The Sundered Canyons are perhaps the most notable terrain feature west of the Farza Mountains. Some would of course argue that the Primal Forest or the Red Desert are more notable, however I would argue that both of those are relatively mundane compared to the wonder of the Sundered Canyons. The commonness of trees and sand makes the features of the Primal Forest and Red Desert less noteworthy in comparison to the awesome history of the Sundered Canyons.

The Sundered Canyon was first made during the fall of the God Beasts. It is said that a real Dragon, not some mere Wyrm, fought on even terms with three of the God Beasts. The Sundered Canyon was formed by a single one of the dragon’s breath attacks, leaving a giant scar on the side of our world. During the same fight one of the God Beasts threw a mountain at the Dragon, who slapped it away into the ground. That mountain now divides the Sundered Canyon into two, two twins of north and south. The Sundered Canyon becomes The Sundered Canyons.

* An excerpt from ‘The History of the Sundered Canyons’ by Tallok Jones the Third

----------------------------------------

Eternal Dungeon POV

An hour had passed by the time Wyla was finished and I teleported my avatar, Wyla’s avatar, Bellator, and Aika all to my core room to regroup. This way I could get everyone's reports at the same time, just in case one of my Chosen had some unique insight into the situation. I was also quite excited to hear what Wyla and Tor had been up to after I left. I really wanted to know who ‘won’ the negotiation, although I have a feeling my resident tree is the one who came out on top regardless.

I created a more intimate seating arrangement with a smaller central table for us to sit around. I decided for cushions and rugs as opposed to chairs so that Bellator could sit more comfortably with us. I settled in and Wyla sat opposite of me. Bellator settled down right next to me and placed his enormous head in my lap, drawing a glare from a still standing Aika.

“Comfortable Bellator?” I asked him, looking down with a genuine amused smile.

“Very, my lord.” His voice sounded through our connection.

“Although it could be more comfortable. . . “ He trailed off looking pleadingly at my hands.

I let out a chuckle and began to gently stroke his head with my left hand. Bellator lets out a deep thrum of a purr, making him sound like a generator. His eyes close with contentment and his many tails move in slow curling and swaying motions.

I look back up to see Wyla wearing a very amused expression, her eyes flickering between myself and something to my right. I turn to see Aika with an adorable pout on her face as she glares daggers at Bellator.

This ends up being too much for me and I start laughing. Full bellied, breath shortening laughs that force me to rely on the table for support. Wyla joins me in my laughter as Aika looks on with her annoyed expression.

“Aika, come here.” I motion to her once I recover from my laughter.

She walks forwards slowly with a confused look on her face. I make a patting motion on the ground next to me to indicate for her to sit. She reluctantly obeys sitting next to me while maintaining her annoyed pout.

I reach out and wrap my free arm around her, pulling her into my body and gently stroking her head. She tenses up momentarily before relaxing her body. She tentatively reaches her arms around my body in a hug, moving slowly as though waiting for a reprimand. When none comes she embraces me and pulls herself closer to my body, placing her head on my shoulder.

“There, there. I love all of my children, especially you two, my chosen. There’s no reason for either of you to ever be jealous of the other.” I say gently, using my best grandfather voice.

Wyla watches from across the table with a smile on her face. I meet her eyes for a moment and she mouths ‘You're a good dad’ to me, making me chuckle lightly.

I spend several moments reassuring Aika and patting Bellator, until I feel both of them in a calm state of mind. Bellator has been calm the entire time, but I don’t want to single Aika out. Once they're calm I gently push both of them away, making them take a proper seat at the table.

“As nice as this was, do not forget that I am still your lord.” I say establishing that this will not be a common occurrence.

Both Bellator and Aika give resolute nods to my statement and I can see a new determination in their eyes, making me smile. While I do genuinely feel familial love for my two chosen, in the end I am still the dungeon core, I am still their god. A certain level of distance needs to be maintained, I have absolute control over them, it is impossible to be equals.

That being said, I did enjoy my role as the grandfather figure. I don’t plan on retiring this character or Avatar, so they’ll both get a chance to be close to me again. I certainly don’t mind as I made their fur incredibly soft and fluffy. I’d try to touch one of Aika’s tails but I know that the Spiritkin have developed a bit of a culture where touching one's tail is almost always some kind of a romantic gesture. I definitely don’t want to give her any ideas, it's too easy for someone as young as her to get emotionally confused.

“Now then, we should get started on the actual reports. Wyla, I’ll give command of the conversation to you. I expect you’ll have the most to say.” I state, refocusing on the original point of this meeting.

“Very well. First I’ll go over the final details of our new deal with the Adventurers Guild. Once that’s done we should have a discussion of what plans you have in store going forwards.” Wyla says.

