It took them two days to pass through the mountain rise and return back amongst the coniferous and pine trees of Plynthia's Northern Forest. Instead of cutting back towards their previous camp where they'd met the hunters, they used their map to track down the dungeon they'd located.
Rick and Len dropped down to a crouch, swords in hand, their packs and gear a few hundred meters behind them.
"Looks like it," Len said, his eyes scanning the entrance. It was a little more than a great gaping hole carved into the ground.
Items were scattered about, most of them useless baubles, bits of food that had been chewed up by the local inhabitants, and a few glass bottles here and there.
Len focused his sight on the ground. Beyond the hole was a tunnel angling downwards.
"Why is it always in the ground?" Rick asked.
"Remember the one in the mountain? The one with the harpies?"
Rook grimaced. "Now that's a situation where it looks good but turned to shit real quick."
Len grunted in agreement.
“I’d argue it was still in the surface of the mountain.”
“The stronger the dungeon the deeper it goes,” Len repeated the age old mantra. If its angled like a comet cut through the ground, it’s a spatial dungeon, if its bigger on the inside than the outside that’s a good hint too.”
“Mana dungeons, same size inside and out, can have floors, usually in depressions.”
“And both have creatures trying to kill you,” Len added. “This one has gear everywhere, it didn’t get that deep. Must be a pretty low level dungeon," Len said.
"Has to be for those hunters to make it through," Rick said.
"Well, let's take a closer look, shall we?" Len raised his sword and moved forward.
Rick was just a half pace behind as they stalked into the opening the dungeon had created.
Len stepped into the hole in the ground, following it down, noticed a few racks that had once held weapons implanted in the walls.
A few broken casks littered the space. A target dummy was stuck lengthways into the tunnel's roof.
The tunnel opened up into a larger space. More items were littered all over. A few books here and there.
Another sign of a low level dungeon was they had little organization.
Len signalled to the books. Rick nodded, taking over watch. Len kneeled next to the rough pile.
To probably anyone else in the world, it would just be gibberish. Runes were based on languages, allowing him to learn multiple at the same time. Fundamentals of Enchanting. He read the old Sigmund.
He flipped through the pages. Basic content. Using weight runes as a basis it developed a enchanting upon it.
There were dozens of ways to enchant, whole schools to uses. The organization of it all was a hodgepodge depending largely on one’s teacher, if they had a school an how they learned their runes, lines and formulae.
He closed the book, putting it to the side. He checked the titles of the other books.
Spear fighting techniques, sword fighting techniques, theories about mass. Altogether, a respectable bunch.
It looked like the hunters didn't really care for this too much. He picked up one book. Its spine was half broken from the muddy book print on its side.
He raised it up towards Rick. Rick let out a disappointed sigh, continuing to watch the entrance and exit to the room.
Len piled up the books to the side. He picked up his sword once more. “Good to go.”
Rick nodded, taking point and heading for the next doorway. Instead of a dirt floor, a half-checkered floor met them in a wide space.
Training dummies made from cloth and straw, some wood had been trashed and recently too.
Rick let out a low chuckle. “It seems they didn't look close enough.”
Len spotted what Rick saw and snorted. "I'll watch the two doors.”
There was one doorway leading straight out the other side of the training square, and another to the left.
Rick sheathed his sword, taking out his hammer. With a well-placed hit, he cracked open a training dummy, pulling out core.
“White liquid.” He held it up, turning it before pocketing it.
He moved quickly and efficiently throughout the room, cracking open the training dummies and removing the cores within.
"So, training dummy golems," Len said.
"Seems like it," Rick said.
Sometimes dungeons used the items teleported into them as their defenses. Once this group was destroyed, usually it would just make mana-feeding copies of the creatures or something close.
"Ready," Rick said as he stood up from the last training dummy.
"Which doorway are you thinking?" Len asked.
"Might as well keep on going the path we were on?" Rick asked.
"Sounds like a plan to me." Len moved towards the doorway and then through it. The hallway had all kinds of bottles shoved into the walls, as well as a few towels. "Love what they've done with the place," Rick said.
“Couple potions and lotions,” Len said.
“Get them on the way out. Surprised the hunters didn’t take them.”
“They broke a few, don’t think they knew what they were,” Len nodded towards a broken potion bottle in the wall.
“Waste,” Rick sighed. “All the better for us.”
Len stepped out into the next room.
Three larger wooden training dolls lay about the place. A pile of weapons lay to the side of the room, probably collected by the hunters.
