Ar'Kendrithyst

Dinner was spicy fried fish and rice and beer, ordered down in town and brought up to Jane’s room, to a table conjured in front of the large windows that looked out across Oceanside’s crescent harbor. Lights glowed on the ships in the harbor down below and across all the rest of the city. Oceanside was a college city, after all; there were a lot of people out and about in the well-lit night.

Jane was still sleeping soundly; she did not wake for all the scents of food around her, but after a few minutes into dinner a nurse on duty came in to the room, saying that the spices were too strong; they were stinking up the place. Erick cast a [Scent Ward] across the room and apologized. The nurse left, closing the door behind her. Erick almost added an [Audio Dampening Ward] to the room, but all the patients who needed sleep were under [Sleep] runes like Jane, and the nurses gave no indication that loud noises were a problem for anyone. If that changed, he could always add one later.

Erick asked Teressa, “Nothing happened while we were gone?”

“Nope.” She said, “Quite boring, which is just how I like it. How was it with you all?” She looked to Kiri, who was chugging her third bottle of beer, asking, “Tough?”

Kiri asked, “How can you just talk to him like that, Erick!”

Rats joked, “You’re not dead or maimed, so it can’t have been that bad, Kiri.”

Poi said, “Erick secured Oceanside’s aid against Messalina and made initial plans to construct a ten-floor light slime dungeon, which is also for his benefit, and the benefit of Civilization.” Poi said, “And he didn’t have to give up any real secrets to do it.”

Erick almost added, ‘Not yet’, but he decided not to.

Rats held up his beer, saying, “Cheers to that.”

Kiri finished off her beer and reached for her fourth, saying, “This is crazy. The Headmaster is Second to Rozeta. He’s the only dragon living openly in the whole world. He has eaten every single dragon that came for him, and he eats all of those who try and fail to kowtow to him. Oceanside and the Headmaster lead the Arcanaeum Consortium. You know of those, right? Archmage Quel is beholden to the Headmaster. The Arcanaeum Consortium are the people who raise those who lift the first spears and spells against the monsters.”

“I get that…” He didn’t get her point at all. So they were famous and powerful, so what? Erick asked, “But what’s the problem, Kiri?”

Kiri whisper-shouted, “You promised to make a light slime dungeon and you got 25 percent of the proceeds. Forgetting the very real possibility that he’ll let people use it for free, and you shouldn’t have asked for anything in return for helping to make the world a better place?” She said, “He won’t sell the rights at all. He’ll give it away and demand bargains of trade.”

Rats ate his dinner in silence. Teressa and Poi did the same.

Erick said, “I don’t think he’s petty enough to deny the spirit of that 25 percent, but even if he does get around it, it’s not a big deal. I’m glad to help civilization, Kiri. But the fact is, is that I cannot allow myself to be run over, and this way I can get [Lightwalk] and he can take care of the actual dungeon, doing whatever he wants to do with it, and the bonds between Spur and Oceanside can grow. I needed to do something to restore that bond, so I did what I could.” He added, “I did not expect there to be that much resentment or bad blood or whatever between the Headmaster and Silverite, but there is obviously something there that doesn’t need to be there.” He turned to Poi, asking, “Do you have any idea what was going on with that? I expected some of that, but the Headmaster talked of profiteering off of Ar’Kendrithyst like it was a choice of Silverite’s, and not the result of the Shades being Shades and the dark dragon being himself.”

Poi said, “Accusing Spur of profiteering is a normal enough occurrence. Neither the Army nor Silverite cares too much about all of that.” He added, “We know what we’re about, no matter if the world thinks otherwise.”

Erick said, “Silverite knows something about what happened between Messalina and the Headmaster. She wouldn’t say, but I got the impression that there was something personal, there.”

Rats said, “I heard something like that, but from this end. Messalina was a prominent student at Oceanside before she killed those seven arcanaeums.”

Kiri said, “Sorry. No.” She went back to, “That’s… not what I mean. It doesn’t matter if you made a good deal or not.” Her eyes seemed to glaze over as she stared into the distance, saying, “Nothing is real. Nothing matters.”

