After a thorough explanation of Vanya’s ideas for a Grand Dungeon of Storm’s Edge, Soltic was impressed. Lord Jarod and Lady Glariol had been more than that. They had begun to speak of plans, and hidden resources, and what would need to happen, going forward, for Vanya’s plan to actually happen. Primarily, they needed to link with others in the city, to get the Church and the Regency and the Dungeon Guild ready to accept an adjustment of at least one of the seven dungeons. If the adjustments went well, and if others approved, then they could go forward with all the rest of the Grand Dungeon creation.

“The first major issue to solve is getting Vanya approved by the lords. We’ll set that up, but you have to follow through.” Lord Jarod finished with, “So hide. Delve for a while. Find out everything you can. We’ll contact you in four days with more information. Be prepared to defend your ideas, and your self.”

Soon enough, Soltic and Vanya were back at their rooms in the Dungeon Guild.

It was time for Erick to learn a special technique.

They were under an Obfuscation and Privacy spell, because Erick, as Erick, stood on one side of the room and Quilatalap, as Quilatalap, stood on the other. A simple grand rad hovered in the air between them. It was not special in any specific way, having been one of any number of suitable grand rads taken out of Quilatalap’s storage rooms for this task, but it was necessary to learn this specific trick; smaller rads didn’t pull in mana like a grand rad did. Even now, the grand rad was subtly shaping the manasphere around it, drawing in mana like a siphon, like a weaker version of a dungeon’s entrance, and core.

Erick shook out his hands to loosen up, then he reached his aura out to cover the rad, manually shaping a spell, humming as he did so, locking his resonance to the crystalline growth’s own resonance. Quilatalap looked on, not saying anything; just watching. Rapidly, Erick felt a connection to the rad take hold. The malformed sphere of crystal began to resonate with the very air, pulling in even more atmospheric mana; pulling in Erick’s mana—

The grand rad shimmered and cracked, filling the air with a spark of blue fire—

“Dammit,” Erick said, knowing what was coming already.

The grand rad suddenly flashed over, igniting like black powder, sending plumes of blue fire into the air. That fire washed over the room, alighting the space with tiny blue flames that began to turn orange as the bedding, the drapes, and the floor caught flame.

Grand rads were not normally so volatile, but this particular one was, for whatever reason. Quilatalap thought that the problem was on Erick’s end, and so, like he had said a few times already—

“You’re gonna want to [Return],” Quilatalap said, nonjudgmental.

Erick sighed. And then he [Return]ed to 10 seconds in the past, sending his cognizance into his perspective of before he had fucked up the experiment. The grand rad hovered before him, and Erick did not continue as he was supposed to. Instead, he looked to Quilatalap and said, “I have never needed to use [Return] so many times in a single day. Explain it to me again, in a different way than you did before.”

Quilatalap looked at him. “… How many failures has that been?”

“Three [Return]s. Catastrophic failure each time.”

“Maybe you’re trying too hard… Or have I suggested that already?”

Erick explained his process succinctly, “Elemental Book in my aura. Surround the rad. Resonate with the rad. Feel the words spill out of it. Don’t push too hard. It’s not [Editing Aura]; it’s simply checking on the makeup of the grand rad, of the organized structure of the mana therein.”

“Let’s try it from the second part of the process; might have more luck there.” Quilatalap moved on, explaining once again, “This experiment here is simply a test run, to get you familiar with the process of interfacing with a rad, but you won’t be able to interface with the dungeon core, and the developed version of this magic isn’t meant to allow you to interface directly with a dungeon core, anyway. This magic is to allow you to look as though from a grand distance; anywhere inside a dungeon core space. Close, far, doesn’t matter.

“So, this time, I want you to hold your mana open and let Elemental Book flow through the air to the grand rad. Don’t envelop the rad entirely. Check on it from afar.

