Blood Shaper

"So, why is there a Dungeon here?"

Meten gave Kay some side-eye and chuckled. "Seriously? I know that Eleniah's given you more than one lecture about Dungeons by now."

"I'm not asking you to suddenly prove one of the hypotheses of Dungeon creation. Why is there a Dungeon here? I thought we'd moved out past this area."

Kay was standing next to Meten around the backside of the mountain that loomed over Avalon's valley, close to where that curving passage that led out from the northern side of the valley and dumped back out into the wilderness ended. There were a few members of Meten's group hanging around as guards a few feet away.

"We," Meten gestured from himself to his subordinates, "Have only been moving outward and scouting new areas that we haven't touched yet. We'll need to change our approach and re-search areas every once in a while. No one thought about something like this happening."

"Well," Kay muttered, "It is pretty rare for dungeons to form in general, so having one show up in our' back line' is surprising."

One of Meten's people stepped forward. He was a young human man with coarse brown hair and leather clothes that looked flexible. "Sir?"

Both Meten and Kay glanced over, but the man was looking at Meten, so Kay held his tongue.

"Yes?" Meten responded.

"Sir, I was the one who scouted this area originally. I don't think it formed recently; I think I missed it the first time." He glanced down at the ground, shamefaced.

"Why do you say that?"

"Because there was a small hole that led in the same direction the passage does." The man pointed at the obvious doorway sitting in the middle of the rocky side of the mountain. The dark passage led deeper in towards the center of the mountain before turning enough to cut off sight further in. "I marked it down as a possible den for some unknown creature, but nothing changed about it, and I didn't find any signs of anything living in it, so I stopped checking on it after a handful of times."

Kay watched Meten as he glanced from the opening to the scout. After a moment, Meten shrugged. "You came back and checked on it multiple times and had no evidence it was a dungeon. It's not like you could have fit yourself inside the hole from the sound of it. There is no need to worry about it."

The man nodded once and stepped back.

"Alright, so it didn't just appear here, it already was here, and we just found it," Kay continued, "So what's the plan?"

"No idea yet."

"What?" Kay gave him an incredulous look, "I know you've been in more dungeons than I have. Do we need to destroy this one, or is it worth keeping around?"

"No idea," Meten repeated himself and shrugged. "No one has gone in yet."

"Why not?"

"Two reasons. One, there is a group we have that has much more experience than me or anyone else in Avalon with Dungeons. And we want you getting the First Clear bonus."

Kay sighed. "The first one I get, but really? I don't need to get the First Clear."

"It will not hurt to let you get it." Meten looked away and scanned the end of the passage from the valley. "I wonder where they are?"

Kay stared at the oni man's blank expression. "Is there something else going on?"

Meten turned and looked at him, then grinned slyly. "Well, I might be wanting to pass on the responsibility of what to do with the Dungeon to someone else."

Kay groaned and rolled his eyes. "Really?"

He nodded, still grinning, "Of course. Something as important as whether we keep a Dungeon around Avalon should be up to someone with a little more responsibility than little ol' me." He turned back towards the channel, perking up as he saw a small group approaching them. "Ah, there they are!"

Stephen, Claudia, and Leaf walked up to the group and exchanged welcomes with Kay and Meten.

"So, what's going on?" Claudia asked, "We heard there might be a Dungeon around?"

"There's definitely a Dungeon." Meten pointed at the entrance. "We had someone run in to confirm, then they came right back."

"And you want us to check it out? Deal!" Claudia grinned at Kay and stepped closer, "Let's talk compensation."

Kay pushed down a smile. "What do you want?"

"A Blood Gem with one of my skills! Same for Stephen and Leaf!"

"Can I get you to accept money instead?" He grumbled in reply.

"Not a chance!"

With a sigh, Kay nodded. "Fine. But you'll have to wait a day or two before I start, and there'll have to be a day or two in between them."

"Why?"

"Because I'm going with you, and it's incredibly draining to make them."

Claudia glanced from the Dungeon entrance back to Kay, "Oh, bringing you in for the First Clear? That's a good idea. Done." She held out her hand.

Kay reached out and shook her hand. "You know, you're citizens of Avalon too, aren't you willing to help out for the good of the Village?"

Leaf scoffed at him, "You're the one who insisted that we have a real economy."

"Because it's important! And that's why I wanted you to make money!"

"You have been offering to make Blood Gems as a service in exchange for payment," Stephen added, "So we're really just skipping a step of having to get the money from you and then bring it back."

"Oh, you guys were already planning on getting some?"

"Now that there are enough people to guard Avalon that we can send trade caravans to Tumbling Rapids, we were going to go with the next one and commission some gear." Stephen told him, "We already had some materials before we got here, then we got more from that hydra, and then the addition of your Blood Gems gave us a great opportunity to get powerful gear."

"Well, I can't really complain since it'll help Avalon," Kay muttered.

Claudia frowned, "That's not a good reason to power up adventurers."

"Huh?"

"Adventurers can leave and head to another city or country whenever they want. You should only help them grow stronger if they're in service to you or Avalon."

"You mean like the three of you are?" They, along with every other person from the first three groups that had joined to form Avalon, were sworn citizens of Avalon, bound by oaths. About a third of the newcomers that had shown up in the last year had decided to swear as well. It didn't actually change much about someone's life to swear the oaths, at least in Avalon. There were some jobs that you couldn't hold without taking that oath, along with others depending on the job, like being a guard, part of Meten's group, or becoming a teacher at the school. For most countries, the only people who needed to swear oaths like that were powerful or had influential jobs or positions. Kay thought of it as having a security clearance. People with oaths to Avalon or Kay had higher clearance than regular citizens and thus got more information or better stuff.