Erick laughed, then instantly corrected himself to a stern face, because Kiri was obviously in some sort of crisis right now. He said, “Everything is real, Kiri. Just because particles are waves and real and nothing is as we see it, does not mean that it’s not all still real.”

Poi laughed once, but as Kiri paled again, he did more or less the same thing Erick did to cover up his reaction; turning stern in a moment. Teressa and Rats just ate their dinner; silently watching the show.

Kiri said, “But it’s not real, is it? It’s all just packets of energy. We can’t really know anything about anything, can we?”

“Sure we can!” Erick said, “Right now, I know that Messalina is actively hurting the people of Spur, and that we’re doing what we can do prevent that.” He held up his fried fish bowl, saying, “I know that this is delicious.” He held up his beer, saying, “And I know that this is pretty good, too.”

Kiri looked down at her untouched food. She said, “Is it?”

Erick asked, “Focus on this, then: Do you want [Lightwalk]?” He smiled at Kiri as he said, “I’m making a dungeon full of light slimes, you know. Getting the skill is only a matter of time once everything is up and running.” He looked to everyone else, to Poi, to Rats, to Teressa. “Even if I don’t get endless amounts of money from the place, you’re all welcome to try for the skill yourself. Properly made ten floor dungeons are supposed to produce a hundred slimes a day, meaning one elemental body skill for one person every twenty to thirty days, give or take a week… I don’t know if light slimes are the same as other slimes.”

Teressa looked up for a moment, thinking. She said, “That’s 7500 gold in small rads.” Rats said, “Holy shit. Maybe I should make a dungeon.” He looked to Erick, adding, “And I want [Lightwalk], if you’re offering.”

Kiri just stared at her dinner.

Poi said, “[Lightwalk] is good, but as I’ve said: the shadows of Ar’Kendrithyst are strong enough that a strong light only makes them more powerful.”

Erick said, “That reminds me of a question I had: Are there such a thing as darkness slimes? What is the difference between darkness and shadows? Why are they called ‘shadow essences’, and not ‘darkness essences’?”

Teressa said, “True darkness is just death.”

“That’s not it.” Rats said, “Darkness is wizardry. Because yeah: Darkness does not actually exist. It takes a wizard to make darkness.”

Poi said, “That’s closer to what I’ve always been told. I can agree with that.”

Kiri seemed hollow, as she asked, “Is darkness a fundamental part of your Reality?”

Poi hummed, looking at Erick. Rats and Teressa went silent again.

Erick said, “No?” He amended, “Probably not.” He thought for a moment. “Oh! Wait. Uh. The universe that I came from was expanding faster and faster, due to some unknown energy. We called it ‘Dark Energy’, but that was just because we couldn’t see what was actually doing the expansion. Not because ‘darkness’ was a building block of Reality, but because we were just ignorant of the truth.”

Kiri sat still for a moment. Then she chugged her beer and grabbed another from the ice bucket.

Poi said, “So that’s probably enough talk of the dark for now.”

Kiri blurted, “I need you to talk about superposition again.”

“I think I told you everything I know.” Erick said, “I watched a ton of videos on the stuff to try and learn for a semester of coursework, but I really don’t know that much.” He said, “I think the problem here, Kiri, is that the magic they teach here is all about knowing and plotting and understanding, but the problem with quantum mechanics and magic is that they are inherently unknowable, until you know, and then they’re no longer wave functions.”

Kiri said, “I’m so confused but that just sounds so wrong.”

Erick didn’t argue.

Rats said, “If it’s any consolation, Kiri, I have no idea what he just said.”

“Me either,” Teressa said.

Poi just smirked.

Kiri glared at Poi, demanding, “Do you understand what he said?”

Poi said, “Of course not. I know what my magic is about, and it’s not about ‘superposition’ and ‘wave functions’.”

“Dammit.” Kiri drank her beer.

Erick ate his dinner, saying, “This fish place is pretty good.”

Poi said, “You can’t get fish like this in Spur.”

Rats said, “You can if you can catch them. Airfish are pretty good.”

Poi blurted, “You have no idea how much I wanted to catch those airfish that lured that yellow eyebeam wyrm at us.” Poi said, “Oh my gods, those things are the most delicious fish in the whole world.”