“When your mana touches the rad, I want you to take that ephemeral connection and see what the Book tells you. You might make a spell out of it here on Veird, but the only way it’s going to work inside a dungeon is if you know how to work it correctly, without Script assistance.” Quilatalap added, “And you’re not trying to [Identify] the grand rad, though this spell is loosely based on [Identify]. You’re trying to mana sense the parameters of the dominant mana controller in the area. Different applications of this magic can let you identify Domain work without [Identify]ing anything at all.”

“[Identify] without [Identify],” Erick said, “Sure. I’ll try it again that way.”

Quilatalap nodded.

Erick stood a bit straighter. And then he held out his aura, flowed some Elemental Book through all of himself and also the air, and felt the subtle pull of the grand rad’s flow, tugging his Book into the malformed crystal. He watched the world with his mana sense...

And it was working this time. Erick did not get a blue box, but he did get to read the mana in the air. It was sort of like reading, anyway. It was also sort of like listening, and feeling, and knowing—

He got a blue box.

Mana Reading, concentration, special range, 5 mana per second

Attempt to understand and label the predominant forces in the mana. Specific targets with specific connections give better readings. 

He also got a stream of words crossing through his senses, though they were more like idea-forms, and not like words at all.

Fire. Death. A malformation of snake and bird. A trickster that has been tricked. Level 59. Forms of Couatl. Variant. Killed by Death. Illusion and whimsy and hate. Kill the living. Transform bones into babies. Spread. Plague. Grow and tear. Strength 57. Vitality 89. Willpower 38. Focus 99. Age 3. Natural Flight. Decay Venom. Toxic Immunity. Fires of the Damned. Crawler of Pestilence. Drinker of the Damned. Floater in the trees. Strikes-from-behind...

As the deluge of information flooded Erick’s Sight, he rapidly began to understand that he was seeing the grand rad through the lens of Elemental Book, joined to the viewpoint of the Script. When he had that realization the information shifted; instead of being a floating impression of Elemental Book, of words, Erick saw fragments of events inside those words. The words were not simply telling a story, they were illustrating that story.

It was a story of the largest events in the Death Couatl’s life. The moment when the couatl turned into a thing of bones and venom and illusion magics; when it killed a group of pixies at the edge of pixie lands; when it was killed in return, and yet reformed later, for it was a natural undead and it could not be killed so easily as normal creatures could be killed.

Erick watched the death couatl die to the pixies, and its grand rad harvested from the body, ensuring that it remained dead. The grand rad had changed hands many times, Erick saw, but he could not see those hands, exactly. Whatever the case, it had ended up here, in this room, under this experiment…

Erick pulled back, then looked to Quilatalap.

Quilatalap was grinning. “It worked that time. What did you see?”

“A variant couatl. Death, Decay-Fire, along with the usual couatl bend toward Illusion. Pixies killed it eventually.” Erick said, “I got a spell, too. [Mana Reading]. Not a base spell, though. What’s the base spell?”

“[Identify]. Could also be [Witness]. Not sure.”

Erick scrunched his face. “ ‘Not sure’?”

Quilatalap chuckled. “[Mana Reading] isn’t a base spell like [Witness], because if it were then you’d have 10 ranks of it. You can’t buy it for a point, which means that it’s one of the hidden spells that you have to make yourself. In addition, [Mana Reading] is only ever attained by people who put a lot of effort into Book Magic and mana sensing and aura control, so the exact way that [Mana Reading] happens is up for debate.” Quilatalap shrugged. “An academic debate, too. It’s not even a useful spell in almost all ways, because, again, it’s Book Magic. You could probably ask Rozeta if you wanted to know the real truth of the progenitor of [Mana Reading]. I certainly don’t know how all the magic of the Script got there in the first place.”

Erick smiled a little at that. Sometimes, in their teaching sessions, he reached the end of Quilatalap’s knowledge, and every time it surprised him. 

