Ivy took deep, steady breaths, the coppery tang of the air doing little to settle the queasiness in her stomach as she witnessed the [Crusader]’s gruesome demise, just enough left of her emotions to still react viscerally to the sight. Trying to focus on anything else, Ivy couldn’t help but feel bad for the mage. She’d only ended up in this boss fight to try and save her reckless companions and her idea to try to swing the floor back on the pivot to escape was a good one, but Ivy had added the sliding weight precisely to make that difficult. Unfortunately for them, Ivy had been assuming a group of about ten people so it would take about the weight of seven or eight people to compensate for it.

Now it seemed like the mage was about to meet the same fate as her companions.

Seeing the distress of the [Keeper] and [Guide] you have received urgent offers from the gods!

Deity

Domain

Offer

Hadriel

Water, Seas & Transfiguration

The body of the [Hydro Wizard] will become a water attuned spellcasting wight once slain. This must be used on the next floor which will be dedicated to Hadriel and must meet their standards before another floor can be added.

Iaoel

Life & Restoration

The dungeon gains the ability to spend mana to resurrect one individual upon their death. A floor must be dedicated to Iaoel and contain treasure chests of at least 1000 mana in value before this ability can be used again.

Name Unknown

Divination, Mind control, Secrets, Knowledge, Quests, Elf curse, Dwarfbane

When a delver would die within the dungeon; if they made an offering to this deity they instead are preserved in a state between life and death similar to a [necromancer]’s [Moment of Death] ability. If a creature enters this state a quest is issued to those who enter the dungeon to retrieve them. The [Hydro wizard] will be treated as if she made an offering on this occasion.

A quick glance at the normally unflappable Evelyn showed she must have received a similar notification. As the boar trudged through the marsh towards the downed mage Ivy felt a pounding in her chest, she hated rushed decisions.

“Not much time to decide. You have a better idea than me on the cultural implications of resurrection or creating the wight. We should at least take Iaoel’s offer over taking none, since that just gives an extra option even if we never use it,” Ivy offered quickly, wishing she had the time for a more considered analysis. “The last offer has the least cost to us, assuming we’re going to be actually using what we opt for but the deity seems super sketchy.”

“Thank you, it’s rather…” Evelyn replied, her frown relieving slightly before the splashing increased in tempo as Twrch accelerated forwards.

A gasp escaped Ivy’s lips as the distance between Twrch and its prey rapidly evaporated. The tusk of the boar scooped downwards to strike the mage as she still weakly shouted her defiance. As she was struck a greyish energy seemed to envelop her body and Ivy heard a sigh from beside her, though whether it was of relief or resignation Ivy wasn’t sure.

“I chose the unknown god’s bargain.” Evelyn responded sombrely to her unasked question, then her mouth twitched into a grin, “And it would seem our [Veteran Ranger] friend just got the quest if his reaction was any indication.”

“Excellent!” Ivy’s mood soared and she idly thought all these ups and downs probably weren’t good for her heart, though given she could teleport, phase through walls and was invisible to delvers it might be a little late to worry about looking after it. “So, he hadn’t left yet then?”

A nod from Evelyn confirmed it.

“What do you know about this unnamed god then? Even crossed out, mind control is pretty disturbing as a domain. Actually, if we’re about to have delvers coming to fight Twrch and recover the wizard lady, we need to get the next floor started! Do we have mana?!”

“Calm down, I doubt they’ll rush into something that took down someone over level 20 even if her spells were less than ideal for the challenge. Also, I have a timer that says she’ll be in stasis for a little under 2 days so that’s likely included in the quest notification.”

Heat rose in Ivy’s cheeks as the timer appeared in front of her as soon as the thought entered her head.

“Ah, sorry, I got kinda panicked.”

“It’s fine. Preparing for a group to get through Twrch should be a priority, but as I’ve previously demonstrated, spending mana while panicked is less than efficient.” Evelyn’s self-deprecating words had a sense of warmth and Ivy was increasingly feeling like she was being treated as a friend rather than the stranger turned colleague she started out as. “Let’s speak further in the safe room.”

With that brief turn of phrase the unpleasant waterlogged feeling around her feet vanished and she lounged back on the stone bench opposite Evelyn. Evelyn naturally sat with her usual perfect poise and a twitch in her eyebrow was all that gave away that she was holding back on asking Ivy to fix her posture.

