Grakthur sat on his throne, far below the Springs of Gir, scraping his clawed fingers against the white skulls that made up his arm rest. Frustration and annoyance bubbled up within him, both at the light that crept in from the still open door and the visitors that insisted on exploring the tunnels beneath the springs.
At the very least, these ones had the decency to announce their invasion. If he played his cards right, none of the peons that worked the springs would need to die. As stupid as they were, and as plentiful as they were, death wasn’t something any of them deserved. Certainly not an avoidable one as this.
Jeffrey had been sent to give them a tour, and Grakthur scoffed at the thought of it, his claws digging into his armrest. A tour. Of his facilities. They had no right to such a thing, no purpose to it. Curiosity be damned.
If this were some proper business, some hot springs run by humans, they would never have been so brazen. The thought of forcing their way into the back wouldn’t even cross their mind. That would be indecent, disrespectful.
But this was a dungeon, and they were thought of as lesser. Grakthur spat black ink on the ground as he twisted his claws towards the door. Magical tendrils sprouted from the ground and slammed the door shut, blotting out the little light that seeped in from outside.
Disgusting humans. A pathetic sort, thinking themselves on top. So ignorant in their ways, yet so confident. Abhorrent.
Klihur opened the doors and stepped inside, closing them tight behind a moment after. Klihur was learning, at least. Most never seemed capable of such a feat, but the few that did became invaluable, and Klihur was proving to be just that in recent years.
“Sir, it’s Zoe, sir.” Klihur said.
“Zoe?” Grakthur asked.
“Yes sir. She’s been here before. Peter gave her a tour, sir. An immortal girl, sir?” Klihur explained.
Grakthur combed through his memories, thinking of all the visitors who’d been by. Most were Anna, taking on a new look that confused the goblins, or the odd human looking to rest on their travels. Business had been better in recent years, likely due to some conflict off to the east. Grakthur hardly paid attention to the meaningless squabbles of humans.
Zoe, he wondered. An immortal girl. He tapped his claw against his chin, scraping it along the inky scales that lined his neck.
“Ah! Yes, I remember her. She was curious about the tunnels before, too, wasn’t she?" Grakthur asked.
“Yes, sir. But she left respectfully, before. She’s here with two other women now.” Klihur explained.
Grakthur nodded. “Good, very good.”
He waved his claws and summoned a piece of paper. Black tendrils rose from the ground, splattering ink onto the paper, and he handed it to Klihur. “Send this to Jeffrey.”
—————
Zoe walked through the tunnels, following behind Jeffrey as he entered through a large locked door around the back of one of the inns, and wondered what the ethics of what she was doing were.
This was a dungeon, the goblins were monsters. But they were sentient, and friendly. It almost felt like she was threatening some minimum wage workers at a mcdonalds to show her how the fry machine worked, and she wasn’t sure how she felt about that.
Seeing how the dungeon worked was important to her, she knew. The feeling of wanting to know more was incredible. But was it worth it, if it came at the expense of having to strike so much fear in these innocent creatures? If it would have them be punished, or if it would somehow disrupt the operations of the springs which so many people enjoyed?
To Eliza, it clearly was. She didn’t seem to have any troubles slaughtering the goblins en masse if they dared try to stop her from seeing what she wanted. Her passion for knowing more about the dungeons far outweighed any ethical problems that might come up from killing the denizens of said dungeons.
But was that what Zoe wanted for herself? To be some ironfisted ruler, forcing her way into places people didn’t want her to be just because she was stronger than them and wanted to be there?
Everything she’d ever thought about, everything she’d ever read about even back home, made dungeons out to be some evil thing. Or if nothing else, their lives had no meaning. No purpose. Killing creatures in a dungeon was okay and just.
But being here, talking with Jeffrey and the other goblins who ran around, seeing how hard they tried to keep her from seeing the inner workings made it so much more real to her. These were creatures, they weren’t human. They were created? Summoned? By the dungeon, for some purpose.