"I got this," Rick said, moving to the dummies, bringing his hammer down and cracking one apart. The two others stirred and started to raise themselves up, their eyes and runes flaring with mana.
"Not today," Len said, moving towards them. He grabbed his sword in both hands, swinging. He cut the first dummy from chest to thigh, dropping it in two parts. He stepped inside the second training dummy’s reach and kicked.
Its chest crunched inwards, the core shooting out of its back, sticking into the dirt.
"Nicely done," Rick said, not standing out from where he'd extracted the third core. "Red vapor on these ones."
There were no more doors in the room, so Len went to retrieve the core he'd sent into the wall. He turned back, finding Rick pulling out the core of the remaining training dummy.
"Well, this looks like it's it for this," Rick said. Len nodded.
"Alright, other room?" he asked.
They backtracked to the unexplored tunnel. Rick went first through. They got narrow to the point Rick had to turn sideways to continue. Len followed him, reaching the other side.
They came out into a small opening. Racks of weapons filled the space. Baskets were stuck into one wall, holding arrows. Len drew one out examining the enchantment before putting it back. "Same as what the hunters had.”
"And what do we have here?" Rick said, tapping his knuckle against the back of the rack in front of them, opposite the tunnel's opening. A hollow noise coming back.
"I'm guessing they saw the weapons and they thought that was it," Len said.
"Rookies," Rick said with the grin of a pirate who's just found the motherlode.
Len sheathed his sword. "I can see two humanoids in the next open space. How much do you want to bet they're training dummies?" He picked up an iron hammer with an enchantment that would make the head of the Warhammer heavier or lighter.
"No bet," Rick said, freeing his hammer. "Ready?”
“Good. Let's do it." Len held his hammer in one hand, resting it in the other.
Rick hit the back of the weapons rack, blowing the wood out. It sprayed through the large corridor beyond into the largest room they'd seen so far. A training room about 10 meters wide and 20 meters deep, with a roof over 10 meters tall.
Training golems, these ones armored with iron, began glowing with mana, turning their heads to face the new intruders.
Len ran forward. Getting stuck in the corridor would be a fatal funnel, and there was little room to push back into.
Golems of stout wood and iron pulled themselves free of the walls and fell from the roof, crashing into the ground below.
Len swung his hammer, meeting the first iron covered training dummy. His hammer dented the armor, crashing through them. He used the momentum, swinging himself and hitting another picking itself off of the floor where it had dropped.
He spun the warhammer again, his feet turning like a dancer's would.
His warhammer, his partner, as he swung them and they swung him, the momentum carrying them forward into the fray.
Len felt the power coursing through his veins, through his channels, through his very body.
Rick entered in much the same fashion, his hammer leading the way.
It sang with captured and released vibrations, making the training dummies hum with impact after impact.
Wood shattered, metal dented, and the dance held sway, destructive and terrible.
Len paused, casually knocking the head off a training dummy trying to escape from the wall it had been buried in, surveying the destruction they'd wrought upon the training room.
He brought the hammer down on the ground, cracking it and sending up stone dust, stopping the momentum he’d built up.
"Well, that was fun," Rick said, placing his hammer on his shoulder, his grin clear through his helmet. "Onto the next, shall we?"
"Take out all the rest of the dungeon minions and then gather the loot on our way out?" Len picked up his hammer.
"Speaking my language," Rick said, stepping towards the only exit out of the room, a large gate covered in sparring poles.
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Len swung his own warhammer onto his shoulder and followed.
"Well, that's new," Rick said. Two creatures formed of metal and wood jerkily rose from the ground, where they'd collapsed like puppets without strings.
Their arms and legs were formed of blades, their heads, hammers. Shink, shink, shink, shink, shink. They ran on the floor, their blade feet cutting into the stones as they darted forward.
Len brought his hammer over his head with both hands and hurled it forward.
It smashed through one of the weapon golems, scattering its remains across the room. Rick brought his hammer down on the ground, the stone beneath him hummed, running towards the charging golem.
The hum turned into a screeching tone through the second weapon golem's body. Cracks appeared on its metal surface before it shattered like glass, its momentum carrying it forward as it sprayed metal fragments across the ground, a core amongst the pile.
"Well, those are a little bit freaky," Rick said, standing up. Len looked around the room. "I don't see any hidden passages or anything, though there is something under a couple of these flagstones," Len said.