Teressa said, “Oh yeah. Slice ‘em up with salt and pepper.”

Erick said, “I should make you guys some lemon pepper fish. You might like that, Poi.”

Kiri swayed a little as she downed her fifth beer. Everyone else was halfway through eating, but she had yet to touch her food. She looked down at her bowl of fish and rice, saying, “I miss beef.” She suddenly teared up, saying, “I really miss beef.” She sniffled a little, then set her beer aside. She dug into her rice bowl.

Erick asked her, “Did your parents decide to stay in Tower Town, or did they actually move to Odaali?”

Kiri offhandedly said, “They moved to Odaali just last week. The whole family. All twelve of them started a new life in some new town just south of the Kingdom City. On a hill.”

Erick said, “Good for them!”

Rats said, “I heard the reconstruction is going decently. A lot more people survived the Dead Air Catastrophe than they thought. There’s a woman downstairs from the Republic talking all about how everyone’s mad that so many people are coming back to the city, but none of them stayed to fight.”

Teressa said, “Typical. People love to carve up territory that they had no part in settling.”

“Anyone heard anything about Caradogh or Portal?” Erick asked.

“Not much.” Poi said, “Just that Spur is really making a go of cutting them out of the loop. Kal’Duresh opened up an industrial district, outside of the main city walls. They’re making a lot of the stuff that Portal threatened to cut, and has cut. Most raw metals have been cut off entirely. None of the wrought are happy about that, but with all the new metallic Particle spells, the refineries of Nergal and the Greensoil Republic are a lot less important.” He added, “Outpost is opening up a new mine. So that problem might be solved.”

Erick said, “Caradogh really could have gone the other direction. He could have sought to export from the Crystal Forest.” A bolt of thought struck Erick cold. He said, “If that man thinks to work with Messalina.” Erick said, “Dammit! She’s probably already contacted him. Can you guys think of anyone else who would have a lot of influence and knowledge of the people of the Crystal Forest? Caradogh is just the first one that springs to mind. This might be a good vector of inquiry.”

Poi said, “Silverite is already on that. Nothing has appeared, yet.”

Kiri said, “I got no idea. Except the Shades, of course.”

Everyone stopped eating, except Kiri.

“I considered that at first. But...” Erick said, “She wouldn’t work with them, would she?”

Poi said, “Messalina is purported to be a strictly self-interested actor, so the possibility of her getting into a team with the Shades is very low… But, honestly, she could. She can operate through parasites and intermediaries without a degradation of skill, meaning that she would never need to meet a Shade in person.” Poi thought for a moment. He said, “When a major power starts operating in the Crystal Forest the possibility of a Shade plots is always the first concern raised. The verdict handed down from Silverite and other city leaders as of last week, was that Messalina was likely not working with the Shades, but if all of those people are compromised, then… We’ll have to revisit this question.”

Rats said, “Until Bulgan, if people worked with the Shades, they were roped around for a while and sure, they did some bad stuff— Like there was that serial killer in Spur two years ago. But that man ended up in Ar’Kendrithyst at the Crack and Fallopolis killed him in front of everyone.”

Teressa added, “The small antagonists quietly get turned into shadelings, but the big ones get dead. She makes a spectacle of it, too, every single time, and they always think that it won’t happen to them. That they’re only moments away from becoming a Shade themselves. Fallopolis would kill Messalina, for sure.”

Erick said, “Sounds to me like they kill the ones that make a spectacle of themselves, but probably more because they don’t want more crazy Shades added to their number.” He looked around, asking, “Does that sound reasonable? After what we saw in Yetta’s trip to kill Planter?”

Poi hummed. Kiri tilted her head back and forth. Teressa drank her beer.

Rats said, “I can see that. It might be right.”

Erick continued, “Messalina is famous, but she’s also a hedonist and an ‘evil necromancer’, according to everyone. Sounds like perfect Shade material, to me.” He added, “But if she’s not that kinda person, then I bet she’s trying to find conspirators that will help her search the Forest— And that’s another thing!” Erick said, for the benefit of Rats and Teressa, “I don’t know if I believe it, but the Headmaster said that she probably found her targets already, but she didn’t want to run back to her jungle yet… For some reason.” Erick paused. He said, “He didn’t actually say the reason. He changed the subject.”

