The air was tense with anticipation and a little desperation.
Delta felt a bead of sweat roll down her forehead as she pressed her awareness to the max. Everything rested on this single action, and failure was no longer an option. Every iota of her soul was dedicated to this task before her. As the seconds passed, she could feel immense pressure building, the room deadly silent as everyone was also completely enthralled in the task.
'Food Stall, snakes in pipe… flying rug merchant' she hissed mentally, pushing herself to go faster. How could there be so much to sort through and yet yield no result?! Her soul, her very being, was poured into the task. There could be no hesitation, no retreat, no surrender-
"He's by the dancing sword swallowers who are collapsing into a pile." Nu interrupted, sounding exhausted, and Delta let out a scream of frustration as the silent Libro-Golem pointed to Nu in victory, turning the page of 'Wherever's Walric?.'
The other ten members of the Heroes of Ale let out groans as they couldn't find the hidden character fast enough. Some of them were standing, but most of them had found seats.
A selection of poofy pillows had been gathered in the library as people drank in special sealed sippy-like cups to prevent spillage as the golem seemed happy to be doing something. Originally, the group had come into the room by accident and couldn't find the door back out.
At first, Delta had thought they would seek the '1000 illegal brews and 32 immoral cocktails' recipe book or the 'Dragons: Every part is drinkable' book, but they had been captivated by the colorful children's shelf that Delta had filled up in her spare time.
The golem would only let them stay if they upgraded their open mugs to secure cups. Alcohol was murder on books apparently, especially when it's mead or wine.
Still, the event was enjoyable. It turned out that the group didn't have a lot of literate readers, but those that could read were more than happy to read to their friends, still as drunk as skunks.
'The little horse cart that would' and 'The Devouring Caterpillar' were very popular due to the little word count and bright artwork. Some were amused because of the alcohol; others were immersed due to never having the chance to be read to as a child, and that was something Delta found sad in her heart.
"The lady Walric has to count! I keep finding her," someone complained, drinking their beer through a winding straw.
"I like the little dog with glasses. I look for him first," another beamed, sinking into a beanbag as he downed a cider-like fruit drink.
"I feel like the designated driver," Nu said, sounding dead inside. The menu was partially reading an issue of 'Trap Monthly' that was about twenty years out of date. Delta wondered if she could subscribe to all the magazines?
Was there a book dungeon? There had to be a book dungeon.
"You should get Prim in on the fun!" Delta beamed as she tried to tease Nu into letting his hair down.
"She secluded herself in the bug notes and ever-expanding crash reports; I can't find her." Nu grunted as he floated off and tugged Delta through the wall, leaving the group to be read to and 'defeated' by the golem. Delta looked back at the gathering with a sigh, feelling one of the squishy chairs calling to her.
Delta had copies of absorbed books of ancient power rituals and other valuable tomes, but she was more happy about her public library of knowledge and books set to delight. The teacher in her just loved people enjoying a good book.
Delta was known to enjoy a book or two herself but only in the dead of night and behind locked doors. As she left, she saw a shadow moving between the shelves, revealing Jack the Kobold collecting drinks and coins from the unaware guests.
More 'offerings' to Death?
Delta shook her head, but as she floated past the map room, she paused to listen to the corridor connecting to the trolls' den.
"SWAMP SWAMP! GET OUT! SWAMP!" came a thunderous roar of voices and song followed by a belch so loud it shook the walls.
"I'll check on that later!" Delta said brightly, eyes a little too wide, and pivoted to the feast room. The Free Heal Hall was a warzone. Defeated Heroes of Ale laid across tables, chicken sticks in hand or bowls of melting desserts as pillows.
Fera was sweeping a few of them into a pile in the corner where blankets had been haphazardly tossed over a few of them. The power of the food had claimed more than a few of the group due to the fact they couldn't stop eating, and soon the mixture of alcohol and a full stomach brought on fitful sleep.
The impressive thing was that their ability to tolerate the mana of the Dungeon was so deep that they could perhaps spend a whole night on this floor with no ill-effect.
