This was Ty’s third attempt at greatness. He would be less concerned if the first two hadn’t been disasters.

Ty could barely contain his excitement as he stared up at his King, Leo Stardew, who was making a speech on a small stage in the center of the Grand Plaza of Star Port. His majesty’s long, metallic gold hair—sign that the king was a full elf, unlike Ty—sparkled in the noon sun.

Ty liked his own copper hair, as it signaled his elf heritage. Every other feature, from his round ears to his freckles, was a sign of his half-human parentage.

He grazed his fingertips over his dungeon core where it rested in the inner pocket of his best robes, the sky-blue ones. The core was smooth and round and shining with a white light. He probably should have left it in a vault somewhere, but he couldn’t stand for it to be out of his reach. It would fix everything, make everyone forget about his shameful parentage.

Ty touched the crack in his dungeon core. If it doesn’t result in its own disaster, Ty thought. I might fail at this, too.

Ty stared at the great tree Ygg’drasil in the back ground, as the king wound down his speech about the glories that everyone had shown in the recent defense of the kingdom. The tree would, supposedly soon, open gates to other worlds. Ty’s dungeon would sit square in the middle of a city that straddled worlds, and he hoped he would be extra famous and rich as a result.

The King turned and faced Ty where he waited at the outer edge of the crowd, near the entrance to the walkway that would lead him up to the stage. “Finally, as my last act today, I would like to call Ty Bel—excuse me, Tywyndyll il Belmoria—to come forward.”

Ty strode toward the stage, up the walkway. As he did, elves clapped for him, and a few waved. But one large group gave him no accolades, simply glowering at him as he walked up.

As Ty passed the glowering crowd, he heard someone mutter, “Bastard halfie will certainly make a mess of this as well. They should have given the dungeon core to a true elven noble.”

Ty glanced to the lot. Helryn ap Mosstone, the ex-duke whose title came from before the original empire had fallen, stared at him balefully. It was an extra unnerving stare, his right eye ice-blue, but his left one was an actual glowing diamond set in the socket where a normal eye would sit. Ty shuddered briefly—Helryn was known to be Level Eleven, very powerful, more even than Ty’s Level Six. If he wanted, he could probably kill Ty.

Ty faced forward and tried to stride to the stage with confidence. Helryn certainly wouldn’t kill him here, in front of everyone.

Around Helryn, other elves sneered at Ty. Waves of pointed ears and metallic hair over said sneers mocked Ty with what he would never be.

More than Helryn himself, however, Ty feared that his detractors were right in their assessment of him. That he was a failure and always would be. His captivity at the hands of the orcs, his near-death to the dragon, his rejection at the hands of every woman he had approached in his home city of Steelport, even his father sending him to live with his mother when his parents had separated… it all haunted him.

He did see one face that wasn’t mocking him even in the ex-noble crowd, however. A beautiful elven girl, with indigo eyes and copper hair that shaded toward green patina, her face a vision of youthful beauty. She caught his eye as he walked, and subtly gave him the three-finger signal of approval the elves of Averia used.

His spirits buoyed, Ty squared his shoulders as he marched the rest of the way to the stage. He was going to be an excellent dungeon lord, no matter what. He would use the dungeon to make his mother’s people, the elves of Averia, wealthy and happy. By doing so, he would also earn their accolades and respect. Ty had already become a minor minister-at-large for the king and served his new people that way—now he would become a dungeon lord, far more important, and help their civilization grow to unheard of heights.

Ty stepped onto the stage.

The King took Ty’s hand and raised it up above their heads. “Tywyndyll il Belmoria, just recently a citizen of Averia, will be doing us a great honor. He has agreed to use a treasure he gained, a dungeon core, to help our small civilization regrow and rebuild! He will create a dungeon here in our reborn town. In return for his generosity, I am giving him land in this plaza, the heart of our demesne, to create that dungeon.”

There were cheers at that. Dungeons were a permanent source of leveling—and a single level unlocked magic for someone. Having a dungeon made any locale far, far richer.

The King continued, still holding Ty’s hand aloft. “Ty will be leaving tomorrow morning to seek a boss monster for his dungeon. That will determine what magics, monsters, and treasure will appear in his dungeon, for our people to harvest!”

There was more cheering, but Ty was terrified—he needed to find a boss monster and beat it into submission or convince it to join him. He had had a thought, a glorious and terrible thought, on a monster that he might acquire. One of truly unprecedented power for a dungeon. But he had no idea where his potential boss was.

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He knew who he might ask, however.

***

Ty stepped into the Emerald Bee. It was the only eatery and inn operating in Star Port’s central district, where the Grand Plaza was. Forli, the person he needed to talk to, didn’t live in town—she had just visited for the celebration. So he figured he would find her here.

The inn was a refurbished marble building. The marble had been magically melded together and hardened to make it a viable construction material, but the tables were made of fresh pine, and the dishes and utensils were shaped wood. To cut costs but maintain an air of upper class mystique, the proprietor, Mirafol Blueleaf, had taken the wood-shaping power at Level Two. She was creating fine works of craftsmanship, quickly learning to be a master wood crafter. The utensils had fairies carved on the ends, and the chairs had symbols of the fifteen magics and four magic high-gods carved into their handles.

