I was ready. I snapped the travel token in half. The last two days had gone well. None of the Quest were hard. Selenia and Nellamon were finding people in need free Healing everyday. I had plenty of time to tutor Aern'Lenninisal. Harmin finalized the deal for training the students. He increase my pay from twenty silver an hour to thirty silver an hour. I managed to get some gear from local merchants for my delve. Besides a quarterstaff, a pick, and short sword, I got leather armor, a lantern, torches, rations, rope, a grappling hook, bags, lock picks, bandages, Greek fire, a short extension ladder, a heavy overcoat, two more [Heal] potions, and potion of [Purge Toxin]. They did not sell kitchen sinks. I asked.

I held out for a [Healing] Spell on my last [Limit Break]. There are only a handful Tier 1 Healing Spells for Arcane casters and most are nearly useless. The Spirit Arts are full of them, but it's very difficult to Heal with Mana. Spells to drain Health are common, but they require an enemy to target as a source to draw from.

There are only three Tier 1 Arcane Spells the regenerate Health Points, and it's not possible to heal others with two of them. One from the [Animal] School, one from the [Body] School, and one from the [Entity] School. [Beastly Regeneration] increase Health recovery by an order magnitude, but only while you're shapeshifted in an animal form. I took [Body Reformation] which is a Spell that takes concentration, stillness, and a long time to cast. At my current Level and Statistics, I can fully recover from minor injuries in about thirty minutes, unless I am missing major organs or too much blood. [Recharge Body] is like my other recharge spells except it recharges the Health of living things or constructs. [Recharge Body] is a great Spell, but I'm not going tie myself to using some awesome Source Magic at Level 2 unless I'm using a grimoire. I'll have to wait to get it.

I had used my [Astral Grimoire] to prepare some Spells. I had read over the Dungeon guide, and prepared tactics and strategies. I selected some locations to attack and some to avoid. I had reviewed the creatures and terrain of the Dungeon. I had set my [Recall] point to Shrine less than a mile from the inn. I just woke up from getting a few hours of sleep to be fresh. Aern'Lenninisal had cast [Tongues] on me. I was ready. Ready and waiting. Waiting in the cold at night in the courtyard of the inn. For all the times my mind wandered, this would not be one. The next few minutes drug by, until I saw something flying out of the dark sky.

I could barely make out a wingspan of about ten strides, before the creature came fully into view. It was a Pegasus! A horse with wings came down in the courtyard on a smooth glide-path. The sound of horseshoes on cobblestones suddenly filled the night. The rider was wearing a heavy fur lined coat and goggles.

“Did you call for ride?”

“Yes,” I said.

I did not look forward to riding on this magnificent creature. There was no seat on the saddle for me, and the space on the rump seemed very small.

“Token,” he said.

I handed the broken token up to him. He took one half and left me the other.

A familiar gray shimmering portal snapped into existence.

I walked over to it slowly enough that he could object if he didn't want me to enter his [Personal Palace]. When I walked through I found myself in stark room. The standard three stride by three stride entrance chamber was present, mostly. There was an elevated spot wide enough to lay or sit on at the back of the room. A narrow tunnel in the back of the foyer came to a dead end after five strides. Small size was not the only problem with a low level [Personal Palace]. Moving features around was difficult. It required planning and patience to develop them.

The room was bare. There was nothing to steal or damage. I briefly considered whether I would be trapped in here until I remembered Celestium telling me it was fairly simple to force a way out for yourself. Of course it would be a bad idea right now as the exit would be flying through the sky.

I was still bored, but now I wasn't cold. About seven minutes later the portal flashed showing an open space surrounded by lamps. The man and his Pegasus were about five strides away from the image projected on the wall. After a few seconds the portal turned gray. I stuck my head through first, to make sure the ground was safe before I walked out. No sooner than I had exited, than the portal vanished. The Pegasus took off at gallop and after a few steps with a great swoop of it's wings, it was propelled into the air.