Quilatalap continued, “Anyway. With the level of personal control you have shown, you should be able to read a dungeon core rather well from anywhere inside a dungeon. From there, you can use what you find to plan a course of attack, or of change. The spell doesn’t give you any real power, though. Just information.” Quilatalap said, “Like. Let us pretend this couatl rad was a dungeon core. Using this magic, I would see that the couatl is death-aligned and dislikes pixies, so, in order to infiltrate the dungeon all the way down to its core without setting it off, I could transform myself into a full skeleton, and then walk into the place and talk about killing annoying pixies. I could do that for a day or two, and eventually the core would make contact with me because it would see in me a kindred spirit. From there, if I got closer to the core, or if I could at least have a direct line of sight to it, then I might be able to cast this same sort of magic again and get even better information with which to tailor the rest of my approach. At the very least, if the dungeon does not approach you, then you can use this sort of magic to track down the flow of mana in a dungeon, in more precise ways, and figure out where the core actually is. There’s a lot of caveats to the usefulness of this spellwork, and it is very soft in its usefulness, but when it works, it works well.”

Erick smiled a little bit. “Sometimes it takes Jane a week to find an uncooperative dungeon core.”

Quilatalap shrugged. “If you want to teach her this magic, you can, but it only really works on dungeon cores that aren’t trying to fuck you over. This sort of spell can be used to get a generalized, Book Magic interpretation of any active spell effect, actually. You can even use it against other people a little bit, but biology gets in the way of that. And, like I’ve said more than a few times, it’s Book Magic; it’s not precise, it’s not foolproof, it’s not to be relied upon. But it can give you clues to follow up on, if you know how to read it right.” He added, “Those caveats are why Book Magic isn’t more widely used; it relies too much on your own vision and point of view to make sense of what it’s sensing.”

“I get it, I get it. Jane probably wouldn't be interested anyway.” Erick said, “I still don’t understand how she goes into dungeons all the damned time. And not just the nice dungeons, but the dungeons that have gone bad or been abused and who want to kill everyone for those hatreds.”

“Aye; she likely couldn’t use [Mana Reading], or simple mana reading.” Quilatalap said, “And don’t forget that some dungeons are simply born hostile to life. It might help to think of dungeons less like gate spaces, and more like alternate realities anchored to this one via a specialized mana core. Sometimes alternate realities are simply hostile to everything.”

“Ahh… Yeah. Kinda sad, isn’t it?”

Quilatalap shrugged. “Life is kinda sad sometimes, causing all sorts of possibilities to spring to being in the Dark, as we live and work and dream of other places and possibilities.”

“… Huh. You know… I don’t think I have a single Elemental Dream spell. Are there many of those?”

“There used to be a lot of Elemental Dream. Now, though, it’d call Dream one of the Very Esoteric Elements; mostly the realm of the gods these days. Maybe some Mind Mages, too. The Red Dream of the Orcols is both Dream and the domain of Aloethag, for instance.” Quilatalap said, “Elemental Dream is close to Elemental Illusion, but heavily angled toward Chaos. Some call Elemental Dream as Pure Chaos, but that’s untrue. Elemental Dream is very good for meeting others on a level field, exposing neither side to danger. Of course, Elemental Dream is very bad about doing what you want it to do, and working how you want it to work. When Paradox Wizards talk to other versions of themselves, that’s sort of like Dreaming.”

“Well that’s all rather interesting.” Erick moved the conversation back to the current work. “What’s the spell to change the dungeon without others knowing?”

“That was a little lie of mine. It’s actually just [Editing Aura], and many small pieces of the cores of dungeons I have worked on before. The only part you’re missing are the pieces of other dungeons, but you can accrete a small duplicate fraction of your own core and use that instead.”

Erick was chuckling. “You acted like you knew some special magics back there with Jarod and Glariol! It’s just [Editing Aura]!”

Quilatalap smiled warmly. “Us ‘cultists’ don’t give up information about ourselves nearly as well as you ‘xoatists’.”

Erick felt his face heat as his expression dropped. He whispered, “Gods above, I have to act like a Xoatist now, don’t I.”

Quilatalap chuckled, transforming back into Vanya before he was finished laughing, a deep belly mirth turning into a happy woman’s giggle. “We should visit the local Xoatist church!”