“There was nothing left for her in that jungle, was there?” Kiri said, “They’re all dead, and unable to be re-bodied, or whatever the fuck necromancers like her do.”

Erick said, “And yea! There’s that, too! So they died, so what? She’s a necromancer, right? A necromancer that puts people into new bodies.” He looked around, asking, “What’s up with that?”

Teressa said, “I hadn’t really thought of that.”

Poi ate his fish and rice.

Rats said, “It just means the people she’s trying to find are necromancers, too, and they destroyed the souls of everyone there.”

“Oh.” Erick said, “Well. Yeah. I guess it does mean that.”

Kiri spoke up, “How much do you think everyone on our side is lying?”

Erick burst a nervous laugh.

Poi said, “The normal amount.”

“I would hope just the normal amount,” Erick said.

Jane snored in the background.

- - - -

Erick wanted to spend the night in the hospital with Jane, but that would mean everyone else would have to stay there, too, and that wouldn’t be fair to them. So he went home, and slept.

The next morning came soon enough.

After checking up on Jane, and seeing that she was perfectly fine, but still sleeping, it was time to begin to fulfill his end of the bargain he made with the Headmaster. He would need to make this light slime dungeon, and it would need to be ten floors large. Fortunately, when Krigea came to Erick to relay the Headmaster's wishes for this new construction, she came with help.

- - - -

Professor Apell Calloway, the 430-ish year old, normally pale green, human-shaped wrought professor of dungeoneering, stood beside the central pool of Erick’s dungeon, staring out across the bright, white and prismatic underground space. About two dozen light slimes bounced and played in the streaming water in front of Apell, in the kaleidoscopic light, and on the stone floor around her. They were entranced by a new light source that had entered the room; Apell, herself.

Because all wrought fluoresced in the presence of ultraviolet light, apparently.

While Poi stood a few meters away, Erick stood beside Apell, wearing sunglasses to ward off most of the bright, damaging lights of the dungeon. He could barely tell that Apell was fluorescing; she might have been ever so slightly brighter green than normal. But the light slimes all around her could definitely tell.

Erick did not interrupt this moment for her. She was obviously having some sort of emotional reaction similar to Killzone’s, or Anhelia’s, when they first saw one of Erick’s blacklights. Her eyes were wide, and her face was stunned. She had gasped when she first stepped into the tunnels coming down here, but as the two of them descended the stairs, she had gone silent; reverent. And now she stood in the center of the dungeon, surrounded by blacklights, staring at everything.

Erick waited.

Eventually, Apell said, “I can see about a thousand possible improvements. That intake up there is way too small and you have a hundred smaller intakes all over the place. What is up with that?” She pointed up at the nearest spinning kaleidoscopic wardlight, then to the next one, saying, “And those aren’t even spinning at the same rates! This place is too turbulent. I’m surprised anything grew at all!” She leaned down and patted the closest light slime, saying, “I know they’re practically mythical monsters, but surely they can grow in a more orderly environment.”

Erick laughed.

Apell stood up, saying, “What?”

“You’re not going to say anything about the blacklights?” Erick added, “The fluorescing lights.”

Apell looked at him like he was an idiot. She said, “I’m not going to say a lot about a lot. These lights are yours and I will have nothing to do with them. But I will ask you— Why no plant life?” She instantly answered her own question, saying, “Ah. Water slimes. I knew that.”

Erick said, “I was testing a theory that light slimes are photosynthetic.”

Apell scrunched her face. “Like a plant?” Apell looked back to the slimes around her feet, saying, “Maybe.”

Erick said, “It took a week to put the dungeon together, but three weeks for the first slime to appear. That was five days ago, and there were only seven of them. Now there’s two dozen. I think we should leave this area as a spawn zone and make a new dungeon in another location, in case there is something special about this location that won’t happen in a new dungeon.”

“I agree.” Apell said, “I would like to try for a space without all these extra wards. That would allow for people not in on the secret to participate in the dungeon. This new dungeon is going to be big, and that means that secrets are going to be out in the open. The Headmaster has already expressed to me that he wants to bring [Lightwalk] out of the power of the Sovereign Cities.”

