After laying out his plan with the glass smith, Deacon tapped his chin in contemplation. Between his glass strengthening recipe, Tarik’s skill, the magically infused sand, and a little help from Chimera they may be able to revolutionize the production of glass within the realm. To complete this plan he would need to open a developmental account with the Teller back at the guild. That’ll give Tarik funds to draw from for equipment and staff. Deacon knew he was on the precipice of a new industry.

Deacon walked both Tarik and Frankilo out to the cliff wall. Here he explained the hidden underground arena where he and Ralph were trapped months ago. Popping out his dragon claws, Deacon pulled open the hidden door which was almost imperceptible. Using a combination of his Dungeon Bound title and the miniscule passage of air his aura could sense; he located the entrance again. He had to hand it to this headband. Having all his titles available to him at once was a game changer.

“Won’t we have to clean the mess that’s been left in here?” Frankilo asked.

“Yes, and there is a thin spot between this plane and the Nether. Watch out for that. Otherwise I think you can use this space as a factory. It’s getting late and I need to meet my team at the guild. Should you need to contact me just reach out to Finely the Teller,” said Deacon.

“How are we supposed to open this door in the future?” Tarik asked looking around.

“There’s probably a release mechanism or something. Here, pull this lever,” replied Deacon as he heard a ding. The sound came from the room on the other side of the wall away from the door leading back to the racetrack. They all looked through the doorway leading into the side room to find a large freight platform hooked up to a serious of ropes and pulleys.

Deacon looked up the shaft and his eyebrow ridges rose up. Not only was it a secret elevator but it seemed to go all the way back to the top of the plateau. He jogged over to it and hopped on the platform gesturing for Tarik to pull the lever again.

“Are you sure about this champion? We don’t know what’s at the top. I’m honestly a little worried about this place being here this whole time and no one knowing about. What if the original owners came back? They could just sneak up on us from behind,” Tarik mused.

“Nonsense, we killed all of those vampires the same day you lot go freed. Just pull the lever. I was gifted all the properties of House Taurant here at Iron Mountain. If they have a house up there, it also belongs to me. No worries,” responded Deacon before gesturing him to pull the lever.

In the back of Deacon’s mind he was pissed that he and Ralph didn’t find this on the first trip through. Would have saved him a painful walk back up. Then the pulley system kicked in as Tarik pulled the lever. It shuddered a bit before Deacon began rising to the top. It was steady at first before it began picking up speed. Deacon looked all over the platform for some kind of break lever or throttle control but found none. Then he jolted to a stop, making him feel weightless for a fraction of a second before all the juices in his body settled in again.

Looking around Deacon could see several sets of cages, all empty. They were of varying sizes as well. It seemed like a large warehouse interior. There was a set of large sliding doors on the far side but sectioned off office for clerical work. That must have all been handled offsite, he thought. While it was dark in here there was still some sunlight peeking between the wooden planks that made up the walls. That spoke to the construction of this building. Large enough to house whatever they were moving but cheap enough to be overlooked. For the life of him, Deacon could not figure out where in the city this building could be. Then he slid the doors open to reveal the outside.

He was on the eastern side of town, on a street with row after row of identical warehouse structures. This must be a holdings district before stock is moved to storefronts and granaries. He could see the top of the Tower guild from here giving him his bearings. That meant he was only a few blocks from the guild house. Deacon pulled the door closed and scratched his name on the front of it. If he was going to claim this later, he wanted know which one actually lead to his property. It was getting closer to sunset, so he decided to use Spectral Jump to clear rooftops instead of strolling through the streets. This made him feel like Naruto, although the titular ninja character didn’t leave trails of green energy with his passing.

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“Hold it right there ne'er-do-well!” hollered a knight clad in full plate armor from head to toe wobbling on a chuck of rock floating above Deacon as he landed on a roof top.

“Oh hey, you’re that knight with the awesome magic spell. You’re welcome by the way,” proclaimed Deacon.

“Not so fast. You are trespassing on several peoples homes. I order you to return to the street or be considered cat burglar,” accused the Knight.

“You really want to do this? I don’t even know your name,” whined Deacon.

“I am Sir Gregory of his majesty’s order of knights. The sky must remain clear to prevent false alarms of flying beasts. So I order you to get down and cease this rooftop chicanery,” commanded Sir Gregory.