"Yeah, nothing in the roof either," Rick said. He holstered his hammer, rubbing his hands together. "It's looting time."
In an excited prance, he ran over to the rock at the end of the room. There were some higher-grade steel weapons there, as well as a bookshelf of well-cared-for books covered in protective enchantments.
Rick hummed to himself as he looked through the weapons. "Got a weight-adjustable longsword, so that'll be interesting for your downward cleave." He flicked the blade. "Looks like it also has another enchantment in there. Don't know what that would be.”
‘Hammer, classic when you think about weight manipulation.”
‘Oh, this is cool. That's a spear. If you twist the shaft, it'll extend and contract. It also has runes for, looks like, weight redistribution.” He took it out and twisted the shaft, making it shorter and longer.
“Very clever. And this here... Oh, that's very interesting. That's a balance-changing shield, so you can shift your body weight and center of gravity to keep yourself better suited, and also redistributing the weight. And then I think that's... well, it looks like it's got a reflective kind of attack."
Rick looked over to Len, who'd retrieved his hammer from the wall and reached the bookshelf. "What old tomes you got in there?”
“Got a few alchemy books. One sec." Len pulled out his knife, checking the enchantments on the bookshelf. He made two quick cuts, the mana draining out of the enchantments. "Never know if they've hidden any traps in these," Len said.
He picked out one of the books. "Herbology for Warriors." He opened up the pages, finding detailed pictures of plants, as well as harvesting techniques. "Well, that's very interesting and useful."
He passed it over to Rick, who flipped through it. "Ooh, pictures. Pretty pictures."
Len shook his head, picking up the next book. "An Alchemist's Guide." The tome was smaller formulas and measurements lined out in clear steps he flipped through the pages.
"Okay, this would be useful, too. We've got common and uncommon healing potions, stamina draughts, a few antidotes for common poisons and infections, as well as how to make them, and different supplementations you can use." Rick nodded his head along.
Len pulled out another tome. "Pendulumnd Momentum. Not the greatest or informative title." He opened up the thin book, checking inside. It showed detailed drawings of a surprising weapon. Chain links and weighted discs.
Len frowned, studying the information further. As he went, he understood the weapon further. "Seems pretty impractical if you're in closed, tight spaces, unless you really know how to use a thing. But essentially, it's a kind of whip, but you can alter the weight of the two ends and the chain allowing you to gain a shit ton of momentum, and then whip it out at your targets.” He passed it to Rick who read through this.
“This goes through various techniques one can use to form the chain and the enchantments. Some sections are missing, which they probably kept to themselves, though you could use this to make a perpetual motion machine, having the weight increase and decrease upon reaching different points."
The information tickled another part of Len’s brain. "If you could use this on, say, an engine, then as soon as the piston reached the top of its fulcrum, you could increase the weight, driving it down for increased power, then decrease the weight once it reaches its limit, making it easier to raise again.”
“That could certainly save us some coal," Rick said. "What about the other ones?"
"Uh, we've got a few on swordsmanship advanced form of the books saw outside. Then we've got a spearman book, something on warhammers, which is pretty basic." He lifted a book that was barely ten pages stuck together. "Then we've got some enchantments that combine weight magic combined with elemental properties like fire, ice, and lightning. So say taking the temperature effect and then having heating and contracting, allowing you to extend the metal, contract the metal, or reduce the amount of air friction upon the attack or utilize that heat to speed up your attack. Then using the kinetic force to gain a static charge so that you can then release not just momentum and kinetic force into your target, but lightning into them as well."
He put the last book back on the shelf. "Overall it's an eclectic group of books, though with a decent understanding of the principles.”
“Whoever owned this storage device was a trainer of some kind, probably part of this school of thought," Rick said.
"Mm-hmm," Len hummed in agreement.
"Want to take a look at these weapons and check out their enchantments?" Rick asked.
"Sure." Len checked the shield first. "Yeah, you were right. Change your balance so you can alter your fulcrum. The other is the reflective force, and that's actually utilizing your ability to alter your center of balance. You can take in the impact, make sure that your center of balance is aligned with it, and that will reflect the portion of the attack back at the attacker, hitting them with a partial force equivalent to what they hit you with nearly immediately. So it's like compressing a spring and it's shooting back right at the attacker right away, which allows you to distort their attacks and push them off balance potentially."
"And the spear?" Rick asked.
"The spear has the weight redistribution, on the tip, the middle, or the butt of the spear, allowing you to change its properties pretty quickly. I think it also has a fire and ice enchantment that will cause just beyond the spear point."
