It had been two days since the scouting party had left and I spent most of that time trying to advance the proper way. You could accomplish that either by expanding your mana pool or by making your mana denser. Given the choice between quantity and quality I would choose quality every time, luckily I quickly realised that I didn’t have to choose.
As I pushed my mana further inside my body and compressed it I allowed new mana to enter freed space. I was aware this was making the process overcomplicated and it would take much longer but I had time and if needed I had an option to repeat what I did earlier. I was sure grootslangs had some more destroyed cores which I could use to forcefully expand my mana capacity.
I was expecting adventurers’ guild’s representatives in a day or so and nothing significant happened in the meantime. Although a few hours after the scouts had left my dungeon a small party of five entered they almost immediately bumped into Areth, who was checking out my mini maze.
She wanted me to make as hard as possible to find a perfect path through it that would allow crossing the room without triggering a single hostile mushroom. I made it as hard as possible but left quite a few obvious routes that would mean one or two encounters. I even changed the layout several times enjoying a little competition with my champion.
As for the unlucky adventurers, Areth prolonged the fight to almost ten minutes to allow me a good look at B rank adventurers’ skills. They were from a thieves’ guild and came here to steal me, dungeon cores’ prices reached astronomical heights on the black market and there was even a chance of a core surviving removal from the dungeon.
Among them was one C-rank, an elf, and despite it being illogical I felt drawn to him so I used my skill to look through his soul focusing solely on languages this time. I hit jackpot this time as he knew Imperial and all three local languages; Joisarhi of North-Eastern Flatland, Oigseti the language of Low Flatland Nomads and Aucian, the language of the only barony in the region that retained its identity after being absorbed by Empire. On top of that, I could read and write in all of them now.
And that was only human languages; aside from some dwarven runes, I got five elven languages including their equivalent of universal language – High elven. What interesting creatures they were. They had 8 forests just in Striped Beetle Expanse and each had their own language.
I guess it was due to their past; they used to slaughter each other regularly with abandon. Even if you got fertile only once every twenty-five years but lived for over ten thousand years the overpopulation could become a serious problem. Their solution was inelegant but effective so they stayed in the state of perpetual war for most of their history. It only changed after Empire emerged as they had to put united front. They weren’t happy about it but somehow managed to stop killing each other long enough for them to kill most of the imperial armies.
After the sixth war empire announced the elven forests were independent vassals of the Empire with the right to self-govern and exempt from all tribute. It was nothing more than legal fiction but both sides seemed pleased with it so nobody really poked at that.
Once again the elves were left with the population rapidly expanding but with no ways of easily controlling it. The solution presented itself quite soon and young elves started dying in dungeons. I was a strong supporter of this solution as I wasn’t going to turn willing food away. Sadly most parties never employed more than one elf at the time. It must have had to do something with the fact that if you had more the extras tended never return to the surface. After all elves' greatest enemy was a fellow elf.
The intruders brought nothing of interest with them except few vials of poison but I saved that for later and returned to analysing that man’s gifts. The potions were pretty basic but covered everything that adventurer would need in the dungeon; health and mana recovery, antidotes for poison, cures for paralysis and disease with the addition to some burn and acid ointments.
The metal ingot turned out to be an alloy of iron, zinc, orichalcum, copper, aluminium and chromium with minuscule amounts of silver, gold, carbon and mythril. It allowed me to replicate all but the last one. It needed some kind of component I couldn’t understand in order to retain its properties.
The arrow was made out of wood and bone with an unknown feather for the quill. It turned out to be completely useless as I could only replicate it and it would have made poor loot. If I decided ever to create arrow traps then that would be a different story, especially that it had minor enchantment allowing for greater speed and accuracy.
The true wonder was the token. Upon activation, the user was returned to the previously designated point. The magic was complicated and so far eluded my understanding. I did succeed in making a copy but it already had destination set – my entrance. Once cracked it would open a vast array of possibilities but for now, it would make good rewards for adventurers too lazy to go back the same way they came. There were also two limitations I was grateful for; it was impossible to set destination inside my dungeon due to ambient mana interference and the range was limited to little over one kilometre.
Out of a sudden, I felt the strange sensation of being in two places at once when I started seeing strange images and hearing unknown sounds I realised that it was the enhanced Farsight skill. I saw a small room with the desk at the middle and bookshelves at every wall leaving only a small opening for the door and a window. The man behind the desk raised his head from the document he was reading after hearing the knock.
