Hilda shook the jar harder than was strictly necessary as she walked down the street.

“Still 100% accuracy,” she muttered in annoyance.

Whatever had happened had either severely reduced the power of the ambient luck aura or stopped it completely.

Worst case scenario would be that this creature had just given birth and was now choosing to hide rather than broadcast its location. That implied that there could be two or more of these things fighting for territory, or even more concerning, that it wasn't an apex predator and something bigger was potentially coming to eat it.

“Now now Hilda, there's no use getting worked up over a hypothesis that is only backed up by inconclusive data,” she chided herself before rounding the corner.

Hilda, being on the trail of a potentially unknown beast, was expecting any number of surprises.

However, she wasn't quite expecting to see a man dragging an old armoire down the street.

She shook the jar.

“What, you never seen a man move furniture before?” cried the man clearly sweating from the exertion.

Hilda looked down.

80% accuracy.

“Well when dealing with luck magic, trust serendipity,” she thought to herself before walking toward the lanky man.

“Why my apologies my good sir, I was just wondering if you needed some help with that,” Hilda said.

The man laid down his load and looked quizzically at her.

“No offense, but you don't look like the hauling furniture around type,” he said, catching his breath.

“Ha, no offense taken young man,” chuckled Hilda as she extended her arm.

Hilda's bangle lit up and the armoire began to float at waist level off the ground.

“Well I'll be damned,” the man said, "don't get too many mages down by the docks and even fewer by the warehouses.”

“Oh I was just looking for something, I’m not often in the neighborhood,” Hilda replied with a shrug.

The man suddenly developed a conspiratorial smirk.

“Are you here for the lucky cats?” he asked, “or are you checking out a competing wizard?”

“If a wizard managed to harness luck magic, I'll eat my teaching certificate,” Hilda thought.

“Why yes, I'm here to see the cats,” Hilda lied, “I ended up getting turned around, bad directions you see.”

“Ah I get ya. It doesn’t stand out much if you don’t know where to look," said the man.

“Well if you wouldn’t mind showing me the way, I’d be happy to help you with the furniture,” offered Hilda.

“Much obliged ma’am,” Said the man, “name’s Roach by the way.”

“Delighted to meet you Roach, you can call me Hilda,” She responded.

“Well if you’ll follow me,” said Roach as he motioned for Hilda to follow.

***

“Ah crap,” I muttered as I watched the exchange happen from a patrolling cat.

“Problem, Mr. House?” Carmen asked.

“Hmm maybe?” I replied.

“Should we be preparing for a fight?” asked Midnight.

“Probably not?” I said, “that wizard from earlier is on the way here, but she doesn’t seem like she’s here for a fight.”

“So what should we do?” asked Carmen.

“Be on your best behavior, but be prepared to toss her out if need be,” I answered.

“And if that doesn’t work?” asked midnight.

“Ummm,” I said as I wracked my brain for ideas.

I really didn’t have any plan on how to deal with someone hostile. A wizard was a far cry from the rats that I’d been fighting a few weeks earlier and I’d basically procrastinated thinking of a way to deal with her if things turned violent.

Some habits die hard, so I did what I did best and crammed.

My two strongest options were Carmen and Midnight. Sure both of them had trained their telekinesis to the point where they could lift a few hundred pounds each and enough dexterity to compete with a hand, but I had no idea how that compared to the average magic user or even how strong this wizard was compared to other wizards.

I guess I’d have to play to my strengths and hope for the best.

“Ok so her bracelet glowed before she used magic,” I began as I opened up the crafting menu and began to hurriedly mash bits together trying to make something.

“So presumably if she uses a spell, we’ll be able to tell before hand?” asked Carmen.

“Yep, if it looks like she’s about to start something, give her a shove out the door and I’ll close it,” I began, “expanding inwards seemed to block some of the magic or at least her scrying spell.”

“And if she can get back in?” asked Midnight.

“Spin these as fast as you can and throw them at her,” I said as I finished crafting what was essentially a rotary saw blade.

My crafting menu had called them serrated chakram.

Midnight picked one up and spun it experimentally and a familiar sound filled the air.

“I assume we’re to separate her from her bracelet by any means then,” said Midnight with a colder tone than normal.

“Yeah that’s the idea,” I replied weakly as the possibility of violence became more and more real.

