Olin Frampt hated funerals. He loved wearing black, but people got so upset if you wore anything interesting.

Today, the city’s dwarves laid Morghul out on a slab of stone and wept over him. Olin stood at the back of the procession, wearing midnight robes with a diamond-studded collar, and a swooping neckline that bared his muscled chest all the way down to the navel in a daring ‘v’ lined by milk-white wolf fur. Dark looks were aimed his way. He smiled back.

Eyfrae stood next to him, conservatively dressed in black leather.

“I can’t believe he’s dead.” Olin remarked. “It’s been, what, twenty years since the last time?”

“A solid record. I think the cleric who revived him last actually passed on of old age.” Eyfrae admitted. “But who are you to talk? You’ve never died, have you? Imagine, Olin Frampt, a virgin.” A smirk oozed across her face.

“If you think about it that means I’m winning.” Olin hissed. This woman got under his skin so easily.

“If you ask me it means you haven’t been playing hard enough.” That smirk again. Tantalizing.

He just shook his head. Impossible to argue with her. Impossible.

“This Dungeon. What are we going to do about it.” Eyfrae continued. “I think it’s safe to say it can defend itself. If we let people know, we’ll just be feeding it Mana from all the greenhorns who go and get themselves killed.”

“Feeding it Mana.” Olin repeated. “You know…”

It was his turn to smile his slimiest, smuggest smile.

“That doesn’t have to be a bad thing.”

And while he still had the conversational advantage, Olin turned and strode away. Or he tried to. His stride was interrupted as he turned to find the blind priestess standing behind him, clouded grey eyes staring out through an owl-faced mask.

“I…” For once he was genuinely speechless. There was something about the girl he just found eerie.

It felt like she could see into his shriveled black soul. “Morghul said the Dungeon used to be yours. I wanted to ask about it.”

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The Institute of Magi was spectacularly well-guarded. Steel golems with expressionless helmets for faceless stood by the vast double doors. A thin, almost unnoticeable layer of spellwork was spread across the windows like a web of translucent energies. A circle around the entire building prevented teleportation within.

These were just the outermost layer. The obvious safeguards meant to catch large threats, rather than the finer net laid out for thieves. The golems would only move if the Institute itself was threatened. The spellweb was only there to keep forbidden magic from entering or leaving.

The real defenses would be inside, and even getting there was my first concern.

Strix had warned me there were measures against scrying, and that my connection to my minions would likely trigger them. Apparently even her owls couldn’t get too close.

But she could.

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Olin selected his drinks with a religious care. Selecting a fat-bellied bottle, he poured clear reddish absinthe into a pair of tall glasses, topping it with a splash of milky liquor that spiralled into the glass like an inverse coil of smoke.

He drained his in a single gulp and looked down to find Strix still trying to find hers, blind fingers feeling their way across his desk. He quietly slid it farther out of her grasp.

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“I still don’t understand why I can’t bring my owls.” She complained.

“It would run afoul of my Eyeblight. A horrible beastie. It lives in a little pocket space outside of our reality. If it catches someone scrying, it uses the mental link like a fisherman uses a hook, and reels the mind on the other end up into its lair. Where it gobbles them up of course." Olin explained, a faint smile playing across his face. Of all his monstrosity the Eyeblight was the most creatively awful.

“But…” He continued. “As much as I’d love to give you a tour of my bestiary, I don’t think that’s what you’re here for, is it now?”

“No. This Dungeon was too intelligent. I want to know where you found it.” Even with her blind and in the heart of his power, Olin found himself shivering when she looked directly at him with those seer-eyes.

Too many secrets, he chided himself, too many schemes. The thought of someone seeing into his heart and seeing all he’d done was enough to make a prickle of sweat break out on his forehead.

“Up in the God-Country, of course. A little farmstead on the edge of the Shiftlands found it washed up. They were treating it like a pet.” Olin let the story end there, without mentioning what he’d done to them. “It shouldn’t be intelligent at all. It was bound while it was still young, and crippled in all the right ways. So crippled I didn’t even bother keeping it.”

“So you gave it to Boss Gent?”

“Now that’s not a very kind way to refer to the deceased. Whatever he was accused of, he was good for this city.” Olin chided.

“So you gave it to Boss Gent, and when he died it escaped.” She repeated. “How could it become intelligent?”

“How am I supposed to know?” Olin was irked. He was irked by her eyes staring at him pointlessly, by the unflinching attitude with which she sat there judging him, by the way she seemed to ignore half he said. He threw his hands up. “If a crippled Dungeon did become whole, it was by divine intervention. Your field, not mine.”

He was irked. He had been since Morghul died. Not that he cared about the old fool, but Olin wasn’t an idiot. He could read the winds. Something had gone terribly wrong beneath his city.

“So you couldn’t fix a crippled Dungeon, if you had to?”

Was she challenging him? Olin leaned forward, one hand perched on the desk below and the other splayed across his chest. “I could, but I did not, and there is no other Olin Frampt.”

“What would it take?”

He sighed. “A Dungeon Core is a Source, a heart of magic, surrounded and stabilized by the bindings of the Divine. To heal a crippled one, you would need a high mage of incredible talent to unwind the Divine strictures, a powerful soul to give it sapience again, and another Source to restore its wounds, preferably another Core.

"But none of that happened. Nevermind sneaking another High Mage into the city, unbinding a Source? I would know right away.”

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As Strix stood in my domain, reciting what had been said, I felt such a strange sensation. An almost deja-vu, as if there was something lost to me.

And there was. I had been crippled. Reduced to less than a beast, to a gaudy trinket on a crime boss’ fingers. My memories were gone; I might not even be the same soul I had been. It was only now I even understood the extent of the damage done.

I knew I had a soul. That was clear by the fact the gods wanted me to trade it away. But I was not whole, I was too limited, too weak for a Dungeon.

If I was going to fix that I needed another Source.

And before any of that, I had to get Aurum back. This Eyeblight would be the first hurdle; a horror hiding in a side-dimension. Any of my creations with Shards would be pulled in by their connection to me. I was blocked out for as long as it lived.

The priest tapped her foot, waiting for me to return her owl, but I was deep in thought.

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Argent scuttled along fenceposts, down gutterpipes, fought with squawking pigeons for space among the rooftops as she followed the flow of servants leaving the Institute for the night. It took all kinds to run such a massive, sprawling building. Maids, porters, butlers, cooks. They flooded out of the not-so-grand back doors and into the settling night.

We could only follow one of them. It was like picking a single droplet out of an ocean of humanity. Tonight we settled on a sad-eyed, waxen-faced cook. We followed him back to a flophouse and a quiet life. Nothing. No help at all.

We were fishing, praying one of our nets would catch something, a way in. Today was another failure. Tomorrow, we’d pick someone else out of the crowd to watch.

Until we found our way in.

[https://i.imgur.com/okCjs7y.png]

Olin Frampt couldn’t settle his nerves. The encounter with the priest had left him riled up, agitated. He paced his room and came back, again and again, to the glass cage. To the beautiful green viper with its streak of draconic gold that lay curled, waiting, watching him always with unblinking eyes.

Those eyes had enough intelligence behind them for Olin to feel hatred in that stare.

He smirked. His fingers tapped the glass.

“Oh, I have such plans for you, my precious.”