Quest Complete: Train Gomi adventurers to keep the dungeon at bay.

The Apprentices were halfway through their third rotation when Hans felt it was safe to call it. He and Tandis sat in the cabin playing cards while Terry, Sven, and Honronk did their seventh unsupervised run. The new adventurers could control the dungeon. They actually pulled it off.

Time to ruin it.

Hans broke the news when Buru, Chisel, and Yotuli returned to take their next shift. “We may need to go back to six-person runs but for a good reason.”

He explained that geode geckos had a reagent that might give the children relief. Unlike the other Sleep potions Olza brewed, the new recipe would go far enough to help all of the children sleep. They had no way of knowing how near or far a permanent solution for the nightmares might be, but she could start on these potions right away.

None of the Apprentices complained. They nodded and listened to Hans explain how to bring down a geode gecko without rupturing its oil sac.

Geode geckos had a gemlike growth running down their backs in varying ranges of blues, purples, and reds. They took their geode name from how they defended themselves. When they were sleeping or threatened, they would roll into a ball, arching backward to form a sphere with their rocky underbellies as the exterior. Cracking them open was like breaking open a geode, a boring rock on the outside with sparkling gems inside.

By the time they curled up, the geckos were pretty much done for, but killing them in their geode form ruptured the oil sac almost every time. A blow to the rocky underbelly, for reasons no one quite understood, popped the sac. Therefore, the final blow needed to be dealt to the head before the monster balled up. That response, however, was as fast as a beartrap, so Hans explained that they needed to insert a rod as the gecko closed on itself, and then lever the gecko back open. If they fumbled the rod and the gecko closed up, they wouldn’t be able to open it again.

“They’re about the size of a crocodile, about as fast, and they spit rocks they chewed up earlier. They hurt.”

Terry raised his hand. “Did they swallow the rocks?”

“Yes…”

“They puke on us,” Terry corrected.

“Well, technically.”

When the Apprentices calmed down, after many assurances that the projectiles were only rocks and no other fluids or materials, Buru and Hans went outside to look for rod-shaped trees to chop down. Once they had a supply of rods chopped and sized, crude quarterstaffs essentially, they ran drills for fighting one geode gecko and drills for fighting two, since they couldn’t be sure if the dungeon core could be influenced to the point that they could specify the quantity.

Fingers crossed it didn’t grow three or four. If that happened, the plan was to run. Not that they could run far. The dungeon would regrow when Hans bled on the core again, which meant they would have to fight their way back to the surface from the very bottom, no matter what.

***

Quest Complete: Test structural suggestions for the next dungeon core experiment.

Quest Complete: Harvest oil sacs from geode geckos.

The dungeon core accepted two suggestions for two drops of blood. Hans thought about a single geode gecko in a wide cave, and they found that cave at the end of a corridor that used to lead to nothing at all.

Terry and Yotuli underestimated the power of the rock puke and got scraped up on the first blast. Between that, the monster’s bite, and its swinging tail, the party had to pick and choose their attacks. Where they could press forward to incite their enemies to make mistakes against other monsters, fighting the geode gecko was more like a back and forth duel. The Apprentices triumphed eventually, and Chisel patched up the Rangers.

The fight went smoothly enough that Hans believed they could work their way back to three-person shifts with a couple weeks of practice. With geode geckos, having only one experienced frontliner made the encounter exceptionally challenging and a good bit more dangerous. Even when they returned to smaller party sizes, Hans intended to make them bring an extra shield. Sven and Buru both played frontline duties on their shifts at times and didn’t need to lose an eye.

The next round against a geode gecko went so smoothly that when Yotuli volunteered to work an extra rotation–giving each shift four party members instead of three. Hans agreed that was sufficient. Chisel and Honronk hadn’t contributed much in the last encounter anyway, and the Apprentices were exceptional adventurers for their rank–when they were well rested. He wanted to keep them fresh, and he wouldn’t be able to do that with a six-person party.

When Buru and Chisel departed the cabin for leave, Hans went with them. He had oil sacs to deliver, and the sooner they brewed the potions, the sooner the tusk kids in Gomi could sleep through the night for the first time in months.

Oh, and the dungeon core built a cave because he asked it to. No big deal.

***

The shift was subtle, but Hans could feel the season had turned a corner. Though three feet of snow was still on the ground, the sun felt brighter, the sky was a clearer blue, and small drops of melt glistened at the ends of tree branches. The air was still sharp with cold, yet it felt like spring was behind it, working to break through.

He appreciated the moment, but his mind raced.

