Moments ago in the bunk-room of James’s dungeon.

I had to admit, the couple of dozen, progressively more complex examples of what had to be mathematics, on the panel were impressive. I started having difficulty after the first couple of examples of multiplication and division. Timoteo it seemed was able to follow along further and I freely admit it was impressive watching him figure out those more complex lines of problems, in an unfamiliar numbering system at that. It seemed as though the device awarded to us for completing the two rooms of the dungeon was some sort of advanced abacus, but without the requirement that you perform the mathematics yourself, that seemed fairly useful in and of itself, but from the way Timoteo was staring at some of the later example’s which required pictures of circles and triangles as part of the explanation, it seemed that it was more than just a variant of a gnomish abacus.

I turned towards Timoteo and pointed towards one of the first examples with a circle by it, asking, “So, are you able to make heads or tails of the rest of these?” Timoteo turned towards me, pointing to the same example, and the next several as well, excitedly saying, “Dimitri, despite the symbols being of a completely different standard, I worked on several problems like these, whilst still back in secondary school. It has been decades, but this takes me back. Additionally it seems that the dungeon uses a different value for the ratio between a circle and its circumference than we do. We learned to use 22/7, the dungeon is indicating here that the value is somewhat smaller, and we can display that number at any time by using this device, and pressing this odd symbol π. Some of the rest of this, we hadn’t even touched on in school.“

At this, I scratched the back of my right ear, and said, “That sounds fairly esoteric, is this stuff even useful on a daily basis?” Timoteo, after a moments thought responded, “well, the very basics are useful to a lot of people, some of the most complex examples here would be most helpful to architects, enchanters, and artificers. Ramirez if he were here, would steal this device and not let it leave his hands, such would be his excitement.” I grinned, then chuckled at the image of Ramirez clutching the device, with hunched shoulders protecting it from others grasp. Timoteo whilst grinning himself at his own depiction of a miserly Ramirez, continued on, “Besides Ramirez, this device could put gnomish accountants in dire straits, if it could be spread to a large enough portion of the population. It takes a fair amount of skill and ability to work one of those abacuses of theirs, this, not so much.”

As Timoteo mentioned the possible decline of gnomish accounting, I started thinking about the implications of everything we had seen during our stay in this dungeon. Even if we could not replicate the workmanship of many of the devices, the layouts, and their function would easily drive innovation in several different crafts, it was doubtful any but the highest level craftsmen would be able to even approach the level of precision shown by several of the items casually set out for use both by ourselves, and also future guests. The bathroom with shower, toilets and sinks, along with the level of control over each function, was going to inspire copies, likely poor ones, but copies, for decades. The dungeon proper, once it expanded beyond just two rooms, was likely going to pose several challenges to delving teams, the sudden activation of the traps, without any preceding mana fluctuation, at least none that my relatively poor mana senses could detect. Also the ongoing responsiveness of that trap, only activating on approach, many other dungeons use traps without an enchantment, but those are in general fairly simple, pit falls, rock falls, trip-wires, pressure plates. Pressure plates in particular are supposed to be more common among Dwarvish dungeons mostly because of their relative difficulty to detect them, whatever triggered the activation of the traps on the doors was beyond my ability to detect. It certainly wasn’t the dungeon triggering the trap manually, dungeons can’t manipulate an area near to a delver due to mana signature interference. Wait. I glanced at the lit panel in front of me and Timoteo, noticing that the dungeon had updated the examples on the panel, in response to Timoteo’s gesticulations pointing to a button on the device. My ears involuntarily flattened to my skull, and I took a half step back. I double checked that the dungeon’s presence was not in the room, and that I had not felt any mana fluctuations whatsoever.