“Is that his goal?” Erick asked. “I heard a lot about that place from my daughter. Seems like a place that needs help, not to have their only connection to the outside world taken away.”

“More help than you could possibly know.” Apell said, “Sometimes tough-love is the best.” She smiled. “The Sovereign Cities would agree with that statement if you were talking about screwing over their own people, but not if you were talking about screwing over their conglomeration of cities, as a whole.”

Erick grumbled, “The more I think about it, the more I’m pretty sure they tried to kill Jane and her entire team.”

Apell said, “Not any more than they were trying to kill their own. Don’t take it too personally.” She added, “Or do take it personally, and be happy that this will take away their main way to attract people like your daughter and her team to their yearly unicorn hunt. Or at least the [Lightwalk] aspect of it all. People are still going to want [Aura of Freedom] and the smaller unicorns are going to grow into larger ones to threaten Killtree, like they always do every year.”

Erick frowned at nothing in particular, thinking over Apell’s words.

Apell asked, “Can you show me the plumbing?”

“It’s over near the entrance.” Erick turned and started walking.

Poi silently flanked him from a short distance away.

Several light slimes bumbled around Apell’s feet, following her glow as Apell followed Erick, saying, “I have an old dungeon that’s seven layers deep in the southern mountains. If you’re amenable to this, then I’ll tell one of my graduates and they can go get it started. Open it up, and such.” She passed one of the roughcut diamond statues that poured water into the streams that carved across the dungeon floor, looking at the statue. “And I know it’s just diamond, but its still massively huge. These things would have been priceless just last year. We can’t have them in the new dungeon.”

Erick walked over a short stone bridge, over a stream, saying, “Sure we can. The light slimes need sparkly things to look at. They like them, too.” He exclaimed, “Oh! Maybe we could get a Crystal Agave or ten in the new place, but without the mimics in there, of course.”

“Crystal Slimes?” Apell shook her head, saying, “No. The Headmaster won’t take the chance to allow mimics to spread.”

“We could do this on an island, if you got one.” Erick said, “Might be good in case a radiant ooze spawns, too.”

“… Maybe.” Apell hummed, then said, “Might be a good idea just because we don’t know a whole lot about light slimes...” She spoke with authority, saying, “But we’re not trying for crystal slimes with this dungeon. We’re going for light slimes, and we’re going to do it well. No distractions. At least not right now.”

“Fair enough.” Erick reached the wall that hid the plumbing, near the staircase coming into the dungeon floor, saying, “Here we are. The stronger blacklights are in here, so I keep my stays in here to a minimum. I was using a [Gravity Strainer] to move the water in the beginning, but now I’m using a plain [Gravity Ward]. It lasts a lot longer, and all I’m moving is water.” With a methodical [Stoneshape], he first pushed back the light slimes gathering around Apell, blocking them behind a short wall, then he turned his attention to the wall that hid the pump room. Seams appeared in the wall, as a five foot thick, meter wide section of the dungeon wall began to slide down. Loud, crashing rushes sounded from the breaking wall, as a solid beam of bright light carved out from the interior of the pump room. Erick yelled over the roar of water, “It’s a bit loud.”

Erick revealed a bright white cavern—

Apell shied away from the opening, yelling, “Holy gods that is bright!”

Erick instantly cast a cyan maskinglight into the air, turning off the brightness. He yelled, “Sorry. This should be better.” He added an audio dampening [Ward], too, saying, “That’s better, too.”

Apell touched the cyan space surrounding Erick, that led into the plumbing area. “Okay. That’s… interesting.” She walked into the cyan maskinglight. “Okay. That’s weird. It’s not a normal lightward. I feel… mostly blind.”

Erick smiled. “Of course it’s not a normal lightward.” Erick took off his sunglasses, saying, “It blocks out all light except cyan.”

Apell frowned a little. For a moment, she looked like she wanted to ask questions, but she just turned her attention to the pump room.

