Edwin sat in his shared room waiting for River, the third candle that night slowly burning down into a stump.

There was a click of a lock and the door slowly creaked open.

“River, where where you?” Edwin asked with a worried tone, “what were you doing out so late?”

River sighed and dropped the bag they had been carrying unceremoniously on the floor, “Just getting new equipment.”

“At three in the morning?” Edwin asked, obviously not believing them.

“Ugh, I’ve had a long day Edwin, can’t we have this conversation after I’ve had some sleep?” River groaned as they rubbed their face in exhaustion.

“I think we need to have this conversation now,” Edwin demanded.

“Like I said I was trying to get my equipment. I thought it would be easy, but it turned out to be more difficult than I thought,” River said.

“My equipment? Don’t tell me you went back into that dungeon,” Edwin asked, quick to notice the slip.

River glanced away with a guilty expression.

“River, what were you thinking?” Edwin hissed, “did you do anything to break the truce the dungeon has with the guildmaster?”

“No, nothing like that,” River said, putting up their hands in surrender.

“Well what happened?” Edwin asked.

“Okay, let me start from the beginning,” River sighed before sitting down.

***

“So what’s got you up this early Odez? Didn’t think I’d see you with an outreach group after you complained about being up so early the last few times,” a ranger mentioned as the sun had yet to peak out over the horizon in the pre-dawn hours.

“Honestly, if I had it my way, I’d never be up this early again in my life, especially not to pick crops for the local farmers,” Odez mumbled as he tried not to fall asleep standing up.

“What happened?” the ranger asked.

“Lost my equipment,” Odez said bluntly before yawning.

“How’d that happen?” asked the ranger.

“I’m really not supposed to tell anyone,” muttered Odez.

“Not supposed to tell anyone?” the ranger asked with a surprised tone, “now I’m really curious.”

“Ah, hell,” Odez swore, realizing his blunder too late.

“Tell you what, I’ll put you on second rotation if you spill the beans,” the ranger said, nudging Odez with his shoulder.

“All right, but you promise that you won’t tell anyone?” asked Odez.

“Promise,” the ranger agreed.

***

“Thanks for letting me work at the cemetery again Granny, I ran into a bit of bad luck recently,” Morgana said apologetically as she placed a flower from her basket on a grave.

“Think nothing of it,” the old woman said as she walked with Morgana, “what happened though, you worked so hard to buy it in the first place?”

“Would you believe I lost it to a cat?” Morgana giggled.

“Morgana, I told you you can’t call feline beast-kin cats, it’s insensitive,” her grandma chided.

“Oh no, it wasn’t a beast-kin, although I did play a game of cards with one,” Morgana rambled as she cleaned another headstone with a washcloth.

“Morgana dear, how did you loose your equipment to a cat?” the old woman asked.

“Oh the cat could use magic,” Morgana said, “she lifted us off the ground like it was nothing.”

“Really?” asked her grandma, suddenly much more alert than she had been a moment before, “where did you find such a cat?”

“Oh I really can’t say, official secret guild business,” Morgana replied as she finished with the washcloth and placed a flower on the newly cleaned grave.

“So secret that you can’t even tell your own grandma?” the old woman prodded.

“Nope, guildmaster Medowsong told me not to say anything,” Morgana replied as she moved to the next headstone.

“Amanda, what have you gotten my granddaughter into?” muttered the old woman under her breath.

***

“So Cecil, what do you have to report?” asked Amanda, her quill racing over a piece of parchment.

“Two things of note,” Began Cecil, “it seems likely that the first people to discover the dungeon were three people. A cave elf who goes by Zee, likely someone with magical talent of some sort, an ex-merchant gnome named Jasper, although it seems like he’s back on his feet as of late, and a mysterious human who’s only known as Duke.”

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

“Anything unusual about the three of them?” asked Amanda.

“I originally began investigating them because it seemed like they were buying large quantities of wood and stone in any condition, but after some further digging, I came to the conclusion that it was the dungeon who was the one buying it all. Jasper rents out carts to help people move large quantities of material and Duke helps people get into housing after they have enough money to afford it,” Cecil explained.

“That’s surprisingly generous,” Amanda said, not looking up from her paperwork, “and the second thing?”

“Apparently, a wizard named Hilda has already checked the local population for symptoms of magical influence and, besides an unrelated incident, has proclaimed everyone free from enchantment,” Cecil continued.

Amanda stopped and looked up from her work.

“Did you say Hilda?” she asked.

“Yes ma’am I did. Do you know her?” asked Cecil.

“You could say that,” the guildmaster sighed as she leaned back in her chair.

“Is this a problem?” asked Cecil.

“No, I’m just wondering how everyone managed to notice this before we did,” Amanda said as she rubbed the bridge of her nose in frustration.