My stomach would have been hurting if I still had one.

I was never really one for violence. Movies and games were one thing, but I had a tendency to freeze up when it came to the real thing.

Unfortunately, the only thing I could really do about it now was to cross my fingers and hope that it didn’t come to that.

***

Hilda looked quizzically at the plain warehouse. Sure it was in surprisingly good shape considering the state of the buildings in this neighborhood in general, but unless you were really paying attention, you were likely to ignore it altogether.

“Bit of a letdown innit?” Roach asked in a joking tone.

“I was expecting a little bit more of a- hmm,” Hilda began before realizing that she didn’t really know what she was expecting.

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“Yeah trust me though, you haven’t seen anything like it before,” Roach said as he reached for the door.

To Hilda’s surprise, the door slid open before Roach could touch it.

“Oh that’s new,” muttered Roach before stepping inside.

Hilda followed behind him and felt the subtle buzz that was the signature of spatial distortion and immediately felt more on edge.

“That would explain the sudden drop in magical strength,” thought Hilda as her eyes slowly scanned the room.

They were still definitely in a warehouse except that several shelves had been pushed to the back.

A number of strange boxes, or cabinets rather, were placed to make a horseshoe shaped walkway where a black cat appeared to be beckoning to the two of them.

“Place seems to have changed since the last time I was here,” Roach mused as he walked to the back of the warehouse.

“How so?” asked Hilda.

“Those are new,” said roach pointing to the strange cabinets, “new layout too, seems bigger.”

“It's not just your imagination, that would be the spatial distortion,” Hilda thought as she followed Roach deeper into the building.

“So do you have anything to drop off?” Roach asked.

“Um, no,” she said awkwardly.

“Ah wanted to check out the place before taking advantage of the generous service provided?” asked Roach.

“Well, you know how it is, if something seems too good to be true…” Hilda replied, trailing off her sentence.

“Understandable, I’d want to make sure things were on the up and up,” nodded Roach, “let me show you how it works.”

Roach approached a black cat sitting behind a booth with a sign overhead depicting several pictographs of what appeared to be exchange rates for wood, stone, nails, and glass.

“You can set that down anywhere,” Roach said, motioning to the floating armoire.

Hilda obliged and placed the armoire down as Roach turned to address the cat.

“I’d like to sell the damn heavy thing,” Roach said.

The cat gave a slight nod in understanding and looked up as if he was considering something.

Suddenly the armoire began to dissolve into black dust and disappeared into nothing.

Hilda’s eyes widened in sudden comprehension.

“That was a dungeon assimilation,” Hilda thought to herself, “this is a dungeon!”

While Roach had his back turned, Hilda took out a pair of spectacles and activated the enchantment.

The warehouse was filled with gold light as the spectacles revealed the magic flowing from the loft in the back of the warehouse.

The black cat caught her eye and realized that the cat was staring back at her with an intelligent expression. His eyes narrowed to slits as he seemed to glare at her.

Hilda snatched the spectacles off of her face like a kid who was caught with their hand in the cookie jar.

“It's a scion,” Hilda thought frantically as the cat seemed to relax and turned his attention back to Roach.

In much the same way the armoire had disappeared, a small pile of coins materialized on the table.

“Much obliged,” said Roach as he scooped the coins off the table before turning to Hilda.

“Here's something for your trouble,” he said, holding out a few coins.

“Oh thank you,” Hilda said half stunned and accepted the coins.

“So what do you think? Amazing right?” Roach asked as the two of them turned around.

“Certainly,” said Hilda, “but what about these odd cabinets?”

“Hey kitty cat, what's up with these?” asked Roach.

The black cat scowled at being called a kitty cat, but looked over to the other booth on the side wall.

“Oh that's the white cat's business then?" asked Roach as he looked over in her direction.

“The white cat?” asked Hilda.

“Yep, follow me,” he said as he went down the other path.

Hilda followed the odd man and quickly discovered that the cabinets were facing away from the black cat.

“Gods alive!” swore Roach, “you ever seen so much coin?”

Hilda looked at the boxes curiously.

“What is the point of these,” she wondered, “is the dungeon just showing off its wealth or is it for something else?”

A hollow tapping noise echoed from behind them. Both of them turned around and the white cat was telekinetically holding a cup.