The room was split into two layers. The top layer was the olympic-sized pool that supplied water to the whole dungeon floor, while the bottom pool caught that water. The streams and rivers of the main dungeon floor flowed due to natural gravity, emptying water out of the bottom of the larger pool, into dozens of smaller stone pipes that went everywhere.

But the noise, and the functionality of it all, came from a meter-wide tunnel of a white [Gravity Ward] in the lower pool. Hundreds of thousands of gallons of water per hour shot straight up through that [Ward], directly into a tunnel in the ceiling. That tunnel then led to the larger pool, where it dumped all that water back down, in a great waterfall, directly in the center of that larger reservoir.

A small waterfall of overflow water dumped over the side of the upper pool, back into the lower pool. Erick had already worked out the exact waterflow needs of the dungeon floor, but having this overflow allowed him to adjust the space out there, without overly affecting the system. Besides, evaporation was a thing that happened; as long as there was this tiny overflow, he knew that the dungeon was properly filled and operating exactly how it should.

Apell looked over the whole system, but did not venture past the cyan masklight. She did not step into the room itself. She watched the water flow, saying, “That’s a good [Gravity Ward]. Uncontrolled gravity removal is a lot easier than a strainer.”

“I agree.” Erick smiled.

She turned back to the dungeon floor, saying, “Okay. I’ve seen enough. I’m going to do some [Scry] mapping of the system here to try and see what I can improve upon later, but we can start planning the actual dungeon next.” She gestured toward the sunglasses in Erick’s hands, saying, “We’re going to need a lot of those for the grad students I’m going to enlist.”

Erick smiled as he put on his sunglasses, saying, “We’ve got a bright future ahead of us.”

Apell just looked at him. “Sorry?”

“… I guess it didn’t translate well. Maybe I should have said: We’ve got an...” Erick searched for the right word in Ecks. “We’ve got an illuminated future ahead of us.”

“Ah. It was a joke.”

Erick frowned at her.

She shrugged. “Sorry. I don’t like puns.”

Erick sighed as he walked out of the pump room. Apell followed him back onto the main dungeon floor. With a quick [Stoneshape], he closed the wall, then he dismissed the cyan masklight. From there, they walked the dungeon floor, talking of the new construction, and where it might be. Erick wanted an island, but all the islands in a thousand kilometers were already taken by a group or an individual; island property around Oceanside Island was very, very expensive. Normally, this did not matter. They could have theoretically gotten an island further from Oceanside City. But the Headmaster had already given strict instructions. He wanted the new dungeon to be within a single [Teleport].

That left the mountains down south, which was where the starter seven floor dungeon lay, or a new construction, somewhere else.

Erick decided to at least see the seven floor starter dungeon. He could decide later.

- - - -

A small mountain range ran down the center of the southern half of Oceanside Island. On the eastern side of that range, where it was always dry, was where Erick had created his [Battery] and other spells. But on the western side of that small range of peaks, the land was carved into cliffs and plateaus by nature and people, and every vertical surface bore the brunt of the westerly tradewinds, the dense mana stream, and the natural rain. Every horizontal surface was crowded with trees and bushes and ferns and flowers, while streams and waterfalls cascaded down here and there.

Erick, Poi, and Apell, had blipped onto one of those horizontal surfaces, into a part of the forest a little more than halfway up the mountainside.

The blue ocean stretched out, far to the west; a vista of darker blue that made a line from north to south, while fluffy white clouds drifted in the cyan above. Those clouds floated toward Oceanside, in a gentle, endless procession.

Erick stood on the edge of a cliff, surrounded by tall trees. Wind whipped up from far, far below, stirring in his hair, billowing through his clothes. Poi stood to the side, out of the way, but Ophiel hovered in front of Erick. Ophiel was half his true size and riding the wind with his many wings, gliding this way and that, not bothering to use [Airshape] to keep himself afloat; there was no need for that right here. He sang in harps and violins, exultant in the breezy, rushing moment.

Apell spoke behind Erick, “This place is a mess. I didn’t know it had gotten this bad.”