If that purpose was evil, if they were here to do something wrong, then invading them and stopping their operations would be the right thing to do. But she had no reason to believe that, not truly. The goblins hadn’t been rude to her, hadn’t forced her into anything. They took some mana when she was here last, but that’s not a big deal and hardly malicious anyway.
Zoe grinned when a thought popped in her head.
“Hey, Jeffrey.” Zoe said.
“Yes?” Jeffrey asked, stopping to look at Zoe.
“You all want mana, right? You don’t do a good job of hiding that.” Zoe said.
“Well, we certainly use a lot of it.” Jeffrey smiled.
Zoe nodded. “Alright, well to be honest I’m feeling pretty bad about forcing our way in here like this. I don’t like thinking of you as less than human, and it feels like that’s what we’re doing. But I am extremely interested in what’s going on under the dungeon. So how about we make a deal?"
“What are you doing?" Eliza asked.
“I’m going to make a deal, like I said.” Zoe said.
“What do you propose?" Jeffrey asked before looking past Zoe down the tunnel and holding up a finger. ”Ah, one moment. It seems I have a message.“
Zoe watched as Klihur — one of the goblins Zoe had met the last time she was here ran up from behind them and handed Jeffrey a sheet of paper. She refrained from reading it, opting to at least try and be respectful despite the situation.
Jeffrey took a moment to read through it and then stuffed it in his pocket. “Klihur, wait here a moment. What are you proposing?"
“I have a lot of mana. I’ll give you as much as you want, if you give us a proper tour of the facilities. Name your price.” Zoe said.
“And if we say no, you’ll force us to give you that tour anyway?” Jeffrey asked.
Zoe shook her head. “If you say no, we’ll leave.”
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“I won’t.” Eliza said. “I’m exploring.”
“I’ll take them both away, but I can’t promise they won’t come back at some point.” Zoe said.
“Hey! That’s not fair. You can’t do that.” Eliza said.
“I can, and I will. I’m just as interested as you are, but these goblins are people too. I can’t just force my way in here because I’m stronger than them. This really isn’t sitting well with me, at all.” Zoe said.
“Eugh. Fine. But I will be back, you can tell your boss that.” Eliza said.
“No threats.” Zoe said.
“It’s alright, Eliza.” Lila said.
“No, it’s not. We’re here now, we should get to meet this boss and see what’s going on with the dungeon. We deserve that.” Eliza said.
“Why do we deserve that?" Zoe asked.
“Because we’re being taken advantage of. They’re taking our mana, and they’re not telling us for what.” Eliza said.
“That’s actually a fair point.” Zoe said.
“I know it is.” Eliza said.
“I’m still taking us away if they don’t agree to the deal though. I think that a deal has no meaning if we’re going to get what we want either way.” Zoe told Eliza then looked at Jeffrey. “Tell your boss. Name your price, I’ll give you as much mana as you want but we get a full tour of the facilities and get to meet your boss.”
Jeffrey nodded and pulled out a clean sheet of paper to scribble onto, then handed the note to Klihur who ran off back down the tunnels. “Well, we should wait up above then. Klihur will come find us at the entrance when he gets word from the boss.”
“This is so stupid. We should just break in.” Eliza said.
“Shush.” Lila said. “Zoe’s the one who brought us here, if this is how she wants to do it then we can respect that.”
“Thank you, Lila.” Zoe said.
“It’s no problem.” Lila smiled.
Jeffrey led the group back through the tunnels and up to the surface again where they waited for almost an hour for Klihur to come running back with another sheet of paper. Jeffrey read through it and then looked up at Zoe with an apologetic face.
“I’m afraid the boss has named his price.” Jeffrey said. “He wants ten billion mana by the end of the day in exchange for the tour you’ve asked for. I apologize, we really do prefer not to have guests exploring our facilities. It keeps us safer and lets things run smoothly.”
