The room, or perhaps more aptly, holding cell, that Sett found himself in was nothing if not boring. Large, sure, but outside its ridiculous size and the spell circles etched into the granite floor, there was absolutely nothing of interest.
It thus was quite notable, then, when the space in front of him shifted, and a man appeared as if from nothing. Given the circumstances, the identity of the man was hardly surprising, yet Sett still reflected that it was the last person he wished to see right now.
“Good morning! My, you must have been quite tired. You slept for some time, you know.” He mentioned it offhandedly, as though a parent remarking upon their errant child’s poor sleep habits.
Having little desire for pleasantries or word games at the moment, Sett cut to the chase. “You didn’t kill me.”
Diorus’ face lit up in faux shock. “Kill you? Come now, you must know better than that. What are you worth to me dead, a pittance of experience points? Barring me having some sort of class that would give quests for killing you, that would be a horrible, terrible waste of such a high-leveled mage.” As if to deliver an extra-juicy secret, the emperor leaned in towards Sett’s chained form. “And besides, we both know people at our level have all sorts of nasty surprises that trigger on their death. Hells, I wouldn’t put it past a mage like you to have an automatic resurrection effect or two set up. I know I do.”
Blast. There goes that surprise. Then again, he should have expected Diorus would know what he was up to. He wasn’t some level 60 hedge mage. A level 84 — and an emperor besides — would be no stranger to how the real world worked.
“So what, you’re just going to let me rot here and fuel your little mana siphoning array here?” Sett gestured broadly to the spell diagram beneath them. True, it had a number of more obscure functions, parts of which were to suppress and trap him, but the base of it simply drained his mana and stored it elsewhere.
To put it in magitech terms, Sett was, as best he could tell, just a giant battery. It seemed a waste of his talents, but then again, unlike low-leveled mages who mainly pulled in mana from the environment, Sett’s soul actually created mana. Off the top of his head, he couldn’t think of many things that generated mana nearly as well as a high-leveled mage’s soul, either.
“Ah, always so lovely to deal with real mages. Last few people I stuck in one of these didn’t even know what it was, if you can believe that. Then again, it’s not as though I made it. Perks of being an emperor, hmm? I have people for that.”
Is this how he always is? If so, Sett weeped for his poor subjects. Still, that was the least of his concerns.
“So? What sort of inane spell are you using me to power?” With any luck, he could try to sabotage it.
Rather than answer his question, Diorus posed a new one. “Tell me. Explore the area with your spatial magic. Where exactly do you think we are?”
Not in much of a position to deny, Sett did just that. Suppressed as he was, his space magic felt pitiful relative to what he was used to, but the answer was so immediately obvious, it didn’t matter. In the far distance, he could feel space abruptly stop in every direction.
“We’re in a space cut off from anything else. A pocket dimension?” It was a decent sized one, too. Nothing earth-shattering, but at least on the level of a smaller nation. “But what does that have to do with anything?”
Wordlessly, Diorus warped the space around his hand, producing a perfectly spherical orb. Before he could explain, Sett identified it, though he already had a sneaking suspicion of what he would find.
Artificial Dungeon Core
On use, transform one pocket dimension into a dungeon. Unlike natural dungeons or settlement dungeons, artificial dungeons do not come with any easy source of energy to power them. The level, type, loot, area covered, and most other characteristics of the dungeon will be solely dictated by the type, quantity, and quality of the energy source provided.
“Of all things, that?” Sett did a few rough calculations on the spot, and what he got back made no sense. The amount of time he’d need to spend here to power a dungeon that would even interest someone at the emperor’s level was absurd. Hundreds of millenia if not more. Worse yet, respawning monsters would take up a fair amount of energy. Once someone ran the entire dungeon enough times, they’d need to wait centuries for it to fully recharge.
Seeing the lack of understanding in Sett’s eyes, Diorus amicably chuckled. “All those brains and you can’t figure out the simple things, can you? I’m an emperor. It’s not for me; it’s for all the brats of mine!” He said it so matter-of-factly as though creating dungeon worlds for your great-great-great-great grandchildren was a normal thing to do.
“I try to keep a few dozen of these on hand, usually good for levels 20 through 25. Then every once in a while, I’ll take the new members of my family that show the most promise, and I’ll stick ‘em in here for a decade or two. The entire place is massively time dilated, so a decade for them is just two years back home. Gives them plenty of time to train. In fact, Katheritaxis spent some time in one of these back in the day.” For the first time, Diorus’ smile faltered ever so slightly as he leaned in to pat Sett on the cheek. “And now that he’s dead, you’ll be helping to train his successors. How’s that for some karma, eh?”