Erick turned. Apell stood with her graduate student, a young shifter man named Calzin. Erick hadn’t seen a shifter since he had last seen Savral’s adventuring friend, Lanore. She was an owl shifter, with white feathers in her hair, who wore a feathered, half-mask, that covered the top half of her dark-skinned face. Calzin was also an owl shifter, but he was pale skinned with dark feathers in his dark hair. He also wore a half mask, with great big eyes on that mask. Other than their feathers and their masks, they looked basically like humans. Or, at least Erick guessed they looked like humans. He still hadn’t seen one outside of a mask. Both Apell and Calzin had elected to check out the dungeon before Erick entered, and now that they had come out, neither of them looked happy.

Calzin said, “It’ll take a while to clear it all out.”

“What’s wrong?” Erick asked.

Calzin frowned, saying, “Unknown monsters and failing architecture.”

Apell said, “I can get some other graduates to clear it out. The Headmaster has deemed this a priority, so it shouldn’t take more than a day, but until that happens, I don’t feel safe letting you go in there as it is, Erick.”

Erick looked beyond Calzin and Apell, to a hole in the ground, not ten meters away. The hole stood at the base of another vertical surface of the mountain, that led up to another plateau of trees, twenty meters up. That hole was the entrance to the dungeon.

“Architecture is a problem we can deal with.” Erick said, “I can deal with monsters. I won’t damage the architecture, either.”

He walked past Calzin and Apell, both of them wincing, seemingly unsure what was going to happen, but neither of them saying anything to stop him. Erick stopped two meters from the hole in the mountain. It was easily three meters wide, and mostly dark, but Calzin and Apell had both cast minor lights into the top of the tunnel. Erick could only see to the first bend in that tunnel; ten meters down. Walls were broken, or cracked and looking to break. Roots had gotten in from the ceiling. Rubble layered the staircase leading down. Erick decided to clean this unknown place in a different way than normal, because he wanted the spell to sit down there for a while; working.

[Withering Slime].

An intangible tidal wave of thick air rushed down the hole, like a reservoir suddenly shoved through a hose. Notifications began to pop in Erick’s vision, as the semi-sentient [Withering Slime] went to work like the world’s second largest amoeba. Erick’s [Domain of the Withering Slime] was the first largest, after all.

Soon, tendrils of thick air spilled out of hidden cracks in the mountain, above the tunnel and in the dirt to the left of Erick, and to the right, like suddenly appearing half-invisible octopus arms; the spell had found its way through long-neglected mana vents and partially hidden intakes. The octopus-like quality of the spell lasted barely a second. It quickly fell back down, like goo sucked through a vent, only to poke out in other places across the forested mountainside.

Erick let it go to work. He turned back to Calzin and Apell, saying, “That’ll take ten minutes to dehydrate every monster down there. Notifications are already appearing.” Erick went silent as he went over the new blue boxes. He said, “I’m seeing acid slimes and stone slimes. Stone Spiders. Centipedes. Snakes.” He said, “It doesn’t work against monsters made without water, like most elementals. Except for water elementals, of course.”

Apell and Calzin waited.

After a full forty seconds of nothing, more notifications appeared, rapidly followed by even more.

Erick winced in disgust as he read the new blue boxes. “Oh ew. Parasite Roaches. I read about those. Nasty things.” The notifications stopped, but Erick left the spell to sit there, in case there was something else. There were certainly juvenile monsters still down there; he would need to clean up those with other spells.

Apell shivered, muttering, “Parasite Roaches. Eww.”

Calzin asked, “What spell is—”

“Nope.” Apell said, “No questions, Calzin.”

Erick smiled, saying, “This one isn’t a big deal. It’s just a dehydration spell, targeting everything with a 10 mana rad inside the body. Everything it kills, it [Cleanse]s, too.” He added, “Particle Mage Only.”

Calzin said, “Ah. Dammit. That means all the small things are still left.”

“You got it.” Erick thought about [Wintry Sea]. He said, “I can clear out those, too, but… The spells I would want to use would target everything, including people.” He looked back to Poi.

Poi nodded. He flickered with telepathic lines. Soon, the lines settled down. “There’s no one with a mind down there.”

Apell said, “Not with Parasite Roaches in the neighborhood.” She added, “We might have to go somewhere else, Erick. This place will need a major cleaning. I’m going to need to be the one to do it, too. Calzin, you need to go to the hospital and get checked over.” She looked to Erick and Poi, saying, “All of you need to go to the hospital.” She looked to the ground, saying, “I bet stray parasites are everywhere out here.”