“No,” Erick said, as he turned into Soltic.

“It’ll be fun! We can see what they’re saying about you, you can half-die from embarrassment, and you can also see what a Xoatist service is like! Who knows! You might have to really pretend to be one of them in front of Lord and Lady Maryol.”

“I will get by with being thought of as a yet-another lying immortal, thank you very much.”

Vanya giggled again.

Before they continued with their day, Soltic opened a [Gate] back to Vanya’s grand rad hoard and she put the couatl rad back in its stasis lock on its appropriate shelf. And then it was time for dungeon delve #2, this time in dungeon 1, the central dungeon of the 7 dungeons of the Pit.

- - - -

The last delve of the day, the 4 pm slot, was one of the worst delves of the day for a few reasons, though you couldn’t tell any of those reasons without going inside. Even from the inside, things looked mostly normal.

But the air had a sinister quality to it that it didn’t have in the earlier delving time slots.

Stone barges covered the land in every direction, looking like the tops of thick walls in an open-air maze filled with water. Iridescent white coral growths stuck up here and there, like solid, 3-meter tall messes of porous bone, frozen in an unseen current. The sky above was the underside of a water’s surface, while the water down here, between the roads, was a dark abyss. Dungeon 1 looked almost identical to dungeon 5, from yesterday, but the absolute shape of it all was very different. Only someone who looked out for details could really tell the difference, though, and only in the shape of the roads and the positions of the coral.

Soltic spotted even more extra details than the normal ones. The water looked a little red in spots, but then, when he looked directly, the red was gone. The corals looked shaper; more brittle. The sky was dimmer, as though clouds held far above the watery surface.

And the amount of loot was less. That was the major change in the late-day delving time slot. The dungeon had to grow its loot; and that growing took time. The best time to delve was in the morning, at the crack of dawn, but those slots were reserved for the Regency forces; the public was not allowed in those first-loot dives.

Vanya strode across the shimmer of darkness that separated the safe entrance from the rest of the dungeon, headed toward the first coral growth, saying, “Even if the take is a lot less than at the beginning of the day, we gotta do a full clear, because I want some new clothes.”

A minor lie. They needed to do a full clear so that all the traps were sprung and all the danger was done, and then the core would become exposed. Theoretically. At least that’s what the Maryols had guessed and Vanya had also guessed; they didn’t really know. For all of the Maryol’s nobility and connections in Storm’s Edge, they were just adventuring nobles who existed outside of the system here at the Pit. They knew a lot, but not as much as insiders, and that was by the design of the Regency. 

Vanya was of the opinion that the dungeon had maybe three zones. The first zone, where they were now, a ‘free for all zone’ at the second floor, where the fish and such lived and ate and did whatever, and then there was the third floor, where the core was. Though to call them ‘floors’ was a misnomer. This top ‘floor’ was surely a floor; it was flat and expansive enough. But the space below the barges, below the abyss, was likely a series of holding tanks filled with monsters, and completely not set up for people to move through.

Whatever the case, they needed a full dungeon run in order to force the dungeon to spend enough resources on driving Vanya and Soltic away so that there was less between her and the core. A delve through the second layer, beyond the abyss below, would be better, but that was not going to happen.

But in order to do a full clear up here...

Soltic frowned as he followed Vanya, saying, “So one of us has to attack the tentacles, enraging the octopus, and then we die, and the danger ramps up considerably.”

“You don’t have to attack the tentacles with me. You can keep a lookout for the radiant eel and try to kill it when it shows.”

Soltic breathed a bit, then said, “How about we try… I don’t know. Anything else in order to talk to the dungeon.”

