Jungle Rocks Dungeon, foot of Mount Gursway, 19th day of Sol, 1661

Bess was sitting on a foldable lounge chair, next to her tent and out in the sun, when her phone rang.

“Shadow of Death, business or pleasure?

“Um, this is Major Transt. Um, I suppose, business?”

Bess smiled. You had to get your fun where you could.

“What can I do for you, Major?”

“We’re approaching Mount Gursway with the forward detachment and wanted to touch base with you and see where we should land?”

“I’m set up to the south of the volcano. You should be able to spot my pink tent quite easily. The three Dungeons have cleared their initial land, so there will be three, 5 to 6 kilometre wide, cleared circles in a rough triangle, with about a 7 to 8 kilometre gap between them. Two are on the slopes of the mountain, and one in jungle below.”

“OK, I’m starting to see those details, so we should be on the ground with you in about a half hour.”

Bess searched the skies and quickly spotted the first of the airships. It was coming in from the west. Looking behind it, she could just see the next one, flying about three or four kilometres behind.

She walked over to where she put in the ranging poles. With the Assistant’s help, she had put these poles in the previous night, marking the approximant location of where the edge will be of the three Dungeon’s influence, plus the approximant location of where that Dungeon Assistant party hall will be. She grinned and allowed a laugh at that. “I wonder if I can wheedle an invite to the opening night?”

She walked about fifty metres from the Party Hall, towards the valley that the Town will be in and waved to get the airship’s attention. A figure rapidly rappelled from the airship, landing a few metres away. The soldier pushed through the jungle to where Bess was.

“Morning, Ma’am. Do you know where the first tether post is to go?”

“No, do you?”

“Ah, no, Ma’am.”

“Do you have any vegetation clearing spells?”

“Ah, no, Ma’am.”

“Just a moment.”

Bess got out her phone and dialled the last number that had rang her.

“Major Transt, It’s Shadow of Death here.”

“Yes, Ma’am, how can I help you?”

“I have one of your people here, wanting to know where you want the tether post.”

Bess looked at the soldier, who was staring at her, a little wide eyed and slightly panicked. She gave her a wink.

“Um, had this been discussed with you?”

“Well, firstly, no, secondly, it’s the three Dungeon Cores that you should really be coordinating with. I’m just a visitor.”

The soldier’s eyes got a bit wider.

“Um, we can move them easily at a later date, so we just need an initial location.”

“OK, well I’m standing about where the centre of everything will be, so I’ll clear a patch of jungle to the north-east and get your Sergeant to put the first tether in. You have some magic users who can clear the jungle after this?”

“Ah, yes, Ma’am.”

“Good. You see the large valley to the north-east? The one with steep sides?”

“Ah, yes, Ma’am.”

“The Dungeon Town will be built into that valley. See you soon.”

“Sergeant, can you get the airship to pull up the rope?”

“Yes, Ma’am.”

The soldier waved to get the airship’s attention, then made some strange signal, windmilling her left arm.

The rope started to be pulled up.

“Sergeant, we probably should leave a 500 metres gap from the centre and start there.” Bess started walking towards the north-east, and after she estimated she had moved about 500 metres, stopped and said, “Please stand behind me, while I clear the jungle.”

“Yes, Ma’am.”

Bess first cast a ‘detect life’ spell to confirm the area was clear, then cast a spell from the death magic sphere. Black mist rolled out in a fan shape and as it cleared, the live, vibrant jungle was black, dried, and quiet. Bess cast a wind spell and the ashes from what had been jungle blew away.

What was left, when the dust disappeared, was a triangle of bare earth, starting a few metres in front of where Bess was standing. It finished about sixty metres away, at a width of about twenty metres.

The Sergeant pulled off her backpack and pulled out a staff, about half a metre long. Walking about ten metres into the clear patch, she poked the staff into the ground and raised her hand above the staff and chanted some phrase in one of the magic languages. Once the staff started to glow, she quickly stepped back, to stand next to Bess.

The staff became a tree, with large, buttressed roots, growing until it was a good three metres wide and about a hundred and twenty metres tall. There were no branches until the tree’s crown. A metal collar wrapped the trunk at about a hundred metres off the ground, and a dock grew out of the tree under the collar. The dock was circular, and a staircase and cargo platform grew from there to the ground.

This all took about ten minutes, then the first ship attached itself to the ring and proceeded to furl all the sails. First off were a platoon of soldiers, followed by what looked like a platoon of army engineers.

Over the next thirty minutes, the site was secured, and the next tether had started to grow. This set the pace for the rest of the day, with the final count of twelve ships docked by late afternoon.

The ships were about forty metres long, so the tethers were spaced about every hundred metres. This left the line of ships stretching for over a kilometre.

The engineers had specialised spells, so when the cleared the landing areas, all of the resources ended up neatly stacked near each tether. There seemed to be sufficient lumber for the whole project.