At this point, it was all Sett could do to sigh. Fine. He’d learned a lesson here.
Whenever he got out, he would be far more careful about the kings he killed.
“Do you truly think I’m going to sit put for the thousand or so years it would take to charge up a dungeon of this size to that level?” Sett raised his chains as if to show them off. “Restrained or not, these can’t hold me forever, can they? And even if they could, do you think I’ll have no one looking for me?” Largely a bluff, of course. He doubted he would have anyone looking for him unless one of those students of his ever came begging for a favor. Diorus didn’t need to know that, though.
Somehow, Sett’s words only seemed to make the emperor happier. “Ah, but that’s the best part! I don’t want anyone sneaking into my pocket dimensions and killing off my heirs, do I? Of course not! The solution? A whole cadre of soul mages works with me to place the spatial locks on each pocket dimension.”
He paused here as if to make sure he had Sett’s full attention, though considering he had little else to focus on, it was hardly needed.
“Absolutely no one with an evolved class can enter or leave this place. In fact, once I leave and seal it up properly, not even I can without using years’ worth of mana to tear the entire lock down. Am I worried about you escaping? The opposite! Please, by all means, try. I’ll even give you an instant pardon and your choice of treasure if you tell me how you did it.”
Mad bastard. “So that’s it? You’re just sticking me here for a thousand years to charge up your damned dungeon?” He had things to do! Kings to kill! More than that, there was the indignity of it all. How was this the punishment for killing one little monarch? It was an abuse of power was what it was.
This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.
Diorus pretended to take his complaints seriously — or at least, Sett assumed the man was pretending until the space before him warped once again. In its place now stood an ornate black pedestal, the only thing atop it a gray gem which endlessly produced a plume of smoke.
“You know, I don’t normally like to do this. It’s not nearly as efficient. But I have a soft spot for mages with a few levels of spatial magic. If you use this, it will capture the energy you let off and can charge the array with it. You’ll even be able to escape the spatial lock!”
Obviously with terms that good, there was a catch, and just one glance at the gem was enough to tell him what it was.
Sundering Gem
Sunder’s the user’s current class, resetting them to whatever their class was before they evolved it. If the user has an unevolved class, removes the user’s class. All experience for class quests will be stripped from the user. Leveling penalties will be applied to any skills that are no longer class-aligned. On choosing a new class, experience penalties will apply to any class quests that the user completed retroactively as part of their current class. Additionally, most progress or counter-based class quests of the new class will be reset to 0%.
He could reset his classes and escape the spatial lock. Left unsaid was that he’d be pitifully weak afterwards, but that was likely part of the point. The penalties associated with sundering a class were no small matter. By the time he returned to his current power level, the emperor would be so powerful that Sett wouldn’t even be able to dream of revenge. Worse yet, it wasn’t as if Sett had no enemies of his own. He doubted he would survive the year if he was reset to that low a level.
Against his better judgment, Sett spat. Rather than offend the emperor, it only seemed to amuse him. As if to taunt Sett, the sound of the man’s laughter filled the room.
“Well, that’s about it. There’s a few obfuscation spells that should hide this area from any of my nosier descendants, but if you see one in a thousand years, do treat them well, eh?”
Unceremoniously and without letting Sett get a final word in edgewise, Emperor Diorus popped out of existence.
Nor did he come back, either. Not that year. Or the next. Or the one after that.
Too stubborn to take his only way out, Sett forced himself into a deep torpor. A meditative hibernation, as it were.
And in that fashion, six hundred years passed in the blink of an eye.
Until, at last, something caused him to stir from his slumber.
How curious. A visitor. And not just one, but three?
What a lovely day this was shaping up to be.
----------------------------------------
When the vision released its grip on the three of them, even as she lifted herself from the ground, Cal took the opportunity to point one of her daggers at the mage. “Shit man, has anyone ever told you that you’re kind of an awful person?”
“Why, yes. Would you believe I’ve even had a number of kings tell me that? As a side note, I’m fairly certain you’re royalty of some sort. You wouldn’t happen to be able to give me a citizenship, would you?”
Terrible person or not, Sett was likely their only way home, and the vision had painted a rather bleak vision of their future. Forestalling any further bickering, Verin cut the two off.
“As we are all under level 25, none of us have evolved our classes yet. Am I to understand this would allow you to send us home?” Tess hadn’t been healed, but as long as they weren’t stuck here, they could work something out eventually.
