The room was set up as Duke expected. It was a simple, large room with ten zombies aimlessly milling about on the far side. He ran up to them and, as he expected, they did not react to his presence at all. He flexed his will and his over 500 points of Psyche was easily able to take control of the zombies. As they were mindless, there wasn’t even a hint of resistance – they simply stopped wandering and stared straight ahead. A grin spread across his face as 9 zombies turned to face the wall and the 10th followed him towards the entrance.
Aurelia and her team strode out of the entrance, weapons ready and in formation. They paused when they saw the zombie shuffling its way along behind Duke but held their formation. Aurelia tipped her head quizzically but otherwise held her position.
Duke stopped in front of the group, the zombie three paces behind him. “This is a level 100 zombie. I’m going to call him Bob. Your job is to kill Bob. Use every Skill and Ability you can to do so. Bob will not fight back, well, at least not fight back effectively. He will swing his arms around occasionally so be alert for that. When you are done with him, there are nine more just like him.”
The grins that spread across their faces as Duke stepped out of the way were predatory and hungry. With an affirmative nod from Duke, they pounced into action. Abilities and Skills were brought to bear, and the fight started in earnest. Sort of.
Despite the zombie not effectively fighting back, the fight took longer than Duke had expected. It seemed that its inherent damage resistance raised with its level. Still, the group ponded, slashed, stabbed, and otherwise cut it down over time. Once they were done, the group was exhausted but full of smiles. None had gained a level, but they were all close.
“Ready for Betty?” Duke asked.
The enthusiastic response made Duke smile himself. He brough the next zombie to them and the fight started again. This continued for all 10 zombies. It took over two hours, but when all was said and done, the group had all hit level 5. The exit formed and they all stepped out giddy with excitement.
“Thank you, Duke. That was a great spark to get our fire going. On to level 10 undead for us. Sam, can you set it up for us?”
“As you wish, General.” Sam replied quickly.
Duke gestured for Sam to join him aside and they headed off to a less-populated area. “Sam, can you set up a high-level run for me?”
Sam looked at Duke for a long, hard, moment. “Duke, I have to tell you a thing or two. The only reason you were able to get away with what you just did is because you are the owner of the last dungeon on Teldin. That was not in keeping with the spirit or purpose of a dungeon. Running these massively-multiple groups through scenarios where they fight with actual peril and stakes? THAT is a proper use for this dungeon. Please don’t abuse this relationship. Bad things happen when that occurs – it's what we believe led to the Purge in the first place. Our second item is this. I can certainly set up a high-level run for you, but it will do nothing for you as far as experience goes. Since the dungeon can’t hurt you, you can’t gain experience from it.”
Duke looked crestfallen as he suddenly felt the absolute truth of what Sam was telling him. He took a long pause to wrap his head around it before changing his direction. “OK, Sam. I guess I would have figured that out eventually but thanks for the heads-up. You can still set up a Skills and Abilities practice range, right?”
“That I can do for sure. I’ll have it ready for you whenever you wish.” Sam seemed to be relieved at being able to do something for Duke, almost as if he feared the man. Duke picked up on both this and the fact that Sam was acting more and more human. He didn’t say anything but kept it in mind for future interactions.
“How are you doing on Mana supply, Sam? Are the troops generating enough to fuel your growth?”
“Yes, even with the extraneous expenditures for food and equipment, I am still gaining more than I expend by a significant amount. By the end of the week, I should have sufficient reserves to create a second level in the instanced areas and start to include more significant rewards.”
“Rewards?” Duke asked, intrigued.
“Yes, right now I can’t offer more than a few coins for such low-level and basic undead creatures. But, with a second level, I can start making more interesting and challenging creatures. Maybe even add a boss to the level so I can start handing out items.” Sam perked up more and more as he talked about the new level and rewards.
“I like what I’m hearing, Sam. Is there any way we can accelerate this beyond more Mana coming in?”
“Not really. Adding more Mana to the dungeon is the only way for me to grow it. The troops are starting to level a bit faster now that you have loosened the restrictions, and they can fight undead above their level. Not many of them are heavy Mana-users so their overflow of Mana is nearly constant but the other side of that coin is that they don’t have a significant regen rate so their bodies can’t pull much from the cosmos anyway.”
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“That’s the most detailed description of the situation that I’ve heard yet. OK, I have a few ideas on how to help that along. Here’s what we’re going to do.” Duke spent the next hour walking Sam through his plans. Sam offered a number of suggestions and they eventually came to an agreement on how to grow and shape the dungeon for the foreseeable future.
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Baslin stood in front of his ranks of mages. Amazingly, all had managed to gain the class and learn the initial four Spells he had selected for them. He even got to use one of his favorite academic Spells, Mass Duplicate Book. It had allowed him to create a new Spellbook with the four spells in it for each and every of his new students. It had drained his Mana nearly completely, but the fascinated and excited looks on their collective faces as the books appeared in their hands had been worth it to the Archmage.