Part way through this process, an officer approached Bess, introducing himself as Major Transt. Coming up behind him was a group of a dozen or so bureaucrats.

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On seeing the group, Bess started laughing. She laughed so much that her sides started to ache. Seeing the direction Bess was looking, the Major turned and noted that the ambassador seemed to be where she was looking. The very sour expression on the ambassador’s face seemed to confirm this.

“Why, Marisol! Fancy seeing you here?”

The ambassador, Marisol, looked around the group with here, and seeing the offended expressions on a number of people, decided to quash any problems before they could start.

“Elizabeth! I know? Why would the King and Queen’s, retired Prime Negotiator and their Royal Assassin, the Shadow of Death, no less, be meeting here, in the middle of a hot, sticky, smelly, jungle?”

“It must be because we’re both close friends of the King and Queen and decided to lay whatever important things aside to help our Monarchs. Besides, having the Shadow of Death and Sun’s Maiden in one location should be a lot of fun.”

A grin split Marisol’s face and the two old friends hugged.

“Sorry Major. At this stage, please just get your people organised. It will be a few days before we are far enough along to set anything in stone. For the moment, see the four ranging poles?” Bess pointed to a single central pole and three others, forming a triangle around it. “You can assume that the line from that central pole, through the ranging pole closest to us is the centreline for what we’ll be doing. Work with an area about five-hundred metres each side of that line and stretching to the back of that valley. Bess pointed to the north-east. We won’t have exact details until all three Dungeons have expanded their borders.”

“Well, if we claim what we want, they’ll have to acquiesce to our demands.”

Bess looked at the Major, then at Marisol, and both Marisol and Bess burst out laughing.

Marisol handled it. “Major, you’ve never handled negotiations with a Dungeon, have you?”

“Well, no, but it can’t be that much harder than with any other enemy I’ve fought.”

“So, you have an enemy that you cannot siege, starve out, or even inconvenience much. One who can effectively take control of the ground under your feet, absorb all your supplies, create walls around you to keep you hemmed in and then create as many troops as they need to wipe you off the face of the earth? Oh, and will not lose anything from any of their troops that get killed, but will reap huge benefits from your troops just being there, and even more from every one of your troops that die. Exactly how are you going to intimidate them?

“In addition, there are three dungeons here, yes, not one, but three, that would be fully supported by every adventuring and delving guild on the continent, and we would be condemned for sticking our noses where they don’t belong. Finally, the Dungeon Cores are the kidnapped triplets of our King and Queen and you have been sent here TO PROTECT THEM. Do I make myself clear, Major?”

“Yes, Ma’am.”

Bess heard a familiar pop sound and shouted, “As this area has active Dungeons, under no circumstances are you to attack, threaten or fire upon all Pixies, Fairies and Sprites. Otherwise, I will get involved. Do you all understand?”

Everyone within hearing range said, “Yes, Ma’am.”

“I assume that’s you, Fancy? Feel free to come over to me.”

Fancy flittered across the space to the group.

Bess looked at Fancy and said, “If you want to perch on my shoulder, I’d be honoured.

Blushing, Fancy did.

“Fancy, please meet Ambassador Marisol Drepport, from Jessica’s parents and Major Transt, the leader of the local army contingent.”

“Please to meet you both.”

“Was there something that I can help you with?”

“It’s been a busy day. The three of us have been popping between all the Dungeon Cores, deep in negotiations. Your proposal has been accepted, with just a couple of minor changes. Everything is fine, except that the ablution blocks will be spaced a little different. In the town, they will be every five hundred metres and outside of the town, they will still be spaced every kilometre, but Jessica will have the one in the middle of both sides and the other sibling will have their first ones five hundred metres either side. This way they will form like a zig-zag.”

Bess pulled out the sketch that had been made, and showed Marisol and the Major, “The circles will be the initial Dungeon areas, they will expand to finally butt up against the pink areas. The lines in the middle will be dungeon structures, all underground. There will be a mound over that central location. The pink area will be a minimum of a kilometre wide, slowly expanding. We expect that the Kingdom will have control over this top area, the empire may well - long term – establish something in this left-hand section – certainly at least an outpost - and the right-hand one will be left for the local tribes to set up temporary camps.

Detail of junction area between the three dungeons. [https://images2.imgbox.com/30/41/M5XNMZq0_o.jpg]

Marisol asked, “Any particular reason that you were planning on having the Empire on that side and the tribes on the other?”

“None. Does not really matter. The existing roads to the south tend to split about a hundred kilometres south, so, really, no difference. Is there a problem?”

“Not really,” answered Bess, “the first sketches we’d done had them the other way around.”

Fancy said, “Did the Empire send a representative?”

“No.

“Were they informed?”

“Yes.”

