“Deacon, may I speak with you privately? Outside.” Typhus asked.

  “Um…yea, I guess. Ok you guys rest up. I’ll be right back.” Deacon said as Ralph headed off to his quarters. Tantus on the other hand, began jabbering at Alfred about the spell he learned from the wind avatar. Deacon closed the door behind as he entered the hallway. Typhus was pacing back and forth in front of the door.

  “Ok, what’s wrong with you?” Deacon asked.

  “What is that?” Typhus asked pointing back at the room while speaking in hushed tones.

  “It’s something I liberated from the Wandering Maze. Why?” Deacon asked.

  “Philo was an insane elf. He lived too long and lost his mind. What makes you think this thing is a good idea?” Typhus asked incredulously.

  “It’s soul bound to me. The damn thing is not loose traveling the world. I’m hoping to make it a permanent home for myself.” Deacon explained.

  “Didn’t Armand gift you a mansion and some land? I hear you gave it to the church of Chimera. Couldn’t you just live there? I don’t think you understand the danger that sentient dungeon represents.” Typhus spat back.

  “Why do you think the Wandering Maze, wandered? It was looking for someone to help its master. It knew he’d gone crazy and the best it could do was contain him. Philo killed three other champions before he met me. The maze had statues to memorialize them. What if you could nurture a young dungeon and turn it into a force of good. What if we are in another local event and we need to evacuate the populace? Imagine how many people I can save from a natural disaster.” Deacon laid out all his thoughts regarding the dungeon cube. He hoped his ideas might be enough to calm Typhus down.

  “You feel guilty. It’s not all your fault, lad. You are a champion. You’ve been dropped into this world with no idea what you were getting into. Sure the amount of craziness has increased with you here but the bad people doing the bad things are at fault. Not you.” Typhus said with a sympathetic pat on Deacon’s arm.

  “Maybe I can make it a little bit better for others. I can’t control all these events happening around me but this, this I can control. I just need more time to learn about it.” Deacon said with his hands clasped pleading with Typhus.

  “Alright. I’ll back you up on this. I’m glad to see that you’ve given it some thought instead of just doing it like everything else. Ok. Let’s go back inside, we need to meet with Daskus in a few hours to go over the plan.” Typhus said gesturing back to the door.

  Back inside the manor, Deacon noticed the hedge maze outside balcony has now been replaced with a beachside view of a crystal blue ocean vista. The horizon wasn’t that far away, and he could see the water’s edge just stops like an infinity pool. On the second floor of the main room there were more windows than before. They were more square shaped with no way to open them.

  “Hey Alfred, did you add windows and change the landscape outside?” Deacon asked.

  “Yes, sir. The sand you provided me makes for great glass works. Unfortunately, I need to reabsorb the portions of the walls where I put them to conserve energy after the last time you were here. I did mange to learn more about magical compression from that Wode. I’m not entirely sure I comprehended it all.” Alfred replied.

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  “It was time compression. The world outside was moving much faster than inside the Wode.” Tantus answered.

  “That couldn’t be all of it. I couldn’t reach out to Cheshire when I meditated.” Deacon said.

  “Not sure about that. I can tell you as an artificer, magical time compression is serious stuff. I might be able to replicate now that I have my subclass. Need to do some research…” Tantus trailed off as he began muttering to himself.

  “Weird guy.” Typhus said.

  “Alfred, what do you think of this?” Deacon took out the tear shaped Shard of Divinity and handed it to Alfred.

  “This is concentrated soul energy, Sir. Very concentrated. If I was to compare it to operating time for this dungeon. About one hundred years of peek efficiency. That’s how long it would take to break it down in my consumption furnace.” Alfred explained.

  “So you can use it. Does this help minimize the need for the converter?” Deacon asked.

  “Well the converter would be best sustained operations. I can make this work instead and it would give us centuries worth of reprieve in building it.” Alfred responded.

  “Fine. Can you set five percent of your time and energy into building it?” Deacon asked.

  “Yes, sir.” Alfred responded.

  “Great, you can use the shard. I have a feeling I’ll be getting more.” Deacon said.

  “Of course, sir. Now if with this added power, I would be able to replicate more things. My sand guardians will end up being more solid. Will you be needing anything else sir?” Alfred asked.

  “Yes, I need a barrel.” Deacon said and shortly thereafter rising from the ground was a wooden with metal rings holding it together. Once it was there white and black flecked powder started pouring out of Deacons bag and filling the barrel.

  “Now what is that? You’re not even touching it. How are you doing that?” Typhus asked.

  “One of my ghost-based abilities. As for your first question. Just a little something I retrieved from a boat in the Wode. I need to study it and see if can replicate the formula. I don’t think my alchemy skill is high enough yet. I was hoping Alfred could take a look.” Deacon said.

  “I have records of this white phosphorus powder. It was said to be quite devastating. If I may have some to break down, perhaps I can replicate it like I did the infused sand.” Replied Alfred pinching some between his fingers.

  “Careful it is very volatile. The real secret we need to tease out is how it doesn’t just burn up on contact with air. That is what keeps the rest of the world from using. That secret may have died with Captain Pete.” Deacon said.

  “Do you mean Black Powder Pete? The infamous pirate? Scourge of the Oceans?” Typhus asked rapid fire like.

  “Yes, that’s him. Good guy, terrible end.” Deacon said shaking his head and taking the compass out of his bag to show Typhus.

  “He gave us this for helping him. If it wasn’t for him, we may well have died fighting Sumna.” Deacon said.

  “That is one hell of a story. This time I’m glad I wasn’t there.” Typhus said.

  “Sir, it looks like Amanda is at the door.” Alfred said waiving at the viewing screen.

  “And you can see outside. This isn’t too much power for you at all.” Typhus said as Amanda entered and went straight to her room wiping a trickle of blood from her mouth.

  “Are you just trying every poison you can get your hands on! That can’t be good for you.” Deacon yelled down at her from the second floor. She just waved him off and went down the hall.

  “That one scares me.” Typhus said.

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  “Boss! Message for you boss.” Came the voice of one of his guild members.

  “Prey tell, where did this message come from?” Asked Mr. Clean noticing the odd four-leaf clover seal on the envelope.

  “A runner from the Adventurer’s Guild brought it over.” He said.

  “One of Jacob’s huh? I’ll be in my office. I’m not to be disturbed, understood.” Ordered Mr. Clean.

  He received a curt nod and turned to go up the stairs into his office. The mirrors on his desk were all up watching the tables below in the casino. Sitting in his chair, he placed his cane against the desk and put the envelope down. Double checking there were no traps either mundane or mystical, he broke the seal and opened the letter. His eyebrows slowly reached the top of his brow as he read the several pages of information.

  “What a clever use of your favor. This will take some coordination with the guild in the capitol. Time to send some messages of my own.” Chuckled Mr. Clean. He thought today would be quite the interesting day.