Deacon nodded and Spectral Jumped onto the knights rock.

“What are you doing? I said to return to the streets below not share space on my stone,” sputtered Sir Gregory.

“I need a ride back to the Adventurer’s Guild. You may not recognize me because my hair grew out a bit but I’m the guy that shot himself from a catapult to fight the giant Ogre. Any of this ringing a bell?” asked Deacon as he knocked on the knights helmet. This made the knight squat lower on the rock as it wobbled beneath the two men.

“Are you talking about the Champion of Chimera? Savior of Iron Mountain Plateau? Freer of Slaves? Preposterous. He is known to be a well dressed man of bronze hue. You’re dressed as a beggar with sandals and no shirt. I insist you remove yourself from my rock at once,” ordered Sir Gregory.

“Look here’ s my guild mark. Is that enough proof?” asked Deacon, getting bored with this and calculating if Cat’s Grace would work from this distance.

“Seems legitimate. Although I’ve never seen a guild mark that looked this before. I will take you Guild Master Jacob. He’ll know if you are telling the truth or not,” pondered Sir Gregory, before the floating boulder shifted and started moving toward the guild hall.

Deacon was giggling internally at the situation. It’s like Chimera had picked the exact spell that would make this knight stand out as well as matched his level of Intelligence. Deacon had to ask him about the time he saw air mages chasing him down.

“I once saw air mages chasing you across the sky. What was that about?” asked Deacon.

“A misunderstanding citizen. The Tower wanted me to become an earth mage and I had to decline. I am sworn to his majesty’s service. So then they promised to help me learn to use my spell for his benefit, but they wanted me to remove my armor. What good is a knight without his armor, I ask you? Then they insisted so I ran. It all worked out in the end. I get to patrol the skies of this fine city as his majesty’s first Airborne Knight. I was even offered a unique specialization track… Why am I telling you all this? The guild hall is below. I trust you can get yourself down,” Sir Gregory spat.

“Sir Gregory, to what do I owe this visit?” called up the familiar voice of Jacob the Canidae Guild Master.

“Oh hi!” yelled Deacon before hopping of the rock and landing soundlessly in front of Jacob.

“This one says he’s one of yours. Is this true?” Sir Gregory asked.

“Deacon, is that you? Your hair is so long now. You haven’t been gone that long. Yes, he’s ok. Thank you for returning him,” responded Jacob waiving Sir Gregory off.

Sir Gregory spun his rock, looked back at Deacon over his shoulder, huffed and floated back to his patrol route. Deacon turned to Jacob and just smiled a wolfish grin. Jacob narrowed his eyes at him then scooped him up in a big hug.

“You know you’ve been nothing but trouble for me, but you saved us all and that goes a long way with me. Welcome home,” said the big grey furred dog man as he practically squeezed the life out of Deacon.

They both walked through the mostly empty courtyard of the U-shaped building. The interior hall was bustling with activity. There were groups of adventurers queued up in front of a small shrine to Chimera. Deacon guessed that was the dungeon entrance that now appeared in every Adventurer’s Guild hall.

“Yes, that’s our little dungeon. It’s lizard themed. Only a Normal difficulty one. It’s good for training and leveling of our younger members. The real danger is out in the wilds. Things have changed some since you left. The presence of that Extreme difficulty dungeon you unearthed to the south has caused the surrounding monsters to jump in levels.”

“Is it rampant?”

“No but is causing eddies in our ambient mana supply. We’ve even seen more boss monsters since the battle with the Corpungie Queen. The mages theorize it will increase the average levels of the southlands by ten. Bumping the are up into the thirties eventually. So we’ve been focused on training since we heard the news. The average for this guild was between level fifteen to twenty five on the high end. That won’t be good enough anymore. I saw Tantus earlier today. Everything alright? He seemed flustered.”

“Everything’s fine. He gets like that when he’s working on a new magical item. Did you see Amanda come through yet? She will be hard to miss.”

“Oh really why’s that?”

No sooner was the question asked before Hani Al-Hamdani came cartwheeling through the door with an embarrassed looking Amanda stomping right behind him. Deacon could almost hear subtle growl coming from Jacob’s chest at the sight of the jester.

“What’s wrong?” asked Deacon.

“I hate clowns,” answered Jacob.