It was with trembling hands that Vaulder Claith packaged up three books in twine and prepared to descend. Nolan was manning the cafe and planning his conquest of the tower, Kathe had scuttled back to his workshop to brew more of his patent elixir and sulk that Vaulder wouldn’t let him serve it undiluted.
There was silence in the little bookshop.
For the first time, Vaulder would be descending alone. Even knowing where the trapdoor was the damn thing was almost impossible to find. In the end he had to scrape a knife along the edges and pry it up, his hands trembling, trembling, trembling…
“Look, if you don’t stop, I’m going to cut a finger off. That’ll show you who’s boss.” Vaulder threatened his own hand, a manic edge to his voice as lifted the knife in mock-menace.
Mad. A little voice in the corner of his mind noted. Cracked under the strain. Talks to his own fingers now.
“Oh shush you.”
Levering up the trapdoor, he slid himself down into the dark with only a lantern as a guide. A lantern that immediately went out in the rush of air that rose from the opened tunnel, like a cold breath.
“Shitshitshitshit….”
A light shined in the darkness. It was, of all things, a rat. She glowed like she was made of moondust, a quicksilver apparition that left slowly fading streaks of light behind as she moved.
She squeaked at him. Setting the lantern aside, Vaulder followed.
Rats everywhere. Living in Caltern had accustomed him to seeing them in just about every corner, but here, they seemed to have their own small city. Ratty noses and ratty faces poked out of little burrows in the walls. Several squeaked at him. Others reached out, snagging his clothes with a little paw and happily climbing aboard.
Vaulder emerged from the tunnel covered in rats. They snuffled in his ears, making him laugh. It was a surprisingly cheerful thing. He moved to take a step forward-
The moon-rat squeaked at him. A very stern squeak.
He drew his foot back. No need to find out what kind of death he’d almost stepped in.
Letting the rat guide him, he moved in a zig-zag path through the Dungeon. It was as strange and terrifying as the day he’d arrived. The ceiling arched up overhead, rough stone, dripping water. Mushrooms the size of his fist grew from black earth, their skin as translucent and delicate as glass, glowing from within with different shades of light. Several times Vaulder almost reached out to touch one, before a squeak or a claw to his face brought him back to attention.
Golden dust trickled down from above. It came from mushrooms in the shape of amber bells that hung from the ceiling, drooling a fine layer of spore that settled over everything, making the gardens sparkle as if they were a treasure trove. Glass flowers sprouted from the earth, displaying bladed fans of petals that nicked his skin as he passed.
Serpents coiled amidst the green moss, their organs on beating display under translucent skin. Giant mantises that were as tall as his knee perched, their claws lifted, waiting for prey to mistake them for branches in their stillness and wander into their waiting clutches. Still pools dotted the garden like mirrors.
And everything was getting… bigger.
No, Vaulder was shrinking, shrinking away, the mushrooms looming up as his legs shortened, the beasts of the garden gaining on him. “Shit!”
The rat sped up, and Vaulder hurried to keep pace, although his stride was shortening every second. Soon the mushrooms were the size of his head, the snakes higher than he was when they reared up, his guide the size of a dog-
And he couldn’t have been more than a foot and a half tall.
Ahead, a gazebo made of frosted glass loomed, the size of a mountain to him. Every inch of it glittered. Vaulder reached the door, hauling his way laboriously up the three giant steps, and found there was a second door, inset within the first, just his size.
He stepped through and - like it was all a trick of perspective - was back to his normal height in three steps.
“Most… peculiar…” He mumbled, out of breath and panting hard.
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Above him, a ripple ran through the air. Frosted onto the glass in words of condensated frost was the question-
WHAT HAVE YOU BROUGHT ME.
“M-Mymerion’s A Guide to Spellwork, The Treasures of the Earth and a treatise on elementals. It d-doesn’t have a name but its very good.” He sputtered out, clutching his knees as he tried to regain his breath.
SIT. READ TO ME.
Vaulder hadn’t expected that. He had hoped to drop the books off, give a brief report of the cafe’s success, and leave. Instead, he found himself looking around for a seat.
One neatly rose out of the glass floor, waiting for him.