I don’t think Timoteo was thinking of all the implications of what we had just witnessed. This dungeon, unlike all others I had heard of, could effect active changes in the environment, without using mana, or minions of any kind, despite the interference our presence, even in a room without the dungeon’s presence. Other dungeons had occasionally written responses to questions, and questions themselves, but it had always been a one way, back and forth, where delvers had to leave the area with the message before a new one could be written. Many dungeons don’t use that method due to the frustration of dealing with the delayed responses. It had been in the back of my mind whilst we were in the dungeon proper, but this one, didn’t seem to use any mana based traps, or at least it didn’t appear to. The lightning based trap on the doors, was too fast, and appeared reactive to a delvers presence, frankly I don’t know how that could be, especially without the use of an enchantment for the trap, we would have felt the change in the mana if it had been using one.

The possible danger to future delvers of this dungeon, not to mention ourselves, just catapulted sky high. This dungeon, although seemingly benign, did not depend on mana to manipulate its surroundings. The dungeon made a sound on its own, it didn’t have a dungeon fairy to ring a bell to get our attention, it can also manipulate this panel, seemingly from wherever the core is, regardless of our proximity to it, I assume this and the other panels, I saw around the dungeon are special in some way, although to me it just looked like a glass covered black sheet. The fact of the matter is, the very precision that the dungeon has shown in everything that it has allowed to be seen, seems to indicate an extremely high level of control over the elements it manipulates, I would suspect an earth core dungeon, but the light manipulation on the panels and in the puzzles would seem to negate that. I slowly reached out and grasped Timoteo’s shoulder, and when he didn’t respond, dug my nails in slightly. As he turned towards me, I quietly said, “Let’s head back to Soria to report our findings.” As Timoteo opened his mouth to argue, I clenched a bit harder and said with a little heat, “Come on, let’s grab our stuff and head out, we have a lot of ground to cover.” Timoteo winced slightly, then nodded, realizing finally that I wanted to get out of the dungeons area of influence, even if that didn’t appear to be in the bunk room, and that heading back to report was a reasonable excuse.

It took us a few moments to grab our packs and head out of the dungeon, making our way towards our camp a couple of leagues from the dungeon that we had used other day. Timoteo started to talk to me a couple of times as we hiked back, each time I said, “not yet, let’s get to our campsite first.” After the second time, he got the hint and settled down, waiting until we made camp before we talked over what was bothering me.

Today, just after noon in the town of Soria, just outside the town hall.

Just as our group finished dismounting our horses in front of the town hall in the town of Soria, an elderly, somewhat overweight elf approached us and headed straight towards one of the sorcerers, and exclaimed quite loudly for someone of his age and stature, “Sandoval, I haven’t seen you since you attended one of my lectures, what was it now, eighty some odd years back, who is in charge of you lot ?” Sandoval, being one of the more quiet members of the group, took a quick look over my way, then said loudly enough so I could hear, “It’s Felipe who is in charge, Artificer.” He then promptly turned back to caring for his horse, obviously not wanting to deal with Artificer Ramirez any more than he had to, I hadn’t realized he had attended one of the Artificers lectures, I took a moment and straightened myself to prepare for the Artificers rapid approach, wiping my hands almost subconsciously on my pants as I did so.

I started to open my mouth in greeting as Ramirez stopped in front of me, however, he started talking first. “So, Felipe, is it? It seems Franco pulled together a good group. It is good you all arrived when you did, we may have a problem with the dungeon. It turns out the device I had been working on when I initially detected the dungeon, after a few modifications, had an unintended function, it seems it can detect the strength of the dungeons influence on the mana field. What this means is, the quiet signal that it had initially detected, suddenly grew stronger the day before yesterday, and for a while stayed at that strength, before suddenly growing 16 times stronger than previously, it then after a moment shot back down to the strength it was at previously, and then a few candle marks later, suddenly grew back as strong as before.” As he paused to take a break, I managed to interject, “So, Artificer, what do you think that means ?” Ramirez shot me a quick almost annoyed look, and continued, “I was getting there, it means that the dungeon must have been either hiding or scouting out its surroundings until a couple of days ago, when it likely opened its entrance, and the rapid fluctuations in interference in the mana field, must be some form of haste spell, although a much more powerful one than any I had heard of previously.”

