“War? What? Why?” Max sputtered, entirely off balance.

The Paj laughed, “As much as I enjoy the look of panic on your face, I’ll relieve you of it. This isn’t true war. There aren’t endless waves of soldiers ready to raise the city to the ground. This is Spinworld. Each city is its own sovereign nation, so armies never get too big. This will be a border skirmish at best.”

“Still, that doesn’t sound good. I gotta warn my friends and get out of here before the army arrives,” Max said as he turned around.

“You want to leave before you buy something? Don’t do that. The guild is subsidizing everything bought for the war effort today. Buy something before you go, it might save your life.”

Max paused. “Do you still have the Armor card?”

“No, that was one of the first cards to go. Come here, I have my remaining cards on the counter.”

Max walked over. The shop used to have several dozen cards displayed, now there was less than twenty. There were only three citadel cards. Passkey, Actuator, and Drill. The actuator seemed out of place, but he reminded himself this wasn’t a medieval fantasy. This was real life. He read the new card, trying to figure out how close it was to a solenoid.

Common

Actuator

Citadel

Transmutes mana neutral matter within aura into a small mana actuator. Controlled by mental commands or mana current.

Mana Cost: 8

Concurrent Links: 2

Card Level: 1

Ooh, mental commands, fascinating. He could make a cupboard that opened and closed without touching it. No, that was a dumb idea. He could connect it to a flying platform and mentally control it while he surfed it into battle. Better. Still ridiculous, but fun to imagine.

The drill card looked more useful. The refresh time was long, but the low mana cost meant that he could make more than one at a time.

Common

Drill

Citadel

Transmutes mana neutral matter within aura into a hand drill sized for the cardholder.

Mana Cost: 12

Refresh: 2.6 Hours

Card Level: 1

He slid the Drill and Actuator to the side. “What kind of deal can you give me for these two?”

The Paj knocked on the counter. “Normally, I’d say 63 whites, but since the crystal guild is helping foot the bill, I’ll knock it down to 54.”

Max considered it. He could afford both of them and he was in a hurry.

“It’s a deal,” Max said as he counted out the whites.

Instead of absorbing them right away, he tossed the cards into his bag. He planned on having James test the cards out before he committed to adding them to his permanent deck.

By the time he returned to his friends, the crowd had grown to twice the size. The hunters were getting loud and there was a general unease. Ebba had arrived while he was gone and stood like a protective mother between the squad and the crowd.

“Listen, guys.” Max said as soon as they were in earshot. “I just found out an army is heading this way.”

Ashley scoffed. “Ebba already told us. Are you finally ready to go?”

Max had enough of her bullshit. He slowly walked up to her and whispered in her ear, “Watch your attitude if you want me to watch your back.”

She backed up and folded her arms. “Don’t threaten me. You can’t stay awake forever.”

Max held himself back from barking back. Her idiocy wasn’t as important as getting out of here. Ebba waited to make sure the interaction was done and then clapped her hands.

“Follow me, nestlings. I made an arrangement with the field commander and I think I can get him to let us out on the anti-spinward side.”

“How do you know the army doesn’t have the city surrounded?” Gus asked.

She twitched her fingers on all four hands. “Basic military tactics. Their entire army is amassed on the spinward side because all catapults and projectiles fly farther when you launch from the spinward side than when you launch from the anti-spinward side. The defense has the advantage on the anti-spinward side, it’s basically suicide to attack from that end.”

Gus narrowed his eyes. “Is it some kind of magic thing? East and West of the city are level, it’s not like there is any kind of terrain advantage.”

“Centrifugal Force!” James excitedly said. When Gus turned to him, he continued in a quiet voice. “It’s not magic that changes their tactics, it’s regular old physics.”

“What do you mean?”

“We’re inside a spinning sphere, remember? The force that is holding us on the ground feels like gravity, but it isn’t, it’s centrifugal force. That comes along with the coriolis effect and centripetal force pulling things to the side. If I throw a ball straight up in this world, it’ll always fall a few feet anti-spinward. The higher you throw, the farther anti-spinward it will fall. So if you set up a catapult on the spinward side, you can toss rocks or bombs or whatever and they will travel farther.”

Gus nodded sharply. Max was pretty sure that Gus understood now. James kept going anyway.

He excitedly said, “So it will always make sense to attack from the spinward side, even if they are expecting you to do that. They can bring substantially more energy into play, especially when you shoot higher. Physics is on your side, literally.”