“Well…” Vanya glanced back at him, and then paused her walk, and turned around. “Dungeons are places of controlled chaos, with a few different ways to do them correctly for the best benefit, but that benefit is measured out by the dungeon itself, and the values of two different people are often not the same at all. And yes, dungeons are people. It’s very possible to break the systems they impose in order to impose your own solutions. The purpose of the Trials of the Dark, after all, is to help people become stronger on their own merit. So, if you can break the dungeon, then you deserve to break the dungeon and impose your will upon it.” Vanya said, “Just know that if you break the dungeon by doing something truly outside of the scope of the dungeon, then you might actually break the dungeon, Soltic. This means that all the monsters are released, the bosses go wild, and a bunch of other shit happens, but you do gain access to the core, and are able to truly impose your will.” She asked, “So? Do you want to break the dungeon, and deal with that plague? Or do you want to do it normally, allowing me to get close to the core without causing any longer-term problems for us?”

“… Let’s do it normally. I’ll stand back and you can do whatever you want.”

Vanya smiled a little. “Thank you. I’ll attack the tentacles. Let it take me, or whatever it wants to do. You stand back.”

Soltic nodded a little, but said nothing else.

And Vanya turned to the coral they had reached while talking. It was a normal 3-meter tall tower of twisting ‘bone’, with a hollow cavity in the center that was filled with liquid light, and a little collection of gold wires inside that light. The wires were much smaller than they were the other day. This small bit was only worth about 3 or 4 gold, though it would have to be mixed with other metals and transformed into coins in order to be worth that much.

With a quick ripple of Force, Vanya severed the coral growth from top to bottom right, perfectly missing the cavity in the center. As a third of the coral slid off the tower and crashed into the water, the gold stood exposed among a splash of light, and Vanya grabbed the gold.

Instantly, bubbles burbled from the waters; 4 of them. Each bubble burst, releasing a toother; a rather standard variation of what happened to normal, small fish when they monsterized. As Vanya killed those toothers and pulled out the rads from the two real ones, Soltic stood back, preparing to watch Vanya die.

… And then nothing happened. The two copied toothers broke apart into motes of mana, while the red pools from the two real ones began to drip down the sides of the stone barge, into the waters. As blood spread, nothing happened—

Vanya had been waiting for it, but she stood up suddenly.

“Oh. Right,” Soltic said, realizing what Vanya had just realized. “We got to the second growth before the tentacles came out.”

Vanya smiled, and then they moved on to the second coral growth, saying, “This place has solid-set rules! I’m impressed.” With the passing of a monowire line of Force, Vanya carved her way into the second growth and then, with other magics, she pulled out the goods and stuffed it into a bag, along with the other rads. Bubbles burbled from the waters again, and a quick whip-crack of Force ended the decay-eel threat before it could get close enough to harm.

Putrid green eel slapped against the stone road—

A thick, red-purple tentacle, lined with fangs and suckers, whipped out of the water to slam onto the fish bits. Vanya met the intruder with a line of molecular Force, while laying several other lines of molecular Force all around her battlefield.

The tentacle crashed into the cutting wire and then, like it had touched a burning stove, or like it had strummed a cutting string on a banjo, the tentacle pulled back. Or at least it tried to. The wire had dug into the flesh, halfway, and when the creature pulled back, bleeding profusely, it didn’t pull directly backward. It retreated at an angle, cutting off a good section of its body, leaving behind a meter-long section of flesh, festooned with suckers and fangs and bright blue blood.

The ocean under the barges screamed—

A hundred tentacles reached up from the waters nearby, each of them already scrambling over themselves in their haste to get to Vanya, who had turtled-up behind layers and layers of monowire Force. It was not a one-sided battle, as Soltic had initially suspected it would be. Vanya was surprised her wires held out for more than half a second, too.

The wires didn’t even break in the assault, either. What got Vanya was much more simpler than tentacles reaching for her, and capturing her, to rip her apart.

She lasted three seconds. Maybe three and a half seconds. Tentacles broke. Blue blood went everywhere. The ocean screamed. And water boiled over the edges of the stone walkway. A half a tentacle got through the wire cage, and that was it. The slickness of the floor is what actually did Vanya in. Perhaps an [Alter Friction] was used, too. Vanya put [Alter Friction] on her monowires, too, and that was a Force spell, in a Force dungeon, so it made sense that the octopus could do something similar.

