People were silly. Emotional, strange, and silly. That was something Alpha was deciding was just an undeniable occurrence when so many people gathered together in such a close community. Alpha, wondering why he was doing this? Why he was still walking after the very irate and injured girl after she ditched that talking sword. The sword that claimed to know Alpha which was a little terrifying.
What was more terrifying was the feeling Alpha knew them back.
"Please slow down, you're wounded and confused," he tried to call as the girl stomped into town looking torn between punching someone and crying. Snot was flowing out her nose and her eyes looked bloodshot with pressure and emotion. Crying or violence...Alpha grimaced as either outcome was desirable but Alpha could handle one emotional extreme, not the other.
He had physical defensive skills after all.
"I should have known that the liar was stringing me along. Nothing they ever said made sense," the girl ranted to herself as she looked around for something and Alpha looked too. He saw streets that looked familiar but not quite. He saw storefronts that were sort of open but not quite. Alpha saw people he recognized mostly, but not really. The town always moved when no one was looking, like some invisible puppet master was working behind the scenes.
It felt like the town wasn't real at times.
Durence was like that. A sort of half-dream where the details tended to slip away when you weren't looking. It was partially the still mana-deprived ground under their foot, but also something more. A malaise of gray atrophy that gripped color, sound, and life.
That grayness, that force so neutral it was a sort of evil in itself, had lost some of its power, but it was not even close to being gone. Delta was working on it, but every time she seemed to take a corner or street, the drain happened elsewhere.
"Where are the public coaches? The nearest means of transportation away from this place?" the girl asked and Alpha pointed to the edge of town where some of Fairplay's tents could barely be seen poking over some of Durence's rooftops.
"Fairplay has a teleporter, but some say it's cursed to give wedgies," he offered and the girl grimaced but for the first time, actually stopped to look at him.
Alpha looked back seeing a girl that was more gangly than round, had hair that was long rather than short, and brown eyes that were this side of wet mud rather than tree bark. These were all nice qualities and Alpha would endeavor to commit them to memory so he could be more friendly next time.
Delta would encourage that.
"I'm really not looking for 'special' modes of transportation. Do you know if there is a caravan heading out soon?" the girl asked and Alpha did not. That was troubling.
"Not many people really came to Durence before the Dungeon appeared," Alpha said slowly, trying to think if Durence even had horses? He had seen dogs, cats, birds, large insects, platypuses, and even some rarer things like sheep and goats.
"Durence? Where on Brother is that?" the girl muttered.
"On the head-shaped part. It used to be very gray. My name is Alpha," he introduced and felt a strong urge to head inside and read a book to avoid the awkward social feelings creeping up on him. What if she talked about books or plays he didn't know? What if she liked things he didn't like?
What if she drooled on him?
"Esma," came the distracted response as she peered into a non-descript storefront and inside counters and tables looked to be growing out of the walls organically.
"How did you meet up with that... sword?" Alpha asked and Esma turned, the scowl back on her face.
"Destiny, a curse, a joke by the gods, take your pick! They did nothing but bring me suffering," she said harshly and Alpha tried not to take a step back.
"I was nothing but a handy... hand for Gamma to get around," Esma said tersely and Alpha's entire body jerked at the name, the familiarity of the 'missing' piece just falling out of the sky was unthinkable and the fact the moment Esma said the name, a strange wave emanated outwards.
"T-That never happened when I said their name before. When I was holding them," Esma said, looking taken aback as the dark magic fled to the four winds with an ominous slithering. Alpha reached out and snatched one, his own energy containing the spell that fought him with a mixture of corrosive touch and invasive energy theft. He, however, was a student of Delta and supposedly a 'hero' of the people.
It was a complex piece of magic and Alpha would be impressed if the spell wasn't so stuffed with the molten feel of greed, the writhing anger of the insane, and the promise of pain. Alpha focused and crushed the magic, analyzing it real time.
It was weird being the Archmage of this world; it made things in his mind make sense without explaining why. Alpha had always seen magic like computer code. If he did the sequence correctly then a result would appear. Then he had gained his wizard name and the new role. It would be fair to say Alpha had only had a surface understanding of magic.
