this?
Serenity pressed the dungeon crystal to the ground directly over the center of the anchor he’d created. The crystal seemed to sink into the ground and merge with the anchor, but he didn’t get a choice; he knew what he’d just done: he’d created a dungeon. He also knew that he had a choice: he could design the dungeon or he could allow an independent dungeon core to form from the dungeon crystal he’d created.
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The choice was easy. However much Serenity liked delving dungeons, designing them wasn’t his Path. Oh, it was fun to do sometimes, but it didn’t hold his interest the way it did Aki’s or Raz’s. On top of that, he wasn’t confident he’d ever return to Berinath after everything that had happened here. It was better to let the dungeon core design its own dungeon; even if he did design it, he’d want to hand it off before he left. The dungeon core would have to live with the dungeon. Serenity wouldn’t.
The mana drain grew stronger and stronger, but eventually Serenity felt it start to diminish. When it did, it fell off rapidly; less than a minute after the amount of mana he was losing started to drop, he reached a sort of a calm equilibrium with the outside.
The good news was that he wasn’t glowing anymore. The bad news was that he wasn’t certain if he’d glow outside or not; he was in a dungeon, after all. The mana level was higher than outside. It wasn’t much of a dungeon yet, since it wasn’t named and wasn’t yet open. Serenity doubted anyone else could see it, but he knew it was there. It was unmistakable.
“I didn’t expect you to get it right on your first try. If I didn’t know better, I’d say you’d done it before.” Senkovar’s calm statement pulled Serenity’s attention away from the dungeon core and over to where the other man sat with his legs folded in front of himself on a tasseled bit of carpet.
Wait, where did the carpet come from?
A quick question to Aide gave Serenity a short recording of a dryad delivering the carpet along with a few other things to Senkovar. It wasn’t a dryad Serenity recognized; the woman seemed younger than the elders and less martial than the guards. She didn’t stop to chat; she just handed Senkovar the things he must have asked for earlier, then left, as though it were a routine delivery. Maybe it was routine for her.
“Now that you have an anchor, you need to connect it to other anchors or ley lines, but that doesn’t have to be done immediately if you need to rest.”
Serenity started to ask how before he stopped himself and thought about what Senkovar was saying. Was he implying that Serenity should need to rest? More importantly, did Serenity need to rest?
As soon as he asked himself the question, Serenity was hit with a wave of fatigue. He’d clearly already been tired but he’d suppressed it while he was busy. That was normal and it was good Senkovar pointed it out; that was the perfect time to make a horrible mistake without realizing it.
Serenity blinked back the tiredness. “Sleep sounds good. Should we stay here, or…?
Senkovar knew the dryads of Berinath far better than Serenity did. He’d also had time to deal with them and Serenity knew he’d seen the World Shaman talking to the Foremost Elder earlier. He’d know what the actual situation was, which meant he was the better person to make the call even before Serenity considered how surprisingly exhausted he felt.
Senkovar shook his head slightly as he levered himself awkwardly to his feet. “I’ve arranged rooms with Elder Omprek. They’ll be guarded; the Elder doesn’t think Elder Inchabe will be the only person with issues with you. Rumors are spreading already; I haven’t had the chance to see what they are.”
Serenity yawned and asked the obvious question. “Can we trust the guards?”
Senkovar smiled at that. “No, definitely not. I’ll be setting up some portable wards; they’re more alarm spells than anything that will stop someone, but they should be enough to let us know if the guards try to enter and the guards should be able to give warning if someone else tries to enter.”
“Unless they’re working together.” Multiple layers of defenses falling at the same time due to mass betrayal brought back some old memories. It wasn’t something that had happened to the Final Reaper often, but once was too often.
It had happened twice. Maybe three times; Serenity couldn’t be certain about the second time. That could have been people getting past his guards through deception rather than betrayal. Either way, two or three times was enough to be memorable. More importantly, it was enough to make him develop some very unusual wards that were not subject to the usual issues. They had their own issues and were definitely unsuitable for any place that more than one or two people needed access, but they’d add an extra layer of security overnight. “I’ll add some more wards.”
Senkovar nodded before he led Serenity along the long corridor back into the dome they’d entered from. He tried to start a conversation, but Serenity wasn’t really awake enough to carry his side and ended up mostly listening. It sounded like Echa’s death, Serenity’s ascension, and Elder Inchabe’s attack had thrown the leadership structure of the dryads into a mess. Serenity didn’t know enough about it to be certain how common that was; he had to trust Senkovar’s assertion that it was unknown.
Senkovar couldn’t say which of the three elements was the most important. Serenity suspected it was Elder Inchabe’s attack; that should be the most important, at least. Echa had been effectively gone for years and Serenity would leave soon. If Elder Inchabe’s attack really was a coup attempt, however, it said something had gone very wrong in the dryads’ peaceful order.
Senkovar was talking about some political maneuvering that Aide would have to keep track of. Serenity was too tired. There was something important Senkovar hadn’t mentioned and it took far too long for Serenity’s tired brain to come up with it.
“Do Echa’s runes still work?” It seemed like something that the dryads should have checked.
Senkovar fell silent. When Serenity took a good look at him, he looked like someone choosing his words carefully. It took a good thirty seconds before he decided what to say. “I’m not sure. Elder Omprek believes they will; he says they still feel right. They can’t exactly try them on an undead to be sure since there aren’t any on Berinath.”
Serenity had his doubts that there weren’t any at all; Death was more common than people thought and not everyone rested quietly in their grave even without outside intervention. Vengeance was definitely a prime example of that. It was entirely likely that they didn’t make themselves known to the dryads and left the planet as soon as they could, so there probably weren’t many.