It was a strange sort of a room, with tools scattered across three small workbenches lit by crystal lamps. The center of the chamber was taken up by a single long table, bearing a dozen copies of the same cup, a beautiful thing in gold and red. An octagonal door sat in the middle of the ceiling. Very strange.
The scholar sat awkwardly in among all this, cracking open the nameless, leather-bound book.
“This world is governed by invisible powers, flows and leylines of magic that no mortal can see. They run through earth and sky. When these rivers of Mana touch upon certain rare materials receptive to magic, such as a vein of gemstones or long-buried starmetal, a changed form may occur…”
A shiver ran through the air, making Vaulder look up. New words had appeared on the glass.
SKIP FORWARD. TO HOW TO KILL THEM.
“Erm…” He flipped through the pages, eyes flitting over the words quickly, desperately looking for… looking for… “It doesn’t say,” he admitted, “But I do see a section on binding them.”
PAINFULLY?
“I… can’t imagine they like it?” Vaulder replied.
THAT WILL DO.
“To bind an elemental, shackles of dark iron are needed. These sever the connection to the Mana reservoir that grants them their unmatched power. Next, a spike is driven into the creature, bearing runes of binding and service, and a mage begins the process…”
He winced. “The whole spell is in runic, which I, um, never learned. Mage diagrams and starstuff.” Flipping through the next two pages, his eyes lit up.
“Aha! ‘The taming of wild elementals has been managed by providing them with a larger source of Mana than the reservoir that spawned them, slowly making them more pliable and pleasant towards their master, and even obedient.’”
THEY HAVE TO PAY.
He paused. “Oh, I just thought… since you were a Dungeon, with so much Mana, you could…” His throat suddenly turned to iron, refusing to let even another syllable escape. Apparently he’d annoyed his host. Vaulder silently mouthed an apology as his lungs began to burn.
THEY ARE MY ENEMIES. I DO NOT FORGIVE.
Vaulder nodded, frantically, until the Contract binding his throat released him. “I-I see…” He gasped out.
READ THE ONE ON SPELLWORK NEXT.
Massaging his neck, Vaulder reached down and picked up the next book.
[https://i.imgur.com/okCjs7y.png]
By the time the scholar left, I had learned dozens of important things. One was an elementary set of runes, outlined in the book, that formed the basis of more complex spellwork. Light. Strength. Siphon. Grant.
Together these were the workings of a simple light spell. It worked by drinking up ambient magic, and pushing it into a small wisp of ghostly flame.
I tried, twisting my Mana into the required letters, to no avail. The chain of spellwork I produced collapsed into itself, creating instead a brief knotting in my ambient Mana. I grimaced and did my best to untie things before they condensed further and created some mutant abomination.
So, it seemed doing human spellcraft was beyond me. It made sense. They practiced magic from the outside, reaching their hands into the realm of the arcane to pull out wonders. I was made of Mana, and my every action was fundamentally magical.
Different methods would be needed.
Still, the runes themselves were deeply useful. I began to work on a spare opal, infusing it with Mana and slowly shaping the familiar form of a Shard. This time, I used my new vocabulary instead of blindly copying runes from my own Attunements.
What resulted was a sign of how far I’d come in just one month.
[ Fair Shard of Strength ]
This basic Shard grants an increase in physical prowess, blessing its bearer with the ability to surge forth with strength for a brief time and a telepathic connection to the Dungeon Core that created it.
Now I began to work on a golem to house it.
I would need stronger, tougher creations to successfully conquer the stone-hounds. The creature I crafted borrowed its form from the rhino the Marquis had sent through the portal to attack me- an enormous, hulking body, with a horned head meant for charges. This one was made of pure salt, and my aesthetic touches were limited to giving it a cloudy white skin and a horn that gleamed with tones of blood red.
The result was pleasing in a rough way, its every motion and aspect displaying the concept of crude strength.
I would have time to build plenty more, while I waited for Vaulder to return. This time I had sent him out into the world bearing the knucklebone-pendant Suffi had left with me, as a sign he was my messenger, and a request for her.
Four shackles of dark iron, and a spike carved with runes for binding an elemental.