I stared after the pair until I couldn't see them anymore. There was the smell of smoke in the air. There was a wide road, also lined by lamps, leading away from the clearing. I started walking. To my right was a cliff face. To my left was a steep drop off. Even with the lamps, I couldn't see the bottom in the darkness. The road curved around the mountain and joined with another road of the same width. The roads came together at a Y that went through a pass. There were two roads on this side of the pass, and one on the other. The peaks on each side the pass were very high. I stood between them, and saw the road on the other side quickly descending to shallow bowl with no exits.

The bowl was elliptical, being about forty strides wide and sixty strides long. There was a small stone building with smoke coming out of the chimney. Two guards stood next to a cave on the right side of the bowl. Another two guards stood outside of the building on the left.

When I got close enough, one of the guards outside the building walked up and challenged me.

“Present your Adventurer's card and your license,” He called out.

I struggled to dig through my things. I showed him the card and the day passes.

“If you wait an hour and half, You won't have to waste one of these,” He advised.

The [Tongues] spell let me understand what he was saying, but I didn't want to seem odd. Instead of answering in English I used Low Common, “I go now.”

He shrugged, and then stacked my three day passes on top of my Adventurer's card. He tapped them with a wand. The card and the passes glowed for a moment. He handed them back to me.

The three day passes were stuck together. Part of the top day pass still glowed. It was a small segment of the outer ring. If the pass had been a watch-face, the glowing started between ten and elven o'clock and was lit up through the twelve o'clock position. Pretty intuitive.

I stored everything but my lantern and my staff. [Create Flame] lit my lantern. I topped up with [Recharge Mana]. I wanted to ask when the first floor Boss had last been killed, but I didn't want to have to resort to English. Instead I picked up my staff and lantern, and walked into the Dungeon.

The cave spiraled down steeply at first. Steps had been carved into floor to make the route more passable. After descending about twenty strides, the path leveled off some and straightened out. Lamps lit the first hundred strides until they stopped just short a ragged portal surrounding the path. Not only did the lamps stop, I noticed the floor wasn't paved beyond the opening.

I stepped through. It was like putting your face in water. I didn't feel like much of a difference, but you knew you were passing from thing into another. Research by the best Magical minds suggested that Dungeon Levels weren't entirely physically connected with each other. Some suggested that the different Levels might be on another plane of existence, but teleportation Magic that would only work on this world functioned normally. The theory helped explain why creatures from one Level could only rarely cross to the next Level.

My Level and Statistics would force most creatures to flee before me on Level 1. I only had to worry about an occasional slime that was to stupid to know better. I walked at a casual pace. I had viewed the maps of this and five other Dungeons very regularly through the Divine Helpdesk. The main path went straight for a league until it reached the Boss chamber.

Every fifty to a hundred strides a tunnel would branch off to one side or another. I caught sight of Horned Devil Bunnies scampering away twice. Once I saw the light from my lantern reflect off the side of a yellow slime. It was too far away to sense me. As I neared the end of the Level, three giant rats were waiting an a tunnel when rounded the corner. I froze. They didn't move either. I took step toward them and they ran off. In short order I was in front of the Level's Boss chamber.

The doors to the chamber were open. The cavern was empty. The normal Boss creature in this lair was a warg. The Boss only respawned twenty-four hours after it was killed. Normally the Boss gets killed first thing in the morning. There was a low probability of finding him at this hour. I hurried across the room and passed into Level 2 of the Dungeon.

I could feel the barrier as I crossed it. This was it. I was Level 2 on Level 2 of this Dungeon. And I was alone. With my Statistics I was still twice as powerful as most things in here. I could have serious problems if the monsters decided they wanted to team up on me. I had make sure that didn't happen.

I lowered the lantern in my right hand near the ground, ready to drop it at a moments notice. I held the staff in my left hand high enough not make noise as I walked forward slowly. My eyes scanned back and forth. I came up on the first tunnel on right slowly. I backed against the opposite wall so I wouldn't be ambushed if I tried to hug the wall near the tunnel opening. I was moving slowly, but the light from my lantern was a dead giveaway. Maybe I would prefer to say a 'sure' giveaway right now.

As I moved into position, I could see the tunnel was empty. There was a sharp turn at the end, obstructing the view of the Horned Devil Bunnies I believed were in that chamber. They had numbers and speed. It wasn't a good idea for me to go into their warren today. I proceed to the next tunnel intersection.