Vanya had secured her footing with a flight spell, but that didn’t seem to matter.

She slipped. She carved herself upon her own defenses, and from there it was a quick end. The octopus got hold of her, and through a surge of water from the side…

Soltic watched as Vanya passed through her own slicer, and disappeared into the water, into a boiling of tentacles and an exultation of triumph from the octopus, still deep under the abyss, down below the stone barges. Soltic had remained 20 meters away this whole time.

All he could do was watch.

When the disaster was over, he sat himself down on the stone ground, and waited, mumbling to himself, “I thought I was done with therapy, but I suppose I have something new to talk about.” He sat there on the cold stone and watched, almost lazily, as a slow radiant eel came out of the waters to the right, glowing as bright as the sun. It plucked a distant coral from the roads, turning the bone-like material into countless iridescent white fish, and, perhaps lazily, took the gold wires down into the depths. The eel did this once more, and then a third time, but by then, Erick’s melancholy had turned to anger. He said to the dungeon, “Fuck you.”

He took aim. A well-formed and powered [Force Beam] lanced out of Soltic’s aura, traveling a much longer distance than a normal [Force Beam], to clip the radiant eel on the tail, scattering motes of radiance off into the air. The eel yipped, then dove down into the depths, before it could take the coral and its prize.

Soltic stood up and prepared for the tentacles to come for him. They weren’t supposed to, according to the dungeon’s design and history, but dungeons got weird sometimes.

Nothing happened for five minutes, and then the safe space by the dungeon entrance flashed over, completely dark. When the dark retreated Vanya stood there, naked and cognizant and then rapidly applying magics to herself to conjure her armor. Soltic knew that she did not really die; that she was always going to come back. But still, watching her be shoved through her own magic like that was…

“That was uncomfortable,” Vanya said, walking close enough that they were together again. She wrapped Soltic in a quick hug, then pulled away. “The octopus has a [Force Domain]. I probably could have taken it if it hadn’t taken over control of my Force spellwork.”

Soltic blinked a few times. “It took over your spellwork?” And then he realized. “Oh. It has Force Weaver— Oh. The dungeon only allows Force Magic but the dungeon master has Force Weaver, so… No wonder no one has ever been able to kill the octopus.”

“It has something like Force Weaver; not sure if it has that Ability specifically. Whatever it was, it corrupted my natural connection to my mana, usurping control, but if I had a [Force Domain] I could have prevented that. It didn’t actually turn my Force Magic against me, though. Nor did it conjure Force of its own.”

Quilatalap had Domains of every possible kind. Erick even had a [Force Domain]. It wasn’t nearly as good as his Benevolence spellwork, but it was serviceable.

Vanya and Soltic did not have a [Force Domain], though.

Soltic asked, “Shall we do the rest of the dungeon? Worry about [Force Domain] later?”

“Sure.” Vanya added, “I have realized why the Regency and others like this dungeon like it is; it’s near perfect in its simplicity and safety. Do you know how difficult it is to find a Domain-holding monster? Impossi— Oh… Hmm.”

“… What?”

“Maybe it’s a person— The octopus, I mean. It might be a [Polymorph]ed person, inside that octopus— But. Hmm. Then why are there dungeon breaks at all?” Vanya looked out across the waters. “… A problem to tackle another day. Did the radiant eel come out?”

“Yeah. I clipped it when it tried to take a coral.”

“Good. From what I’ve heard, the eel shouldn’t return. Maybe we’ll get all the rest of the gold today!” Excitedly, she added, “And we’ll get that wyrm, too!”

Soltic almost said something else, about danger and death and other overly-worried things, but he decided to hold that comment back until the end of the delve.

They went to the next coral, Vanya popped it, and then the two of them together defended themselves from the sudden appearance of three great black sharks. There was no shark meat to be had, though, because all three were copies.

