•Cerise•
The door to the dungeon remained open, and Cerise and Matais only had to answer questions for an hour before the champions corralled the priests into their delve. Cerise took the opportunity to sneak off with Matais and Jiotian.
Tatara popped out from behind her neck after they were a goodly ways distant from the guards. "Well, someone caught a god's fancy!" he sang out.
"What?" Cerise asked.
"Aegis Avatars are fragments of gods, and one of those deific fragments just said he wants to see you again, in a benign way." Somehow, when the faerie dragon said that it came out full of innuendos and suggestions that Cerise didn't recognize. She heard them; she just didn't understand them.
Tatara snaked his head around from her shoulder to observe her expression, paused for a moment to take in her confusion, and sighed.
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•Dungeon•
«That. Was. Awesome!» the high pitched voice screamed. Again.
«That was exhausting!» the earthen voice answered.
«Wisp, Core, you did well,» a purple light stated. «But now comes your challenge.»
«Yes, Avatar,» the two voices chorused.
The attention of the trio shifted from the tiled safe room to the bit of the exterior within Core's domain. They listened to the Twice Blessed explain the rules she had understood from Avatar, and then spend the next hour repeating herself with patience and a dignified refusal to speculate about "deeper meanings".
«I think the Mort might suspect the Origin of Aegis,» Avatar mused.
«Will he condemn us?» Wisp asked.
«The Mort's patron is not inimical to our Origin,» Avatar responded.
Core asked, «So, ah, how long do you think you'll be, um, active?»
«As long as I am needed or it's interesting, whichever ends last. I've told you this.» Avatar sounded mildly annoyed.
Wisp spoke up. «So we are in present danger?»
«Ah! Probably not, but dungeons receiving proper sacrifice around this part of the world are, well, just you right now. The whole random dungeon smash problem was the only reason our origin agreed to be bound by covenant before, and things have changed quite a lot since then. For one, far more of the surviving dungeons from that era are capable of defending themselves from all but holy war. They never liked the peaceful path to begin with.
«At this point, you can choose to give up your assigned nature and seek a different Origin of Aegis. Representatives of seven choices are gathered to delve your designs.»
Core laughed. «No! Yeah, no. I love my challenges and seeing my delvers grow. Death, Secrets, Conflict, the Wilds and the Tamed, they're important enough, but not my calling, nor do I think my concept of Mercy and Fortune quiet resonate with the domains of those origins.»
Avatar's smile could be felt in the light of e's voice. «But you do like the peaceful path.»
Core waited to respond, considering. «I don't know. For that supplicant, it was right. Knowing which path, I think, will be an interesting challenge for those who come to me for classes in the future.»
«When you are certain of your path, that will be one less need keeping me active,» Avatar stated.
【"We come to inspect this dungeon for reported aberrations from expected dungeon behavior."】 The words resonated through the crystal-filled chamber of the dungeon's core room.
«I hate that! Why do these divine types feel so wrong!?» Core complained.
Wisp sighed. «They aren't of our Origin, that's why.»
The party of divine servants methodically cleared the first floor, taking samples of the new plants Core had added after gaining so many wonderful new patterns from the Twice Blessed and her party. They also collected the first corpse of each of the different kinds of constructs they defeated, then noted down the lures the rest of that type of construct left behind when those corpses were allowed to return to the dungeon.
【"So far, I find this floor good training for Basic Beginner skills,"】 the red and yellow robed Sol-am said.
【"The rewards are commiserate to the risks, and the distractions nice without risking a run on the economy."】 That was the yellow and black robed Fors-am.
They made short work of the first floor champion, but Core was able to reclaim the body before they could stuff it into their Holding items. Pushing up a chest was child's play, nearly an autonomous action by now, as was opening the portal to the second floor.
The divine servants were clearly capable of delving dungeons with far more significant depths than this, but still it took them about an hour per floor's level to reach each boss room, until they completed the fifth floor. At the end of that fight, Core opened three portals for them.
The first would take them to the sixth floor. The second opened to a classing room. Core couldn't explain how or why the impulse to open those doors formed, but so far every time it came, the party who earned the right had had a reason to use the peace of the room.
The third room was a safe room. It was a gift of reprieve that Core gave to the parties that seemed to put the most effort in to the challenges of the dungeon. Wisp hadn't liked them, but Core wasn't interested in becoming a murder hole. The dungeon gained from having delvers delving. Sure, a body here or there helped the thorns grow, but there were delving teams that challenged Core, teams that Core did not want to eat. If anything, Core wanted to nourish those teams, so hence, the resting rooms.
