Chapter 40

“There’s someone in Gamma dungeon,” Tom reported.

The others were gathering up for their daily delve into Alpha Dungeon. Sevin, Jessica, Emil and Grant were planning to grind through whatever wild monsters the labyrinth had spawned. Tom had been taking the census for them, so that they would know what to expect as they conquered the first three floors once more.

“Is that a problem?” Grant asked. “I mean, I believe that Dungeons are viewed as communal property, so it is fair that adventurers might delve Gamma to claim whatever resources in it that they can, is it not?”

“I’m just worried. The minotaurs there are really strong,” Tom explained. “I don’t really want anyone except for monsters dying in my dungeons. Even then, I sort of worry about Lo and Brutus.”

“How many spawned since we cleared it out last?” Sevin asked.

“All of them. Remember how when they started spawning again I lowered the number of rooms down to four? Well, one of the rooms has two of them in it now instead of just one,” Tom answered. He frowned. “I wish that I could sense what was going on there better. They’re fighting now in the first room. There’s five of them and …”

He went silent as he struggled to focus through the distance to the other dungeon. The fight lasted several minutes, but in the end he exhaled a sigh of relief as the adventurers emerged victorious.

“They won,” he announced. “The first minotaur is dead.”

He continued to watch through the distance as the adventurers set up a choke point down the hall, and several Commoners came into the dungeon behind them. Using pickaxes, the commoners began to chip into the wall. It took him a moment for him to realize what they were doing.

“They’re mining!” he announced. “They’re not even there for the experience, they’re there for the iron ore that the dungeon has been Seeding into its walls.”

“Is that a problem?” Grant asked again. “I actually mean it this time, I don’t know what the mineral rights are like in this world. Are they breaking any laws by damaging a dungeon to mine it?”

“I’m not certain either,” Tom admitted. “I mean, I can just fix the damage they caused even from here. And the dungeon will continue to Seed iron until I tell it to stop. And I’m not certain who to ask; if I ask the king, he might figure out that I have Seed as my level ten ability. I sort of lied to him and told him that my level ten ability was Link, since I let that one slip anyway.”

“Why did you do that again?” Sevin asked.

“I didn’t exactly intend to lie,” Tom admitted. “When Summon summoned three people instead of one I let it slip that I was a progenitor and one of my abilities was Link. Fenard made the assumption that I got it at level ten, and I just never corrected him.”

“It may be time to do just that, Tom,” Grant said. “If Seed is an ability unique to you, then you ought to be compensated for its usage, and it ought to be part of any future negotiations between the king and yourself.”

“I suppose. I just wasn’t certain how much to trust Fenard when we first met,” Tom admitted. “I don’t think he’s a bad guy. I understand why he wants me to work for him so badly, but I don’t like the way that I wasn’t really given a choice.”

“I hate to point this out,” Jessica said, “but it was Antoine who first used the word ‘conscription.’ A lot of how we viewed the king was based on what Antoine told us during the journey. Apparently everyone knows that he hates the king, and maybe he has a reason to, but we might be letting his opinions influence ours too much.”

“I’ve thought as much as well,” Grant agreed. “I’ve seen no direct evidence that Fenard isn’t a man of his word and that he can’t be trusted. His attempts to bind you in some way are quite understandable for a ruler in his position, Tom, given the importance of your Class for the functioning of the society of this world. I certainly wouldn’t say that he’s done anything wrong, although perhaps he has been coming on a little strong.”

Tom looked around at the estate that he had been given and he sighed. “He has given me a lot, actually, now that I think about it. Maybe it is time to trust him more. I’ll send him a message asking to talk with him, and I’ll explain about Seed when he arrives.”

“If you’d have me, I’d like to be in on that conversation, Tom,” Grant volunteered. “In the role of an advisor, of course. I have some experience in negotiations over resources, after all, and I believe I can help you.”

“Thanks Grant,” Tom said. “There are fifty-two burrowers on the first floor, and thirty-two Rock spiders on the second. Sixteen gnolls on the third. You’re not going any deeper than that, are you?”

“Actually,” Emil said, “I have a new ritual I want to try out. It’s a pest control spell. I’m going to supercharge it and cast it on the fourth floor and see if I can make it strong enough to get experience from it.”

Emil had fallen behind the others in level due to the setup time that he required for his magic. He was hoping that this new spell he’d discovered would help him bridge the gap.

“Alright, well, there’s a hundred and six spiders and thirty-two asps on the fourth floor. Oh, and there’s also two minotaurs aside from Brutus on the fifth. I don’t think you should fight them though. They might be too much for you without my minions supporting you,” Tom said.

The others thanked him, and they separated. Tom returned to the manner to write a letter to the king using the enchanted pen that would transmit the words to its counterpart in the king’s palace. The others entered Alpha dungeon through the archway that led underground.

Because they had been delving there so often, the ritual circle that Emil had set up on their last run was still active. In fact, a burrower had recently walked over it, and the remnant magic had been strong enough to kill it. The dungeon was in the process of reclaiming the beast, which was down to its skeleton. Emil nodded when he saw that.

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“Leaving behind the trap sigils works,” he said. “I noticed a trickle of experience throughout the night, and I’m pretty sure it came from these circles killing burrowers walking across or nearby them.”

“In that case, you should totally set up a bunch more as we clear the first floor again,” Jessica informed him.

Sevin was rather less enthused at waiting around for the Ritualist to draw squiggles and circles on the floor and the walls, but he didn’t complain. Grant, meanwhile, was already looking and listening for their prey.