"Don't worry," Kay told them, "I won't be giving out Blood Gems to random people or even selling them. They're a limited resource to help us. Not anyone else."

"Good. I'm glad you get that because we're going to have more people coming into the area, as long as we don't destroy this Dungeon."

Kay sighed and turned to face the Dungeon. "The easiest of the five ways to get magical items."

"I think just finding one is easier," Leaf commented, "But Dungeons are more reliable than that, and they're certainly cheaper than buying one and easier than most Quests or making your own."

"Once word gets out that a little village like ours has a dungeon, adventurers will flock here looking to exploit it and us. The Adventurers Guild will follow since they'll want a cut of the adventuring in the area, as well as the Dungeon. People will show up to try and profit off the influx of adventurers, and the next thing you know, we have a population boom ten times the size of the one we just had." Kay sighed and shook his head. "Meten."

"Yes, sir?" Meten glanced over, shifting to a more formal tone.

"After we get back, if we haven't destroyed the Dungeon, you'll send someone into town. We need a detachment from the Planning and Building Offices to get down here and make fortifications. A group of your people will be on guard duty rotations until further notice. Then we'll have to start ramping up our plans to start a military."

"The guards will have to be increased as well."

"It's good that I picked a Head Guard today, then." Kay stopped in his plans and frowned. "Wait, what am I doing? We have to go see if this Dungeon is even worth keeping." He gestured at the three Adventurers and started walking towards the entrance.

He walked slowly for a few steps so they could catch up, then glanced at each of them. "Do you guys know what skills you want me to gem?" At some point, at Eleniah's insistence, Kay had begun experimenting with his Skills. She'd made a giant list of ideas and pushed him to try everything. One of the ideas had actually led to a real discovery. By taking a lot of blood from someone and then using Enhance Blood, Meld Blood, and Shape Blood all at the same time on it, Kay could condense the blood down into a gemstone. Those Blood Gems were all magical items that had effects related to one Skill from the person whose blood Kay used. As far as he could tell, Enhance Blood and Meld Blood somehow combined to make the blood embody the skill, and then Kay shaped it into a solid gem that could be used. Most active Skills got turned into a passive effect that boosted that one Skill, but passive Skills became weaker versions that stacked with the Skill itself.

It also turned out that you could take the Blood Gems and use them to create magical equipment if you had skilled enough crafters to make the equipment. Meten had said that he'd heard the Rune Master could do something similar, and Eleniah knew of two others that could make similar items back in her cousin's country. They didn't have good enough crafters in Avalon yet, which was why the three adventurers would have to head to Tumbling Rapids to get the items made.

"I have a passive skill that decreases how much mana I use in fire spells," Claudia replied to his question, "So I'll get that."

"Two of my Classes share a skill that lets me absorb force from attacks and use it later in different ways. I'm hoping you can make a gem that buffs both." Stephen said.

"I'll try?"

Stephen shrugged, "That's all I can ask."

"Leaf?"

"I'm not sure yet. I still have a few options to narrow down."

"Then we should do yours last." They stopped in front of the entranceway. "Any tips?"

"Watch out for traps. Some Dungeons have them, some don't. Other than that, it depends on the Dungeon itself."

"Alright then." Kay stepped inside the Dungeon and started walking. For the first time, Kay felt the unique pressure that he'd been told about from being inside of a Dungeon. He understood why everyone had called it pressure because that was the closest thing he could think of next to what it really felt like to him. Without ever having the experience of pressing a vacuum cleaner to their skin and yanking it off, there weren't many ways for people in this world to feel suction. Maybe fighting a few different kinds of mages, but how many people did that? The sensation felt as if a minuscule vacuum was right above the entirety of his body. Kay cataloged the feeling and put it with the rest of the data he was collecting about the world of Torotia. This specific piece of data might support his hypothesis. But that was for later.

They got thirty feet in before the tunnel started to curve.

"At least this gets dark like normal," Kay muttered as he pulled out a glowstone to see by.

"Speaking of, has anyone found out why those tunnels do that?" Stephen whispered a question.

"Nope. We don't really have any magical researchers, so it's still a mystery."

They traveled another hundred feet before the passage widened from six to ten feet wide. Ahead of them, a few piles of rocks lay scattered across the floor. Kay deliberately made a wide circle around the first pile, watching it closely. So closely that he almost missed the sharpened stake of rock that dropped down from above.

Leaf's warning shout got Kay's attention, and he jumped back out of the way. The stone spike slammed down into the floor right where Kay had been standing and shattered, sending a spray of sharp shrapnel in every direction.

Kay held his arms up and formed his blood armor into shields to block the stone fragments, then glanced at the top of the remaining stalactite.

Are those legs?

With a sharp crack, part of the stalactite snapped off of the top of it and flipped over. The creature that had had the stalactite growing from its back flipped onto its stomach and growled at the group. It had an ovular body that was cracked in places and jagged from where the stone had broken off of it; it had four scaly legs with clawed feet and an alligator-like head, all colored a dark gray. It hissed and growled, then leaped at Kay's throat.

Kay swung down with the spiked end of his halberd and slammed the creature into the ground. The spike from his weapon cracked its body, and it fell into pieces that lay unmoving.

"Well, that wasn't much of a threat." Kay commented as he scanned the ceiling for more dangers, "At least not in direct combat. I think it landing on me would have hurt a little." He glanced down at the pile of rocks. "Do you think that these are supposed to be distractions or something else?"

"I don't know." Leaf replied, "But I'm telling Eleniah you didn't look up."

"Well, that's just rude!"