Zoe paused as she tried to calculate her current mana regeneration. Her total was almost seven hundred thousand, and she could dump all of it three times every second as she teleported at maximum speed. Which meant about two million mana regeneration per second, give or take. In an hour, that would be just over seven billion mana, so ten billion mana should only be an hour and a half of constant filling, if whatever she was filling could handle that amount of throughput.
She chuckled. “Actually, that’s fine. Where should I go to give you this mana?”
Jeffrey blinked a couple times. “I’m sorry?”
“Ten billion mana is fine. How do you want me to give it to you? Do you have some stones, or some machine I should use or something?" Zoe asked.
“Ten billion mana?" Eliza asked, staring at Zoe. ”By the end of today?"
“Yes, and I’d prefer to get started before the end of today, ideally.” Zoe said.
Jeffrey pulled out another sheet of paper and scribbled something on it before handing it off to Klihur who ran off again.
—————
Grakthur sat on his throne, satisfied with the outcome. Ten billion mana was far in excess of what any human would be capable of in under a day. Far in excess of what he himself would be capable of. If this girl was as kind as his goblins said she was, she would respect his demand and leave.
And if, in the off chance that she was capable of that much mana? She could take over the dungeon for all he cared.
The doors to his room slammed open, with a frantic looking Klihur running up towards him with another piece of paper. Grakthur waved his claw and magic flooded the room as black tendrils reached up from the ground and slammed the doors shut with an echoing thud.
“Sir, Jeffrey has sent a message, sir.” Klihur said, holding the note out in front of him.
Grakthur took the note and read through it, with increasing surprise.
The girl claims to be capable of paying the price and wishes to know where she can get started.
Ten billion mana? By the end of the day? From a single human? The thought was outrageous. Grakthur remembered this girl, just a few years prior she was only capable of maybe a couple billion mana given an entire day. But now she claimed to be capable of ten billion in the hours they had left?
Grakthur summoned another sheet of paper and splattered some more ink on it with black tendrils that stretched out the ground, handing the sheet to Klihur after.
—————
Klihur returned to the group shortly after with another sheet of paper that Jeffrey read through.
“Well, it seems the boss has approved of this deal. If you’d follow me, I’ll bring you down below to our facilities.” Jeffrey said and started walking off towards the same entrance he’d led them to before.
This time though, many of the fake walls had been busted down, and Jeffrey took them down a path that was hidden away from them before. The tunnels kept descending deeper into the ground for several minutes until it opened up into a larger room with some form of dark metal walls that had flickering torches hanging, casting light across the empty room.
Two more hallways branched off from the room, leading to the left and right. Several goblins ran through the hallways, casting a wary glance towards Zoe’s group as they went, carrying boxes and bags full of animal bits and plants.
“What is this?" Eliza asked.
“This is our facility.” Jeffrey answered. “You’ll learn more after the payment has been made, but I must apologize, you still won’t be able to meet our boss.”
“That’s fine.” Zoe said. “Thank you for bringing us here, I appreciate it a lot.”
Jeffrey nodded and led them down the left hallway and into one of the connecting rooms that reminded Zoe of the room she had in the inn up above, without the connected bath. A comfortable enough bed, a sizable closet and a counter, with two torches hanging from the walls casting light throughout.
“Please wait here. Klihur will be back to lead you to where you can provide us with your mana soon.” Jeffrey said.
“Okay, thanks.” Zoe said as she plopped down on the bed.
Eliza and Lila followed in after her, and Jeffrey closed the door after they were all inside.
“You can really do that much mana?" Eliza asked. ”Cause I’m not sure they’ll be happy if you’re lying.“
Zoe nodded.
“That’s incredible, you know?” Eliza asked.
Zoe nodded. “I know. But it’s what I’m good at, it’s my thing. I envy Lila’s communication ability, and I envy your runes, Eliza.”
“Yeah, yeah. There’s always a tradeoff. But if having that much mana gets you on the good side of the dungeons, I think you’re winning the trade.” Eliza laughed.
“Maybe. I didn’t think it would really work, to be honest.” Zoe said.
“I was going to be extremely mad if it didn’t.” Eliza said.