A statuesque young woman wearing an expensive looking flowing silk dress strolled through the portal hub after entering from the portal in the casino in Estoril. She procceded through the portal to the Hotel Luso. Moonbeam, Felicia, Antonio and all the priestesses of Bast currently in the dungeon immediately noted her arrival. One of the latter, Luisa dos Santos who just happened to be in the lobby getting ready to lead a group of tourists on a tour of the temple bowed with graceful formality at her arrival.

Antonio materialized his avatar in the manager’s office where he was immediately joined by Moonbeam, they entered the lobby where they approached the lady in question. Antonio bowed formally while Moonbeam curtseyed nervously.

“Welcome, twice welcome, the daughter of Oceanus and Tethys cannot but be thrice welcome in my domain.”

Tyche smiled, “So will you also raise a temple to me,” she joked.

Antonio widened his eyes in apparent astonishment, “but you just came from your temple and many of my guests already visit every day.”

Tyche laughed. “May I explore.”

“But yes! All but Bast’s temple, that does not fall to me.”

Felicia arrived by more mundane methods, the private express lift to be prescise. She curtseyed but did not lower her eyes. “My lady welcomes you lady Tyche and makes you free of all but the inner temple.”

“Please convey my thanks and congratulations to your mistress high priestess.” And with that Tych vanished though she did not leave before satisfying her curiosity.

Antonio eyed the numerous smartphones in view and was unhappily aware that this meeting would soon be available worldwide. Then his eyes crinkled in one of his silent smiles and he turned to Felicia, “what do you think if we set up a slot machine in a small shrine next to reception.”

Felicia looked into the distance and a smile slowly grew on her face, “Bast is in favour.”

The three ignoring several questions left in the lift Felicia had arrived in.

* * *

Rapheel glanced at his wife and then rose to answer the door as the doorbell rang. Traleen stopped glaring at the wall and moved back to the centre of the room. She smiled and greeted Dr Zinovy Rozhestvensky as her husband ushered him into the room.

As predicted by Shal the discussion that ensued revolved around gates. Rapheel was able to suggest that possibly, just possibly the Europeans were using a dungeon to create a web of portals rather than gates. Then he was able to add that despite dungeons not being his speciality he believed they had certain limitations not shared with gates, such as the fact that they had to be erected in a dungeon’s domain. It was this that made him uncertain of his diagnosis as he couldn’t see how any dungeon could spread its domain so widely.

This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

Rozhestvensky left, if not satisfied at least convinced that his hired specialist knew what he was talking about.

* * *

They proceeded to Brussels where George Kowalski managed to misrepresent his countries position despite the combined efforts of his staff. Marcus Smith was feeling despair. How the hell had fact finding turned into this, now they were committed to approaching the people fronting for the Portuguese dungeon and getting a gate set up in Washington to match the ones all the Europeans wanted in their capitals. As the idiot hadn’t specified Washington DC, maybe they could place the gate in some out of the way location in the State of Washington.

Mandy Carvalho watched in despair as Kowalski totally screwed up their mission, she had no way to intervene as their brief only covered going to Portugal and discovering what they could from the Guild nearest the dungeon. Her phone call to young Ashes only gained her the titbit that ‘gates don’t work like that’ and why didn’t she consult one of the mages that worked for the government.

‘The kid’s right, Washington must have mages on the books by now surely, why didn’t we get to talk to one?’

Mandy Carvalho and Marcus Smith had used the secure channels available at the embassy to send their reports and recommendations to their superiors and were now watching George Kowalski and his entourage board their charter jet for the trip home before boarding their own more mundane transport with destination Lisbon.

They were able to have a frank and informative discussion with Silverfin, a sea elf and an immigrant from Badonia who was the acting guildmaster. They learned of the differences between gates and dungeon portals, and that while the guild was unable to state how Antonio Muñoz was setting up his network he Silverfin suspected that Antonio was sending one of his minions to claim a small are just prior to activating the portal. Also the guild had no reports of portals capable of transporting more than four people at a time.

In all a very informative meeting and another mess set up by the System. Something else to watch out for in the second wave the buggy System had warned the world about, people becoming dungeons. A former human now dungeon intelligence to research. All in all She and Marcus had achieved everything and more that had been asked of them. Unfortunately they also had George Kowalski’s input.

* * *

Antonio used his recently gained insight to open his first portal to another world. It flickered uncertainly for a few moments. At the other end Wolfgar, aka uncle Red studied the slightly unstable portal and with his greater experience of standard portals was able to adjust it so it stabilised.

Moonbeam shot through the portal and into her mother’s arms. The two dungeons looked on complacently while sending tendrils of thought at each other. They had arrived at a firm alliance by the time the embrace between mother and daughter ended. They both admitted that the fact that neither had a domain the other wanted clinched the alliance.

Moonbeam showed her mother around her home and allowed her to view her dungeon while Starflare brought her daughter up to date on the latest gossip and news.

When Wolfgar jokingly mentioned lacking so much as a shrine, Antonio offered to try and see if the goddess of luck, she who bestowed both fortune and misfortune. Wolfgar hesitated linked with Starflare and surprised Antonio by agreeing.

So the foursome concentrated their awareness on the recently installed shrine in the lobby and this unusual gathering caught Tyche’s attention. Tyche never one to avoid a gamble quickly inspected Wolfgar’s dungeon and agreed. She gave Wolfgar an indication of what she required in a shrine.