“Then it’s on them. Let the tribes pick where they want to camp, and we will go from there.”

Marisol had a big grin on her face as she said, “Oh, that’s going to really annoy the ambassador, but it’s all on their head. I like it!”

Fancy pulled out a detail drawing, showing the structures that were going to be built.

Close up of dungeon detail near junction of three dungeons. [https://images2.imgbox.com/42/a4/pTRdXfVm_o.jpg]

Bess explained, “Each dungeon is going to build a defensive wall a hundred and fifty metres into their area and will move their entrances to this centre area, so all three dungeon entrances will be close. Their main gates will be here, where that pyramid shape is on the drawing. They will be responsible for garrisoning their own walls. They will also be providing fresh water, ablution blocks and refuse pits all along the sides of the pink areas, and when we run the sewer lines for the town, they’ve agreed to take the outflow and deal with it for us.”

Marisol asked, “Which is which triplet?”

Fancy pointed to the lower circle, saying “Jessica”, then top-left and said, “Monty”, and finally, pointed top-right and said, “Sara.”

“Is Jessica going to go with the ‘limestone caves’ vibe? Any idea what the other two will be doing? By the way, Fancy is Jessica’s Assistant.”

“Yes, Jessica’s quite liking the cave look. From what I’ve seen, Monty will be going with ‘fairy grotto’ as a theme, but it’s Sara that’s the surprise for me.”

Bess tilted her head and thought. “I bet I know what it is.”

Marisol said, “No, she wouldn’t. Wait, of course she would. Their Dungeons now, they literally have almost no limits on what they can do.”

Major Transt looked between the three ladies and asked, “Should I be worried?”

They all nodded, and Bess said, “Yes.”

Together, the three of them said, ‘Steampunk.”

“Well, I’ve got to go. It looks like Jessica is going to have her first ‘real’ delvers tomorrow, at least the first that aren’t trying to capture her. A group of war bands have turned up to the south and they are prepping groups to start Delving, probably tomorrow. Each band has a couple of Elders and some support-types, so it is all looking OK.”

Bess and Marisol looked at each other and nodded. Marisol said, “We’ll drop in and visit the tribes, probably tomorrow and introduce ourselves. Did you notice the standards on each camp?”

“I didn’t but wait a moment.” Fancy fluttered over to where a set of ranging poles followed a gentle curve and sat on one.

A minute later, she fluttered back to the group.

“A tiger, a wolf, a gorilla, an eagle, a basilisk, a dragon and some sort of bird, probably flightless? The head is coloured blue, body black and it has a red necktie?”

Marisol nodded. “That’s a cassowary. Very dangerous, flightless bird. OK, all of the leading tribes are represented, this will be a semi-official delegation, and I’d expect that most of the younger princesses and princes will be there. So, Jessica’s expanded up to that line already?”

Fancy nodded.

Major Transt looked concerned.

Bess smiled at the Major. “She’s already up to level 6 as a Dungeon and has done a TPK (Total Party Kill) against a group of three Dungeon Raiders, who were after her core. She’s less than a week old.”

Transt asked, “And the other two?”

Bess looked at Fancy and said, “Should still be level 0?”

Fancy nodded. “Monty should open tomorrow and Sara the day after. I would expect a rapid growth for the first five levels or so, as they are all educated, intelligent and all seem to be driven to succeed. They have a huge advantage over a normal Dungeon Core, who usually takes the first ten levels or so to figure things out.”

Fancy looked over at a group of five very experienced Delvers and said, “Are you the evaluation team we were warned about?”

The dwarf cleared his throat and said, “I think ‘warned’ is a very harsh word for it.”

Fancy giggled and said, “Fine, ‘informed’ about.”

“Thank you, young assistant. I’m looking forward to meeting your core tomorrow.”

“I’m not sure she will be willing. You do know that we just had a group of three Dungeon Raiders try to steal her core a couple of days ago, don’t you?”

The five of them looked at each other and a female halfling said, “Please pass on our sympathies to your Core. We ask you to try and convince them to allow us a short visit.”

Bess said to Fancy, “If Jessica’s not convinced, let her know that Marisol and I can attend with them to keep them honest. Besides, I’m sure Marisol would love to catch up with Jessica.”

Marisol said, “That would be wonderful. The thing I can’t understand, however, is how the tribes found out about this in time. Some of those tribes would have been on the move for weeks to get here.”

Bess said, “It’s going to be Ss’alyia.”

Marisol thought, then nodded. “I can see that now.”

Bess groaned. “That was bad.”

Fancy looked at Bess, confused.

Bess answered, “It was a pun. Ss’alyia’s a seer.”

Fancy looked at Marisol, a profound look of disappointment on her face. “I will be going, now.”

Marisol had a wide grin on her face and looked totally unrepentant.

Fancy fluttered over to the line of poles and disappeared with a ‘pop’.