"This group must have been in a lot of Dungeons," Delta said to Nu.
"No, I think they just drank so much poison over the years that their mana, like their stomachs, have turned to a lumpy iron consistency," the menu said with a dry tone. Delta stared at some of the unconscious members.
"Would that mean anyone who was sensitive to mana would get a buzz by being near them? Wait… are they getting me buzzed?" Delta asked, holding her hands up with an awed expression.
"No. You've eaten so much Gutrot, you have a liver, and other vital organs, of orichalcum. You're just easily impressionable and swept into mobs," Nu said, popping her bubble.
"I never decided to eat them. I didn't choose the shrooms, they chose me… violently," she shivered and hugged herself.
"All the senior members are missing. Did they go ahead?" she asked, feeling around on the floor to feel there was a lot of motion.
"Ahead? No; sort of stumbling in a direction they didn't control? Yes," Nu said with a nod of his avatar.
Delta moved ahead to the garden at the center of the floor, connecting all the rooms together. To her surprise, one of the Heroes had found a means to open the Soul Well that contained the pure essence of her mana. The older man stared at it but didn't partake in it.
Despite sweating and looking flush with alcohol, he didn't seem like he was losing control of any of his functions.
"Is he going to drink from the well?" Delta asked, worried about the consequences. She might have to call the Guardgoyles over. She didn't mind mingling her mana with people, but it was important to Delta that they be sober and clear thinking before they made such a choice.
Delta peered at the man, seeing how he was far older than most of the members and had a sort of shabby look to him. He didn't have many teeth left, but he still looked to be healthy despite his age.
"Lovely place, aye," the man mused to himself and then made a toast with a private hip flask that looked very old and tarnished but still gleaned with hints of a pure silver.
"To the beautiful dungeon that grew despite the mad witch that was buried here. To the kind dungeon that grew in monument to the proud son that held virtues of Verluan true!" he cheered and downed a truly impressive amount of gulps from the flask.
"May you rot in hell, you wicked thing. My poor heart still loves you so," he toasted to the ground as if to drink to a grave Delta couldn't see.
Delta watched as he closed the well back up and began to do a really awkward hip thrust towards the ballroom where music poured out of the open doors.
Delta enjoyed his enthusiasm, and despite his age, his mana still had a healthy golden tinge to it that spoke of a man who could tell some very dirty jokes if he wanted to.
"He had to be at least eighty… maybe even ninety. Mana is a heck of a drug-" Delta joked and turned, but Nu had vanished. Not just wandered off but completely shut his avatar down.
He had removed himself from the physical space like going to his room and shutting the door.
Delta felt a bit worried but didn't ignore his boundaries. She could wait until he was ready.
For now, she had heroes being hooked up to IV drips in the medical room, horrible drunk dad dances in the ballroom, some heroes were getting inscribed magic mugs made in the forge, and three of them had entered the boss room.
Delta was worried how Jellagon was getting on when she discovered something both amazing and slightly disturbing.
Delta could, in fact, make jello shots.
The amazing thing was that Jellagon was so magical he made even the most hardcore drinker stumble in shock at the potency of the drink.
The disturbing part was how Jellagon remained fully in control of his swallowed pieces and knocked out the Heroes with little effort from the inside out.
Delta stared at him as he and his other puddles looked innocently back at her.
"I thought you liked them?" she asked slowly and Jellagon gurgled once.
In Slimian, it roughly translated to 'I wanted to win my first fight.'
If the Heroes of Ale brought their full force and semi-coordinated numbers against Jellagon, they might have made a difference. However, the few left were slow dancing with Muffet and Fera in the ballroom, were smelling troll soup in the hall, or were being lulled to sleep by the golem with soft books that played music when opened.
The last one standing was the old man, who seemed both happy and a little sad while he watched the Dungeon operate. He didn't ask for anything, and Delta had the strongest feeling that he just wanted to fade away.
As he swayed a little to the music, a pendant fell out of his shirt, a coin-like necklace showing two swords crossed over a round circle.