He moved to the next weapon.
"The variable weight warhammer is an interesting one. That allows you to control its weight, and you can also use it like a ground slam, hit the ground and the force ripples through the ground upwards and outwards instead of just dissipating into the ground. So you could create a wave effect against your enemies, tripping them up if you're encircled."
“Kind of like my hammer but using the ground instead of using vibration,” Rick said.
“Yes, less malleable than yours, though you also need to have a lot more control with your hammer, this is smash and forget.”
“And the sword?” Rick asked.
"The longsword also has a weight redistribution, so you can increase or decrease the weapon's weight instead of the body's, and it has a sensory enchantment. It looks like it would increase your reflexes and the speed at which you cognitively process for a short period of time, though it's very mana intensive." Len was surprised that was a tricky bit of enchanting.
"And the headache afterwards is a real bitch," Rick said.
"Yep," Len nodded. "Shall we go see what's in the hidden parts?" He asked.
The two of them shared a grin, splitting up and opening hidden locations underneath the flagstones and deep in the mud walls.
They quickly collected what they found, piling it up close to the room's exit.
There were several bows, each with simple enchantments to increase or decrease the draw strength of the string, making them adjustable for people of varying strength.
Swords, warhammers, spears, and shields that could increase or decrease in weight were also available.
In addition, there were basic potions and salves for healing and regaining stamina, as depicted in the alchemy books Len had found.
"Pretty good haul," Rick said. "A lot of basic stuff, quite a lot of iron weapons and a few steel ones to round things out."
"Looks like this'll be a good help to our Build-A-Fighter plan," Len added. “Now getting it to the city is going to be difficult.”
“Store it at camp, then take it back into the city over time?” Rick asked.
“That should work,” Len nodded. “Lets pile everything up by the entrance. Then we’ll take the books and strongest gear, gather up our packs and store them in camp and run back and forth.”
“Okay,” Rick picked up the longword, pulling the scabbard behind it out too, sheathing and putting it on his back.
Len pulled the bookshelf out of the wall and laid it down, stuffing potions into the spare space.
Over the next few hours they eagerly picked the dungeon clean.
The storage space in the rock, Len carved into and used Rick’s hammer to collapse sections of, turning into a room.
The rock he took out and fused together, blending it into the outcropping, creating more space to store gear.
As day drifted into night Rick dumped another load of gear into the storage rooms in the rock, before marching out and pushing the capstone into place.
“That it?” Len asked, making a stew dinner in their cans. He’d used up the last off the food crate, using the crate to store ingredients and potions they’d found in the dungeon.
“That’s it,” Rick pushed the rock into place. He ran his hand on the edge of the rock, fusing it with the rest one couldn’t see a break between rock face and capstone.
Rick sealed it up and they ate in relative silence. “So what’s the plan when we get back?”
"We're going to need a base of operations, materials and workers. You secure a place for us to work out of. For materials we’re going to need food to support ourselves and the workers, iron or steel to build with, copper as well, anything else?”
“Coke, even if we have one of your enchanted hearths I’ll need coke too,” Rick said.
They fell into quiet again.
Len rubbed his hands, warming them up on the fire. “Should cultivate while we have time.”
“We’ve just been focused on covering ground and using the mana gathering formation to recover faster.”
“Increased my cultivation a bit, feel close to breaking through to purple vapor.” Rick licked his spoon clean, dropping it back into the can to clink around.
He held out his hand.
Len held out his “Three two one.”
Both paper.
“Three two one.”
Stone and scissors. Dammit.
Rick grinned. “Gotta get better.” He picked himself up as Len rolled his shoulders and drove his mana through his body.
He stopped sending out pulses of mana, it had got to the point it was instinctual and not doing it was harder.
Rick moved closer. “This’ll gimme a workout.” He punched the vibrating force radiating through Len’s shoulder, making it go numb, it ran through his entire arm, Len’s body fighting back and chasing it.
Rick landed hit after hit his strikes sounded like someone hitting a hollow tree. His vibrating power tore him apart from skull down to his toes.
Rick’s application was becoming more skillful, less in the muscles and more in the harder bones. Len tried to focus on these things, to distract himself from the sheer pain running through his body.
Rick’s hits struck with more force, throwing Len forward.
Len held up a hand and lay on his belly.
Rick hit him without a single bit of the force transmitting to the ground beneath Len.
