I went to a garden party

To reminisce with my old friends

A chance to share old memories

Play our songs again

When I got to the garden party

They all knew my name

No one recognized me

I didn't look the same

From “Garden Party,” By Ricky Nelson

==Zidaun==

It felt strange to see so many of my people here. I knew they were coming, of course, though the timing had been uncertain.

It felt strange to see them all here, however. The shaggy bark and curved thorns belonged in the swamp. All these faces, familiar and foreign, belonged in the mists. They belonged in the warm humid air that would freeze upon the trees and stone buildings in cascading falls of icicles.

I would likely never return there. Never see the swamp again, with the burning flowers heating the water in Freeze. Never see the same swamp festooned with curtains of flowers above the water in Thaw, gradually changing to more greenery and flowers as the year progressed.

Thousands of Adar came up the tunnel, stopping when they got to me.

I heard dull thwaping sounds as the crowd parted and Phanal came walking forward with his cane, whacking anyone who didn’t get out of his way fast enough.

I grinned, he hadn’t changed at all.

I bowed before I spoke.

“Trainer Phanal, it is great to see you.”

“Bah, none of that bowing,” Phanal said with a scowl. “Looks like I should have worked on your etiquette more. As an Ancient, I am supposed to bow to you, not the other way around.”

He bowed to me, somehow managing to make the short bow feel sarcastic.

“I greet you, holder of this domain. I, Phanal, am honored to be here, Ancient.”

I sighed internally, I hated this formality, but I needed to respond in kind.

“And you, Phanal, are welcome here.”

I paused for a moment, the ritual complete.

“Though I am pretty sure if I was going to call anyone ancient, it would be you Phanal,” I said wryly. “Exactly how old are you now?”

“Ha, old enough. So who are they?” Phanal raised his cane, pointing at my party and the others.

“Ah, yes.” I gestured behind me and beckoned for the others to join me. As they came forward I pointed to each of them.

“This is Gurek, Inda, and Firi.”

Phanal gave me a knowing look as I introduced Firi, his eyes twinkling.

“They are my party. These other four are from Tsary. First is Tarrae, their leader, then Soara, Norana, and Anaath.”

Each of them made an acknowledgment as they were introduced, except for Anaath, who only scowled.

A moment later a whack announced Phanal’s cane introducing itself to Anaath’s head.

“And what cause do you have to be so sour, eh boy?” Phanal said, his scowl substantially more impressive than Anaath’s. The deep lines in his face definitely made the scowl more effective. “You’re young. Still have lots of opportunities. Get over yourself and hop to it.”

I held back a laugh with a cough while Anaath rubbed his head sourly.

“Hmm. Yes, and this is Phanal, my old trainer,” I said. “While he lacks patience, he is very effective.”

Phanal’s gimlet stare turned on me next, before apparently deciding that my, entirely accurate, assessment wasn’t worth contesting.

“Humph, well off with the rest of you. Zidaun and I have things to get done. None of you will be able to delve for at least a few days. Go find something to entertain yourselves with.”

Despite his less than polite dismissal, it said something for his force of personality that none of my companions, or the other party, argued, though a few of them opened their mouths before shutting them.

I gave my party an apologetic look as I walked off with Phanal. Firi and Gurek were both smirking at me. No doubt they both thought the situation vastly entertaining. Oh well, it was fair enough. Not like I hadn’t seen them around their old guild trainers, too. They didn’t have quite as much oomph to their personality as Phanal, but it had still been enough to trip them up occasionally.

“So, anyone else in the dungeon? Anyone delving?” he asked.

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“Nope, it has just been the eight of us so far.”

“Well, at least we won’t need to kick anyone out. Show me around, bo…” he coughed before continuing, “hmm, Ancient.”

I grinned at him.

“It would be my pleasure.”

It was a different experience with so much light in the cavern. The night receded into the distance, each statue looming out of the gloom and then being fully exposed. Thousands of Adar followed me as I showed him the cavern, pointing out the statues, trees, trials, and where sacrifices could be offered.

“Very good,” he said. “I have the language skill book for the merchant tongue ready to offer him.”

“How are we handling the Adar language?” I asked. “Did you bring that as well?”

“Nope. I’m not here to stay, Zidaun. I’ll be making that book on my own, once it accepts the pact properly.” Phanal said.

My face fell.

“Oh. I had hoped you could stay. Why not? Surely you would be better served as a trainer, here?”

He offered me a sad smile.

“I’m afraid my time is coming to an end. My skills held off death for a long time, but I have Senescence II as a status now. My body has already gotten weaker, soon my skills will start to fade.”

I sighed, there was nothing I could do about that. I changed the subject.

“How soon before the dungeon will understand the language in full, once we give it the book?” I asked.

“At least a week, but it will have enough of the language primed by tomorrow afternoon. When you speak the pact then, the skill book will bring up the proper meaning of the words.”