The divine servants entered the class room first. The Champion of the Wilds laid out an offering appropriate to the violent path and communed with the Voice of the World. The offering was barely enough to supply the mana needed to support the conduit to the World Spirit needed for classing or whatever the delvers also did in the classing rooms.
«I really like calling the classing rooms holy places,» Core said.
Avatar said, «Holiness is, in this case, a matter of the reverence with which they are approached. That reverence also adds to the ... potency of the mana gained from the offerings.»
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«Well, that's a disturbing thought,» Core opined.
Wisp asked, «How so?»
«The divine servant's offering was barely sufficient to open the conduit, but the delver that came with the Twice Blessed on her first appearance, the weakest of the supplicants so far, gave an offering that could have held the conduit for every single one of those servants to re-class. How wrong is it for a delver to have more reverence for the gifts of the World Spirit than divine servants?» Core pointed out.
Avatar sighed, a dimming in e's light.
The servants finished their business in the classing room and explored the safe room.
【"These are guard wards,"】 the Champion of Mercy said.
【"What are they guarding?"】 the Fors-am asked.
【"This room, from violence,"】 Mercy's Champion said. 【"This is a safe room. I did not expect to find such in a challenge dungeon."】
【"Are you sure it's not a trap?"】 the Mort-el asked.
【"My lady's Blessing is quite sure this room is a place of reprieve,"】 Mercy's Champion answered.
【"Then we should take it. It's not like the dungeon needs time to reset from the party before us, so we will probably need the rest for the next floor."】 This came from the Lunar Champion.
The divine servants set a watch and rested. After a few hours, they pressed on. The sixth floor, with its labyrinth layout, took them twelve hours to thoroughly clear. Core had reset the first five floors by then, and decided to hold off on repopulating the sixth, seeing as there was only the one party delving. The traps were a different story. Leaving those triggered or disabled just felt so wrong.
Again, after the sixth floor champion fell, Core opened a safe room, and again the servants took the opportunity presented to rest.
The seventh floor was a wide open space, the first of the magically reinforced floors, and had it not been for the Champion of the Wilds, the servants would have completely missed the hidden grove.
The faerie dragons had moved en mass into the grove, and Core was fine with that. Spawning the colony had been ... a learning experience. Core had learned, and did not plan to repeat the mistake of allowing a draconic being near the dungeon's spawn points. Especially when the spawn point was close enough to affect Wisp.
Core didn't mind the faerie dragons. They weren't constructs, though, and they had a different concept of "guard the dungeon" than Core held. Fortunately, it would likely be another century before any of them were ready to make use of a spawn point. Core was not looking forward to whatever a draconic fey crossed with. The dracolisk wouldn't be a useful construct pattern for ages yet.
For that matter, faerie dragons had only just become available as constructs, though to be fair, Core had no plans to make construct bodies of fey heritage patterns, especially patterns obtained from Wisp's children. Wisp's many, many draconic children.
The faerie dragons were not the only inhabitants of the Hidden Grove. The seed the Twice Blessed delivered from the Lady of the Silverwood had been planted in the grove first, at Avatar's instructions, and Core barely had the influence in that room to present a new plant or construct to the dryad ambassador that grew from the seed.
The dryad might be quite weak at the moment, but she had charmed Wisp's dracolisk, and that creature gave the servants pause. They took only notes in the Hidden Grove, and left immediately on finding the dryad's sapling. The Wild's Champion insisted, then opened up to that Origin, becoming a conduit to lay in greater protections against discovery.
【"Please, let's leave this out of our notes and reports for the Knight-Protector,"】 the Wild's Champion asked when he was done.
【"Truth will out. Truth must out,"】 the Sol-am said.
The Lunar Champion said, 【"No, darling. You're right that truth will, at some point, come out, but wrong in trying to insist that it 'must' out right now. I mean, we have guesses and strong suspicions, but no leaden confirmation right now about the dryad's grove. If she is a Silverwood dryad, that would far more beneficial for the town, but there were a lot of Goldheart trees in there, and the guardian was draconic. She might be a Goldenwood dryad, and that is a completely different political problem."】
【"Really? The ban Silverwood causes the dungeon to act aberrantly, and we find a dryad in the dungeon. You're going to say that's not a Silverwood dryad?"】the Sol-am looked utterly unimpressed.
