Inside the mayoral office, a flustered Mayor Kana is sitting behind an overly-large desk that is buried in paperwork. An exasperated expression painted across her face, she stares at the mountain of piles before her.
"Why was I given the hard job?" she pouts as a knock on the door forces her to compose herself.
"Come in."
In walks deputy mayor Sacha, carrying with her another stack of paperwork that needs the mayor's approval.
"Really? I've only been here two days. How is there already so much work to do?" She complains, slouching back in her exquisite and ridiculously-comfortable leather chair.
"It's due to the copious amount of refugees that fled here from the different villages and towns in Gorn. Their regional borders run alongside Ishda and Imperia and for most of them, we're the closest place to reach that's relatively safe. A lot of the petitions are from business owners wanting to open their own establishments here, within the city," deputy mayor Sacha kindly informs her superior for a third time.
"Yes I know, Sach. I just feel like I've been stamping my life away these last two days."
"Well, you kind of have. If you don't include the meetings about delegating city management, then you literally have been stamping away since you were born," Sacha kindly reminds her boss of another well-known fact.
"Gods damn it, Sacha! Now I feel even worse. Screw it! I'm taking a break." Putting her feet up, Kana folds her arms and pouts before closing her eyes.
"Madam Mayor, I don't think you really have the time to rest right now. If you want, I'll run down to Ali's and grab you some lunch?" At the mention of Ali's, Mayor Kana is hooked. Deputy Mayor Sacha was created at the same time to aid her higher-up, yet she has already found many different ways to get her Senior motivated. Food from Ali's never fails.
"Will you get me one of those blueberry roulette thingies as well for after?" Mayor Kana is already in the deep end, dreaming of dessert. Wrapped around her junior's little finger, she barely registers the next question about what main she would like.
"It doesn't matter. I've been craving that sweet blueberry taste since yesterday afternoon. Anything will be fine for dinner," she smiles whilst remembering yesterday's treat.
After Deputy Mayor Sacha leaves the room, Mayor Kana redirects her attention to the stack of papers on her desk
"May as well get back on it with it like I said I would, huh?" Shrugging her shoulders, the document she looks at is about a guard detail for town.
"Don't we already have that?" Considering the presence of high level beings that answer to her master, Kana notices a problem in the city that the Dungeon Core seems to have overlooked.
It turns out that Abi didn't create a duplicate Black Barracks for outside the dungeon. That means that the human population in town don't actually know that there's people protecting them at all times. The undercover Assassins in plain sight are a deadly security force that keeps them safe, but no one knows about it.
With that in mind, Mayor Kana writes down the issues she's discovered onto a parchment full of other scribblings. The paper is almost full of suggestions to bring up with her master when she's finished.
As she puts her pen down, her belly rumbles in a very unladylike manner causing her to blush even though she's alone in her office, "Where's Sacha!?"
Dungeon Stories Volume 2
----------------------------------------
Many different requests are filtered out and sent to me through Mayor Kana. Some of them, I end up berating myself for not noticing the problems in the first place. However, today isn't one of those days.
On the first floor of my dungeon, Kana is listing off buildings and features that need creating as I finish work on the Mages Guild. I summoned ten Mages earlier on, but they were all unspecialised. I completely forgot that they had to attune to a crystal inside the Mages Guild to find out what their specialities are. The Arch Mage was unlocked for my trouble though so it wasn't all bad.
Once the Mages have had their proficiency tested, I can hand them over to Hana and Mira who will then assign them shifts on either guard-or-scout duty. Although, if I keep doing that, I'll eventually have more guards than citizens. I suppose there are other jobs for them too.
The Mages Guild being a prime example.
Once the guild is completed, I summon the required number of Arch Mages and unlock the Magus tier. I don't think I've ever seen a Magus before. Since they're the same tier as my Walkers, I'm going to assume that they're really strong too.
Naming the Arch Mages, I also listen to Mayor Kana as she continues listing a variety of diverse requests from the parchment in her hands. Eventually, one grabs my attention and I have to stop naming the magic casters to make sure I heard her properly.
"Tilly's ready to open her clinic now? Yes! Tell her it will be ready shortly and that hopefully, I've got the perfect assistant for her." I spoke to Tilly about opening a medical building when I originally offered her a contract. Although she accepted, the healer said that she wanted to wait for a while before she started helping other people again. I guess this means she's finally ready.