“Absolutely!” Sett agreed readily. Quick to dash her hopes, he amended himself. “But it’s just like healing your friend. Perfectly doable if you get me out of these chains, and otherwise, not a chance. Punching a hole through a spatially locked pocket dimension is, after all, not a trivial matter.”
Under her breath, Verin cursed. “Fine. Then do you have a way for us to free you? Perhaps we could disable this ritual you find yourself trapped in?” Certainly breaking a ritual must be far simpler than creating it, no?
“Sadly, about half of these spell circles are specifically there to prevent you from doing so. In fact, at your level, even just looking at the ritual for too long is likely to hurt you. See? She’s been trying since you woke up.” Sett lazily gestured towards Tess who had never bothered to pull herself from the ground after the vision. Instead, she sat there, head tilted down at the ritual. Belatedly, Verin noticed the thin trickle of blood coming from her eyes.
“Stop that!” Hastily, she yanked Tess up, instantly feeling bad for manhandling her that way.
If Tess minded one way or the other, she didn’t show it, making no move to clean the blood from her face.
Evidently less tied to the cleanliness of her clothing, Cal went to work, using her own sleeves to rub Tess’s blood off.
Even as important as it was to assess her options calmly and carefully, Verin couldn’t help but feel a hint of displeasure start to boil over.
“Do you have any actual advice for how to proceed, or are you content to watch the Lady Tess bleed out her eyes?”
As best he could encumbered by his chains, Sett shrugged. “Truthfully? I can only think of two options. The spell diagram itself is ironclad, but theoretically, it has to be storing all of my mana somewhere. If you can destroy those storage sites, the ritual won’t have anywhere to offload my mana to, and it should fail eventually. Of course, there’s likely multiple storage sites, and it would be weeks of travel to each one of them through a dungeon built to challenge parties at level 20, minimum.”
Without her Etiquette skill, Verin reflected she would likely be gritting her teeth right about then. With it, however, she merely nodded. “That would be… unideal, to say the least. And the other solution?” She was severely hoping that he’d chosen to save the best for last.
“Why, simply train up your own spatial magic until one of you is powerful enough to escape by your own magic. Mind you, by ‘one of you,’ I mainly mean my wonderful comatose grand-apprentice. I don’t believe it would be class aligned for any of you but her.”
Whatever last vestiges of hope Verin had been holding onto withered away as she examined Tess’s dead-eyed expression.
“Just to be clear, then: We are trapped for the rest of our lives unless we manage to free you or get Tess’s spatial magic high enough. In the meantime, we’ll be stuck in a dungeon where we never know when or by what we’ll be attacked, save for the fact that it will likely be stronger than us. Does that sound correct to you?” Verin said a silent prayer to whatever gods were listening that he’d correct her.
And at least partially, he did. “Ehh, mostly true. Hard to say about the whole ‘rest of your lives’ part. If you can make it a few more centuries, maybe you could hitch a ride home with the emperor’s kids. And you’re definitely wrong about the ‘always getting attacked’ part. There should be some wards around this area that I imagine you only broke through because you had my locator badge guiding you through. The mana in this area is also going to be the lowest in the entire dungeon due to the ritual siphoning it away. Add that together, and the surrounding area should be clear of monsters for a good distance.”
Verin readily ignored the comment about surviving a few centuries, but the latter information was actually more helpful than she’d anticipated. If nothing else, they had a safe zone to brainstorm in.
Perhaps in other circumstances, she would even feel emboldened by the challenge. She was away from home. Free from the constant balls, tea parties, and noble pomp. Free to fight and level and strike her own path with friends there to help her along. If she was being generous, she could even frame the entire thing as an extended vacation with Tess.
However, therein lay the exact problem.
Verin took in the sight of her first serious friend, the only color on her face from the poorly cleaned blood smudges on her cheeks. There would be no getting through this dungeon with Tess in this state.
“I am aware you are presently limited in what you are capable of; however, is there absolutely nothing you can do for her? The two of us will not be freeing you without her aid.” She would have said the same even if it were a lie if just to convince him to help. Unfortunately, it happened to be the honest truth, as well.
The demon silently judged his grand-apprentice for a time, until, with a beleaguered sigh, he caved.
“Very well. With this damned ritual, I’ll need some time to recover after I use this much mana, but I suppose it can’t be helped. Just don’t expect a miracle, hmm? If this even works at all, she still won’t be back to normal. Do you understand?”
Rare though it was, Verin bowed. “Please.”
Thus confirmed, the grand magus reached his chained limb as far as it would stretch until it came to rest directly on Tess’s head. For a full minute, mana flooded out through out of him and into her, until, at last-
----------------------------------------
I gasped.