I nod my agreement and motion for her to continue speaking. It was about time I discussed some of my future plans with them anyways. I would also need to tell Wyla the full details of what happened with Amy and her patron.

“After you left to discuss with the Guild Leader the Guildmaster Tor and I had a rather fruitful discussion of what benefits we would extend to the Adventurers Guild in exchange for them waving their rights to regulate the dungeons entrance. I will say on a personal note that if you weren’t so determined to conceal your true strength, we could’ve just ignored the whims of these mortals.” Wyla says, giving me a slightly annoyed look.

I smile at her and motion for her to continue speaking. Her avatar heaves a sigh and through my dungeon senses I can detect her true body opening its pores in a replication of the expression. After a few moments Wyla continues speaking.

“Tor initially demanded a 40% discount on all purchases involving EC as well as a free room and board for all adventurers while within the dungeon. That of course is outrageous so I counter offered a 5% discount and free housing in the main city on every hub floor. From there we negotiated towards one another and traded stipulations. The fact that the only thing we were asking for was for them to lift the entrance regulations meant that I was forced to get creative when asking for other concessions.” Wyla gives me a slight annoyed look after that.

I suppose it made sense, in a more standard negotiation there would be more points of contention for each party to give or take from based on what their actual goals were. Part of an actual negotiation was cleverly disguising what you actually wanted behind a veil of other things that didn’t matter to you.

Of course that primarily applied to political negotiation, but I wouldn’t point that out. In a sense this was political since both our parties hold enough power to be considered on par with a nation. In the end it didn’t matter, I had had confidence in Wyla’s negotiating skills regardless of how difficult I made things for her.

“So, what were the final terms that you settled on with the Adventurers Guild?” I asked her since she had stopped speaking before revealing it.

“In the end I agreed to a 20% discount on all EC shops, excluding Chip’s. In addition to a 10% discount on specialty stores that used other forms of transactional currency. This discount wouldn’t apply on any bartering transactions.

Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

We also agreed to give the Adventurers free room and board, with two meals a day in any inn run directly by the dungeon and not through proxies such as the Spiritkin or other dungeon creatures.” She says with an evil smirk on her face.

“Ahh I see, the Guildmaster must’ve been under the impression that I would be in charge of all the inns within my dungeon. I take it he didn’t realize that the only inns that will meet your requirements are the ones I place within your trunk, in other words the inn within the main city of each of my hub floors.” I say with an amused expression.

“Precisely” She says.

We enjoy a short bout of amused laughter at the expense of the Guildmaster. Wyla had already known that my plans for the next floor involved several inns/taverns that would be run by the locals instead of by me directly.

“There are a few extra additions to our deal that we ended up agreeing on.” She says, regaining her business-like demeanor.

“We will be allowing the Adventurers Guild to be the first group to utilize our newly completed Guild system and we’re also giving them two extra quest slots each day. In addition we are to give them a small stipend of EC each day as a small return for their lost profits.” She finishes.

“Not too bad. You did an excellent job with the negotiations, I expected them to have gotten more from it.” I praise her.

“I expect that despite everything, they still underestimate the true value of your dungeon.” She says, concealing the pride she feels with disdain for the Guildmaster.

“Well we’ve done an excellent job in concealing the value of our dungeon. It was only to be expected that they don’t realize our true worth.” I say, making sure to emphasize the inclusive language.

Wyla gives me a bright and beautiful smile and I can feel her swirling emotions through our close bond. We spend a moment simply communicating with our feelings through the bond, something we’ve been doing more often recently. Having someone you can implicitly trust is a good feeling.

“Alright enough about what we gave up, tell me what we gained.” I say imploring her to finish her report with the good bits.

“The Guild will no longer regulate who comes in and out of the dungeon, it is essentially completely open to the public. The Guild has also agreed not to sell any information about the dungeon without first consulting us. I’ve already appointed myself as the liaison with the outsiders as per the lore you’ve already written.” She informs me, clearly happy about being able to achieve my goal of opening up the dungeon.

“Excellent. I’ll activate all of the dungeon rules that we wrote as soon as Tor and Amy leave the dungeon.” I say rubbing my hands together in excitement.

Wyla and I had spent days writing a complex set of dungeon rules that would regulate how many people could be in the dungeon at once, how many could be in each part of the dungeon at once, as well as what levels and ranks could enter the dungeon. Suffice to say that nothing could enter the dungeon that my creatures wouldn’t at least have a chance of beating.

“There are also a few extra stipulations I was able to add to our side of the deal.” Wyla says enticingly with a proud look displayed.

“Oh do tell.” I say, refocusing on her.

“I managed to make the Guild agree to supply us with detailed maps and books of the world, especially focused on our home continent of Aveneast. I also secured an agreement that they would protect the dungeon from any other factions seeking to take control of our entrance. A necessary precautionary measure to ensure that the Guild actually fulfills their part of the deal and doesn’t just sell the rights to our entrance to another group and claim it’s out of their hands.” She says, finishing the report.