It's about time too.
Ever since the voice of my best friend started haunting me, I've had this crazy idea. I just didn't want to try it until Tilly was up and healing again in case something went wrong. Plus, there was the refugee crisis to deal with and shit managed to get really busy. But now it's time to remove the pleasantly-familiar-yet-chilling voice in the best way possible.
Mayor Kana's suggestions for improvements were almost at the end. I tell her to go over the rest next time and thank her for the hard work she's putting in before disappearing to build Tilly's Clinic.
The Healer's Hut is another one of those features I unlocked a while ago and has gone unused because there wasn't anyone to run it. Placing it in one of the newest sections of town, close to the residential district, there are no humans around so I'm able to build freely without using Divinity's Creation. Once built, the feature reminds me of the shed the dungeon priests used to use when they were first created. Small, wooden and pathetic. After two quick upgrades, however, it becomes the Surgery of Soothing and no longer looks shite.
Reading on Amazon or a pirate site? This novel is from Royal Road. Support the author by reading it there.
The Room of Recovery have been upgrade to The Surgery of Soothing:
Blessed by mana, natural regeneration in this building is improved 250% percent
Any treatment conducted within is twice as effective as anywhere else
A new feature has been unlocked:
Operating Table: 10DP
Rewards:
8XP
Like the Academy of Dark Arts, Tilly's Clinic is all white, looks absolutely stunning and is ridiculously-sized compare to the other builds around it. A pristine reception area sits inside the main door and there are plenty of options for seating as chairs line the walls and sit in rows across the open area.
Down the hall are recovery rooms that can be used by anyone with minor injuries at any time of the day. No medical assistance is needed in them as individual recovery rates are through the roof. 250% is crazy and I feel slightly silly for not creating this feature earlier.
In the second floor is a large ward. It's purpose is for people to recover in after being seen by Tilly. Like the individual rooms, their recovery rates are also high but are made even higher if seen and diagnosed by the care practitioner first. If they've been magically operated on, the recovery rate doubles again and I can help but wonder if we're going to be living in a city of immortals soon enough.
This place is already quite big compared to my other buildings and I haven't even looked at everything inside yet. It's even larger than the Academy and that feature has adjoining buildings. I wasn't actually expecting it to have this many rooms or be this big. Why do I feel like it's going to turn out to be one of those things?
What things? I'm sure I've already mentioned this, Abi, but 'things' does not help me understand what you are talking about.
I don't know either to be honest, Me. I just can't help but feel like I'm going to regret this somehow. Even though it was my idea in the first place. Then again, that might be why I'm already regretting it.
Nevermind. Shit's already as crazy as it can be so what's the worst that could happen. Arriving in high spirits, they sore to even higher heights as the Cleric's eyes sparkle in delight at the impressive presence her feature exudes. The Clinic, which is more of a Royal-sized hospital, is certainly worth the jaw drop it recieved.
The frown she throws my way after I mention wanting to revive the soul of my dead best-friend into one of my Mages so she can become help out in the Clinic is probably well deserved. I get it, it sounds stupid. Tilly's expression and Me's words won't dissuade me from trying though.
Stumbling to come up with an answer, Tilly's enthusiasm turns into confusion and she continues to frowning. Opening her mouth to speak, she closes it instead before pointing a finger at me. She continued to do jus that for a few minutes as I let my plan sink in.
her mouth a few times before pointing a finger at me and then lowering it. Eventually, after many different hand gestures and facial movements, she sighs in defeat as she can't begin to understand the mind of a Dungeon Core. Nor does she know that soul is still calling out for me a dozen times a day and throwing me off my dungeon game.
"Of course we are. I don't know why I was expecting something easy to start with," she smiles. The sarcasm clearly noticeable in her voice. Maybe I am being hasty, but living with the haunting voice of my dead friend is not something I'm enjoying. If she could hear me when I respond to her, it wouldn't be half as bad. But as it stands, I've had enough of this one-sided communication.
"Sorry, Tilly. It's a strange first job, huh?" I try to play it down and make light of the situation. Not that it goes in my favor and an ear bashing is all I get for my effort.
