In the Mesh, Calith flexed her arms. They were proper arms now, with hands. “And you’re sure I don’t owe you for this?”

Rathel nodded. “This avatar would be expensive for you, but it’s nothing for me. Mob patterns are much pricier, I won’t give you those for free. But basic avatars are cheap.”

Calith gave him a smile. “Much obliged.” Her avatar was called Abyss Starter Avatar, Femme-style. It looked like it was made of flesh and blood and had the basic humanoid body plan - two arms, two legs, one head. Some dungeons went for more monstrous avatars, but for now, Calith liked this. Her skin was a deep purple with white stripes. The avatar wore a pale leather outfit that hugged her form and apparently was modeled after a popular rogue dungeon set, and she had long, sea-green hair. When she smiled, the motion revealed rows of sharp teeth. “So where do we meet this arbiter?”

“A moment before we do,” Rathel said. “Show me your new mob.”

Calith wasn’t going to hesitate on that. She pointed her mirror towards the creature.

The mantis base form was small and, while terrifying to an insect, wouldn’t pose much of a challenge to something the size of a human. Infusing the template with Abyssal mana had fixed that, however. It was now easily three feet tall from antenna to its feet. It had a more upright posture now, with its lower legs far thicker and ending in talons, and the mantis blade arms now forged of bone that looked razor sharp. The creature had lost its middle legs, now built a bit more like a biped. The biggest change had been its head had - although it still had the mantis-like shape, where mandibles had been, it now sported a mess of tentacles that wriggled in the air.

She called it a scytheleg.

“Is everything I make going to have tentacles?” Calith asked.

Rathel chuckled. “Not everything. But many things, yes. Abyssal mana - I never told you what it is, did I? The abyss is another term for the deep ocean. The places that light from neither Sun nor Nemesis touches. Abyssal mana wells up from inside the world, spilling into the deep ocean before floating up to the surface. It only can gather in dark places, but it does permeate stone, which is how it got into this cave in the first place.”

“So my mobs have tentacles because of deep sea creatures?”

Rathel nodded. “Tentacles are common. So are large, gnashing teeth - they’re quite intimidating. But it’s not just sea life. It’s also anything we associate with the abyss - which includes stranger mutations still. Honestly, it’s one of my favorite types for pure aesthetics.”

Calith tilted her head. “Not your Profane?”

Rathel chuckled. “Not so much, no. I adore what I can do with it, but… I do borrow abyssal mana heavily.”

“I’m glad I have it, then,” Calith said. “The scytheleg is the only thing I have so far. But the slime that I sent into the cave system has found something, and it’s coming back to me with it. It had to go quite a ways to find it, but now I know where to find a cave with life.”

“Good,” Rathel said. “Any other finds from your surface slime?”

“Not that I can use. You weren’t wrong about animals avoiding it now.” Calith sighed. “Once I have more of the valley to explore, I’m sure I’ll find more. So, the arbiter?”

Rathel nodded. “Let me show you - and at the same time, show you how to navigate the Mesh.” Rathel rubbed his hands together. “So, to enter someone’s personal meshsite, you just need to know their name and have permission - at least for the private meshsites.”

“What if two people have the same name?”

Rathel hadn’t been expecting the interruption, and paused as his flow was interrupted. “It doesn’t come up often,” Rathel said. “But if it does, you need to know their mana type. If two dungeons have the same mana type and name, the name of their first floor Boss is used in addition to the other information.”

“Good to know.” Calith flashed him a grin. “Sorry, got curious. Continue.”

Rathel did so without hesitation, clearly glad to be back to the script. “For any public site, however, you need the site’s address. It’s the name of the site followed by a unique string of characters. If you don’t know the address and characters of a public site, you can send out scout terms into the Mesh to find that for you - but don’t worry about scouting right now. I’ll teach you that after the meeting. For now, we’re going to DarkLordArbitration.qzp.”

“Qzp?” Calith cocked her head to the side. “What’s that stand for.”

“Absolutely nothing,” Rathel said. “Just three randomly chosen, unique characters. Although dark lord sites almost always include Z, K, or Q as one of their characters. Circle sites usually include S, L, or P, and Cabal sites include R, T, or V. Mortal sites or freelance dungeon sites don’t follow any set pattern.”

“All right,” Calith said. “But why? Does it have to be three characters, or can it be more?”

Rathel paused, giving her a curious look. “You know… I don’t rightly know. But this seems to have caught your attention.”

“How can it not? This seems fascinating.”

“Some do find it to be so,” Rathel said, his dry voice making it clear what he thought of that. “I’ll reach out to my compatriots for someone who knows how to speak the language that controls the mesh. Perhaps you’ll find a future profession here - those that work with mesh manipulation are often in demand.”

That idea intrigued Calith. “Thank you. For now - I know the address. What’s next?”

“Write it in the air,” Rathel said. Calith raised one finger, ready to start tracing the characters, and Rathel shook his head. “This is your personal corner of the Mesh. You don’t need to move. Just focus on the surrounding mist. Make that appear, followed by “goto” as one word.”