The next coral came with a swarm of toothers; 63 of them to start, and then an additional 30 when the first group didn’t inflict any damage. Several of them were real this time, so they collected those rads and added them to the new bag, held on Soltic’s back.

By coral #13, which was 2 corals away from the halfway point, Soltic and Vanya were facing an ocean-churning horde of toothers and smaller darters and a few larger, more problematic cephalopods. The funky-looking squids, each of them two meters tall and hanging back, floated in the air and acted like turrets. They were the real problem. Those 8-legged floaters fired [Force Bolt]s at Soltic and Vanya in bursts of 8, and also in series, releasing one Bolt right after the other.

Both Soltic and Vanya each had to employ floating Shield spells in order to fend off those Bolts. They had to recast those Shield spells a few times, too, but the Shields worked well.

Soon, they had reached the end of the line; a stone barge that ended at open water. On the other side of open water lay another stone barge. Between them lay a coral, growing tall and white in the watery light from above.

A quick snap of Force released the gold wires from the center. A pull-and-stuff placed the wires into Soltic’s bag, just in time for the water to boil all around the broken coral. The boiling spread, like ten thousand fish swam under the waves all around, and something had disturbed those fish to breach the surface.

And then, the coral before them plunged into the waves, as though it was yanked down by a god. A whirlpool formed where the coral had vanished. Darkness spread upward—

White water shot into the sky, and then transformed into a sleek, white dragon, endlessly coiling up from the depths, roaring with hate—

As the beast coiled in the air, Soltic realized a few fast facts. It was neither ‘white’ nor a ‘dragon’. It was dragon-shaped, but it was made out of coral and bone and blood and viscera, with yet another glowing spot in the center of it where the grand rad usually was in a wyrm. It certainly looked like a wyrm, but it was not a wyrm at all. Soltic had no idea why the delvers called it a wyrm when it clearly wasn’t, but Wyrm Season had been a rather well-controlled phenomenon for a decade now, so maybe the newer generations were simply not used to seeing a real wyrm.

The ‘wyrm’ roared, and flew into the sky, then rapidly came back down onto the other nearest coral, left behind from the previous treasure taking. The beast flickered with power as it crashed into the left-over growth, diving back into the water, and then curling up and around the stone barge, as it headed for another coral growth that Soltic and Vanya had broken in their passage.

Vanya rushed forward, giving chase, saying, “It’s getting healthier with each coral it eats! Come on! We gotta kill it fast!”

Soltic could see that, he supposed. He kept right up with Vanya, saying, “It’s not a wyrm at all.”

Vanya laughed as she shot a person-thick [Force Beam] at the ‘wyrm’, just behind its head. She clipped the beast and trailed a line of destruction down the white-thing’s flank, carving away coral and flesh as she went. The beast began to dodge, but Vanya’s aim was impeccable, and for a full 7 seconds, she carved away bits of the monster. Finally, though, her spell cut, and the beast, sensing weakness, howled and turned toward Vanya, rushing, mouth wide open, fangs of bone and coral ready to crush down—

Soltic and Vanya both shoved [Force Beam]s through its body, disrupting its form but not killing it. It kept rushing forward, right at the delvers, but Vanya erected a quick series of [Force Wall]s, and monowire cutters between them, along with a bunch of smaller magics.

And then they waited, there in the middle of the walkway, right in front of the monster’s open maw as it rushed at them, right into the trap.

The beast turned to coral bits and broken, cubed flesh as momentum kept it coming. It was already dead long before those bits impacted the Walls around Soltic and Vanya, but whatever spell Vanya had put upon the monowiers out there forced the wyrm’s barge-sized body to keep coming, to keep turning to broken bits.

Coral and blood and bone went into the waters all around, and then finally, some inner radiance impacted the cubing-Force in front of Soltic and Vanya. Just like how the inner treasure spots inside the coral growths turned to floating light when disturbed, the light inside of the wyrm turned into floating radiance. That radiance spread outward, and the entire coral wyrm began to break; to disintegrate.