That feeling was great, but when he had the entire Mage Corps strike overhead targets with their two “bolt” Spells, that really made him proud. There were a few who failed on their first few casts, but by the end of the morning, they all could strike a stationary, floating target with their bolt spells. As he started to have the targets move, things went quite a bit far downhill with only one in ten hitting the target. It was largely as he had expected. The coordination of somatic motions and verbal components needing to be timed correctly requires a combination of Agility and Psyche that most early Mages struggled to master. He had ways of improving their Skills, but really practice was the best way. He resolved to speak with Duke about getting some dungeon time for the Mages so that they could start leveling more than just their Skills and Abilities.
He was broken out of his thoughts by the sounds of shouting and cheering coming from the ranks. He quickly cast a Levitation Spell to get over his students’ heads and see what was amiss. What he saw was not what he had expected. There was a pair of mages shooting Forcebolts at each other, trying to penetrate their respective Shields. This was not what he had asked them to do but he decided to see where it went.
The pair exchanged bolts for a full minute until one’s Shield started to flicker towards failure. Instead of letting up, the one with the failing Shield continued to launch bolts, making his opponent’s Shield start to fail similarly. The first mage’s Shield failed and winked out. Baslin was about to end the combat when another mage cast a Shield on the undefended mage. Immediately, another mage refreshed the other mage’s shield. More Forcebolts and some Firebolts began to fly as the mages quickly separated into multiple groups, expanding the fighting.
Baslin stopped himself from intervening as this was tremendous practice for all of them. He was annoyed that he didn’t think of this exercise himself. He continued to observe as things devolved into several factional fights. All told, there were about 100 different groups. It was more than he could comfortably keep track of, so he decided to thin the numbers a bit. Every time he saw a bolt get through and strike a mage, he removed that mage from the combat. This way no one was seriously injured, and the numbers diminished steadily.
It took a few hours for them to get down to the final hundred or so when Baslin called them all to a halt. The participants still “standing” all looked up at their Master and suddenly realized that they were supposed to be doing something else entirely. Nearly as one, they came to attention, and tried to maintain their composure.
“How many of your fellow mages died in this fracas?” Baslin asked, his voice firm and unyielding. Their faces fell and lost all coloration as the weight of the question landed upon them. They had no answer but began to look around themselves with a sense of horror.
“Since none of you seem to know, I will tell you. Not a single one. But that is only because I intervened and prevented it.” The look of relief that spread through the entire Mage Corps was as palpable as the collective release of held breath.
“So, who started this whole thing?” Baslin asked.
It was not more than a few seconds before a pair of mages came forward. “We started this, Archmage Baslin.”
“So, are you two ready and willing to accept the consequences of your actions?” Baslin’s tone was ominous with the gravitas of a mountain.
Both answered affirmatively, doing their best to hold their heads high despite the concern and trepidation etched into their features. Baslin nodded seriously. “You two started a magical brawl that resulted in 3,216 minor injuries and more than 8,000 mages learning what magical combat can be like. For that, you two are charged with organizing and running a mage combat tournament in two weeks. You may ask anyone for aid in making this successful, but you two must be at the head of it all and make all the major decisions. Is that clear?”
Thoroughly stunned, they both looked at each other and then back at Baslin. “Yes sir!”
Baslin smiled. “Good. Everyone take a break and go get something to eat. We will reconvene in one hour.” As Baslin watched his students file back into the Inn, he was startled by a voice behind him.
“Well, that was entertaining as fuck.” Duke smiled as Baslin flinched. “Gotcha!”
“So it would seem. I hope you approve of how I am handling this?” Baslin responded.
“Not really up to me to approve or disapprove. I put you in charge of the Mage Corps. It would be pretty shitty of me to second-guess your methods. I’ll ask questions for sure, but you’re the Archmage here. I’m just a hopped-up pilot with a bunch of cool Abilities.”
“You’re a bit more than that, Duke. But I do thank you for your confidence in me and my methods. Were you drawn out here by the commotion or was there something else you wanted to talk about.”
“A bit of both, actually. I would request that you start taking the Mage Corps through the training dungeon soon. Their expenditure of Mana will accelerate the dungeon’s growth. It seems that to create each low-level undead, it takes Sam one or two Mana. He is passively absorbing enough Mana from the Warrior Corps. Man, I need a better name than that. Anyway, he’s absorbing enough Mana to continue to grow at a decent rate. Having the Mage Corps actively in there casting Spells will accelerate that significantly.”
“As that was something I was going to ask you about – access to the training dungeon for the Mage Corps, I think we are rather well aligned. I’d love to get them in the dungeon after their lunchbreak.”
Duke smiled. “That sounds like a great idea. Let’s make it happen.”