This was a four way junction. The left pathway was fairly safe if unpleasant. I led to pool of water that acted to stop the Fiendish Giant Ants from coming this way. I was possible to swim down to the underwater tunnel that came up in a pool on the other side. That's were the ants lived. The water acted as firm barrier.

The right-hand junction meandered around until it reach a pit of Hate Vipers surrounding a small colony of Giant Rats. There were too many Hate Vipers for the rats to get out, and there was a sheer face the Hate Vipers couldn't climb. Neither was expected be coming this way, but it paid to play it safe.

I went straight ahead. The tunnel opened out into a cavern. The ceiling varied between fifteen and twenty strides high. The width of the cavern was about the same, but the floor undulated, creating a rolling series of hills and valleys. Occasionally there would be stalagmites and stalactites dotting the landscape.

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I heard a loud “popping” noise to my right. I mushroom about a foot high had just come into being. The Magic of the Dungeon respawned even plant life, or in this case a fungus, after an hour. My [Identify] Skill triggered.

Popper Mushroom

This edible fungus tastes horrible. They are harvestable, but unsellable. They make a popping sound when they suddenly come into existence.

I stopped and waited for I what I suspected would be coming next. An Acid Slime topped a rise behind were the mushroom appeared. It had been heading for mushroom, but it change course when it sensed me. Slimes normally hunted by vibration and touch, but Acid Slimes could also detect [Good] and [Law] Aligned creatures.

First, I set my lantern down. A well placed [Local Portal] cut the slime in half. I used my quarterstaff to crush the slime's core to finish it off. Some nearby dirt neutralized the acid before I collected the core and put into a bag in [Inventory]. It had been a while since I had been in combat, but my reflexes were still good. I got 10 XP, 1 [Law Karma Point] and 1 [Good Karma Point].

The next slime I saw had enveloped a Popper Mushroom and was slowly digesting it. It didn't move until I got within thirty strides of it. [Local Portal] started the cycle again. It took fifteen minutes to kill the twenty or so slimes in the cavern.

Next came the time to use the trick on page three of the Dungeon guide. I took the portable extension ladder out of [Inventory] and set it up underneath a narrow tunnel coming into the cavern from above. There was no place for a grappling hook to find purchase. The ladder reached sixteen feet when assembled. It's four sections fit neatly in single cubic stride of [Inventory].

The tunnel in the ceiling was one stride in diameter, and angled up at a forty-five degree incline. With the ladder leaning against the edge of the hole, I scrambled up the tunnel with my lantern's handle held in my mouth. After the twenty-strides the tunnel opened into a roughly spherical chamber, forty strides across. There were multiple shelves up the sides of the wall. White oblong shapes one stride long and two feet wide filled the room. [Identify] triggered.

Fiendish Giant Ant Egg

This egg will hatch into a juvenile Fiendish Giant Ant. Market price is five coppers

In the center of the room was another tunnel, the same size I had come in though. I set the lantern by the entrance tunnel, and pulled a torch from [Inventory]. I had reserved one unit of [Inventory] just for torches. I only had four slots, but needed to be able to draw out a torch quickly in case my lantern went out. [Create Flame] lit the torch and I topped up with [Recharge Mana]. You can't be too careful in a Dungeon.

I walked over to the tunnel in the center of the room. It dropped straight down for ten strides into another chamber. I dropped the torch down the hole. I clattered at the bottom and bounce out of sight, but the light it gave off showed another room filled with more eggs. I took by quarterstaff and beat on a nearby egg until it split open.

You have killed a Fiendish Giant Ant Embryo.

You gain 1 XP, 1 [Law Karma Point], and 1[Good Karma Point].

“Yes! I get Karma too,” I exclaimed.

These eggs had the same ratio of XP to Karma that Quests did. That little tidbit was not in the Dungeon guide I had purchased from the Guild.

I pushed the busted egg down the hole. I crushed another egg and pushed down the hole after the first. By the time I dropped the third egg, I hear a rustling from below. I looked down to see an ant. [Identify] triggered.

Fiendish Giant Ant

Imported from the demonic plane of Khimzhezimir as a delicacy. A breeding ant farm was stepped on by a passing giant, freeing the colony. They have now been endemic on Elfandrael for millennia. These [Chaotic Evil] creatures are resistant to [Crushing], [Fire], and [Ice] damage. They are vulnerable to [Piercing], [Electrical] and [Sonic] damage.