It looked old… just like its owner.
---
Princess Serma turned her pendant over nervously as a town seemed to be approaching in the distance. The shiny golden coin of two swords over a circle was familiar to her, but after learning about her father, she had lost some affection for the royal symbol.
Across the space in the carriage, Lorsa was looking happier as they neared, as if some fresh air of this place was something she was in desperate need of. Next to her, Mas snored as he hugged a similarly snoring orange slime in his lap.
"Any sixes?" the tied up demonic imp asked as he held cards up with his toes. Serma was glad she wore gloves when shuffling the deck of cards.
She put a six down, and the imp, using a scary amount of flexibility and dexterity, collected the card and then put down three sixes.
"Demon Flush," it grinned at her with bloodshot yellow eyes.
"That's not a thing," she countered.
"It is!" the imp said, lips trembling as if on the verge of a tantrum. Serma should have tossed the imp out, but Mas felt bad for the thing, and Serma didn't have enough reason to ditch it yet.
"It is, but only if you're bartering for souls, and demons stopped that a long time ago" Lorsa commented. The imp nodded.
"Human souls were overdone. The market bubble grew too fast, and then a lot of demons ended up in Name Debt. Horrible period for the ecconomy," the imp sighed. Serma silently remembered her family still had over thirty names of demons they kept in reserve like precious wines.
Great, her father was tormenting both the people in debt of her country and literal demons in debt. She would release all the names just to spite him.
A hole at the side of the road felt too nice. Could she offer her father as collateral to a demon? Eternal glory for Mas for the soul of a king?
It seemed fair.
"Whatcha thinking about?" Mas yawned as the carriage slowed around a bend. Serma smiled at him.
"Political economics and investments," she answered, and he gave her a smile.
"If it makes you happy. Uh, I got five copper, what do you want me to invest in?" he asked, and the slime in his lap gurgled, forming something that looked a lot like a gold coin in his stomach before it vanished.
This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.
Serma thought about it as Lorsa shot her a look, as if able to read her mind and approving of what she found there.
"A better tomorrow. The cost is one smile," she teased, and Mas grinned at her, and it seemed to melt any evil thoughts in her heart like hot metal on butter.
Or a branding iron on her father's backside.
The town of Durence was close at hand, and it seemed to be just a normal looking place. A sleepy little village that could be anywhere. But it wasn't anywhere; it was named after her uncle. Someone she knew precious little about.
Lorsa seemed to inhale the air and know its secrets. The imp seemed to sense something familiar.
The slime that Mas called 'Mule' seemed hungry.
And Serma?
Serma wondered why there was a conga line of hungover people emerging from the forest.
---
Delta felt a little lonely as her dungeon resumed being empty for the most part. Only the troglodytes that were the inflexible Fairplay grunts were coming in now that they had finished trying to get information out of the Heroes of Ale as they left.
Delta could even hear the questions they asked in increasingly outraged tones by her entrance.
'How far did you get?'
'Were there any new monsters? What did they drop?'
'Did you find any secrets or things that indicate the dungeon is secretly going to kill us all?'
Not great questions in Delta's opinion, but the answers? Oh, Delta lived for the answers.
"How far did we go? Not far enough in the drink! I only count three of you, and my record is six!"
"The only monster 'round here is the headache I'm gonna have in the morning! It can be slainwith some greasy breakfast…"
"The Dungeon is plotting to keep us here forever because I am in love!"
"I got eight! Wait, you didn't ask me anything? WHAT?! YOU DON'T THINK I'M GOOD ENOUGH TO BE INTERROGATED, YOU WHITE PAJAMA-WEARING REAR END!"
Perhaps not the answers the Fairplay company were hoping for, but Delta found them all very reasonable. The Heroes of Ale might stick around for another try or two, but Delta would understand, no… she would insist they moved on before long.
They were a treasure, and Delta simply couldn't keep them to herself.
That and Fera might revolt.
Life was a party, and Delta? She was just a small part of that. They would go where they had to go.