Erick said, “I have to go back there anyway, but I want that preliminary dungeon done so I can go back to Spur. I’m going to finish putting the rest of the dungeon to rights. You don’t have to do this part, Apell, but thank you anyway.” He looked back to Ophiel. He said, “I can do it at range.” He asked Apell, “It’s only seven floors, right?”

Apell frowned. “I should be the one to do this, especially if there are parasite roaches down there. But… if you can use your [Familiar]… Then. Sure. You can do it. I got classes, anyway. I’ll check everything over later. And yes; there are only seven floors.”

“Let’s all leave, first.” Erick looked around the forest, asking, “There’s no one nearby, right?”

Poi said, “Not for kilometers.”

Erick looked back to the dark hole in the ground and the meager lights therein, where thick air still tangled, but no more monsters died. He said, “Okay.” He turned to Apell and Calzin, saying, “You two should evacuate.” He summoned another three tiny Ophiel. “This is a job for Ophiel.”

Ophiel trilled in chorus with himself.

Calzin left first, in a blip of red; headed for the hospital. Apell left shortly after, in a blip of light green. Poi and Erick left together. After a while, the thick air tangling out from the dungeon dissipated.

- - - -

Erick and Poi entered the hospital right behind Calzin, each of them reporting for a parasite checkup. They had to wait an hour because the main anti-parasiteers were all off in the Crystal Forest. After they finally managed to see the doctor, and he finally managed to cast the right spells on Erick and Poi, they were cleared; no parasites. They hadn’t actually gone into the dungeon, so Erick didn’t expect to find any, but it was still nice to know.

It wouldn’t be till later that they would hear that Calzin had several parasites that were already making homes in his feet; they had gotten through his thick boots, without him noticing.

Erick conjured a reclining chair beside Jane’s bed. He sat down beside his sleeping daughter, while Poi looked on and Teressa practiced her Mana Sense in the corner of the room. He went to work, with an Ophiel laying on his lap, and three more just now getting back to the dungeon.

Erick first made each tiny [Familiar] put on a [Personal Weather Ward].

As two of the three Ophiel moved forward, into the hole, into the tunnel beyond, they conjured lights to illuminate their way, and blue globes of freezing magic that zipped on ahead, freezing and killing bugs and roaches and monsters too small for [Withering Slime] to notice. Fallen walls were [Stoneshape]d back into position. Roots were pushed out, or cut up and burned with a [Cleansing Fire]. Cracked walls were sealed.

[Wintry Sea]s that found their way out of the dungeon, either through an inlet or an outlet, were quickly extinguished by the third Ophiel that hovered in the sky outside of the dungeon, waiting for a wayward blue globe to make itself known. That only happened twice, though.

After several hours and a break for lunch, and the installation of several bright, bright, anti-biological-level ultraviolet blacklights, and a whole lot more [Cleanse], both the normal kind and the kind imbued with fire, Erick finished most of the more obvious repairs to the initial dungeon. Then it was time to turn his attention to the final three floors that he would have to build from scratch. Exploratory [Stone Travel]s, the same spell that had gotten Erick and his people away from the hunters, were used to great effect. Ophiel rode a platform of stone that carved out a tunnel as he went down, down into the stone.

Erick quickly discovered that there was more than enough space here for three more floors, and that there were no unexpected connections to the underworld. The Headmaster wouldn’t have suggested this location if there was a chance for such a thing, but Erick still had to check for himself. Soon enough, Erick began crafting the final three floors of the dungeon.

Other obligations came up well before he was done with one of the new floors.

Erick flew the Ophiel who crafted the dungeon down into the brightest blacklights, then dismissed them. If there were parasites on those Ophiel, he didn’t want to accidentally spread them. The whole mountainside would likely need to be torn up to truly get rid of the parasites there, but the dungeon was salvageable, for sure.

But that was a problem for later. For now, Erick summoned more, fresh Ophiel, then he sent them blipping across the oceans, to bring platinum rain to the farms, right on time.