It took a few attempts to get the mist to obey her commands, but on the sixth attempt, the words appeared in the air in front of her.

DarkLordArbitration.qzp goto.

Something tugged at Calith, like an immense wind had picked up. Not just like that, actually. The mist was moving, pulling her along. She could have fought it - but Rathel raised a hand and made a shooing motion, as if telling her to go with the mist. So she relaxed, and let it carry her away.

The moment her consciousness hit the actual leyline, lights flickered around her, as if she was moving through a field of stars at unimaginable speeds. Moments later, she was… there.

This Meshsite had been heavily worked over. It had a building, a citadel made of some black stone that shone in the reflected light of the mist. There was a creature standing outside of the building, a humanoid thing made of rotting flesh. It saw them and began to walk over, one of its eyeballs dangling from a stalk around the creature’s chin. “Gooday,” it said in a voice like dry parchment thrown into the flame. “You must be Calith.”

Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

Before she could speak, Rathel answered for her. “That’s her. Has the arbiter arrived?”

The undead creature nodded. “As has your opposite number. They were very early.”

“I didn’t want to take up the Dark Lord’s time,” Rathel said. “Made sure we arrived right on time.”

“Also, we’re immortals. Why does time matter?” Calith said, the words popping out of her mouth before she could think. She clamped her mouth shut when Rathel shot her a glare.

Thankfully, the undead seemed indifferent to this. Instead, it just motioned for them to follow.

“What is that thing?” Calith asked.

“A mesh zombie,” Rathel answered. “Dark Lords can make them. They serve a similar role to our remnant avatars, except there’s a bound human soul operating that thing. It’ll fade to the afterlife after a few decades, but for this time, it serves the Dark Lord that made it.”

Calith wanted to ask more, but that would have to wait. They were entering the stone building, into… a fairly comfortable hallway. It contrasted with the imposing exterior so bluntly, it almost felt jarring. The floor was not mist, but a lush red carpet that sat beneath walls that were light grey and well-lit with orbs that looked like miniature suns. The mesh zombie led them to a door, and opened it. Inside was a rich wooden table. On one end sat the arbiter. He looked almost like a human with skin so pale, it looked almost like bone. He wore an outfit of black silk and leather carved with blood red runes, but most notable was the way metal had been grafted to his skin. His eyes were covered by an iron plate that looked bolted on, his lower jaw appeared to be made out of gold woven into the upper jaw, and some apparatus made of silver bands in crescent shapes was attached to his bald head.

“So glad you could make it, Rathel,” another person sitting at the table said. Her voice was thick as tree sap. She looked like a woman made of wood and vines.

“Fulsi,” Rathel said, his voice dripping with disgust. “I thought I smelled half decayed bog hag. Surprise to see you here - didn’t know the gates to hell would open this season.”

“Oh, Rathel,” Fulsi said. “I’m flattered you think so highly of me. A demoness. I do wonder, though - how shallow was the latrine you crawled from this time?”

Calith barely noticed. She was looking at the woman next to Fulsi. That had to be the firmament dungeon, Kandra. Her avatar was rather basic, like Calith’s. She looked like a deep brown human wearing pale blue leather armor. She had broad, white wings emerging from her back, and her eyes were quartz, same as Calith’s. Her hair was in tight braids running down her head and dangling behind her. She had a small smile, one Calith couldn’t properly read.

She saw Calith’s attention and furrowed her forehead, inspecting Calith. “You must be Calith?” she said.

“You killed my slime,” Calith said. “Kandra, right?”

Kandra bristled at the mention of the slime. “It’s hardly my fault you split your slimes up.”

“Please,” the arbiter said, his voice deep and seeming to have an echo behind it, like two people were speaking at once from the same mouth. “Squabble amongst yourselves elsewhere. My time is valuable.”

“Apologies, Thramon,” Rathel said, a half second ahead of Fulsi.

“It is of no matter, so long as you cease. Unlike some immortals-” he shot Calith a glare “-I do value my time.”

Calith flushed. “In my defense, how was I supposed to know you were actually important?”

Everyone stared at her, and Calith just turned redder. Why did she say that? When had she picked up this habit? From the way Rathel glared at her, it was one she’d need to fix.

Thramon motioned for them to sit. “We are here to discuss the division of the Valley of Tears between the dungeons Calith and Kandra. Calith’s council is the Profane Dungeon, Rathel. Kandra’s council is the Sylvian Dungeon, Fulsi. I do hope you both prepared maps of your ideal division?”

Rathel produced the map he and Calith had worked on, and Fulsi did the same. Both of the maps were wildly unfair to one dungeon or the other. Apparently, negotiations often took this format - each side demanding things far behind what the other would ever concede.

Kandra and Calith had very little to do during this meeting. Fulsi and Rathel were the ones having heated arguments about how much of the river should go to each core - Rathel arguing that Calith’s Abyssal mana extended to all water, while Fulsi arguing that giving up too much would be unfair to Kandra’s attempts to gather aquatic life. The arbiter only intervened when one or the other moved into personal insults. Other than that, he just took note as they moved onto the forest itself, and then the lake that fed the river.