“Enter” - He looked for a place to put the current document and seeing no free space he put it on the shortest pile with a sigh. – “Ah, Kaeden Randallson and Ordia Freesnow I didn’t except you before dinner. Have you rested?”
“Thank you, Deputy Guild Master Neruz, we heard you had questions regarding our report?”
“Mrs Freesnow this is standard procedure in our Roseford branch, there is no reason for concern.” – He paused to wave his arm at two empty chairs in front of his desk – “Please take a seat and give me your impression about the run.”
“The monsters were interesting and the challenge level is appropriate for E-rank adventurers” – Kaden spoke first – “For the boss, I would advise at least one D-rank to avoid any nasty surprises”
“I would add a requirement for a competent healer.” – Ordia added – “It doesn’t have to be a cleric, a druid or a ranger would do fine. A backup would be prudent.” – Seeing Neruz questioning look she added – “At one point even I failed to remove effects of the itching spores.”
“They were resistant?”
“No, just distracting enough I failed mid cast”
The deputy guild master nodded and made few quick notes on new parchment – “And the dungeon what was your impression on it?”
“It was strange, it seemed more advanced than it should be.” – Kaeden paused and then quickly added – “I saw over one hundred dungeons, from tamed and perfectly docile to wild and hating the living. I took part in the crusade against the revenant hordes the crystal of moaning steppes spawned. This one was different. I know I don’t make a lot of sense but we will regret it if we don’t get this one. Ordia knows I am right.”
“Yes, things don’t add up. You know why I am here and I am sure you are aware of my talents” – Seeing both men nodding she went on – “The complexity we saw could rival epic-ranked dungeons maybe even low legendary-ranked, you either did things in a way the dungeon wanted you to or you lost a significant part of the rewards. What was lacking was the desire for us to fail and die. We analysed the mushrooms and they all should be equally difficult to create for the dungeon. Given the maze layout, it could easily set it in a way that you had to trip that guardian mushroom in a position where you were surrounded by several screaming ones backed up by those weird buff mushrooms. It would be actually easier and less complicated and believe me this one is capable of much more than that. It just chose not to. This also has added benefit that some of our recruits may learn to think instead of charging forward in a relatively safe environment.”
“Given what you said do you believe it should be destroyed?” – Neruz asked with reluctance.
“You saw the crystals. I doubt you will find anyone in this guild willing to destroy it unless we get a serious dungeon break.” – Ordia stopped and then added after short consideration – “Actually I am pretty sure even then we wouldn’t do that provided someone talked those lunatics from the church down.”
“I doubt it will ever come to that. You saw what happened in the boss room” – Kaeden seemed convinced – “It should be stupid and act just on instinct but it doesn’t. It can be reasoned with.”
“You and your theories.” – woman sneered
“I spent more time in dungeons than you spent breathing. I always treated them fair and it never hurt me. If people like you could believe anything beyond your moronic…”
“Enough!” – Guild master cut the man short – “You are sure it wasn’t a young dungeon overreacting? Mrs Freesnow was rather rough with its boss” – Both adventurers answered with a firm no. – “Ok, I didn’t believe that either but had to ask. Tomorrow we set to establish a camp. Master Oakstaff will attempt to tame it”
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“Guild master, he only spawned the second boss after hearing us talk about staying longer. He clearly understood us shouldn’t we try communicating with it?” – Kaeden’s outburst surprised both the guild master and the healer.
“Kaeden it never tried to talk to us. It might have been coincidence” - Ordia seeing Kaeden trying to add something stopped him – “No, even if you were right we have no means to do that”
"Then what you make of the recipe it left us? Sure it was crude but the pictures were clear enough. If anything it would be harder to create such a thing without using a language. Guild master, is it usable?"
"Surprisingly yes, we had the proportions and necessary steps to follow so figuring the rest was relatively easy. It works more slowly than the standard health potions but it recovers more health. The consensus among our alchemist is that during the battle they would perform worse than the existing ones but if used outside of the fight they would be 30% more effective and they are 15% cheaper to make. We expect them to become a popular commodity as they can be manufactured locally which is likely to make them available at three-fourths of the current health potion price." - The guild master gave them time to process the information and then added - "That said, I can't imagine actually communicating with the dungeon using pictograms and we can't be sure it didn't found the recipe and mindlessly copied it. Which brings me to my next question, have you left him a starter kit?" - The look on their faces prompted next question - "What?!”