“Very good brown-haired nestling. That is the correct explanation,” Ebba said. “If you were a Lunuk, I would give you a sweet tuber.”

If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.

James turned to her and cocked his head. “Don’t you know my name? It’s James.”

“Yes, ok, James. I will try to remember, but you humans all look alike. The only reason I always remember Max’s name is that he is the only one with straw hair.”

James looked offended, but didn’t reply.

Gus did though. “Very good nesting. You are so smart, the purple people eater likes you,” he said in a cutesy voice.

“I do not eat sentients,” Ebba said, offended.

Gus just laughed.

A dozen airships sped by above them, heading the same direction, anti-spinward and away from the fighting.

“Can we hitch a ride on one of those?” Ashley said and pointed.

Ebba scoffed and said, “There are several reasons why not. Most of those are single occupant vehicles. The few that can take passengers charge more than I make in a year. And even if we had the money, what they are doing is too dangerous for nestlings. There are several flying monsters that can bat those airships out of the sky. The only reason they are risking it, is because they could survive the impact.”

Ashley’s shoulders slumped and she looked at the retreating ships with longing.

While they were talking they crossed the entire city and came to a small gate on the far wall. It was only manned by two guards, despite the fact that war had just been declared. Max frowned. The military here really trusted that no one would do the unconventional.

Ebba got them quickly through the gate by mentioning the commander’s name. Max noticed they had guards patrolling the wall along the battlements, so maybe they weren’t completely naive.

Once they were outside the city, a guard slid a box through the slot in the door. Ebba absorbed her card and handed Yang hers. There was a final card in the box, the one that Feng had left. Ebba slid it into her storage shorts. Ashley sidled up to Ebba and started whispering and pointing to her shorts. Max scoffed. If Ashley thought she was going to wheedle a card out of Ebba, she was delusional.

They left the road right away and headed towards the forest to the north. As they walked out of the shadow of the city, Ebba spurred them into a jog. Max looked spinward to see what they were running from.

On the far side of the clearing, an army was assembling. They were still within the trees, not yet entering the cleared area around the city walls. Dozens of summons lined the edge of the forest. The blue monsters were all different shapes and sizes, some as big as the titan Max had killed.

A figure clad in white slowly floated up from the city. Another in yellow rose up to meet them. They were too far away to see details, but Max imagined they were generals discussing terms to avoid a conflict.

They must not have been successful, because the figures clashed in midair with the sound of thunder. The one in white spun backwards thirty feet before righting himself. He pulled a potion out and quaffed it. Eldritch tentacles burst out of his back, writhing and spinning. The man in yellow tried for another clash, but the man in white used his new tentacles as wings and outmaneuvered him. Spikes grew from his tentacles and he whipped them forward to send a barrage of spikes at the man in yellow. His armor deflected most of it, but Max thought he saw spots of red between joints. The man in yellow responded with a cascade of lightning, locking up his opponent and slapping the appendages back. The figure in white fled back the city as Max lost sight of the fight.

As soon as they entered the tree line, the humans tried to slow down.

“Not yet, my nestlings. We are still too close to the army. One of their scouts might kill us just for being in the area. We must run for a while yet.”

Max gritted his teeth and continued on. This was brutal. He had dumped the extra weight from his pack, but he hadn’t spread out the food supplies. He activated his Levitate stat but it wasn't enough. Soon enough, he was huffing and puffing alongside James.

Time passed slowly.

Eventually, Ebba slowed to a walk and said, “We are likely safe now. We are near the local dungeon tower and they won’t go near it.”

Max blessed the chance to breathe. They continued walking but it was much easier now. When he got his breath back he said, “Shouldn’t we avoid the dungeon too? They have a mandatory quest going on, right?”

Ebba whipped her head around. “What did you say?”

“In the news yesterday the guy said something about a mandatory quest on the dungeon nearby. Did I misunderstand? He did talk about it like it was-.” Max cut himself off. He was distracted by a message popping up in his vision.

Mandatory Quest

A nearby dungeon needs to be cleared out in order to normalize local mana levels. Head towards the quest marker and enter the dungeon within 3.46 hours. A floor count will be assigned after a team has entered together. Failure to enter within time will result in immediate death.

Along with the blue message sprawling across their vision, a small blue arrow appeared at their feet, pointing to north-anti-spinward.