Meanwhile, Calith glared at her opposite number. Even though the slime was fine, and a dungeon mob’s purpose was to die, the sad sounds of that slime before it had died stuck with Calith. Kandra looked equally disdainful of Calith. “What did I do?” Calith asked her, keeping her voice low so it would interrupt the meeting. “You’re the one that killed my mob, you have no right to be angry.”

Kandra sniffed. “You decided to make that into an issue. It’s just a mob, why do you care?”

“Because it was my mob,” Calith said. “If I came into your dungeon and slew your mobs, you’d be fine with it?”

“I didn’t go into your dungeon,” Kandra said stiffly. “The fact that you didn’t protect your slime properly is not on my error.”

“Not on your- you had to know I was there. You sent them for me.” At least, at this, Calith had the satisfaction of seeing Kandra shift uncomfortably. “I knew it. You are trying to sabotage me.”

“And you would have done the same, if you’d known where I was,” Kandra said, sounding certain.

It was true, but Calith wasn’t about to admit that. “Guess we’ll never know,” she said instead. “You may have won our first skirmish, but I promise you, by the time the assessor arrives, you won’t be able to pull an F grade on your best day.”

Kandra bared her teeth in what certainly was not a smile. “Oh, test me. Please. I look forward to watching you weep as I exceed you.”

“Enough,” Thramon said, his voice firm. Both Calith and Kandra shut their mouths. At least Kandra had the decency to look away. He hadn’t been talking to them, thankfully. Fulsi and Rathel had gotten into insults again. “I’ve heard your cases, both of them. Give me a blank map.”

Fulsi did so, giving Rathel a smug grin as she beat him to it.

Thramon gestured over the map, and lines appeared across it. “This is the final border. Are there any objections?”

Calith looked at it. She was getting a larger share of the lake, but a smaller part of the river to compensate. Beyond that, the map followed lines that looked familiar. Calith couldn’t quite place it at first. Kandra looked equally confused, but there was that tinge of the familiar to her eyes as well.

“The terrestrial routes follow the pine and dechwood paths,” Thramon said, noting their confusion. “Conferring more of the trees compatible with your faction to each of you.”

That seemed ideal to Calith, as did having more of the lake. She hadn’t particularly wanted the river, but some of her future plans required a great deal of water, and the lake would work for that.

“What’s this?” Kandra said, pointing to an area in the middle of the map. Calith looked, and sure enough, there was a large area along the river that hadn’t been designated as either of theirs.

“That is the area that is marked for the Adventuring Guilds to build a dungeon town,” Thramon said. “You both share ownership of that land, and so guild rent will be divided equally between you two.”

“Equally based on dungeon grade,” Fulsi interjected.

Rathel shot her a haughty look. “That is what we agreed on.”

Thramon sighed. “As you say.” He waved his hand. “Now, then. All parties have agreed on the manner of my payment?”

Fulsi and Rathel nodded. Calith shot Kandra a look, and at least the other dungeon seemed as confused as she did. Thramon noted their expressions and went ahead, seemingly bored, annoyed, and tired all at once. “They didn’t tell you. My youngest daughter just reached her hundredth year, and is beginning her advancement. She will be running both your dungeons. You two are to do everything in your power to kill her.”

“I’m not an assassin!” Kandra said, her voice heated.

Calith didn’t say anything. She wasn’t sure if she minded the idea of being an assassin.

“You misunderstand,” Thramon said. “As a young Dark Lady, her power exceeds those of mortals greatly. Your efforts to kill her will likely fail and only make her stronger. She could use our dungeons here, but… she has a bit of wanderlust.”

“And what if we do kill her?” Calith asked.

Thramon shrugged. “If my daughter can die to newborn dungeons, then perhaps I was wrong about her lineage. Failure is death.”

That seemed definite enough. Kandra looked horrified, and Calith couldn’t resist the opportunity to needle her. “I assure you,” Calith said, looking the Dark Lord directly in the eye-plates. “If your daughter is not properly challenged, it won’t be me who fails to challenge her.”

Kandra bristled and shot Calith a glare, but Thramon just shrugged. “So you say,” he said. “Our business is done, then?”

There was no more chatter as they got up to leave, just more dirty looks between Rathel and Fulsi as they walked out. Rathel told Calith how to return them to her meshsite - it was even easier than leaving, just a matter of thinking of herself and making the word ‘goto’ appear. “Pity it’s Fulsi mentoring her,” Rathel said once they were back. “She’s absolutely ruthless. We’ll have our work cut out against her.”

“You two know each other,” Calith said. It wasn’t a question.

“We have history,” Rathel said, in a tone that made it clear he didn’t want to explain further. “I have to go turn copies of the agreement in to the Cabal. Get whatever it is your other slime caught, absorb the pattern, but don’t make a mob yet. It may be needed for your boss. We’ll discuss that when I return, as well as how to distribute your mobs. We’ll want to move fast. The Guilds will be arriving soon.”