We can influence the structure. We can influence the structure.

Resisting the urge to tell Olza right away, he gave the alchemist the oil sacs from the geode geckos, and though it was well into the winter evening by that time, she started on the new potion recipe right away. The first step needed twenty-four hours to complete, most of that time spent waiting for the mixture to fully separate into layers after it was prepared. After two hours at her lab bench, her work was complete for the moment. The Guild Master returned, freshly bathed and wearing clean clothes.

When he told her the news about the gecko cave, her eyes inflated, and all of the exhaustion she carried just a moment before dissolved.

“Incredible,” she whispered with reverence. “I wonder how specific a suggestion could be.”

“That’s one of my questions too, but I think we should hold off on making new suggestions for a while.”

“The Apprentices?”

“They’re part of it,” Hans answered, “but I’m also worried about what happens when the sphere regrows completely. What if we can’t change anything at that point?”

“We have been ‘adding’ to the core, I suppose. Yeah, we can’t know if that’s how it works, but it could be that changes become permanent.”

“Then we should be careful and selective from here on for as long as we can.”

Seeing the Apprentices adapt to the geode gecko so quickly further convinced Hans that their rapid access to field experience for any given lesson boosted learning. From an instructional perspective, that wasn’t surprising, but the extent of the improvements were far better than Hans predicted. For other Apprentices, they might learn about the geode gecko in a broader monster tactics class, but they weren’t likely to encounter one in the wild for some time, and that time would go even longer if the Apprentices avoided cave jobs.

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By the time they did fight a geode gecko, their lesson on tactics may have aged five or six years, if they could recall it all.

The Gomi Apprentices, meanwhile, took a lesson on fighting geode geckos, and then put the lesson to use the next day, under the supervision of a higher ranked adventurer who could offer advice and critiques during and after the fight, further advancing their development. Then they could try it again almost immediately, relative to how long a normal adventurer might have to wait to find another geode gecko.

No adventurers got to train like this. The largest, wealthiest chapters were still training combat the old fashioned way: Rows of adventurers standing in a line rehearsing the perfect thrust or perfect slash. How many lives would be spared if an adventurer got to fight an ogre in training before taking a job to hunt down a band of the marauding monsters? Hans could rotate in any creature–goblins, orcs, trolls, whatever–and the answer would be the same: Many lives could be saved. So many.

Adventurers needed to learn to adapt to entirely new situations, and they would still have to eventually, but they could have an immense amount of experience at their disposal when they did.

“This could help everyone,” Hans said sadly when he gushed about using the dungeon as a training tool. “And we won’t be able to tell anyone.”

Active Quest: Find a way to share new knowledge without putting Gomi at risk.

That quest had bothered him for some time now. The outside world couldn’t know about the dungeon, and he knew that for certain. The danger it posed to Gomi and the Tribe was too great.

Hans had full discretion over training and dungeon management, but his voice was no more important than anyone else’s when it came to the community as a whole. In many ways, that made it easier for him to contribute. He got to be the expert where he was an expert, yet he was not solely responsible for any of the colossal matters the town voted on, including the decision to keep the dungeon a secret from the outside world.

Olza encouraged him to document as much as he could about what he learned, whether that was about a training tool or battle tactics for a particular monster.

“We may not have a solution right now,” she began, “but we might in the future. From what I’ve learned about you, not having all of that knowledge captured would upset you if we suddenly found a way to do this.”

“You’re right.”

“It would be useful for the Apprentices regardless, right?”

Hans hadn’t thought of that, and he agreed. A written version of their monster-specific lessons would enable any of the Apprentices to refresh their memories whenever they liked, and he could go as far as to require regularly scheduled reviews. No student, no matter how dedicated, could be expected to remember every detail of every lesson, but the right line in a book could put them back in the lesson as if they were experiencing it all over again.

With Kane and Quentin becoming Apprentices soon, it would be good for them as well.

“The rate the Apprentices are improving is way beyond the norm,” Hans said. “We could build the ‘Hans’ Ultimate Training Dungeon’ for real.”

“We can’t forget the core is growing on its own. It’s slow, but the gnolls and the squonks and the initial structures were its idea.”

“That’s a good point. Squonks and gnolls were in the forest already if the stories from Becky are right. Maybe a squonk ate one of the flowers, like the gnoll we found, and that’s where the core got the ‘idea?’”

Olza leaned back. “That fits. No good way to confirm it, but either way, we can assume the dungeon will grow on its own without us.”

