“I’m not sure if I can,” Serenity admitted, “but if it’s what you want, I can try.” Serenity knew he didn’t owe anything to them, but at the same time he didn’t see any reason not to do what they asked. It wasn’t going to cost anything but some Etherium and some effort. On top of that, no matter what happened, he’d learn something.
If he managed to bind Rakyn to a dungeon, that would be huge. Serenity wasn’t certain how long his parents would live normally with the bonuses they’d get from Tiering up, but they weren’t young by any means. They wouldn’t live forever. It was entirely likely that he’d lose them if he didn’t do something about it, and dungeon monsters didn’t have the same sort of natural expiration as ordinary humans.
As he thought that, he remembered an old woman he met all the way back in the Tutorial, the shaman who gave him the Crystal Seed. He’d never found her, but she was both a true human and a dungeon monster. It seemed entirely plausible that he was going to try something that had been done before.
Rakyn turned to Desinka. He opened his mouth but didn’t say anything for a long moment.
“Is leaving Tzintkra acceptable?” Desinka asked her father before he figured out what to say. “It’s not comfortable for me under the circumstances, but I know you came back here after Mom left us.”
Rakyn shook his head. “I came here to have a place to safely raise you. I know a lot of people who think that’s strange, but Tzintkra … the Shining Caverns have always been a good place for children. I know you were happy here. It’s no longer the right place for you, and without you there’s nothing holding me here. I don’t know where I’ll go if you head somewhere I can’t; I’d probably stay here. If I can follow you, I would prefer to.”
Desinka nodded and turned to Serenity, but her father set a hand on her shoulder to stop her.
“Give it some time.” Rakyn turned to Serenity. “You’ll be on Tzintkra for a few days, I hope?”
Serenity nodded. “Probably three or four, as long as I can find Stojan Tasi quickly.”
Rakyn’s eyebrows both jumped, but he managed to hide any other signs of surprise from Serenity. Aide saw several Serenity missed, but he told Serenity his conclusion was the same: Rakyn hadn’t expected Serenity to talk about the City Lord so casually. “Then come get us when you’re ready to leave. We need some time to talk, but we’ll be ready to leave when you are, one way or the other.”
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The Whale of a Time Inn was just as nice as the first time. Serenity could have afforded an even fancier room than the suite he’d stayed in with Hale and Katya, but there was no reason to. A single room was plenty.
There was no messenger from the City Lord’s mansion by morning, so Serenity checked in with them and found out that Stojan Tasi had still not returned. Rather than spend the day waiting around, he decided to visit the A Rest from Death dungeon. He hadn’t been there in years and while he theoretically could check on it from anywhere on Tzintkra, it seemed better to go in person. Nothing felt like it was wrong, but he’d know better when he was there.
It was several hours’ travel away from the Shining Caverns since there was no portal and no ley line, but it was still reachable that day. The landscape mostly hadn’t changed, though when he got near the dungeon it was clear there were a lot of people coming through. Even though the vast majority used flyers, there was a path that led to the dungeon from the side. Serenity wasn’t certain what was at the other end of the path, but there had to be something. It might even be another dungeon, a more standard one where you had to fight.
Before he reached the A Rest from Death dungeon, Serenity could see several dozen flyers left outside. They were all basic models that couldn’t easily be collapsed or placed into storage, but the presence of so many flyers told Serenity that the dungeon had to be busy.
There was no fee to enter, a fact which both surprised and pleased Serenity. It was clear once he was inside that they had a different business model; there was a sign on one of the walls that gave prices for a bunch of different items, with a note at the bottom that there were more items available on request. The prices seemed pretty reasonable, but it was clear what had happened: they’d realized that more people in the dungeon meant more dungeon points they could turn into items they could sell, so they’d decided to let people stay for free and tempt them to buy those items.
It seemed to be working. There were well over fifty people in the dungeon.
It had doubled in size in both horizontal directions, which meant that even with so many people there was plenty of room. In fact the dungeon was clearly set up for several times as many people as were already in the main room. Serenity was fairly certain he also saw some doors leading off the main room; they felt like alcoves, but they were probably private sleeping areas and practice areas. They were large enough for it.
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A large number of creature comforts had either been brought to the dungeon or more likely bought from the dungeon; if Serenity remembered the costs correctly, they were relatively cheap. In the numbers he saw, however, it would add up. They were probably there to, once again, encourage people to spend time in the dungeon and build up dungeon points.
Whatever they’d done, it was good. The dungeon felt healthy. He could feel the way the subsidiary core welcomed everyone who entered, especially Serenity. It had even graduated from simply sheltering the area from the pervasive death-affinity mana to actually providing a supporting, healing field.