"Strange? Strange!? Everything here is strange. What you're doing here is strange. Hell, I'm even stranger than you for accepting the contract and enjoying the comforts around me, knowing full well that they're being provided by a dungeon. The people, or monsters, or whatever you call those you create, are also strange. They're so... Human. They've even got their own personalities. They have thoughts and feelings like everyone else. They laugh, joke, and they're all so nice. In fact, they're nicer than most of the people I know. So... Strange is the only word I have to describe this situation. Then again, I don't know why I was expecting anything else." Calming down after her rant, Tilly sighs before heading into The Surgery of Soothing.
Once she's had a look around, she doesn't look half as annoyed but she still seems confused. "How are we going to do this then? I've never heard of any spell that deal with the soul. Well, not any legal ones anyway."
"Well, it's not so much of a spell but more of a feeling," I explain, whilst not really explaining at all.
"A feeling? Really? So you don't actually know if this will work then?" Horrified at my terrible explanation, Tilly shakes her head nervously and looks as though she's s ready to bolt for the door. Fortunately, she doesn't and I'm happy for the assistance because this is doing my head in.
"I can hear her calling out to me. We died on the seventh floor of the dungeon together... Well, not this dungeon exactly... It's a long story and very strange as you would put it." As I summon a soulless Magus onto the bed inside the recovery room, Tilly watches in shock as a woman in white robes appears from nowhere. "Either way, I'm pretty confident that I can do this. I need you to be ready though, just in case something goes wrong... Or right, I suppose."
Staring at the lifeless corpse on the bed, I concentrate on Anya's voice. I've been ignoring it recently so it feels harder than it should be. Which I suppose it is my own fault for being so busy all the time. Sorry, Anya.
"Abi?"
Finally hearing Anya's ghostly echo, I focus on her voice as she calls out to me. It's not as easy I thought it would be. Sounding like she's everywhere at once, it feels like I'm grasping at straws as I try to connect them all together.
Tilly watches as I pull and contort the air above the lifeless Magus. To her, it probably looks as though I'm doing a dance-of-sorts rather than trying to rebuild or reconnect my friend's soul. In all honesty, I've got no idea what I'm doing. But now that I've started, I can't stop.
Why did I even think I'd be able to do something like this? I'm not actually the soul guide that my skill would imply. I'm just me. Abi. A person that died and doesn't want to die again.
Pulling the voice of my friend from all around me, somehow I manage to overlap her solitary word ontop of other copies of itself.
Tilly's face is awash with shock and confusion. As a Healer, she knows better than most that people don't come back from the dead, especially not when they died more than fifty years ago. Seeing and believing are two different sides of the coin today though and Tilly watches as golden-strands of incorporeal matter sew themself together above the body of the soulless corpse.
I'm not oblivious to the sheer wonder of what's going on either and it's not like I'm doing this with my eyes closed. Although, it might have been easier since I almost got distracted. Even though I was doubtful of my own task a moment ago, the golden-yarn knitting itself into a spherical shape above the Magus gives me chills.
What I'm attempting shouldn't be possible. I know it. Tilly knows it. Hell, everyone in Tironia knows it. Anyone would say that what I'm doing is guaranteed to end in failure as the reincarnation cycle is a well-known fact. Souls don't linger around long after the body's demise and they get parsed on to their next stop almost immediately.
Here I am though, performing the impossible without any clue as to what I'm doing. Blind faith and confidence in my own efforts has got me this far and I'm not going to stop now. As soon as I hear and feel the last fragment of my name enter the golden sphere, I know that it's ready. Again, I have no idea how I know that was the last one and I'm only going of what I'm feeling inside.
She's ready, but what do I do with her now? I was kinda hoping for her soul to be pulled inside on its own. Do I have to do that aswell? Whatever. It can't be harder than gathering them all in the together can it?
Using my will, I ease Anya's completed soul inside the empty shell on the bed. Both myself and Tilly, Me's definitely observing this aswell, watch with baited breath to see if it actually worked. Or was I just creating a nice light show for no other reason other than I can.
Another good reason for not being human anymore is that I held my breath the entire time in painstaking silence the entire time. Tilly said nothing either. Although that might be more to do with how I look right now rather than what just happened. I'm sure she has something to say about it as her anxiety-induced breathing is making me panic more.
Finally, a single word finally releases us from our own personal tortures. The same word which has haunted me ever since I hit the Seventh Floor. No longer a ghostly echo of tragedy and despair, the word that fills my world is laced in confusion. Three letters long, but strong enough to make my Spiritual Presence cry, that single word came from the lips of the female Magus on the table. The lips of Anya.
"Abi?"