“Good call. While I don’t think that the Guild would act in bad faith like that, it's better to have it all in the agreement just in case. You never know when a volatile change in leadership can happen. Although I doubt that Amy is ever going to lose her position.” I say with a slight chuckle at the end.

With fate magic it would be impossible for Amy to not see the schemes of any rivals coming from miles away. It would be different if she was using the magic on her own, but the magic she wielded was being directly supplied by an Outer God. With the complete lack of local Gods on Aven there was nothing that could beat her in a divination fight.

“Alright, with Wyla’s report finished. Aika, Bellator, do either of you have anything you’d like to say before we conclude this meeting?”

“I thought we were going to be discussing your plans for the future?” Aika asks from next to me.

“Wyla and I will be doing that, the two of you will be looped in once we’ve had our own discussion. I’ve yet to lock anything into stone other than a few far off objectives, you’ll have plenty of time to give your own input later.” I tell her in a firm tone.

In truth I just don’t want them to start arguing with the way Wyla will be talking to me once we start discussing future plans. Wyla’s been acting very subservient and respectful for the time being, but I’ll need her unfiltered opinions to help me actually refine my plans for the future. I don’t blame Aika and Bellator for the way they perceive me, but it certainly gets in the way when I need someone to tell me if I’m wrong about something.

“Of course Lord Eternal, forgive my impudence!” Aika quickly squeaks out with a bow.

Yeah, this is why I can’t let her be a part of the discussion yet. I’m infallible in her eyes, and it's better for me if I don’t break that illusion for the time being.

“It is fine Aika. Now I can sense both you and Bellator’s desire. Make your requests and then I will send you back to the second floor.” I say. I can sense through our connection that the both of them have wanted to say something ever since I asked if they had had anything to say.

“Well. . . I would appreciate having my own home. I have felt uncomfortable around my parents ever since I was selected to be your Chosen. I would like a space that’s my own, where I can receive guests away from the eyes in the streets.” Aika says timidly, as though afraid of my reaction to her words.

“That’s fine. As my Chosen you will need to have a presence on any floor I require you on. I will give you a permanent residence within Wyla’s Trunk.” I say.

Aika seemed to sigh in relief. She really needed to stress less about my reactions. I would think that my actions towards her would’ve proven that she has nothing to be afraid of. I suppose no one would ever be fully comfortable around their literal God.

“Does the first Vinepaw that you made still live?” Bellator asks me.

“She does. Currently I have her on the first floor as a hidden boss. No one has managed to fight her yet, I made the requirements quite difficult to meet.” I respond, now curious about his request.

“I would like to have a bout with her if possible. I have longed to defeat her and claim her as my own ever since she first defeated me.” Bellator says with a longing look on his feline face.

“Don’t you already have two females in your pride?” I question with a raised eyebrow.

“I do, but I have had my eyes on her for a long time. Besides, it is the right of any male to claim as many females as he is able to protect territory for. I have claimed much territory.” Bellator says proudly puffing up his chest.

I shake my head and chuckle at his adorable grammatical error and mumble ‘Lions’ in an exasperated manner under my breath. Wyla gives a light chuckle at his antics as well.

“Very well, I’ll give you an opportunity to fight her. However I won’t make it easy. I’ve yet to give her a name so I think this will do nicely as a reward. If you fail to defeat her I’ll give her a name myself and if you succeed then you can name her.” I tell him.

Bellator nods excitedly, his tails now lashing back and forth in impatience. His determined look makes me smile, but I suppress my laughter this time. While the Vinepaw is strong there’s no way that she’ll beat a Mythical ranked Bellator. Especially when I consider the experience difference between them. Perhaps I’ll give her a little boost before their fight.

“Alright if that is all, then the two of you can return for now. I still need to speak with Wyla” I dismiss them.

Both Aika and Bellator nod in agreement and take their leave.

“Alright then, let's get a move on as well.” I say standing up from the table and slowly dismissing my avatar.

“I thought we were going to have a discussion about the future?” Wyla asks.

“We will, we just might as well do it while working on the next floors. We have a lot to do before the dungeon gets fully opened up to the public.” I say.

Wyla nods and dismisses her avatar as well. I don’t want to store what is basically a meat suit anywhere, so I slowly dismantle the Avatar and reabsorb it. With the blueprint I’ll be able to spontaneously materialize my avatar anywhere within my aura, so there’s no need to keep the thing around.

Once Wyla and I have reunited with our full selves we quickly access the dungeon and then split our focuses again. Now with a large portion reserved for the creation of the next floor. The Fifth floor also needs more work before I consider it fully finished as well. Much to do and only so much time to do it.

Time to get back to work.