Emil spent a moment quickly touching up his trap circle, then charging it up again with his mana reserves. He then quickly drew a trio of other circles on the ground, which he didn’t empower, but simply made copies of out of light and mana. The interior of one of those circles cackled with electricity, the other two contained fire. Those were his offensive spells, and while they were effective, they were single use, and he could only prepare three of them at a time. After that, he would fall back to the dagger he had borrowed from Tom to defend himself should they be swarmed.

That was unlikely to be an issue, however. When they came across the first pack of burrowers, seven strong, the team allowed him to expend his ritual spells first. The electrical spell shot lightning so bright that it hurt to look at, but the lightning grounded out after frying one of the burrowers. The fire spells were sent forward next, meeting the charging rodent-monsters, and both circles exploded, engulfing three more of the burrowers in flame and knocking the rest back.

Grant took care of the rest, stepping forward and stabbing them with his legerdemain ability; despite never coming within arms reach of the monsters, he easily dispatched them with his twin daggers. His arms neither grew nor stretched, nor did the blade. The distance between the blade and the monsters simply shrank when he willed it to, allowing him to dispatch the monsters with ease.

Jessica called it ‘freaky spacial mechanics,’ and the magicians whom the crown had sent to investigate the abilities of the new Heroes agreed with her. Grant was not the first Legerdemain hero they’d ever seen, and they had examined his skills with several spells to get a better idea of his limits. Three meters, about ten feet by Grant’s sensibilities, was about his limit. Within that radius, however, he was quite deadly.

Emil quickly began sketching a few more trap circles on the ground while Grant finished cleaning up the rest of the monsters. When he finished those, he began recreating more of the fire and lightning spells in this room as well. Once they were drawn on the floor, he created the empowered mana-light versions of them, and they proceeded deeper into the dungeon.

They would have made better time were it not for the slow pace they were taking to allow Emil to prepare his rituals, but they eventually found the entrance to the second floor. They didn’t bother clearing the entire first floor; the burrowers didn’t give anyone in the party very much experience any longer.

On the second floor, Emil switched to a new sort of offensive spell. When the circle enveloped one of the rock spiders on this floor, it caused the rock exoskeleton they were named for to collapse in on itself, crushing the monsters’ gooey innards. The best part of the spell in Emil’s opinion was that it was not single use. He could only maintain one of them at a time, but he could fling it about the room with ease as he targeted one spider after another.

The others had their own ways of dealing with the population of the second floor. Sevin had taken to carrying a sledgehammer for the very purpose of crushing the rock spiders. Jessica’s napalm spell boiled them alive, although she was also attempting to use her Sonic Sovereignty abilities to resonate with their exoskeletons and cause them to break apart. That second strategy was mostly experimental in nature; she hadn’t perfected it by any means.

As for Grant; he continued stabbing things in their giant ugly eyes.

The first floor took them thirty minutes to navigate, and the second close to an hour. On the third, they remained for two hours hunting gnolls. Emil switched back to the fire and lightning spells, and Sevin to his spear. Jessica focused on deafening the enemies, her sonic magic causing them extreme auditory pain and significantly reducing the packs of jackal-like monsters’ cohesion and effectiveness in battle.

Grant continued stabbing things.

At the conclusion of one battle, a shadow moved and Grant just about stabbed it. Except that it dodged. It dodged his legerdemain skills. He’d never seen that happen before.

He went to stab again, but found that his body was frozen.

“I do not know you, but you are friends of the master, no?” the monster asked.

“Lo? Is that you?” Jessica asked.

“Yes.”

Jessica relaxed, although the others remained on guard. Sevin had never completely trusted the monster that Tom had claimed so long ago, and it had been weeks since they’d seen him last.

“Everyone calm down, he’s not here to fight. Are you, Lo?” Jessica asked, the tone of the question showing that she too had a few doubts about the master.

“You are in my territory, but you have only been slaying the hated ones,” Lo said. “I accept the offering of dead gnolls as the price for admittance. But those who slay the korgoath of this chamber will face my ire.”

“Well, that’s the reason we’re here to begin with; to kill gnolls,” Jessica explained. “They’re very good experience. Tom is thinking about leveling the core again soon so that we’ll be able to keep fighting them until level twenty. He was holding off because he wanted to ask how that would affect you.”

“It would make the hated ones stronger,” Lo answered, “But I and the pack would also gain more experience, and thus would also become stronger. I will approve of this action as long as Tom levels the Core slowly and gives my pack and I time to adjust to the stronger hated ones.”

“We’ll pass the message along,” Jessica promised. “Lo, do you know the way to the next floor?”

“Yes,” Lo said. He turned and looked over his shoulder. “Follow.”

They followed, eventually reaching the stares which led downward. “The pack seldom hunt down there. The snakes are dangerous, and the spiders are not good for eating. I will take you no further.”

“That’s fine. Thanks Lo,” Jessica said cheerfully, and the monster parted from their company.

They interrupted a pair of spiders mating in the first room of the fourth floor, and Jessica turned the unfortunate couple into ash. The others stood guard while Emil prepared the spell that they had come to cast.

The ritual was more complex than most, but not the most complex ritual that Emil had practiced. It took him ten minutes to draw out in the floor using the stick of silver chalk he had brought for the purpose. When he completed it, he turned to the others, who gave him various encouragements, before pumping all of his remaining Mana into the ritual circle at once.

A visible wave of magic light shot out from the circle, passing harmlessly through everyone and continuing outward in an ever expanding sphere. Aside from the light show, there seemed to be no effects until Emil received a message from the system.

Congratulations! You have reached level fourteen!

You have received your level 10 skill: Ethereal Summoning!

Emil blinked for a moment, then turned to the others. “It worked better than I was expecting it to. I think I just killed every spider on this floor, because I just gained eight levels at once.”