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The rest of the group started to gather round the Artificer and myself, as we were having our discussion, almost an impromptu briefing in and of itself. I cleared my throat, and asked, “A haste spell, Artificer? Isn’t that dangerous to a dungeon core ? I vaguely recall one of the human dungeons on the southern continent using one right before it was destroyed, sort of a last gasp to take out the group of delvers, before they could take him out, kind of thing.” Ramirez, almost smiled as he nodded, “Yes, Felipe, good recall, that particular incident happened almost two hundred and fifty years ago, it is known in some circles, that dungeons that perform haste spells on themselves, become extremely dangerous for a time, generally a very short time, before the haste spell itself causes the core crystal of the dungeon to crack, at the least, or completely shatter. However, this dungeon, despite having the haste spell running for several candle marks, and stronger than any other haste spell I had heard of, seems to have had no ill effect as of yet, as the dungeon has continued to run its haste spell for a few candle marks at a time, before letting it run its course. Some of the more sensitive of the group here,” At this, Ramirez took a quick look over at Sandoval and the other magic users who had clustered together to my right, before continuing, “ should be able to detect when the dungeon is using that haste spell, and help you all prepare if it gets aggressive. I do not know whether or not Timoteo and Dimitri have encountered any trouble, but, I suggest you all only rest a day or two before heading out to meet them, I don’t see any druids in your group, am I mistaken ?”

I was slightly taken aback by the barrage of information the Ramirez had dumped on us, and also the question, to which I responded, “No Artificer, you’re not mistaken, Guild-Master Franco gathered us up on a few candle marks notice, and wasn’t able to locate one in time for us to set out.” At this, Ramirez snorted, and shook his head, before saying, “Well, I will see about getting my grand-niece Serena to join you all, I have a feeling she may be able to assist, as she is also very sensitive to mana usage in addition to being a capable druid.” I said, “As you wish, Artificer, I assume that is the inn across the square, we’ll stay there tonight, I hope to see the map that the Guild-Master said you have, so that we can get an idea of where exactly we will be heading out to.” Ramirez, grinned, “Don’t worry she isn’t a pampered city elf, I will have her meet up with you all for breakfast tomorrow at the inn, and yes that is the inn over there. You will also need to meet up with Mayor Alfonso, so that he can help arrange for mules, in exchange for those horses, at least for the trip out to the dungeon and back, it is rough country out there.” I nodded sharply, “Excellent, I will see you in the morning Artificer, I will talk with the mayor shortly so that he can get a head start on arranging those mules for us.”

That evening, back at the camp that Timoteo and Dimitri had set up the evening before last, some three leagues to the south west of the entrance to James’s dungeon.

As we finished supper, I turned to Dimitri, and said somewhat heatedly, “Alright Dimitri, I have been mostly patient. What spooked you there in the dungeon’s bunk room, we could have been staying there in comfort tonight, instead of roughing it out here, so what exactly prompted you to get us to leave early?” He looked over at me from across the fire, then wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, putting his bowl away, whilst sighing, and then, at long last responded, “Timoteo, you were obviously too enamored with that device to notice, the panel we were looking at, the dungeon changed it whilst were right in front of it, also, the dungeon’s presence, was not in the room at the time.” I leaned back on the stump I was sitting on, and thought back to when I was learning about the device, it finally dawned on me, that Dimitri was right, it did change in front of us, and the dungeon was not present in the bunk room at the time, additionally it changed in response to my gesturing at the device, meaning the dungeon could see us, without having to have its territory be in the room, nor its active presence.

