“You want a text on the biological sciences?” The AOSN representative who had come to speak to Calith tilted her head to the side. Her name - at least the one she gave - was Pancake. According to Rathel, high-ranking members of the guild would adopt new names, in the tradition of clowns and jesters. You had to be at least in the low Sapphire range to get a clown name, however - the rest of the guild just had their birth names or non-silly chosen names. Most of them were absurd. It was hard to take a woman named Pancake seriously, but she also had the strength to crush Calith like she was an ant underfoot, so Calith kept that thought to herself.
“We’ll have to provide that to your opposite number,” Pancake said. “You’re all right with that?”
“I’ll speak to our technician.” Pancake said. “But I’m sure Paddlebottom will agree so long as she does get the recreated texts back. What are you planning to do with them?”
Calith said.
“A dungeon with an interest in the sciences,” Pancake said. “I’m sure Paddlebottom will want to speak to you more. But we will be happy to provide them - however, if they are used in traps that exceed Pact recommended strength, we will be filing a complaint with the Cabal.”
Pancake opened her mouth, paused, then bowed. The bells on her hat jangled from the motion. “You have my sincere apology,” she said before rising. “I just… it’s been so long since there was a new dungeon, I wanted to make sure that I wasn’t missing anything that might put my people in danger.”
“She was trying to provoke you. That was just the barb that landed - you missed a few earlier in the conversation. Then the immediate apology, the line about protecting her people - she was overdoing it, so you’d think she can be trusted.” Rathel sighed. “Mortals always think they’re trying new tricks, but once you’ve been around a few centuries, you learn that they keep repeating the same games.”
“Ah.” Calith didn’t fully understand, but it seemed like the appropriate sound to make in response. Already she was disinterested in this conversation - she hadn’t planned on trusting the clown anyway, so it wasn’t needed. Mortals were here to fight and die. There was no reason to believe they’d be honest and open with her. Dungeon cores were above them on the food chain - and hares did not negotiate in good faith with eagles.
That phrase was something Rathel had said before, although Calith didn’t fully understand what hares and eagles were, other than they were animals that enjoyed a predator and prey relationship. The fact that one of Rathel’s sayings had stuck in her mind was a reminder - she needed to spend more time with other cores, before she turned in to a miniature clone of Rathel. Tomorrow. “I think I can handle everything from here,” Calith said.
Rathel nodded. “I’ll be by tomorrow to check on you, but I have a few other dungeons to help. It’s true that there hasn’t been new dungeons on this continent for a bit - but the world is far bigger than just this on place. If I’m late, remind me what you do?”
“When a group enters the dungeon, I put a bar across the door between the antechamber and the first room, so anyone knows a group is inside,” Calith recited. “I only respawn mobs in earlier rooms if the group takes more than thirty minutes cultivating per room. I don’t respawn the boss, just let it do so on its own. If I feel my core is in danger, layer as much stone over it as I can and call for you. Don’t forget to reset traps, Calith, you let your mind wander too much.”
Hearing his own words repeated verbatim in that last sentence earned Calith an amused snort from her mentor. “Good. And advancement?”
Calith decided to have some fun and repeat Rathel’s words verbatim. “In the unlikely event that you feel like my mana pool is going to overflow - which won’t happen unless you get at least four kills, and only a very dumb group will lose that many members in a day - immediately return to your core and start your mana spinning. You will feel your core start to crack. The moment the crack stars, push the Quartz away and pull the mana in at the same time. It’s very important you pull the mana in at the exact same time that you push away, because you are blowing up your body. As long as you pull the spinning mana in, it’ll crystallize around you and form your new core. I am Rathel, and I have repeated this twelve times.”
Rathel grinned. “It was six, but glad you have it perfectly. You’ll do fine, Calith. Show that Circle dungeon what you’re capable of. I will get to see some runs tomorrow, promise - just may not be back in the morning.”
“Thanks for the confidence in me,” Calith said. Rathel raised an eyebrow, and she went ahead. “Seriously. You’re trusting me to handle my first day without you looking over my shoulder. Either you hate me, or you trust me to handle it. I choose to believe it’s the later.”
Rathel burst out laughing. “I think you can handle it. Now, I must be off. I look forward to seeing how it goes.”