“Kaeden left him his return token as well”
“He have helped us and deserved a reward”
“And since when you believe in training dungeons?”
“For the love of the goddess, I didn’t train him. He has helped us so I returned the favour. This. Is. What. You. Do.”
“Sure if it was an intelligent being and not…”
“IT IS INTELLIGENT”
“NO, IT IS A DUNGEON”
“You should get some rest as you are leaving tomorrow for the dungeon” – Neruz stopped the argument before it had a chance to get out of control” – “Kaeden you know that if it analyses the token it may be able to stop them working in the dungeon entirely. I won’t waste time as it is already done but next time please don’t give a dungeon potentially deadly tool. I will see you tomorrow.
The vision started to fade and the last I heard was scouts continuing their argument in the corridor and the guild master’s sigh. What a useful skill, I got a lot of useful information, and called Areth to discuss it. I was even in the middle of planning a bestiary that I needed to drop on the first adventurer so they would know PROPER names for my shrooms when I felt a terrible, horrifying aura moving towards my entrance. Within seconds it was inside the dungeon and I saw the source. It was an old man wearing loose clothes and a strange hat as if he took his cape and tied it up on his head.
Where he passed I lost contact with my dungeon as if it was no longer part of me. My monsters didn’t attack him at all, not that it would have made any difference. It only stopped when he saw the door blocking access further. I felt the strange impulse, almost compulsion, to apprise him and after few seconds I had given in.
Name
Maisoon el-Sharef
Race
Human
Subspecies
-
Class
The arch-mage
Subclass
Mind mage
Rank
Sapphire
Level
218/250
HP
Unknown
Mana
Unknown
Titles
Unknown
Skills
Unknown
He must have sensed something as immediately after I was drowning in a sea of alien emotions and feelings. I was losing myself in a never-ending stream of friendly, non-threatening, helpful, kind, and other all-together positive impressions. Just before I blacked out I yelled – “STOP” – and to my shock, he did exactly that.
“You can talk?” – He stupidly asked.
“Yes I can and for the Mythic rank you don’t seem too bright” – fear and absolute certainty I could do nothing to stop him allowed me to push through with bravado – “Why did you attack me?”
“I didn’t” – He collected himself immediately – “This is how you communicate with common rank dungeons. They are quite dumb you see and anything but simplest emotions confuse them. Before you ask, it takes a lot of effort to make them even notice you are trying to communicate with them hence the intensity of the message. We humans prefer not to talk to empty air, it makes other humans look strangely at us especially that you are communicating telepathically and no one else can hear you so could you please give me something to actually talk to?”
That was weird I was a dungeon core and had no way of producing sound and there was no one else so who was going to stare? And who the hell would have had balls to make fun of the Mythic-ranked arch-mage almost ready to step into divine rank? I wasn’t going to argue that point exactly for the aforementioned reason. So I projected my image approximately 5 meters from him at his eye-level.
“So what do you want?”
“Ah, how direct. You know little bit of manners wouldn’t hurt”
“Sure because barging into someone’s home uninvited and overwhelming them with barrage of emotions was such a polite way to start the conversation”
“I assure you that was completely unintentional” – I swear my answer amused him – “As for the purpose of this visit I wanted to invite you into a cooperation with the illustrious mage guild of Roseford”
“So you wanted to tame me before the adventurers’ guild got here?”
“I wouldn’t put it that way. I guarantee that you will benefit greatly from our agreement” – with those words he pulled out an elaborate book literally from the thin air and placed it on the floor– “Here is cultivation a cultivation manual that will allow you to reach legendary ranks with ease”
“No thank you. I would prefer not to get stuck at the legendary rank if that’s of no difference to you”
He clearly was not happy with my answers and I think his patience must have run out. After all, I doubted he was used to people not doing exactly what he wanted. – “You know that I can destroy you and everything inside you with no effort. I think I will do that, of course, I will make sure you survive maybe that will make you more eager to accept my generous offer”
“Aren’t you arrogant? You realise that I can spawn nothing but swords and full plate armours for next, let’s say, ten thousand years. I guess mages in full plate could become a trademark of Roseford branch.” – I was so grateful my farsight showed me that vision. Without it, I would probably shit myself scared and agreed to anything he wanted. I knew that he wasn’t going to kill me, I was too valuable. I didn’t know why exactly but that wasn’t the important part. Then he did probably the most unexpected thing – he laughed.