“Gomi is better off if we make all of the choices ourselves…”

“So maybe build that training dungeon after all?”

New Quest: Design a training dungeon concept to test on the dungeon core.

***

The new Sleep potion recipe changed the tone for the Tribe lands. The source of the nightmares might not have been resolved, but if children could sleep, so could their families. A full night’s rest–no bad dreams, no worrying all night about your child running away–lifted everyone’s mood and offered hope. That happening on the cusp of spring amplified the sense that a brighter dawn was within reach.

The next class of Apprentices was part of that dawn. Before Kane and Quentin could enter the dungeon, they needed to study up on guild procedure and learn more about group combat tactics. Their previous training was a good base, but a dungeon was different from practice, so Hans made them start at the beginning like everyone else.

The boys would need a few months of preparation before they could join dungeon rotations, which worked out. The cabin was too cramped for two new bodies, and Hans needed more time to decide on the next dungeon core suggestion, especially since new dungeon growth could mean new dangers for all of the Apprentices.

For now, the Apprentices could again manage the dungeon with three-person parties, and their success rate for harvesting a geode gecko’s oil sac was four out of five–way higher than the typical average most adventurers experienced.

Hans still joined rotations to coach and support the Apprentices on duty, but as the temperature in the Gomi forest crept upward, the Guild Master could spend more time in town teaching kids classes, training Kane and Quentin, and working on a design for a training dungeon. While he treasured a return to near-normalcy, seeing the kids again more regularly reminded him of how much time he spent at the dungeon instead of in the guild hall. He felt guilty about that.

Harry and Harriot, the son and daughter of the husband and wife team who owned the blacksmith and fletcher shops, were as chipper as ever, their blond hair long from the winter but still bright and golden. Their tusk counterparts, kids like Chance and Loddie, looked haggard and depleted from the nightmares that targeted tusk children exclusively. They had relief, but their bodies needed time to recover from a whole winter of broken sleep.

All of the tusk-touched children suffered, but Hans noticed the change in Gunther the most. When he told the Apprentices the story of Gunther fighting gnolls in the woods, Hans described the boy as a “mongoose” because he was more dangerous than he looked and was unflappable even with cobras staring him down.

The Gunther sitting in front of him at the guild hall was falling asleep in the midst of a lesson on animal migration and how changing seasons affected monster activity. The boy looked slightly pale and emaciated, with dark rings under his empty eyes. The Sleep potions were helping, Galad and Olza assured him, but Hans worried the kids might not actually be getting real rest even if they appeared to be sleeping.

While they were less concerned than Hans, they all agreed with this: A rider needed to depart as soon as possible to gather research and resources on undoing spells. The Tribe couldn’t wait for two cycles of caravans for something to be delivered. The long list of spellbooks Hans worked up to help Chisel and Honronk with their development got a little bit longer, and the nest egg Mazo left him got quite a bit smaller.

Seeing the husk of Gunther renewed an instinct that Galad and Olza had talked down: Hans wanted to make the trip himself, to ensure they got the right books and the right supplies. Though the compulsion was strong, he still couldn’t act on it. The Guild Master was more useful in Gomi than on the road.

When class ended, all of the children filed out of the guild hall and into the snow as they always did. A few minutes later, Hans heard all manner of childlike whoops and cheers. He assumed the children had started another snowball fight, taking advantage of what could be the last snow.

Just that morning he saw the dirt road going out of Gomi for the first time since the fall. Granted, he only saw a few muddy ruts, the rest still covered with white, but he shared that observation with the class that day. He was mostly goading them into having a snowball fight, but visible mud felt significant somehow, more significant than mud had any right to be.

Quentin burst inside. “Luther’s back with two tusks. He’s injured.”

Hans grabbed his winter cloak and his sword.

***

Open Quests (Ordered from Old to New):

Progress from Gold-ranked to Diamond-ranked.

Mend the rift with Devon.

Complete the manuscript for "The Next Generation: A Teaching Methodology for Training Adventurers."

Expand the Gomi training area to include ramps for footwork drills.

Refine a system for training dungeon awareness.

Research the history and legends of the Dead End Mountains, more.

Protect Gomi.

Solve the campus construction logistics problem or devise an alternative plan. Bonus Objective: Pick a secret passage cooler than a bookshelf door.

Find a partner to move dungeon loot efficiently.

Find a way to share new knowledge without putting Gomi at risk.

Address the deficiency of magery education in the Gomi chapter.

Continue researching non-localized spells capable of causing nightmares in tusk children.

Design a training dungeon concept to test on the dungeon core.