And with that, Rathel was gone, leaving Calith to just… wait. She spent the time fussing over her dungeon, and recalling her surface slime. Now that adventurers were here, hunting up top would be hard for both her and Kandra - but she could hunt underground still. Something Kandra couldn’t do.
The entrance to Kandra’s dungeon was visible. Calith looked at it, and once again felt a surge of envy. The marbling was beautiful, the artwork graceful and delicate. Calith’s best attempts at art paled in comparison to that. She felt a bit off for a moment. A thought strayed across her mind, something that she’d heard Rathel say when talking about dungeon art. “It takes a beautiful soul to create beauty.”
Calith tore her vision away and shut that thought out of her mind. So what if Kandra could make pretty doors? There was no way she could have anything close to Calith’s darkness room. Once the rent for the dungeon town land came in, Calith could buy pretty art to decorate herself. Kandra could buy better traps, but Calith would have had an edge there already.
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She went over her dungeon one more time, but everything was ready. She passed some time going over information on the debt flower - her search avatar had found a host of information. It all lined up with what Rathel said, although several sources warned against taking on more than one at a time and recommended only taking one if it was absolutely needed. If not for the idea of turning a tree into a mob, Calith would have been right to take the offer. Probably. There were some reports of dungeons ending up in a state known as the debt cycle - you could take on debt flowers that came pre-loaded with mana it would give you, only to collect more long term. Some dungeons paid off debt flowers that were particularly draining with those pre-loaded flowers, which offered short term relief, but long term was a terrible idea.
It also just sounded unpleasant to have something draining you. There was a temptation still. The pattern Rathel offered would let Calith create a summoning pit, bringing in extraplanar creatures to make into mobs. The options that opened up were practically limitless. Calith had sent a few search avatars out to look for more about them - they were rarely used, but the dungeons that used them all said it was worth it. The rarity was because of the cost of making the patterns and selling them - dungeons that knew how to make it guarded that secret carefully. There was also a few vague mentions about extraplanar mana becoming a craving, but those were discredited in great detail.
Calith resolved not to take on a debt flower, but see if she could negotiate some other terms with Rathel. Maybe she could manually give him the abyssal mana he wanted, instead of it being drained off. Or… she could work on the command lines for dungeons to use, then find a dungeon that wanted her services. Sell another abyssal dungeon the plans, and use that to get the mana Rathel wanted. She wondered for a moment of the design of her darkness room would have any value. Probably to another Quartz core.
Thinking of ranks reminded Calith - she had sent out another scytheleg to get some information, and it had returned. She pulled up her profile.
Calith The Novice Dungeon
Primary Mana Type: Abyssal
Guild Membership: Sable Cabal
Mana Pool Grade: Quartz - B
Average 1st Floor Mob Strength: Quartz - C
1st Floor Boss Strength Grade: Quartz - AAA
Calith frowned, then pulled out the information her Scytheleg had found.
Kandra The Novice Dungeon
Primary Mana Type: Firmament
Guild Membership: Verdant Circle
Mana Pool Grade: Quartz - A
Average 1st Floor Mob Strength: Quartz - C
1st Floor Boss Strength Grade: Quartz - AA
Kandra’s public profile. She was ahead of Calith by a single letter grade, but any gap could be bad long term. Calith had been afraid of that - their slimes were also part of how dungeons cultivated. Keeping one of her slimes underground had cost Calith in the initial phases. Caves, having less life, had less free mana for her slimes to gather. The difference in power was small, but small differences could go.
Calith might be able to make up that difference, though. The adventurers would fight slimes as they showed up. Kandra would find hunting harder unless she limited her slime’s range even less. Caves, on the other hand, let Calith’s slimes provide her with a constant stream of mana. Long term, slow and steady may win the race. And that extra A on Calith’s boss - likely a result of how sturdy the base form was - would help make that fight more interesting. Maybe Calith could keep ahead from that alone.
Calith pushed throughs of Kandra from her mind. She needed to meet people. She was tired of only talking to Rathel. It was midday outside - she had until tomorrow to see when groups would arrive.
The last of her scythelegs presented her with what she was looking for. A directory of Meeting Halls that were for lower rank dungeons of the Cabal. All of them had the number of active members displayed. Calith selected the one with the largest number of active members, and shaped its address in the mist. Moments later, she was racing along the leylines to her destination.