The Heroes of Ale were not the heroes people needed, or perhaps wanted at all, but they were going to come anyway because booze didn't grow on trees, it appeared in pubs after payment.
She hummed as she managed to find a small moment between Fairplay people to install a new feature to the Hog's Head bar. It was on a wall that was a little in shadow, but Delta wanted it to be noticed by the right people, not just by anyone.
A medium sized painting of men and women along a table, each holding a glass of wine or mug of ale with that old man she had seen in the middle with his arms stretched out, the sun was high and the day was young. The lighting gave it an almost sacred feeling to those that gazed upon it after three or four drinks.
It was called 'The First Drink.'
---
Delta winced as Wyin worked over a group of Fairplay people an hour later, her hangover making her usual cruel mood into a vicious snarl of a vibe. The men in white were flung about, then crushed under a root-like heel.
She did have to admit that Fairplay was making progress. They had begun to shift and only used force when it was deemed doable. It was a little disheartening to see that they disliked Dungeons so much that they would refuse to just experience the place, but Delta knew that not all Dungeons were like her.
Not even close.
Between the drunken rambles of the Heroes of Ale and an 'inside source' they whispered about, hints about her second floor were beginning to leak.
There was a slight flaw in her second floor that Fairplay could just continue throwing numbers at her floors until a 'workable' solution could be found. They made their work twice as hard, but she had noticed more and more of the Fairplay teams were beginning to bend in regards to the rules.
Some of them didn't even try to murder the Pygmies this time. It took a little effort on Delta's part to ensure the Pygmies didn't murder them all one by one like a horror film when they trampled over their monuments to her.
But Fairplay wasn't the only one entering her Dungeon. More and more 'outsiders' were appearing, and they weren't novices like Kemy or Estal's groups.
She rubbed her head as Wyin was taken down simultaneously in two different 'mirror' Dungeons. Not by Fairplay but adventurer groups that had turned up with some real experience under their belts.
These were professionals who were also not against just enjoying the Dungeon. Some of them even tipped Fera before fighting Fran, who won some and lost some.
The feeling of two Wyins going down at the same time was like a shooting migraine that morphed into an infected tooth that pulsed down her neck. It only lasted a few minutes, but it was enough to understand maybe why other Dungeons didn't opt for the mirror copies as Delta had done.
She really didn't want to know what ten bosses going down at the same time felt like.
Delta was just about to head back to the 4th floor to continue work when there came a peculiar feeling in her stomach. It started as a gurgle like she was hungry but then shifted to a growing pressure. It quickly made her double over as it felt like she was growing a new organ in her chest.
It was uncomfortable like suddenly having a tail or a third eye, complete with forming nerves.
She shivered in pain as her skin prickled to the dozenth degree, each second overlapping with another way of that stretching feeling. It was like growing a new floor, but worse.
Then it stopped, and Delta could slowly unclench her muscles as she stared at her hands.
Then came Prim with an urgent screen.
Warning: Mana in Abyss has reached formation. Attempting to reconnect back to Dungeon as a new entrance. Distance is causing fractures. There is no secondary core function at location to act as a relay. Dungeon will undergo immense damage.
"What the heck is my Mana doing in the Abyss?" she demanded, and the screen stared at her.
"Most rejected items or destroyed Dungeon items flow into the abyss to be purified and returned free of Dungeon mana. Your mana did not purify. It went to war against the process and emerged the victor."
"The abyss, that's the demon world, right?" Delta asked, ignoring the implication that her mana was now breaking things without Delta even telling it to.
"Correct. The new entrance is trying to breach unfathomed spaces between this world and the abyss. Unless a suitable core and/or relay core function is installed, you will suffer damage. You must construct more relay pylons."
Prim seemed confident in this answer, and Delta swallowed once.
"Okay, let's do it," Delta encouraged. A door to hell wasn't a bad thing, right?
Like a vacation spot!
"Error. Cannot construct. Distance is too great. You will be able to do so when the new entrance is formed."
Delta blinked once slowly, then spoke even slower.