The people running the dungeon didn’t seem to take much note of Serenity and he tried not to stand out. The general population here was clearly mostly delvers, which made it far easier; that was one of the few populations where Serenity felt truly comfortable.
Serenity found an unclaimed bed and sat down. Unlike most of the delvers, he didn’t have a pack to drop, but that was easy enough to fix; there were several in his Rift. Any of them would serve to mark the bed as claimed if he got up.
For now, however, he simply lay back and relaxed while he listened to the conversations around him. They were interesting, since they were mostly about dungeons. There was little discussion of A Rest from Death, but Serenity could hear people chatting about several others. Even more interesting, there was some chatter about an expedition to not only map but recover some of the deadlands.
An expedition they were scouts for.
Serenity wanted to listen more, but his connection to the dungeon pulled his attention away from the talking. It had something to tell him.
It took Serenity a while to understand what it was saying, because it kept showing him furniture that he could see around the room. Eventually, the dungeon showed him a target dummy that healed over time as long as it wasn’t too badly injured and he figured it out: the dungeon had figured out how to make something that was somewhere in between an animated construct and a mimic.
It was technically alive like a mimic and could, to an extent, shapeshift, but it didn’t have a monstrous form. Instead, it had two or three different types of furniture it could change into. In the case of the target dummy, that meant it could “be” two or three different changeable yet unmoving monster shapes and it could move slowly on a predefined path.
It could also manage to make shifting tools. The dungeon suggested that they might even be able to exit the dungeon.
Serenity resolutely rejected that suggestion. Once the monsters were outside the dungeon, then you break free from it and become dangerous. Just as importantly, whether they were inside or outside the dungeon, the tools had no way to know which form someone wanted them in. Perhaps some sort of switch or trigger could be added, but Serenity just couldn’t come up with a case where he was willing to risk the monsters separating from the dungeon. It was better to simply have separate tools.
Desinka’s bond to the dungeon was different. Chances were that she could have broken it if she tried, especially if she went too far, but it was set up to hold outside the dungeon. She also wanted the bond to stay, which helped immensely.
The thought of Desinka made Serenity realize that his plans to move her were dangerous for the dungeon; it needed monsters to do something to the mana that flowed through it. They acted as part of the cleansing system, or maybe the residue disposal; Serenity wasn’t certain which. It might well be both.
In fact, with the expansion the A Rest from Death dungeon had gone through and all the people that were inside it, it needed more monsters than it had. Now that he thought about it, that was probably why the dungeon was presenting “safe” monsters to Serenity. He was glad he’d decided to make the trip.
Furniture, especially target dummies, made a lot of sense to Serenity. He told the dungeon to go ahead and offer choices. They could be based around a new kind of point system, which would let the dungeon tune how many monsters it had; different monster types could occupy different amounts of the “transforming decor budget.” They’d have to spend points as well, but the dungeon could tune that as it needed.
Serenity suspected it would mostly be used in the training areas. There were four of them and they ranged from a small room with no furnishings other than padding to a large obstacle course and a target range. Serenity suspected that more would be added in the future if the dungeon kept expanding.
He built a few options with it and made certain that some of them did have triggers to tell them when to shift to another shape. The ones that didn’t were all either target dummies or furniture where the change was tolerable - for example, a couch might become a bed or a table might change sizes. As long as they did it while they weren’t in use, it would be fine.
Serenity trusted the dungeon to follow the “safety” rule that was embedded in its formation and not allow the monsters to shift when it might cause problems for visitors. Having the target dummies be unnerving was a plus in his mind, since it would allow practice against some very odd combinations.
With mimics on his mind, he asked the dungeon if it would be willing to have monsters that could fight but were harmless. The one that came to mind was a foam mimic; it would try to eat people if they fell for it, but the “eating” would be dumping them into a padded interior of foam to make the point.
The dungeon was thrilled and wanted to add them throughout the area, but Serenity convinced it to add the foam mimics to the same list as the shifting target dummies for purchase. He knew that allowing the people supervising the dungeon to choose to add the mimics and set their locations would be a lot less likely to scare people away from the dungeon, especially once they started adding other shifting furniture.
Serenity was in a great mood when he emerged from the trance he’d spent talking to the dungeon. He’d solved problems he didn’t even know he had without creating any new ones. At the same time, he’d had the chance to design some fun yet slightly disturbing practice equipment, which was fun.
Serenity planned to offer the idea to Aki when he got back to Earth. She’d love it. She’d probably love it even more than he did.