Making a little more of an effort to sit up straight Ivy said, “Now that I think about it, the kills probably gave quite a bit of mana given we noticed earlier that because of the lack of injuries today's delves produced less than expected. First though, what do you know about the unknown god and this mind control domain?”

“Very little, mind control is supposed to be the stuff of tall tales and The Three are said to care deeply about freedom of choice. Hence why any priest can allow someone to check their status, take a new class or abandon their current one regardless of whether the priest worships The Three, the minor gods or the system itself. Perhaps that’s why it was struck through as The Three may have denied that domain? I expect there may only be a handful of priests who could properly answer that query so assumptions are all I can offer.”

“So few?”

“I’d heard of the god of secrets and divination previously, their association with dwarfbane being rather infamous, though I am unaware of any curse unique to elves but they are rather private about their affairs. Unfortunately, as the domain of secrets would suggest, very little is known about them. Though they were thought to be old and given the number of domains is usually thought to be the measure of power and age, I would suspect they are extremely old and powerful indeed.”

Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

“Well at least we haven’t committed to building them a floor, though it will be a bit awkward if dwarves and elves start hating us. Say what does their altar look like? I take it they’ve added one at the entrance.”

A wave of Evelyn’s hand had a view of the entrance appear beside them, where an altar seemingly grown out of multicoloured coral apart from the golden offering bowl on top now resided.

“Huh, neat. Don’t know what I was expecting but it wasn’t that. Coral is an odd choice, but I guess the answer to why is probably ‘it’s a secret’. By the way, can we use this screen view for Twrch fights in future? I love the arena but not so fond of wading through the blood.”

“Certainly. I’d be interested in hearing more about this coral later as I am unfamiliar with it.” Ivy suddenly remembered what coral was made from and had a vision of a truly vicious water level before Evelyn’s next words distracted her. “As for your concern about elves and dwarves, entering a dungeon would have a dwarf exiled at best, while elves are too important to society to risk outside settlements. I’m not sure we could stop them if they weren’t, elves are capable of truly staggering magic and while many blame dungeons for the state of the world, dwarves hold a particular contempt and fear of them.”

“Elves being good at magic and dwarves holding grudges fit the stereotypes I know, but dwarves fearing, really anything is pretty different.”

Evelyn’s face and tone turned sombre, “That may well have been the case once, children of The Warrior that they are, but only one bereft of sanity wouldn't fear the dwarfbane mark and what it could represent. Before the Great Breaks that confined everyone to within the elven wards that lay around the largest settlements for protection and reliant on their teleportation circles to share vital supplies, dungeons were mined as resources. Cities would be built around them and grow from what the delvers obtained within them. The oldest and deepest of these was said to reside in the great city of the dwarves, Aurumcrest. They were delighted when their prized dungeon began offering not only the precious metals and gems they were famed for, but magical weapons of high quality which began to be traded throughout their lands and beyond. Time passed and strange occurrences began to be reported, more and more dwarves failed to return from dungeons and the wild places of the world, mages noticed that their apprentices’ improperly targeted divination spells started to show them dwarves and finally a purple sigil began to appear on dwarves’ skin and increase in size and complexity as time went on. Eventually, as dwarven civilization was crumbling it was realised that all those who had the mark were dwarves who were injured in the Aurumcrest dungeon or by one of the weapons that came from it. It could take up to a year for the mark to begin becoming visible but even before that monsters were drawn to them, somehow aware of their presence, and no [priest] or [curse-breaker] could remove the effect. So, dwarves stopped delving into dungeons lest they be marked and those who were either died or retreated to cities, away from the monsters that would hunt them.” Ivy felt her jaw slacken at the magnitude of the problem, but Evelyn wasn’t finished, “Unfortunately, just as the mark grew over time so seemingly did the effect, cities were besieged with waves of monsters drawn by a single dwarf. Then the Great Breaks came, dragons soared overhead, lungs burning with The Three’s judgement and the wilds grew. Dwarves were cast out from the handful of settlements that clung to life as the mark overcame even the warding of the elves. Some like Timberhollow permitted the dwarven children to remain but many were unwilling to risk even that.”

“Damn” Ivy could practically see the dwarves being chased from their homes but with a heaviness in her gut she knew she wouldn’t want to live beside a monster magnet. “That’s…Damn. That’s messed up. I take it Aurumcrest was destroyed?”