In my friendliest and kindness voice I said, “Hey, little guy. Would you like a decapitation?”

The ant started climbing up the tunnel. Another appeared below it and followed the first. I backed up a few feet and timed his approach with my [Local Portal] Spell. I miss by a little and cut the thorax in half. The top half of the flopped over from the exit portal that was offset from the tunnel. The lower half fell back down the tunnel.

The ant below, grabbed the dead ant half and just kept coming. I had to open two portals. One to cut the ant corpse down to size, so I could open another portal to get second ant. I got the neck this time, for a clean decapitation. Style matters.

The ants kept coming. Wave after wave. The exoskeletons piled up. At first I was able to use the carcasses as a shield, letting me get more time to line up a portal. After the fiftieth ant, the irregular terrain made it harder to predict where the ant would head. Sometimes I missed a few ants. For brief moments I had two to deal with at once.

My Mana started to drain with concentration even though Spell didn't have a cost. I was having to use [Recharge Stamina] as well. The ants were coming every three to five seconds. During the shortest intervals I barely had time to attack, much less recover. I tripped over an ant egg once. It was tense few moments before I got back to my feet. I had to cast while prone until I had enough time between ants for me to stand.

They kept coming and coming. And then I lost contain. I couldn't remain close enough to get the [Local Portal] to go off. That ant chose a different path, and the next followed it. I caught the one after that, but now I had two ants coming at my flank. That's when I noticed I was about to Level. I used [Sprint] and darted to one side of the room. I triggered [A Chance at Greatness] I hurried through prompts to gain an additional Willpower.

I was more than three times as fast as they were, but now there were five times as many of them as me. I was desperate. I was going to have to take risk to get this under control. I moved to one side of the room so the five, now six ants couldn't get to me all at once. I wrapped my left arm around my quarterstaff, tucked into my armpit, and held it straight out to act as an extended stiff arm against any incoming ant.

I got the first ant coming at me with [Local Portal]. The second took the bait and grabbed the staff. I couldn't open a portal in front of it because of the staff, so I opened one under its left foot. Then its right foot. It let go of the staff to rebalance itself. I had to switch to the next ant. [Local Portal] for the win! Now it was four to one.

I had only trimmed the front two feet of the ant that had bitten my quarterstaff. I tried putting a portal under one it's middle feet. I had the same disappointing result. I got the next incoming ant with a portal, but another popped up from the tunnel. Still four to one.

Changing tactics, I hit the damaged ant with a [Force Punch], and then again. The third time it went down. A portal took the next ant. Another came into the chamber from below. Three to one. Unfortunately these three ants all came at the same time. I got one with a portal, blocked one with the staff, but the third one got me.

It bit me my on arm. It stung, but my Constitution was above the Level Limit. I felt like getting bitten by dog. I hurt, but it didn't penetrate too deeply. I saw a small amount of Health drop off the bar in my HUD.

I cast [Just a Fleshwound] and not only did the damage go away, my arm slid out of the ant's mandibles. Probability Magic makes the possible, probable. I followed that up with a [Force Punch] to the face. The ant needed a few more boxing lessons before it fell over and gave up. A quick follow up moved me back in control of the situation, only facing one ant at time.

The wall of dead ants eventually created obstacles I could stick my hand through. That let me get close enough to cast [Local Portal] without the ants being able to attack me. The steady stream of ants kept going, until it abruptly stopped. I looked down the hole. There weren't anymore ants down there.

I couldn't help myself. I started singing the theme from the Pink Panther, “Dead ant...dead ant... dead ant, dead ant, dead ant-dead ant, dead ant, d-d-d-daaaaa-de-dead ant.”

The clock on my HUD said it been more than twenty minutes since the fight had begun. I had to top up Stamina, Mana, and a little bit of Chi.

I began crushing the ant eggs with [Force Punch]. I couldn't get to a third of the eggs because they were under the pile of bodies. The mound was impressively high.