Len spit blood out to the side as Rick hit his leg, his muscles clenching protectively as his mana raced to bring it back from the edge.
What would have taken months or years worth of effort they completed in just minutes. Len started to recover as fast as Rick could hit his techniques getting better at repairing the damage through their continuous tempering.
Rick used more of his cultivation, reaching his full strength, each blow ringing out like hammer on iron.
Len’s world focused in on healing himself, though driven from him as Rick used his hammer, the bones throughout his body cracked and damage radiated out of them through the rest of his body.
“Breath dammit,” Rick said.
Len hissed out breath, pushing stone and grit away and breathed in, some of the darkness pushing away. It closed in again slowly and surely even as he forced his breath.
Len opened his eyes, his body felt reborn. But so very tired.
“Well looks like you passed out,” Rick said beside him.
Len pushed himself up out of the recovery position Rick had put him in. blinking slowly as everything settled.
“Damn, you didn’t need to go that hard,” Len said.
“Dunno when we’ll get to cultivate next, wanted to go as hard as possible. We can sleep tomorrow in a real bed,” Rick said. “Time to cultivate.”
Len folded his legs reaching out the thickened mana around himself. He compressed and dragged it inwards, circulating and passing it through his channels. His body drank it in as he recovered some of his fatigue and drove it into his core.
It cracked through to purple vapor, filling quickly as Len focused and drove that mana harder.
The vapor condensed into vapor as he let out a hiss of breath. Every fiber of his being ringing with power, he was power. Len snapped at his own delusions bringing himself back down. He was nothing more than a speck, a mote in the sun’s eyes.
To live in this world, to challenge it, to fight the apocalypse itself, to build a town. He’d need strength.
Purple liquid solidified into solid.
His tempered body barely shuddered as his channels grew deeper and stronger. He could see acupoints forming at key junctions throughout his body.
Purple swirled into grey vapors. His eyes snapped open, his dominion spreading out just a bit more. It was to be expected, he closed his eyes and drew in as the grey swirled into a liquid drop, more liquid dripping from the exterior of his core, his body was starting to show some strain.
He moved past ego, focusing on body, on its movements, on its ability.
We’re good for more.
The liquid condensed together into a solid, holding in his core as it continued to darken.
“Grey solid.”
“You going for it?” Rick asked.
“You fucking bet,” Len grinned. The words a challenge thrown down to himself, that mad strength that came with fighting or pursuing something greater than himself. Going past his boundaries.
Like ink upon water, black stained his grey core, spreading throughout.
His dominion and body shuddered, taking another larger step forward.
He drew in greater amounts of mana, his brain feeling simultaneously too large for his skull and dried out like a raisin.
He reached out with his will to his core, grabbed the two half’s and drew them in opposite directions as he poured more mana into them.
A section of the core, darker than the shadow of night cracked away to reveal a needlepoint of white.
The core grew larger, another point of white peeling away like eggshell from a boiled egg. More mana, another fleck of white, maintaining drawing the core apart.
Black peeled away to reveal a vaporous white. The core split into two twin orbs.
Power tore through Len, injuring him internally even after all the tempering. Calmly he drew the second core through his channel to his head.
The core snapped into place, and the world exploded into detail. His sense’s went through an evolution. Everything seemed to slow down. Power surged through his body again, tearing through him, altering, changing, making him stronger.
Len reached out a hand, holding himself upward. Sucking in lungfuls of air.
“Here you are,” Rick held a potion to his lips. Len drank. The healing potion ran through him, soothing his injuries.
Len slid down to the ground, spent in mind and body. He circulated his mana, drawing it through his body into his two cores.
“Two white vapor,” He grinned in victory and gathered himself up and got to his feet, taking his time and adjusting to his newfound strength.
His strength had gone up by over fifty percent compared to having a black core. It thrummed through him, through the world. His dominion was nearly four times bigger than before.
Len used his all-seeing eyes, picking out details that had evaded him before. He moved his hand through the air, seeing the effect of the air upon his hand and his movements upon the air.
He lowered his hands and looked at Rick. “Hammer?”
Rick pulled it out and gave it to Len like meeting an executioner.
He opened his mouth, closed it and then laid on his back. “Fuck.”
Len punched Rick, controlling his strength, resonating strike running through his body. With his all-seeing eyes the injuries were all laid bare.
Len lost himself to the tempering. Rick had been nice enough to temper him to the point he could form a second core. What kind of friend would he be if he didn’t return the favor?