Chapter 3

“So, you’re a Rogue,” Jessica said once Rowena had begun to calm down after the encounter with Tom. “What’s the difference between that an a Warrior, exactly? I mean, I know what I think the difference is, but I’m not certain I really know.”

Rowena sighed. She was mostly over her outrage that Tom would forget her. Mostly. Jessica and Sue Weaver were doing an excellent job of soothing her bruised ego. “We’re not as strong, but we’re far faster,” she explained. “Of the three primary combat classes, Rogues are the most agile. Warriors may seem fast to Commoners or those without enhanced reflexes, but compared to Rogues, they’re moving at three-quarters speed. Of course, they’re stronger than us in brute strength. There are advantages and disadvantages to both classes. Because we generally prefer not to attack head on, we also typically gain Stealth and ambush abilities, whereas a warrior gains abilities like Empower Weapon. That’s not to say that there’s not overlap in the classes; a Warrior can learn to be sneaky and a Rogue can learn to fight enemies head on. There’s not a hard line between the two.”

“I see,” Jessica said. “I guess Hero is a bit of a mixed bag. I think Grant is sort of a rogue, but he’s got weird spacial abilities to go with just naturally being kind of slippery. And then, Antoine is just crazy and scary good. I’ve only really seen him fight once, but it was like watching a choreographed Hollywood fight scene on fast forward. It was unbelievable. Then Emil, Aisha, and I are all mages, despite being classified as Heroes.”

“Yes, from what we know of the Hero class, your subclass gives far more indication of what your actual abilities are than your overclass,” Rowena agreed. “You said yours has something to do with magic? How so? I thought Earth didn’t have magic, did you learn it since you came here?”

“Sort of?” Jessica said. “To be honest, I’m still not exactly certain how my magic works. I can summon fire, and it burns really intensely, and I can control sound. But it’s instinctual. I’m still working on my fine control over both of the elements that I possess, but its hard to manage because I’m dealing with senses that I never had before coming to this world. But I’m told that my magic is completely different from how the Mage Class works. Antoine says that if I ever meet a properly trained mage and show them my magic they’re likely to suffer apoplexy.”

“In that case, we should definitely find some mages for you to demonstrate your skills to,” Rowena suggested.

Sue smiled, relaxing as the teenage girls gossiped. Once the teenager had calmed down, she decided to broach the subject which had set her off in the first place, that of Tom. “Rowena, I have to ask, exactly how well do you know my son?”

“Oh,” Rowena frowned. “We’ve only met once before. To be honest, I was fibbing a bit when I said we were engaged. Technically our official relationship status is that we’re courting with the intention of becoming engaged, but there are several matters that Uncle Fenard needs to solve first. Ideally Tom would join the knighthood, as it would look better for a knight to join the royal family than, well, someone without noble birth. Absent of that there’s the possibility of one of the noble families adopting Tom, although I don’t think that’s likely. Maybe if he had a crooked nose Uncle could convince the Stewards to take him, but honestly Tom is too plain looking to be assumed to be a noble scion.”

“First you’re talking about engagements and now adoption?” Sue asked. “Was this discussed with Tom at any point, or did he neglect to mention that to me as well.”

“Oh, well, to be honest that’s just something that Uncle Fenard has been mumbling about. I’m just repeating some of the things he’s said in private, so never mind,” Rowena admitted.

“I see,” Sue said. “It sounds like I have several more matters to discuss with my son than I thought.”

~~~~~

Tom Collaborated with Tilluth.

Tilluth tended the land of its valley, and the valley next to it, and the hills and forests in every direction. It nurtured the soil and the plants, enhancing their growth and vitality.

It touched the creatures of its lands. The squirrels, the birds, the tree-cats and all of the little things. It nourished them as it always had, but with its territory spread so wide this task took considerably longer.

It touched the people that dwelt within its territory. They were too low level, and of weak classes. It was frustrating that none of them except the foreigner had engaged the monsters that it had spawned on the surface so that Tilluth could assign them their true classes. Perhaps now that the command crystal had caused Tilluth to dig a dungeon and fill it with monsters, the residents of Tilluth Village would begin the process of growing strong.

Tilluth checked on its dungeon. There were dozens of burrowers on the upper floors, and then rock spiders, and beneath that gnolls. Beneath the gnolls were zombies, and in the depths of the dungeon was a single minotaur.

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Expanding Tilluth’s territory had relieved a significant amount of pressure, and creating the monsters that populated the dungeon had dumped the vast majority of the miasma that the core had accumulated over the years. That was fortunate; if the miasma within Tilluth’s core built to a critical threshold, the core would begin to suffer damage until it was inevitably destroyed.

Then, the concentrated evil intent would leak out of the Tilluth’s crystal corpse and poison the environment. The plants would wither and die. The animals would be twisted into monstrosities. The humans would suffer plagues and diseases of mind, body and soul. Only the monsters would be unaffected by the spread of the blight.

The only safe way to dispose of Miasma was to Spawn monsters. Once the miasma was stored in that form, it was safe. Slaying the monster did not release the miasma, but converted the energy into experience.

This was the cycle that Tilluth maintained. It had forgotten that, in the pain of its sundering. Tilluth’s purpose was to cleanse the land of miasma. It existed to purify, to nourish, and to enhance its residents so that they could endure whatever hardships they were faced with.

Awakening to its purpose, Tilluth took a deep breath, and it began from the top of its cycle. It touched the land. It touched the plants. It touched the creatures, and the people. It checked on its dungeon, and it spent vast amounts of mana seeding it with the various materials that would perhaps lure adventurers inside. And then it took a breath. It touched the plants …