I checked the time again and realized I need to get back down the ladder. I didn't have time to cut the cores out their body. The financial motive sucked too, as they weren't worth my time. The slimes in the first chamber would be respawning soon. I was little concerned with a passerby taking my ladder, as this was a main entrance to Dungeon. It wasn't too big of a concern, for several reasons. The first was most Level 2 people weren't fighting in Dungeons. There was a portal on Level 10 that meant most people wouldn't be exiting through this way. The third was that at midnight it would be Celestiumday, which is the day off for those of [Lawful Good] Alignment.

The elves kept pestering me to attend services. They didn't seem to understand the concept of 'spiritual but not religious.' When I came up with idea of telling them I wasn't going because I was a Pilgrim they finally backed off. I still didn't understand why that worked. When I got some spare money I was going to have to ask Celestium about that.

I broke the extension ladder down and put it back in [Inventory].

The next group of monsters along the main path was a pack of wargs. The trick was to take the left side tunnel and hang down from rope while, hitting them with ranged attacks. I had to use [Force Punch] and [Local Portal], so I was hanging just above were they could bite me. To get into the position to hang down for the wargs, I had to get past a pack of Ember Hogs. That required kiting them onto a beach and then hopping a stream. They wouldn't cross the stream and I could pick them off with ease. All of this thanks to the Dungeon Guide.

I circled back for for another run at the slimes and the Ants. I got the slimes taken care of in five minutes instead of fifteen. There were fewer Ants the second time around, and the eggs didn't respawn. It only took fifteen minutes. I looped back through the Hogs and Wargs. The next spawn was swarm of coachroachs. If I covered my skin, the coachroachs couldn't do damage. Alas the poor cockroaches did not have [Force Punch], like me. It did require washing the bug guts off in the stream near the Ember Hogs.

The fourth time through with ants didn't go well. I had already destroyed all the ant eggs. Without that to start the cycle they didn't seem interested in fighting. It was time to get off the main Dungeon path anyway. I didn't want Adventurer's coming by while I was killing stuff. I followed the side path with Ember Hogs even deeper. I planned a route that would let me endlessly grind in a circular path so I wouldn't have to stop. It was far enough away from the main exit route from the Dungeon not be exposed. I only stopped when I needed a break. All day, and into the next.

A group of six Adventure's came upon me while I was running the circuit. They watched me cut the monsters with practiced ease for a few minutes before leaving.

I'd been awake for thirty-two hours. Whenever I had gotten tired, I used [Recharge Stamina] to recover. I was starting to nod off every once in a while. Even if I topped myself up, I'd loose Stamina, Mana, and Chi every ten minutes or so. It was time to pack it in. It was dangerous enough being a Dungeon by myself. I didn't need to fall over from exhaustion.

It took me an half an hour to fight my was back to main roadway in the Dungeon, and another ten minutes minutes to reach the Level 1 Boss Chamber. Just before I got there I ran across a group of four Adventurers fighting slimes. I gave them a wide birth. They defeated their slime and then huddled up. I just nodded and waved as I passed them. They had to be Level 2 like me, but probably didn't have Analyze. As far they were concerned I could be any Level up to 9 coming back like this.

The Boss Chamber was empty again, and the creatures of Level 1 wanted even less to do with me than the first time. I was covered in blood, sweat, grime, and monster guts. I sure could use Nellamon's [Purify] right now. How tired was I that I wanted be around that guy?

The Guards asked for my license, so I pulled out the stack of day passes. To my surprise two of them were gone. Only one chip was left. There was more than three quarters of the glowing ring around the edge still lit up. The Guard nodded and waved me on. I reached the clearing where the Pegasus rider had dropped me off the day before yesterday. I pulled out the Guild transit token and broke it in half.

While I was a waiting a bus load of twenty Adventurers arrived. I waved at them and they waved at me. This time a Magi-tech hover car came to pick me up. He was not happy with me. Even I couldn't stand the smell of Fiendish Ant and Ember Hog Entrails. Luckily, I no longer had [Tongues] up, so I couldn't understand his animated rant.

The desk clerk at the inn gave me the same disgusted look the Guild driver did. I walked under the shower in the bathroom with all my clothes and armor on. When I was no longer completely filthy, just slightly filthy, I stripped down and collapsed in bed.