Ebba looked at the sky and shouted, “Broken shells!” She turned back to Max with a glare. “Why didn’t you tell me about this sooner! I told you we were heading for a dungeon!”

Max held up his hands. “I was in the middle of telling you! Besides, why didn’t you know already? You knew about the war, how did you miss this?”

Ebba growled in frustration.

“Immediate death? Immediate death? They can’t do that, can they?” Ashley said, panicked.

Ebba sliced the air. “They can and they do. One of the many reasons the dungeon Builders are universally reviled. If you do not enter their dungeon within the allotted time, they overcharge your mana core. It sucks in all the nearby mana, killing you in the process.”

“Damn,” Gus said.

“Death, not damnation. Human mythology does not apply.”

“That’s not... whatever.”

There were a few moments of silence. Max said, “So there is no way around it, right? We have to go to the dungeon. Can we jump in and then jump right out?”

“No. This is a two part quest. Once you enter the dungeon, you are given a set number of levels to clear. Weak groups only have to clear a floor or two, strong groups have to clear the whole thing. You all are weak, and will be given a small number. But these dungeons are made for the third layer. It will be difficult to survive.”

There was more discussion, but Ebba just repeated the same answers. When the questions stopped, they headed out again. The group fell into a funk. No one talked, everyone was in their own heads, thinking about their second deadline since they arrived here.

Ashley walked up to Ebba and continued their earlier conversation. The whispering grew heated. Max was a bit surprised when Ebba caved and gave Ashley something. He couldn't see what, but Ashley seemed satisfied with the exchange. Max drifted over to ask what that was about, but both Ebba and Ashly avoided him.

He shook his head and refocused on surviving the dungeon. First things first, weapons. He grabbed a nearby plant and transmuted it into a war hammer. He already had two good ones and a pair of carpenter’s hammers, but they needed more. If they were going to have to fight monsters, then everyone would need a weapon. He slid the newly created hammer into a strap on his pack. It weighed him down even more, but he could take it.

As they walked, the adrenaline slowly wore off. A sigh escaped his lips. A hammer wouldn’t be enough. Max was starting to regret coming here. He had just wanted to find his brother. The way things were looking, Michael might already be dead and Max would be joining him.

An hour after they started walking again, Max asked, “What is a dungeon, exactly?”

“We talked about them already, remember? It’s a tower, there are monsters and traps, and weird loot that is only occasionally useful,” Ebba said.

“It’s weird that it conforms so closely to the stories back on Earth. I always thought that was poetic license, not grounded in reality,” Max said. “What I don’t get is why they exist in the first place. You said the builders constructed them, right?”

“I don’t know why your fiction matches our reality, but I can tell you why they exist. It’s to maintain the mana sphere. They aren’t really called dungeons, that’s just a name humans insist on. All of the civilized species call them mana converters.

“The air here is filled with mana, which is slowly being replenished by the sun. The Builders have decided each layer should have a different mana density. The mana converters suck up ambient mana and turn it into traps, monsters, or dungeon loot. On this layer, there is about one dungeon per 14.5 miles. On the second layer it’s twice that, and the first layer is chock full of dungeons.”

James said, “So it’s a method of ensuring a certain mana density. I imagine they have tools to measure the stoichiometry and when it gets too high, the dungeons trigger a mandatory quest to clear it out. That way the dungeon sucks in more mana to replenish the monsters and loot that we destroy.”

Ebba nodded, “Precisely, my nestling. Precisely.”

Gus opened his mouth to tease James again, but Max cut him off with a deadly look. They didn’t need James to lose his confidence, not now. They needed every edge they could get. Gus wisely shut his mouth.

Fifteen minutes later, they arrived at the dungeon. It was a tall obsidian tower. It was as wide as it was tall, like a leviathan’s jewelry box. It was entirely windowless and had a white pointed roof that shimmered in the mottled sunlight. Despite being about six stories tall, the surrounding jungle trees were taller.

The ground around the tower was entirely lifeless, only dirt and rock for about thirty feet out. Standing in front of the dungeon was a group of six people. Two Lunuk and four Paj. They had weapons and equipment out. They were in the process of armoring up, some in plate armor, others in segmented armor. Their arms and armor glowed softly in the dim light, a softly shifting blue sheen.

One of the Paj turned as the newcomers entered the clearing. He gave them a thoroughly unimpressed look and returned to his work. Ebba motioned for the humans to stay and she walked up to the group of warriors.