“This is so much better than trying to make those clueless dungeon cores do what you wanted. You wouldn’t imagine the horror of explaining the rules to them. So what do you want for exclusive agreement with mages’ guild?”
“You are just going to give it to me?”
“Surprised? Yes, as long as it isn’t something completely unreasonable then it will actually save us both time and resources managing ordinary dungeon would entail”
“First of all why? I know it has something to do with skill crystals but I have no idea what. And don’t bullshit me, if it wasn’t extremely important I wouldn’t have a Mythic at my doorstep.”
That really took him aback and he took few minutes to answer me. Good for me as I needed a break, the stress was killing me but I knew on this conversation hinged my future. Destruction wasn’t on the table but I didn’t want to be a domesticated pet doing trick for their master. True independence was a pointless dream but I hoped to first become an asset and then a partner for them. When the mage was ready to speak he looked completely different, I guess all his act gone.
“I don’t know what you are and how do you know that but you are right, the potential you bring is significant enough so I am willing to take a chance. At least your intelligence will make this easier if it even can be done. What do you know about skill books?”
“That they exist and are similar to my skill crystals.”
“You are wrong. From what I can tell they are completely different. They use imperfect symbols, words, to pass information and it is impossible to record that perfectly. When created the most respected masters use a lot of redundant information to ensure that if some part has a mistake in it there is another correct one. With legendary skill, there is 60% chance to fail to learn it and that is only true if the skill book was produced by the best. If that is all that goes wrong then all you lost is a lot of gold. Every skill book can damage the mind or in extreme cases be rejected injuring the body. The catch is that the only way to see if the book works is to use it. And that doesn’t even cover people trying to learn skills beyond their ability. According to adventurers’ guild researchers, your crystals could potentially bypass those problems or at least lessen them.”
“And if that’s not true?”
“Then you are still extremely intelligent dungeon capable of producing other valuable resources so no one loses by investing in you”
“I will open the door please don’t attack and don’t go through” – I decided to take a risk, it wasn’t a huge risk as I was sure he could go through that door whenever he wanted. I quickly created small silver chest and filled it with 10 sense danger skill crystals. The task of carrying it to the mage fell to the closest golden grootslang. He levitated it in front of himself and crossed into the room.
*Greetings human* - with that he left the chest and went back into the dungeon. I closed the door behind him.
“What was that? – The mage asked.
“Acting in good faith”
“You know what I meant, the creature, what was that?” – After several minutes of silence, he added – “Fine we will talk later about it.”
He took the chest, opened it and surprised touched one of the crystals. He seemed satisfied and seemed ready to leave. – “I will be back later”
“Ok, but bring back the adventurer with you, one named Kaeden Randallson.” – That got his attention.
“Why do you care about him? Who is he to you?”
“Nobody, but he gave me a nice gift so I want to repay the favour”
“You want me to believe you are a friendly dungeon that wants to get along with adventures?!”
“Hell no. I want you to trust me” – He raised a brow at me. He didn’t buy that for a second. – “Listen I know how people think about dungeons and for all I know they may be right. I want to grow strong, strong enough that I don’t have to fear a random mythic asshole dropping inside my dungeon and obliterating me because he could. And for that, I need to keep my promises and not kill everything that enters. I want guilds to value me as that will get me resources I need. So if you treat me fairly I will do the same.”
“And what then, you get to divine rank and kill all nice adventurers as you won’t need them?”
“You should have realised by now I am not a complete moron. Yeah I will be able to kill ten divine-rank adventurers at that rank but I won’t stand a chance against one hundred and the Empire would make sure I would regret that for the rest of my life. I am also pretty sure they are quite rare so I am going to get more benefit from one regularly fighting inside me than killing him and seeing no other for years.”
He didn’t seem entirely convinced and surely didn’t trust me but I had a feeling I managed to prove to him a deal would be the best course of action. I was 100% honest when I said I was going to honour all the deal as only that gave a good chance not only for survival but for the life I wanted. I had important negotiations ahead so I called Areth hoping she could help.