Spells were a mix of someone's seed, their mana, and something else. A trinity that existed in all magic users. Every wizard had three innate parts to them that touched, leaving an empty space in the middle where the parts didn't connect.
Every wizard had three talents and one weakness.
Alpha's strengths were magic, growth, and focus while his weakness was emotions. It was something he was working on but emotions, the complex human conditions would be forever a struggle to him.
Quiss was another wizard Alpha 'saw' for the first time after his new role. Quiss was Fire-Fire-Soul with control being his weakness.
Alpha didn't know how it was possible for a wizard to have the same strength twice but it definitely was impressive.
The spell in Alpha's hand was newly formed, but not newly created. It was old magic from a magic user who had at least one part 'greed' to their trinity. It was a disturbing concept that someone could make a weakness their strength. As Alpha eyed the spell, his trinity turned slowly through his soul, creating an echoing hum inside its shape.
"What is that?" Esma demanded and Alpha blinked, having forgotten she was there for a moment.
"A powerful tracking spell. It appears when you say a specific word and it lets a few different sources know where you said it. Not just said casually, but with actual emotion. I only caught one end, not all of it," Alpha said as he squeezed the magic, causing it to crumble into dirty golden flakes.
The sight of it made his stomach churn uneasily.
"Tracking spell? For Gamma?" Esma said with actual incredulity then forced herself to calm down. "They are... sort of powerful if you can put up with their quirks. I couldn't," she said bitterly. Alpha eyed her for a moment and felt something akin to minor discomfort rise as he willingly reached out to her.
Before Delta, he would have used his high level stealth skills to vanish from sight and use his archery skills to propel himself out of speaking distance, but after Delta? He was uneasily trying to help another soul.
"Why did you need his help? I can maybe point you in the right direction," he said slowly, trying to ignore his abilities as they latched on to Alpha being social of all things with another human being.
The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.
Esma looked at him as her face turned dark with emotion.
"Vampires," she said and Alpha knew exactly what to do.
"I know someone," he said confidently.
Von would help if it was a vampire issue, right?
Alpha could help Esma find a vampire and Von was a vampire.
It was basically a quest for success in motion.
---
Mr Jones was grading papers.
His homework assignment had been 'What do Dungeons do for the world?'. Most of the reports were generic but showed studying and effort.
There were a few standout ones, however.
Grimnoire simply taped a gold piece to a piece of paper and submitted it. Mr Jones gave him near full marks for symbolism and poignant points.
One of Mrs. Dabberghast's daughters submitted a full artistic piece of a goddess-like figure calling to nature folks, bringing in an age of redemption and healing for the world. Mr Jones awarded a lot of points on an artistic take.
Poppy wrote a poem.
'In a mirror that shows a monster with a quiet face,
A Dungeon in this town showed them that monsters can love.
In a mirror that shows a monster with tears.
A Dungeon showed them that it's okay to smile.'
Deo's project was a music box that was oddly subtle for the boy. Mr Jones could tell it had been handcrafted with only some help from Deo's father. The novice groove marks in contrast to the masterwork that made the smaller parts. It played a simple tune that Mr Jones knew was a bad mimicry of a tune his mother sang. He had pondered that for a while, stumped on how to perceive it.
Since it wasn't another squirrel, he gave Deo full marks.
He wasn't sure what it was, but this world was infatuated with squirrels of all sizes and types. If it wasn't Deo, swarms of them vanished in the world at a time indicating someone was collecting them. He was about to move on to Amenstar's report when he paused.
He frowned heavily as he put down his pen.
His awareness detected an intruder. Anyone not a student, guardian, or invitee was an intruder to the Knowledge Demon.
He stood up and his reality folded, shifting from an innocent schoolhouse to a death trap that caught the intruder rather easily and Mr Jones stared down at the pathetic Imp demon inside a cage made of recycled arts and craft projects.
"Mercy, I come here with hellish intentions," the little insect begged and Mr Jones released it with a thought.
"Tell me why I should not turn you into a frog and let my most unruly students dissect you," Mr Jones said bluntly.