Ty saw a few human ship captains in tricorn hats at one table before his eyes alighted on Forli, sitting at an empty table by herself.

Ty walked over, pulled one of the intricately carved chairs out and sat down across from her. She glanced up with a hint of fear before sagging in relief upon seeing Ty.

Forli was a dryad. Most of the dryads disappeared fifty years ago when the original Averian kingdom fell, and only a few had come back since the new kingdom had been founded. All the dryads were descended from a single ‘Mother of Dryads,’ known as the Crone because she had existed longer than the elves’ recorded history. The Crone was a progenitor, a name for a proto-god that got its start as a spirit overseeing a class of creature. Like dryads.

Forli was the Crone’s youngest daughter. Ty and Forli had once worked together to set up a trading encampment, near where her tree was. Both felt themselves outsiders, for slightly different reasons, and they had developed a friendship. They had gotten to talking over watered-down wine one night. Forli had informed Ty of the fact that convinced him he might be able to have the Crone join his dungeon—the fact that the progenitor was dying.

Forli was the Crone’s youngest daughter, but she wasn’t the prettiest. Cute, but not gorgeous. Most dryads were tall, willowy thin tree people with beauty, elegance, and a decent amount of magical power. They were born from great trees, even magical ones, by planting a special seed the Crone created into the trees.

Forli had been planted in a scraggly pine tree in a mountain pass. She was short, a mere five feet, and very curvy. She appeared halfway between a human and a halfling but for her pine board skin and spikey green pine needle hair.

She had a great personality, though.

“Ty!” she exclaimed, a smile overtaking her face. “What brings you here? Now that the ceremony is done, I figured I’d just wait till tomorrow morning and head back to Cliff Pass, but I’m surely glad to see you again.”

She stood from behind the table, leaning over to try and hug him, then settling for a shoulder pat when she couldn’t reach him. Most dryads simply walked around naked—a practice that Ty secretly applauded—but Forli wore a long cornshuck dress, very simple, over her form in deference to the mortals she mostly worked with.

Forli frowned. “Wait, why are you here? Shouldn’t you be making a dungeon?”

“Keep your voice down,” Ty admonished, glancing around.

Forli glanced around as well, her brown eyes curious. “Who are we watching out for?”

“I think Helryn might try to kill me and take the core. I don’t want him, or anyone that might report to him, to overhear my plans.”

“Who’s Helryn?”

Ty frowned. “Never mind. Look, I need your help with my dungeon core. What do I need to pay you to assist me?”

Forli quirked one eyebrow, which appeared to be a flexible needle itself. “Um, I mean, probably nothing Ty, I’d love to help you. I don’t even know what you’re asking me though. Start at the beginning, okay? For me?”

Ty took a breath. “Every dungeon core needs three things, besides itself, to become a dungeon. It needs a person with the dungeon lord perk—that’s me. It needs a magical node, one that doesn’t already have a dungeon. We have the Calasti Tree node, a node of Wyld magic, right here in town. But last, last it needs a boss monster—and the more powerful the monster, the more powerful the dungeon.”

Ty paused.

Forli leaned in, her eyes alight with excitement. “This is fascinating. Don’t make we wait, you tease.”

Ty leaned closer, so close they were nearly kissing. Not that a dryad would ever kiss anyone. At least, he didn’t think they did that.

“I want to ask the Crone to be my boss monster,” Ty whispered.

Forli sucked her breath in. “Wow, Ty. That’s crazy. I did tell you that my mom is dying though, right? I mean, it might be a few decades, but it could be a few years.”

“You did… but a boss monster in a dungeon becomes immortal, able to reborn inside the dungeon even if slain by sword and magic.”

Forli leaned back, her eyes so wide they threatened to flee her face. “You can save Mom? Save a progenitor? Really, Ty? You’re not tricking me, right?”

“No, really, my research says it should work. But I need to find her. I don’t know where she is.”

Forli smiled. “Oh! That’s why you came to see me! You want to find Mom, right?”

“Yeah.”

“I’d do anything to help, Ty. You know I’m the weakest dryad ever, though, right? Do you still want my help?”

Ty nodded.

Forli continued. “I can do even better than just telling you where Mom is. I can lead you there! If I help you save Mom, then she can probably make more dryads still, so it’ll be like I saved all my sisters, too! Then my sisters will all love me, even though I’m a scrag dryad!”

Ty had a huge amount of empathy for Forli’s position—it mirrored his own to a degree. But… “Even if we save the Crone, I don’t think she’ll be able to make more dryads. But sooner or later I would think the seeds would show up as loot, once the dungeon gets strong enough. Probably. Maybe.”

Forli’s face sagged, but then she perked right back up. “Well, that’s better than nothing. Let’s do this!”

“Alright, we’ll leave tomorrow morning, okay?”

“Wait, you said you were afraid of that Helrune guy, right?”

“Helryn, and yes.”

Forli slapped the table, a wood-on-wood sound. “Then let’s just leave right now! Don’t wait. Get a head start on your competition and let’s go!”

Ty felt his own eyes widen. “That’s brilliant. I’ll run and tell Dad’s assistant Cuwylla to have him prepare the plaza for my return, and we can be off.”

“Why your dad?”

Ty grimaced. “He’s our king’s seneschal.”