Calith emerged in a place that looked like a coliseum. There were dozens, maybe hundreds, of young dungeons here. Most of them didn’t even have avatars as nice as hers. That gave Calith a surge of pride - Rathel had done her well in that regard. She walked towards the entrance. As she passed under the doorway, her name appeared over her head.
Inside was pandemonium. Dungeon avatars, half actually there and half remnants, sat around a large arena. In the center were two creatures, engaged in battle. One was a cat with the tail of a scorpion and a fin-like crest running down from between its ears towards its tail. It radiated a pale mana that had to be profane, although there was some streaks of dark purple abyssal mana in there. It was leaping back from the claws of a creature that looked like the front end of a mole standing on top a pillar of mishmashed flesh and bone.
She knew the phrase was mismatched, but mashed sounded more accurate to what she was seeing.
The Carnal mana creature opened its mouth along both the normal slit - then both top and bottom jaw split vertically, revealing rows of teeth along each part of the jaw.
Calith sat down to watch the fight. It wasn’t long before someone plopped into the seat next to her. “This seat taken?”
Calith looked over at him. His avatar was clearly a beginner one, not the quality of hers, but better than the lump of flesh she’d made for herself. He looked like a human that had been slightly stretched for too long, every limb just a bit off form normal human proportions. His eyes were topaz, which surprised Calith - most avatars she’d seen here had quartz or amethyst. Over his head was the name Dracemar. “If you’re staying there, you’ve taken it,” Calith said. “Other than that, it’s open.”
He grinned and offered his hand. “I’d introduce myself, but seems silly with it floating over our heads. First time here?”
Calith nodded and took his hand to shake. “What gave it away?”
“You sat down alone. Either you’re waiting for others, or you’re new. Since this seat wasn’t taken, that left you being new.”
“There’s no other reason I could possibly be sitting alone?” Calith asked. “Maybe I like privacy.”
“Nah. You didn’t tell me to get lost.” Dracemar leaned back on the seat, kicking up his feet on the seat in front of him. “I love the boss-offs.”
Calith looked back to the arena. The cat had stung the flesh mole, and it was squealing in outrage and pain. “Is that what this is?”
Dracemar nodded. “Quartz or amethyst bosses only, to keep it fair. It’s not really the bosses, of course, just avatars. Can’t bring a physical thing into a metaphysical place.”
Calith cocked her head. “Why not?”
Dracemar’s eyes lit up. “Oh, let me explain.”
And he did. At great length. Calith was fascinated, asking questions throughout. It boiled down to the fact that matter didn’t exist here, and any matter would immediately break down to mana, but Dracemar went into theories as to why, and how they’d tested that over the years. Calith barely registered the fight, absolutely fixated on the conversation.
Right up until she noticed the time. There were clocks spread around the arena, and Calith hadn’t been paying attention. “Damn,” she said. “It’s almost dawn where my dungeon is. But we should talk some more.”
“Yeah, absolutely,” Dracemar said. “Let me get your site address, and I’ll swing by when there’s time.”
Calith didn’t hesitate to do so, and Dracemar wrote down his own and handed it to her. It was longer than she expected - why was his code DracemarRegister10.vic.vlp? - then gave Dracemar a nod. “Thanks again. I needed a chance to speak to someone other than my mentor.”
Dracemar laughed. “You’re quartz?” he continued when she nodded. “I remember that. I’m Topaz, but just hit that rank, so most of my friends still spend time here. Trust me, the mentors? They’re irritating, but part of the problem is how often they’re right.” He winked. “See you around, Calith.”
Calith gave him a raised hand in acknowledgement, then vanished as she went back to her meshsite. She stared at his code for a moment. It still bothered her. Meshsites should only have one three letter code, not two, and it should have just been Dracemar’s name. For that matter… why had he asked her to swap addresses? It just caught up with her - they shouldn’t have needed to do that. Sites only needed addresses for unknown dungeons.
One thing Calith had read about was hostile commands. They could slip into dungeons through the meshsite and do some real damage to your core. There was a simple way to contain a potentially dangerous command for later - forming a shell around it, where commands wouldn’t operate. Calith created one of those shells, trapping the paper inside, and put the shell aside. She’d have to figure out how to safely check if the commands were a risk later. Right now, the first groups were heading into her dungeon.
She settled in to watch.