I looked sharply over at Dimitri and said, “Well, you obviously thought about this more than I have, but even I can see that at the very least it means that the dungeon doesn’t need to go through the rigamarole of communicating to delvers through a fairy, or other summons, what in particular got you spooked Dimitri?” Dimitri turned to one side, and scratched his snout, whilst responding in a slightly lecturing tone, “The dungeon didn’t use magic to trigger the traps, Timoteo, also, it could change that panel outside of its territory proper, that means, the dungeon could trigger traps inside that bunk room it had provided, and we would not even be able to sense an enchantment triggering before we were killed.” He waved his hand towards me, then continued, “I am not saying that the device the dungeon provided as a prize isn’t worthwhile. The dungeon seemed benevolent, like some of the dwarvish dungeons, and the capitol dungeon at Mondrigal, but the fact of the matter is, it communicates using a written language neither of us know, and like you said, it doesn’t need a fairy or summons to communicate. So, it probably doesn’t have one, meaning, until we get someone who knows a spell of written intent up here to translate, we wont be able to communicate much beyond the arithmetic you were learning in front of that panel. As such, we wont understand until at least one of us are killed that we made the dungeon angry.”

I have to admit surprise at Dimitri’s reasoning, it was certainly more paranoid than my own thought process, as I believed it was unlikely that the dungeon would randomly kill us, as Dimitri seemed to indicate was a possibility. I guess that comes of living through an outbreak like that of Troinetsk. I cleared my throat, and said, “I suppose, honestly, I don’t believe that would happen, the dungeon seemed, more, more rational than that line of reasoning would indicate.” Dimitri, shook his head as he replied, “I know, it seems like it wouldn’t happen randomly based on our experience there, but, I am not sure I would fully trust the dungeon to not do something unexpected whilst we were so close to its influence, given that the dungeon didn’t appear to write our language, it is doubtful we would be able to get it to agree to a binding contract that the bunk room is a safe room. As far as I know only relatively benign dungeons even bother setting up something like that, although, I have to admit, this dungeon really set up an elaborate one, if that is indeed what it is. So, until we get that agreement with the dungeon, I will remain wary of being so close again, especially now that I know that the dungeon can change things inside the bunk room, despite our presence.”

That was a somber thought. I looked over at Dimitri, and changed the subject, “The usual watch schedule?” He nodded agreement, I responded, “wake me at the usual time, we might as well head on back to make our report tomorrow, as we’ve come this far already.” I started prepping my sleeping roll, for the night, this evenings conversation had given me a lot to think about, in addition to the device we had been rewarded by the dungeon.”

Earlier that evening, about a league to the south of the town of Soria, coming up on the home of Serena, Druid, herbalist, and grand niece to Ramirez.

As I walked up the path to my nieces home, I could see her in one of her herb gardens just to the right of the path, I called out to her as I approached, “Serena, its your favorite uncle.” She looked up sharply at me, pulling the shears in her hand away from the plant she had been about to trim, and responded more acerbically than I would have liked, “My only uncle within a couple hundred leagues, I told you not to startle me whilst I am pruning, I could have ruined the cutting.” I sighed, shaking my head, as I continued up to the entrance of the garden, “My dear, it has been at least a decade since I startled you that badly. I came out this way because I need your help.” She stood, and took off her gloves, asking as she did so, “What is it this time, another sensitivity experiment, or something that doesn’t involve me acting like a lab rat?” I made a note to myself, no handing out cheese as an aperitif whilst doing any experiments with Serena, nor should I ask her help for any experiments for at least a year, at least until she calms down. I responded to her annoyed question with, “No, Serena, no experiments this time, I need you to join the group going up to that new dungeon, they just arrived earlier from Campanella, unfortunately Franco wasn’t able to find a druid to join them there, and frankly, I believe they will need one, and your talents will probably be most useful to them if they get into trouble, now before you object, I will get Pedro from over at the apothecary, to send a couple of his assistants to tend your gardens whilst you are gone.”

She sighed, as she walked past me towards the house, “Fine, I will do it uncle, you might as well tell me all about it over dinner, I have a new mead that you might like.” At that, I stepped lively and eagerly followed her in. I hadn’t tried one of her new brews in almost a season, I could hardly wait. I wonder what she added to the mix this time, she knows me so well.