As soon as the group exited the dungeon Cassius started the tongue lashing, “what have I told you guys about messing around in a dungeon!”
The rest of the group looked at their feet. “It was a newborn one and we were fighting a cult full of villagers,” responded Sidney in a dejected tone.
“Oh a weak dungeon and we are fighting villagers. That’s your excuse? What if, what is very likely to be a crystal core got offended by the liberal use of holy magic. Or if the demon Julien made a pact with decided he didn’t want to be a bystander. Just because generals generally don’t try to murder people doesn’t mean they can’t. Look I just want you guys to be a little more careful,”Cassius sighed.
“We’re sorry” Julien replied dejectedly “it won’t happen again.”
“Well it’s not all bad. At least we completed the mission. Let’s get back to town and send a report.”
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Sanctus beamed internally. The second floor of its dungeon was currently a sixty by thirty by ten kilometer rectangular prism. It was about twice the size of Sanctus’s first floor and slowly filling with water. Sanctus then began carving the room getting rid of the sharp corners and adding flares like stalagmites and stalactites. Finally Sanctus created sand. The process was strange and different then creating larger rocks. To create sand Sanctus had to weave its mana into hundreds of thousands of different points. It was a grueling task and Sanctus was forced to start slow, but began to speed up once it discovered that it could make a giant rock and break it down into sand. That’s when Sanctus hit the next problem, sand and stone are different and it had taken Sanctus a few minutes to realize what it was. Sand contained large quantities of silica, shards of sea shells, and fish bone. This meant Sanctus had to restart the sand project from the beginning. Sanctus groaned internally as it had to dissolve the not quite sand and replace it with sand with higher silica content. By the second day of sand making Sanctus decided that it hated sand. Finally the sand was done, it had taken nearly three and a half days to make the amount of sand required to form islands throughout the mostly water filled floor.
Once the basic layout of the floor was done Sanctus began to move the core room Sanctus pushed the room to the far end of the second floor and attached it under the water. Sanctus allowed the water to fully submerged the room. The only problem was the wind Sanctus wanted. If Sanctus focused it could produce the wind however it didn’t want to use all of its concentration just to make wind blow.
Deciding to ignore the problem Sanctus moved on to what it was most excited for. It was finally time to get a new general. Giddy with excitement Sanctus formed a thread of mana and threw it into the same place as it had when it had summoned Markus.
Sanctus waited in anticipation for the inevitable tug on the string of mana. Sanctus didn’t have to wait long before it felt the tug. However this tug was not the same as it had been from Markus. Where Markus had gently tugged this tugging felt erratic and forceful. Sanctus pulled and a girl with medium length blond hair and six wings sprouting out of her back shot into reality. The water pushed away from her creating a bubble around her. The second thing Sanctus noticed, after the initial observations of wings, air bubble, and blond hair was that not once did she stop moving. It was as if she didn’t have the ability to be calm and instead had to race around the room. She did this for about five minutes before she ran over to Sanctus and began bouncing up and down.
“HimynameisCetrialandimtheangelyousommonedimsohappytomeetyou!”
“Um what?” Sanctus said as it tried to process the mess of words that had just left the woman's mouth, “can you say that a bit slower?”
The woman pouted a bit but repeated herself, “Hi my name is Cetrial and I am the angel you summoned. I'm so happy to meet you! Now can we make the contract?” She posed for a second before giving a look like she had forgotten something, “oh right my affinities are storm and insanity and I don’t really care what traits you have.” She then stared at Sanctus expectantly.
Sanctus chuckled internally as it let its instincts guid it, allowing mana and enlightenment to weave and wrap around the angel.
You have forged a contract with the archangel Cetrial
After that message popped into existence Cetrial dove out of the core room and began running around her floor.
Sanctus however turned its attention up a floor excitedly calling for Markus to see the second floor. Markus nodded and walked down the stairs from the cult room.
The second he exited the staircase and stepped into the room he was tackled by an ecstatic angel.
“HI IT'S SO NICE TO MEET MY FELLOW GENERAL! Huh what kind of angel are you?”
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“I’m a demon and we are in a heretical dungeon.”
“That’s impossible! I felt the core forge a contract with enlightenment.”
A flash of confusion danced across Markus’s face before he spoke, “um Sanctus.”
“Yes Markus.”
“If I may ask. What are your affinities?”
“Holy and profane. Why?”
“That is an unusual combination.”