“No, it was too deep. It’s said that some of the greatest delvers across many races tried, though many more likely feared its ire, but it is said to be among the eldest and deepest of the dungeons to exist. While almost every dungeon was destroyed following the Great Breaks to attempt to stem the tide of monsters, it is the one dungeon known to have survived, partially because even now diviners are said to see the ruins of Aurumcrest when their spells fail.”

The silence hung heavy in the unnatural stillness of the safe room.

“So what you’re saying is, the likely incredibly old and powerful god that gave us our latest ability is responsible for that calamity and also has something to do with cursing elves. Is it just me or do they sound incredibly racist?”

Evelyn jerked her head around looking like she expected Ivy to be smote by lightning at any moment before hissing, “Do not directly disparage the gods! The Three last expressed their displeasure with the world by creating dragons and if you have any idea what they are you would not insult any deity so lightly.”

Ivy felt herself grimace, much though she disliked being unable to callout something so fundamentally wrong, she had to admit she’d forgotten that this was not her world and antagonising someone with power and willingness to curse entire races was unwise.

“Sorry, you’re right, I didn’t think. Still, I’m surprised you picked the option you did given the… differences in ethos between us and the granter.”

“I wanted to preserve the lives of those of great worth to Timberhollow. Growing their skills is pointless if we kill them and in case you forgot, my other choice to do that was the god of Life. Life abilities and spells actively corrode undeath, Twrch is an unusual exception to that but even then, it is the vines within him which grow, he is still greatly harmed. Do you think that would fit much more smoothly with our dungeon’s ethos?”

Ivy raised her hands as she realised she’d touched on a sore spot. Evelyn’s very proper, stoic mannerisms often masked her true emotions but even in the short time she’d known her, Ivy had realised that didn’t mean that she didn’t have strong feelings under the façade. Strong feelings that Ivy seemed to be trampling through with both feet in this conversation.

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to imply you don’t care, and honestly as ridiculous as it sounds, I kinda had forgotten that the other option was for a god with a domain that would make our skeletons fall apart…”

Ivy breathed a sigh of relief as Evelyn raised an eyebrow then chuckled as she presumably saw the ridiculous truth of the statement as Ivy's ears became uncomfortably warm.

“Anyway, shall we think about the next floor?”

“Very well, we have a significant amount of mana given the regular delves throughout the day and the deaths. We also gained a few skills and the fire and sonic affinities from those delvers. I suspect the early secondary affinity contributed to the [Ranger]’s overconfidence.”

“Err secondary affinity?”

“Ahh, yes, the primary, or so called ‘elemental’ affinities are the six elements fire, water, earth, air, light and dark. All the other known affinities are secondary affinities, often unhelpfully referred to as ‘advanced’ affinities as they are combinations of two primary affinities and are usually only accessed in a second class and are only guaranteed if you take your first class to the max level of 20.”

“So are secondary affinities more powerful…?”

Evelyn cut in with the resignation of someone who has had this conversation before, “No. Which is why calling them advanced is problematic. They are certainly rarer, I don’t believe all the secondary affinities are known, as asking someone about their classes is somewhat taboo and the ability to read delvers classes and affinities that we gained seems substantially more powerful than anything I’ve heard of previously, though I may simply not be in the know as it were.” Evelyn smoothed an imaginary crease in her dress as she refocused once again “The point is, while they are rarer they are not in general more powerful. Water is one of the primary elements and Lydia was by far the most effective in that last fight though that mostly shows the impact of levels. While some affinities are particularly sought after such as life, one of the other best known secondary affinities is spectrum because it is known to be incredibly weak to the point children are advised to never even consider a class if spectrum is its element.”

“OK so people hear advanced, see healers getting scouted and assume secondary is better. I’m curious about how you get the secondary elements from the primary like I assume spectrum is light and something…”

“I’m not confident but I believe it is light and light.”

“Oh, so they can combine with themselves, that’s trippy. I wonder if that means…” Ivy slapped her lap to refocus from her laser themed tangent, chuckled and continued with her original point, “I’d been thinking we should try and include a themed puzzle on the next floor, but I wasn’t sure what would be culturally known but doing challenges based on the basic elements seems like it could work. Not sure how to differentiate darkness though since we've kept the entire dungeon unlit up till the safe room, but we could work on the others first.”

“That could be interesting. I’m curious to test if any evolutions for the skeletons will be offered if we continue to level them.”

“Yes! We should totally do that and give them some equipment too. We could then use that stuff for chests and use those for optional challenges…”