At least we would have a little bit of time together, before he was gone.

“Come on,” I said, leading him forward and into the building.

Phanal stopped once he entered the room, his steps reverent. I watched him as he examined the statues, a peaceful smile on his face.

“I never wanted to be Ancient, you know?” he said. “I know you weren’t seeking it out either, though I know you will do an amazing job. I almost envy you, though. This dungeon, it truly is something special. Wish I had enough time left to really see it.”

“Me too,” I said quietly.

We got closer and Phanal reached into a bag and pulled out a small book.

“Here, you’re the Ancient, so you should do it.”

He thrust the book out toward me.

It looked entirely unassuming, though using mana sight on it showed it to be saturated with mana. A quick identification on it swiftly gave the lie to its humble appearance.

Skill Book: Merchant Tongue (Western Hemisphere: North)

Potential Skill Level: 10

Using this book will start the process of teaching someone the skill contained within. Success in acquiring the skill depends on the potential of the skill, any pre-existing skill level, and skills that assist in the learning of other skills. Using a skill book does not guarantee learning the skill.

With the potential being at ten, there was no risk of not learning the skill. What level of skill the dungeon ended up with would vary heavily, however. Part of it was simply chance, though with a skill book this powerful a bad outcome would be a five. A ten was theoretically possible, but almost entirely outside any reasonable chance unless the dungeon was impossibly lucky or had some substantial bonuses to language learning. No, an eight would be a very good result. Maybe... a nine.

I took the small book and dropped it into the bowl, watching as a moment later it dissolved away.

“Come, let’s catch up,” Phanal said. “The dungeon likely won’t even be able to talk right now, its mind will be full.”

The other Adar had started manipulating stone into homes, creating a new walled off section. I would need to administrate over all of that later, but for now I followed him out of the building, and we passed the day talking.

==Caden==

It looked like the adventurers were taking a break today. I tried my best not to be jealous of their casual camaraderie, but I really did miss having a proper conversation with someone. Even Exsan was still out of commission. I wasn’t worried about him; I could sense he was still dreaming in meditation. I wasn’t exactly sure what he was doing, but I hadn’t really been sure of that even when he was conscious and talking to me, so it wasn’t a huge change.

For the moment, I continued my projects.

I had been occasionally glancing at the various monsters I had sequestered away in little bubbles in my aura. Being outside my aura was obviously not good for them. A few of the larger animals had died by now, and most of them looked very sick.

I felt a little bad, but I replaced any that died. When I absorbed the dead ones I found mutations that had blossomed into full blown cancers and other misshapen growths. My best guess was that the monsters had continued to try and mutate like they were in a dungeon, but they didn’t have the dungeon’s moderating influence to create only functional mutations.

I had placed in many dozens of smaller monsters, allowing them plenty of space and resources. Most of them looked sick too, but a few actually looked perfectly healthy. I would examine those ones more closely if they survived while the others died. Honestly, this was all blind guess work based on what little I had been able to glean from the system.

I had no idea if any of this would actually be useful for anything. And that was okay, I was constantly pursuing new ideas. I didn’t need them all to work.

In the middle of the morning, I saw some Adar start to enter the dungeon. Honestly, I had expected far more humans than anything else. Well, I did know that the Adar were connected to dungeons in a special way. Or maybe far more Adar lived on this world than humans. Would I eventually run into lots of other races?

At first I was excited, and then apprehensive, as they didn’t stop entering. Thousands of people flowed into the dungeon, each one carrying a pack. The interference caused by their mana made the entire tunnel around them fuzzy. I could feel that various magical items were carried by some, but they were lost amidst the general haze.

I had been expecting adventurers to show up, but this was far more than I had been expecting. The sheer presence of so many individuals was raising the ambient mana around them. That was rapidly draining away to continue my dungeon reinforcement project, but the fact it created a measurable increase in speed was notable. I was already building using several cubic miles of ambient mana, and these few thousands were not quite at that level, but it was about half.

I might be able to beat that eventually by creating my own higher level creatures and harvesting their excess mana, but I would need to create the proper environments and space to sustain them. People were obviously meant to be a major mana source for most dungeons.

I really needed to figure out a way to deal with them, however. I wasn’t really concerned for my safety, My defenses didn’t really care about numbers. A tornado would deal with thousands of people as easily as one. No, I was concerned about delving. I didn’t have the throughput to handle this many people.

I had accumulated a lot of points, so I went looking for a solution in the AP store. I ended up finding one, much to my surprise. I hadn’t really been checking the store very often, but entirely new options had opened up now that I had created my own portals.

I supposed that made some sense, they were a fairly major piece of work.

One looked like it could help me not only now, but in the future as well. With a small push of will, 3,400 AP was consumed.

Congratulations, you have purchased a subskill for Dungeon Control Menu:

Teleportation Integration

Various automated methods for using teleportation and portals are added into the dungeon control menu.

Now to see what it did.