The Wild's Champion snorted. 【"The Ladies of the Groves are sisters. They work together. And why does a Lun have to teach a Sol to know your truth before you spread it?"】
The Mort stepped in, cutting off the Sol-am before she could let loose her offense. 【"No one is telling you to lie, or to keep this information from your fellow Solars. What all the rest of us recognize is the same thing High Champion Marsen so recently reminded his fellow Champion before us all: each truth has its own time. The time for announcing this dryad's presence here, in this dungeon, is after we have indisputable proof of her grove of origin.
【"I do realize Solaris is the god of Conflict as well as Truth. Have you considered the inherent Conflict of not creating Conflict for the god of Conflict? I realize, in all seriousness and honesty, that that is an advanced concept for Solarians, and you may need to seek out Marsen's assistance to begin examining this concept. I'm using my request to ask you to consider this before speaking."】
The Sol-am's eyes bulged, but her mouth stayed shut. It stayed shut even through the fight with the seventh floor champion, which got brutal.
The hydra was much more snake than dragon, and as the seventh floor champion, it had seven heads. Five of the heads had aspects of an alchemical element, meaning one spat fire, another acidic water, a third controlled whirlwinds, and a fourth pelted out rocky projectiles. The fifth head tracked the targets, coordinating all the strikes. The sixth head controlled the plants around the arena. The seventh head was wickedly well armored and possessed teeth able to penetrate even adamant steel armor.
Mercy's Champion spotted the Spirit head providing coordination and immediately brought the interference. The Mort withered the plant head, but not before getting speared and having to retreat to tend his wounds. The Lunar Champion neutralized the Water head's acid by carving open the toxin sacs in its neck, but was badly burned by the chemicals in the process.
That provided an opening for Mercy's Champion to greatly wound the Spirit head, but the War head interposed its armor to deflect a fatal strike. The Fors-am and Sol-am worked together to trick the Fire head into biting the War head while the Spirit was distracted.
During all of this, the servants of the Wilds and the Tamed worked together to keep the Stone and Air heads focused on them. Wild's Champion shot arrows of pure mana at the Air head and the Ager-el continually broke the rocks controlled by the Stone head into dusty dirt when he wasn't plinking any convenient hydra head.
Shrapnel in the form of broken, partly melted scales flaked off the severely wounded War head, to be caught up in a nearby whirlwind. The Wild's Champion paused long enough to send a finishing arrow down the shrieking War head's throat. That let the Air head catch him in another whirlwind, this one full of splintered rock fragments.
The Fors-am got in a lucky strike on the Air head, breaking enough of that head's concentration for the whirlwinds to retract toward the hydra's body. The shrapnel dinged up the servants, but also gave them the opportunities they needed to land decisive blows.
Mercy's Champion cleaved off the Spirit head, and it was just a matter of ducking and dodging for the rest while they waited for openings.
«And now it's my turn,» Avatar said.
Core reclaimed the hydra corpse and sent up a reward chest. Weaker versions of the recently gifted Healing Potion found their way in, along with replacement armor for the Lunar champion, rounded out with seven Minor Holding pockets of common quality. Core made sure to use one of the rare reward chests to show that this was a notch above what could be commonly, or even uncommonly, counted upon.
While the servants gathered to heal each other and the rewards drew their attention, two exits from the floor champion's arena opened up. Avatar materialized in the archway leading to the Core room. E waited there, e's armor eating both light and shadow.
The Champions reacted to Avatar first. They rose to readied battle stances, but wisely did not lift their weapons. The Mort-el spoke before the other priests could reach for defenses.
【"You claimed to be the Avatar of the Aegis protecting the classing rooms, yes?"】
"That is my nature," Avatar replied.
【"Why are you the first such Avatar I've even heard of?"】 the Mort-el asked.
"Death is only rarely concerned with the classes of mortals. Your Origins, your gods, have their own ways to manifest their Aegis. The dungeon seeds and this form before you belong to a different Origin."
【"You're quite chatty,"】 Mercy's Champion observed with a questioning lilt.
"I have some leeway in the execution of my duties now that I have been summoned by the proper invocation of the Peace-Bound Path. Attempt to cross this threshold, though, and I will obliterate you. This is not a challenge, mind you, but a boundary. My Origin is not much invested in Redemption, so you might want to spread the word that the dungeons are no longer constrained by covenant to permit violations of their heart stone rooms. They will be encouraged to meet uninvited entrance to their heart stone rooms with overwhelming lethality."