~~~~~

Tom opened his eyes after what felt like several hours of communing with the distant Tilluth Core. “It’s done. I don’t think there will be any more Flame Lynxes spawning in the valley anymore, although there’s nothing I can do about the ones that are already there.”

“That’s understandable. Hopefully Lord Worth recovers soon and is able to hunt down the remaining monsters outside of the dungeon you created,” King Fenard said. “If not I will send someone who can. Tell me about the dungeon you spawned. Will the villagers be able to handle it?”

“They should be able to handle the top five floors,” Tom said. “It’s thirty floors deep. Deeper than any of the Dungeons I’ve made so far, although now that I think about it I should add some floors to Gamma Dungeon as well. But once the word gets out about the materials that are being seeded in the dungeon, I hope that adventurers from elsewhere in the kingdom will go to Tilluth and delve the deeper parts of the dungeon to keep the valley safe.”

“Oh? I suppose you happen to have a list?”

“Floors one through three are seeding Coal,” Tom said. “Floor four is seeding tin, five copper, six iron, and below that silver, then gold, then gemstones for three floors. Beneath that is four floors of mythril. Deeper than that are other exotic metals like Ebony and Malaganite. I had to research some of the options that were available after I found the options available in Caseville, but we can’t seed there because of the city above it. It shouldn’t be a problem with Tilluth village though; the dungeon entrance is near the village green but the dungeon itself is mostly to the north of the village rather than right underneath it. Even if it does cave in somewhere because of mining, it will be the wilderness north of town that’s affected.

“I see,” Fenard said. “It sounds like there are many very valuable resources to be gathered there, and once I’ve finalized the laws regarding the collection of seeded resources I’m certain that Tilluth Dungeon will become a hotspot for adventurers.”

“Yeah,” Tom said. “It’s going to change things in the valley, that’s for certain.”

“On the topic of adventurers delving Tom’s dungeons,” Grant said, entering the conversation, “How goes the progress for ensuring that he’s adequately compensated for his Seed ability?”

The king sighed. “The relevant laws have been passed, although they’ve yet to be widely announced. The mining operations and Gamma and Beta dungeon have been going on for some time now, but they are driven by a private mining company which has kept the fact that they are paying the mining permit quiet. They have managed to pull out a large amount of copper and iron from the two locations, however. More than that, I’m told that the metals are particularly valuable due to a higher than normal concentration of mana within them.

“They’ve adapted to using the Blast Furnace which Emil has helped us design in order to smelt the ore, and the goblins of Delta Dungeon have already begun supplying us with large amounts of coal to help turn some of that iron into steel.

“We’re working on getting a subjugation force of adventurers together for Epsilon dungeon, as well as a team of miners to begin pulling the coal and other resources out of it. All of which is being documented according to the agreements we’ve made previously. Tom will be paid for his efforts on behalf of Welsius.”

The king finished talking, and Grant nodded.

“To be honest, I’m not certain what I’m going to do with all of the money,” Tom admitted.

“Talk to your parents,” Grant suggested. “I’m sure they’ll help you figure something out.”

Norman frowned. “Exactly how much money are we talking about?”

Grant grinned, and began explaining the details of the deal that he, Tom and Fenard had established regarding the matter. Even just the broad strokes of the plan took some time to explain, but the summary of the situation was that Tom would expect to earn ten percent of the profit of any minerals brought out of his dungeons.

After only hearing a few minutes of the explanation, Norman raised his hands in surrender. “I believe that it would be best to bring my wife in on this subject,” he said. “She’s got a much better head for business than I do. I’m just a Weaver. She’s a Trader.”

So it was that Tom’s Valet, Nigel, was sent to fetch Sue Weaver before the discussion could continue. Which it did, and Sue quickly began asking the questions that needed to be asked to ensure her son’s financial future was as bright and lucrative as it could possibly be.

The king piped in with specific figures of what had been withdrawn from the dungeons so far, and the conclusion was that Tom was going to be a very, very wealthy teenager once the dungeon mining operations began in earnest.