“Yup!” Butted in Cetrial, “it’s like if someone had a heat and cold affinity their mana would attack itself.”
“Although holy and profane are slightly different from elemental affinities,” Markus began slowly, “theoretically in a dungeon the conditions allowing this pairing could be possible.”
“Well that’s obvious!”
“How do you suppose Cetrial?” Markus asked.
“Well we are both here right?”
Markus pinched the bridge of his nose, “that’s not exactly what I meant, but you have a point. The one problem is that a core should not be capable of generating both of those affinities. A human may be able to because it is more randomized. A core however pulles their affinities from the surroundings during their birth and since holy and profane affinities act similar to water and oil it should not be possible for a core to have both.”
“What if it already had them?” Cetrial asked.
“How would a core already have affinities?”
“Well Sanctus is a forge born core right? So if a sword was built with let’s say holy and profane artifacts and it somehow became a dungeon wouldn't the dungeon have those affinities?”
Markus thought for a moment before responding “if a blacksmith somehow created such a weapon and it was somehow buried in a place where it could become a dungeon. Then maybe?”
“Is this a problem?” Asked Sanctus
“I don’t think so, it's just that you managed to create the first pantheon containing both angels and demons. Sanctus I think you should be quick about populating this floor. The church and cult will have mixed feelings about you and I think it’s best you have some more protection before you get any more invaders. Also in my personal opinion I believe Cetrial and I should take a slightly more active role in defense. I’m not suggesting that we fight each invader to the death, but I don’t think we have the luxury of making this an easy to clear dungeon.”
“Ok Markus I’ll get to work.”
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It had been three days since Cassius and his group had killed the cultists. When they gave their report the guild had ordered them to wait on the island for the guild to send an official to take control of the city. While the guild was not in control of the government it was a powerful organization that had near universal authority when it came to dungeons with crystal level cores. This was because most of the kingdoms could agree that they didn’t want a kingdom to be able to hord all of the dungeons of a particular affinity. It was like a kind of truce the kingdoms had with each other. The guild acted as a third party allowing adventurers to travel through kingdoms freely. This would allow people to level and advance their rank while allowing kingdoms to get rich off of dungeon resources. It was similar to how the church and cult operated, but with less controversy. The fact that both the cult and the church approved of and used the guild to train members was also a big reason the guild had power.
Cassius thought about how much controversy this dungeon would create. A profane dungeon in a minor kingdom in between to religious superpowers. The Hessian empire would be thrilled while the Atricet empire would definitely not be. The fact Julien had confirmed that the power of the demon meant the dungeon was at least a mid range crystal core would not help matters.
At least Julien was happy with the curse he had gotten. When Julien had told the group about it Cassius had finally realized why someone would want a religious class. Those kinds of effects could easily allow some to take on enemy’s ten levels above them.
“Hey Sidney if you don’t mind me asking what is the difference between blessings and curses?”
“Hmmm other than curses being disgusting, and having names like brand, and blessings being beautiful and having names like sigil the only difference is in their affinities like whether the affinity of the mark is aligned with profane or holy. Take plague for example, it is an affinity that is aligned with profane whereas something like greed is more aligned with holy.”
“What makes an affinity more profane or holy?” Cassius asked confused.
“It’s whether or not it is more stagnant or chaotic. Something like greed or gluttony is the hoarding of something whereas plague is change, pathogens evolve and change to better attack the body.” Sidney replied.
“Then why is holy light and profane dark and what about elemental affinities?”
“Light is perfect and reveals everything whereas darkness allows chaos to thrive. Anything can be happening in front of you without you knowing. Elemental affinities like fire, water, earth, etcetera are neutral and don’t have an alignment.” Sydney finished
“Thank you Sydney.”
“No problem “
Cassius thought this over to him it all sounded the same. How cold you have light without dark or stagnation without chaos for that matter. Cassius sighed and called the rest of his party over.
“The guild officer will arrive in half a week. When they get here weare to go complete the dungeon and confirm it is a crystal core until then we are to leave the dungeon alone. Julien you may go once a day to the entrance of the dungeon to perform any rituals or warship to the demon inside, but you can not go more than forty meters in and the rest of us are to stay in the town.” The team gave their ascent, nodding or murmuring their approval. “Until then let’s get acquainted with the tavern.” This got a much more excited reaction. Cassius smiled as Julien pulled him in the direction of the taver. If Cassius knew one thing about adventurers it’s that they liked their ale.