"But then I'll be torn apart," she said, almost cautiously.
"Correct. You need the entrance to control the mana, but having the entrance will most likely tear you apart."
"So… I can't build it if I want to, and I can't stop it either. Can I turn my mana off?" she asked, feeling a surge of panic rising in her.
"No."
Delta had a horrible image of her ballooning up like a sausage and then promptly exploding all over Durence.
Fairplay would be happy, at least.
"However."
Prim's screen interrupted Delta's inner panic for a moment.
"A secondary temporary core is arriving at the location shortly."
Delta tilted her head for a moment.
"I have a secondary core in hell?" she questioned, not sure if she was even surprised by this point.
"Not quite."
---
"It burns, it quacks. It hisses, it quacks. It reigns in hell, it quacks," Beta said, almost devoid of emotion as she trekked through the dark world where geysers of fire occasionally erupted from the ground. On her head, a black duck quacked along.
Beta's eyes looked haunted, and she stopped near a rock as a near-dead tiny plant grew on it, its brown limbs brittle. It danced in an ash-filled wind, like it was tempting her.
Beta stared at it, then screamed, setting the whole thing on fire as she raged.
"IT HIDES IN A TREE, IT WILL QUACK!" she screamed in monstrous anger.
The black duck on her head merely nodded.
She turned back to the screen nearby her; it was covered in little puppy and kitten paw prints. She glared as it glowed bright with pale red light. Around the edges, vines and thorns had turned to stone and were flaking away slowly.
Beta's Magical Menagerie! V.2
Important quest: Rescue your beloved teacher from the consequences of her own actions.
Rewards: Orange Mushroom Cap hat for all transformations.
"Still don't trust you all. I really don't," she whispered, hands clenched and changing into black claws.
The screen flickered.
"I've accepted that, and I will never bother you if you wish after this. Please, just help Delta. -Sister."
"Also I don't know who Delta is. Is she gonna help me escape here? Is she smart and stuff?" Beta grunted as she trudged through the sand and ash.
"Indeed!"
"So, I can trust her to take care of something delicate like the world tree?" Beta pressed the screen.
"…Yes!"
"You hesitated!"
"Quack."
Beta twitched but looked up at her 'escort.'
"What do you mean, you heard she was 'bombastic' from your prince? You guys are literally monster dragons that are also ducks; how can anything be bombastic to you all?!" Beta demanded, throwing her hands up.
Her screen blinked.
"Just don't mention the mushrooms when you meet her. - Sis"
"Why would I…mention…that…" Beta trailed off as in the distance, the ash storm shifted to reveal a massive black pulsing mushroom cap that was crackling with dark orange lightning, trying to grow up to somewhere beyond this world.
In the few seconds that Beta watched it, it let out a thunderous boom like a voice.
"WHAT TIME DOES A DUCK WAKE UP AT?!" the mushroom bellowed.
Beta stared.
"AT THE QUACK OF DAWN!" it finished. Beta turned around in one smooth motion.
"I'm going back to the hell pond for ten more years," she said bluntly and started walking.
"Wait! She needs you!" the screen tried to stop her.
"I don't need that!" Beta jabbed a thumb over her shoulder.
"I'll improve your reward!"
"No."
"Triple reward!"
"No." Beta's footsteps crunched the sand underfoot.
"I'll introduce you to someone who can hurt the tree! He lives close to Delta!" the screen said, and Beta froze.
"No one can hurt the tree, it's too powerful. Even I can't… not sure I can," Beta said quietly.
"This one can. Quiss Firesmasher has dedicated his existence to it. He has the means."
Beta turned around to stare at the epic mushroom towering on the horizon.
"Fine." Beta sounded calm, but her eyes were shifting into a dozen different forms a minute. Beta didn't hope. She didn't dare let that stupid feeling bloom in her heart ever again.
But she didn't reject the idea.
"WHERE DO TOUGH DUCKS COME FROM? HARD-BOILED EGGS!"
Beta gritted her teeth. She truly was in hell.