He really didn't enjoy other demons for company. They were so boring. So set in their ways with their same politics with their same results. Demonic advancement in any field was at least three times slower than the mortals across the board.
To Mr Jones, a child's mistake on the most basic of mathematics was more precious to him than the Demon's King tortuously slow edits to his dramatic plays of 'The Woman Who Slayed On the Silken Battlefield'.
"I am here in a most unwanted quest to retrieve a sword!" the imp pleaded and that was new.
"There are many swords," Mr Jones pointed out as the walls stopped bleeding red hot acid and returned the many childish drawings of his students.
It was fair to say the building was a part of Mr Jones or was he part of the building? It had been too long since he fully assumed his true form that he had forgotten. He could recall but it wasn't as important as his student reports needing graded.
"Not this sword! It's Magma! A sword belonging to a Lord of Gluttony that I serve!" the imp said and for the first time, Mr Jones heard something other than the average Imp sycophant-tones.
Magma was a sword that was made in the Abyss. The imp wants it. The sword belongs to Ruli.
Knowledge was Mr Jone's forte and that fact came quickly.
Mr Jones decided that the imp and his lord would burn before he let his precious student lose such a valuable educational tool such as a sword.
"And you came here?" Mr Jones asked slowly and the imp looked suddenly tired. That was also new.
Imps couldn't show weakness or they'd get eaten; more so if they served someone of the Gluttony court.
"I got summoned, got picked up by insane people, and now I'm in this insane town. Did you know I saw a corrupted being attacking a Dungeon-Infected person? I was lucky I was demonic or they'd have sensed me," the imp moaned.
"Corrupted?" Mr Jones blinked. The term was unfamiliar to him so it wasn't likely a popular fact.
"Right, you're a native now," the imp said and Mr Jones made the ground under the imp form teeth and prepared to eat the little pest.
"WAIT! I'm sorry!" the imp pleaded and Mr Jones could almost hear Deo crying over the imp's death if he ever found out. The children had made him soft it seemed. That was a fact.
"Corrupted, the beings infected by the Noises in the Abyss, the ones who Echoes. Corruption also happens by mortals but it takes a very bad mortal to make it happen," the imp explained.
"I thought Knowledge Demons knew everything?" the imp muttered and Mr Jones felt all educational all of a sudden.
"A common misconception. A Knowledge Demon can learn most knowledge in a given area. The closer they are to a fact, the faster they subsume it. Facts in the demon world are slow going for me, but the local gossip is ripe for me to enjoy," he explained.
"But you've been in this world for a long time, it's in your aura," the imp said slowly, respectfully.
"And thus I know more than most of my kind. I accepted a terrible deal and gained wonderful benefits," Mr Jones agreed.
"So, you know where the sword I seek is?" the imp asked, looking excited.
"Its essence has been in the Dungeon. You should look there for clues," Mr Jones said, not lying. Not really.
With luck, the Dungeon would take the imp as a new toy. A little friend for the Dark Drake that Mr Jones was nervous about offending.
All the knowledge in the world versus a bad roll of the dice?
Mr Jones knew which was stronger when it came down to it.
"Now for my payment," he began and the imp froze in the midst of his hand rubbing.
"P-Payment?" he echoed.
"You are not one of my students. You are not a concerned parent. You are not one of my nighttime adult students learning their numbers. You're not someone I even liked. Why would I give you knowledge for free?" Mr Jones asked, his hands reaching across the room in an instant.
"What do you want?" the imp begged.
"Children with empty heads," Mr Jones said and instead of horror, the imp lit up with excitement.
What?
"I know a kid! Mas!" he said and the name sent a tingle up Mr Jone's spine.
A tingle that needed to be educated.
"Until sundown tomorrow, you are safe. Fail to bring me Mas and you will be my slave," Mr Jones said and the binding circle appeared on the imp's head.
"The good slave or bad slave?" the imp whimpered.
"You will clean the toilets. You will peel gum. You will be a recess monitor," Mr Jones hissed.
The imp had the audacity even to look happy.
"No more gluttony sheet changing," he whispered.
Mr Jones hated Gluttony demons, they ate the fun out of everything.