“Oh wonderful, the cats can use magic,” Hilda thought, having been surprised one too many times today and simply deciding to accept the current circumstance.

The white cat put down the cup and beckoned with its paw.

“I think it wants us to follow it,” guessed Roach.

Hilda shrugged and followed Roach over to where the white cat was.

The cat hopped on top of one of the cabinets and looked at the side where there was a large wind up key like you would see on a clock. She telekinetically started to wind the key and the upper shelf began to move back and forth. The cat then picked up a copper coin from behind her booth and dropped it into the slot.

“Ohhh I get it. Adding coins pushes the coins off the shelf and into this tray. Want to give it a go?” asked Roach.

Hilda looked at the contraption and stroked her chin. On one hand, there didn't seem to be any traps, magical or otherwise. It seemed to just be an interesting game of chance.

On the other hand, this budding casino was a dungeon. It might not be dangerous in the obvious ways, but dungeon magic was strange and this was a luck dungeon to boot.

A small smile crept across her face as feelings she hadn't felt since the last time she was in a dungeon began to surface.

“Well a little bit couldn’t hurt,” admitted Hilda.

Some time later Hilda had lost nearly all of the coins she had gotten from Roach and was considering using some of the more colorful words she had learned during her adventuring days.

“Perhaps just one more,” Hilda thought as she slid the coin into the slot.

The coin landed on it’s edge as the shelf retracted back.

“Good, just one more cycle,” Hilda thought as the shelf extended and the coin fell flat away from the other coins.

The shelf retracted once more and pushed several of the other coins onto the second shelf.

“Yes, yes!” Hilda muttered as the shelf extended and pushed the new coins into the pile of coins on the bottom shelf.

Hilda was so tense that she forgot to breathe as the coins began to wobble and much to her elation, spilled over into the bottom tray.

“YES!” she cried as she leapt for joy.

“Hey, congratulations,” Roach said, having been almost entirely forgotten about.

Hilda quickly composed herself and collected the coins from the bottom tray.

“So are you up or down,” Roach asked.

After quickly counting her coins, Hilda shook her head.

“Slightly down I’m afraid,” Hilda said.

“A bad day for both of us it seems,” Roach said, shaking his head with good humor.

“Well hopefully it wasn’t too bad of a loss,” Hilda said, wincing slightly.

“Oh not at all,” Roch replied, “ever since this place showed up I’ve been moving up in the world. Even rented out a place.”

“Oh congratulations,” said Hilda.

“Oh for sure,” nodded Roach, “it’s almost been an hour, I’ve got to scram.”

Hilda paled as she realized that she hadn’t checked in with Alma.

“An hour? I must be on my way as well,” Hilda said hurriedly, “nice meeting you, Roach.”

“And to you as well,” He nodded as they both exited the warehouse.

“-ilda, come in Hilda,” called Alma with a tone bordering on frantic.

“Yes Alma, I’m here,” Hilda replied quickly, “and I’m so sorry I didn’t contact you sooner.”

Alma let out a sigh of relief.

“Are you ok, what happened?” Alma asked.

“Oh it’s embarrassing really, I’ll tell you when I get back to the tower,” Hilda replied.

“And the luck elemental?” asked Alma.

“Let’s just say that things are more… interesting than we thought,” she replied with a pause before lighting up her bracelet and teleporting back to the tower.

***

“Hmm interesting,” thought Carmen as she quietly followed behind the wizard called Hilda.

“Carmen, what are you doing?” I hissed as I watched her stalk the wizard.

“Oh just curious,” she replied flippantly.

“There’s a saying about cats and curiosity where I come from Carmen and it doesn’t end well,” I said as she left the warehouse and hid behind a building.

“Just trust me on this one,” said Carmen as she followed behind at a distance.

Midnight sighed and hopped down from his booth, “I’ll bail her out if she gets into trouble.”

“Thanks Midnight,” I said as I anxiously watched the wizard from Carmen’s perspective.

“Let’s just say that things are more… interesting than we thought,” Hilda said.

“Ok so now she’s just standing- WOAH!” I exclaimed as Hilda disappeared in a flash of light.

“See? Interesting,” Carmen said with a satisfied note.

I sighed, “just get back here.”

“Of course Mr. House,” She said with a smirk before turning back to the warehouse.