***

Three days ago:

“If you have a moment, Mr. House would like you to listen to his request,” Selina said.

“Oh, what can we help you with?” asked Hilda.

“It would seem that someone pieced together that Mr. House is a dungeon and not a wizard,” Selina replied.

“Oh dear,” Hilda gasped, “I can see how that would be a problem.”

“Do you have any advice or can you help in any way?” asked Selina.

“I believe I still have some sway at the academy. If things become too bad I might be able to step in and see if the academy won’t help,” Hilda suggested.

Selina’s ear twitched.

“Mr. House would like to thank you for the offer, but believes that contacting the academy should be used as a last resort,” Selina said.

“I can understand Mr. House’s reservations, but the offer is still on the table should he change his mind,” Hilda replied, “I’ll try to think of other options in the meantime.”

“Mr. House appreciates your consideration,” Selina said before bidding the two wizards farewell.

“This is going to be a problem,” Alma muttered to Hilda once the two of them were out the door.

“We’re going to have to discuss this at length,” Hilda agreed before pulling out a return crystal that was keyed to her tower and teleporting both her and Alma directly into her laboratory.

Her laboratory shared the same design philosophy with the helmet that Hilda had made in the sense that it looked like a giant had taken a more put together wizards laboratory, shaken it up, and then returned it to it’s original location.

Odds and ends stuck out in seemingly random locations while glass beakers and flasks bubbled and glowed with unknown liquids. Alchemical reagents and tinctures lined the walls while strange instruments were suspended from the ceiling.

However the one thing that stood out was the enormous granite table with runes inlaid with precious metals and gemstones.

One might expect that the room would be difficult to navigate due to the odd furniture arrangement, but Hilda managed to navigate things with ease.

“Hurry Alma, we mustn't waste any time,” Hilda called as she made her way over to the table in the middle of the room.

Alma sighed and did her best to follow her teacher, taking her time to mirror Hilda’s steps.

“Do you really think this will work?” asked Alma.

“Well only one way to find out,” Hilda replied as she took out the blank teleportation crystal that she had shown Mr. House and placed on the edge of the table.

The crystal levitated to the center, hovering inches above the table’s surface.

Hilda placed her hands on two large gemstones that began to glow with arcane energy.

“All we need to do is remove the spell lattice while still keeping it intact from the crystal and collapse the structure of the lattice so it collapses in on itself,” Hilda explained mostly for her own benefit.

The rest of the runes on the table began to glow as sweat began to bead on Hilda’s brow.

Arcane lines began to form on the teleportation crystal as the lattice began to glow.

A hum filled the air as the lattice slowly separated from the crystal.

“Just a touch more,” Hilda said as strain crept into her voice.

Suddenly the lattice snapped and coalesced into a crystal the size of a grain of rice and dimmed like a bit of iron that had just come out of the forge.

“There,” sighed Hilda with relief as the golden shard floated over to her.

“I don’t believe it,” Alma whispered as she looked at it with reverence.

“I can hardly believe it myself dear,” Hilda agreed as she placed the golden shard in a vial and corked it, “it’s a shard of pure luck magic.”

“Hilda, you’re brilliant!” Alma exclaimed, “when you told me that it would be possible to extract the luck magic from a magic item that a dungeon had assimilated, I thought it would be impossible, but here we are.”

“I had my own doubts. While it’s possible to extract some of the essence of a dungeon from magic items a dungeon had assimilated, I wasn’t sure if it would be possible to do the same with a luck dungeon,” Hilda said.

“What should we do now?” asked Alma, “should we bring our findings to the academy?”

“That would be going against Mr. House’s wishes,” Hilda replied, “besides as soon as we showed it to anyone, the academy would have a barrier over that warehouse before any of us could blink.”

“And we’d loose any chance to collect more luck magic in a stable form,” Alma concluded.

“Precisely,” Hilda said.

“But why did you offer to tell the academy in the first place?” Alma asked.

“Well if our options are letting the academy get a hold of him, or see him be destroyed, I’d rather keep Mr. House alive,” Hilda said.

“So I suppose our next step is to gather as much of this as possible before we might be cut off from it,” Alma said looking at the shard, “Mr. House might get suspicious if we keep asking him to assimilate teleportation crystals. How do we proceed?”

“We’re either going to need to pay for every potion or magic item we can, or gamble for them ourselves,” Hilda sighed.

“Do you suppose that more powerful enchantments would result in more luck magic?” Alma asked.

“A more powerful enchantment would have a more complex lattice, so the theory makes sense,” Hilda replied.

“Perhaps this would be a good opportunity to clear out the storeroom?” suggested Alma, “We could see if Mr. House would be willing to buy some of the things you have lying around.”

“Well, perhaps I can see if there’s anything I’m willing to part with,” Hilda said with a bit of a scoff before putting the vial containing the luck shard on a shelf.”