The waters filled with falling coral and fish bits.

Behind them, some of that coral came back together, forming an iridescent white extension to the grey-white stone barges, connecting the first half of the dungeon floor to the second half. Undisturbed coral lay on that other side, full of gold, waiting to be plucked.

Soltic said, “So that radiant spot in the coral wyrm was probably the radiant eel, and the coral treasures are its ‘eggs’.”

“I’m going to keep all of this first floor when I remake this dungeon. I love it.” Vanya walked toward the coral bridge, and then went right over it with out a single care, saying, “Simple, yet elegant; just like this bridge. Just how I want to make the Grand Dungeon.”

She was not pulled under by a tentacle monster. She went across without incident.

… Soltic followed along, his heavy feet crunching a little bit into the coral as he walked atop it, but a bit of Force under his shoes stopped any further destruction to the bridge. When he reached the other side, he asked, “When you told the Maryols your plan for this place… Was that the full plan?”

“Ideas will have to be adjusted, of course, but yes. Pretty sure; yeah. It’ll be a recreation of Storm’s Edge, covered in coral. I think I’ll keep the coral wyrms, if they are actually just radiant eels. Those things seemed pretty smart; able to follow instructions well.” She raised her voice, speaking to the dungeon, “And I want to keep the octopus, too. They seem very smart!” When nothing burbled up from the waters, Vanya said to Soltic, “This whole thing is going to be magnificent.”

Yesterday, Vanya had outlined her general idea, as given to her by Sininindi. The goddess of Storm and Sea wanted to make extensive use of the False Society option inherent to every dungeon core; to create a city of fake people who could eventually become real through interaction with the rest of the world, when the rest of the world visited them through the dungeon. The False Society option was basically pre-fugue shadelings on steroids. Or maybe it was more like the routine parts of a wrought Geode, where everyone had a routine they did each day, like getting bread from the bakery at exactly 9:18 am, or get up at 4:27 am in order to bake the bread, or to gift the same book to the same person every week on ninthday, at dinnertime.

There had been a lot of talk about the False Society option in every major political circle of the entire world, long before the actual horrors of that option showed themselves on the Surface, years ago, in the middle of the Freelands ordeal. Not a lot of people knew much about that full horror, but Erick did. Quilatalap did. All of the major players of House Benevolence did, because Erick had needed to step in to solve that population crisis. The Maryols sort of knew...

But the common person did not.

They reached the next coral growth. Vanya cut it up, and extracted the goods. They killed the fish. They walked to the next growth.

And Soltic decided to say, “There’s going to be a lot of pushback on the False Society.”

Vanya nodded, solemnly. “I expect it. But the system produces people that are real, eventually, and when they wake they’re real people. You saw those interviews with the people from the Free Dungeon.”

For the sake of [Witness], Vanya had said ‘you saw those interviews’, when in fact Erick had directly participated in those interviews. A lot of thoughts suddenly crossed Erick’s mind at that moment. Maybe, while ‘Vanya’ was here, ‘Soltic’ needed to go back to the Free Dungeon, and check on how that place operated when he wasn’t The Wizard, coming in and making sure the place was running right. He was pretty sure that Destiny, the Chaos Wizard, was making sure the place ran well…

But still needed to do Atunir’s quest, and then Melemizargo’s, in order to remove Yggdrasil’s seal. That took priority. So, no, he’d do the Freeland stuff some other time, though that whole problem would likely come up here, when the False Society option actually took root in this land. Erick might have moved on before that controversy actually got into full swing, though.

What would he look like in his next incognito persona? Maybe not Soltic, but Soltic was definitely moving on once Vanya was ensconced in her Grand Dungeon; they’d already planned their ‘public breakup’.

Or maybe he’d keep ‘Soltic’ around as he went to do whatever Atunir wanted? But probably not. He liked the way that people treated ‘Soltic’ as just another person, for Erick did not like being The Apparent King and Wizard of Benevolence, but the job had been a calling; he had stepped up and made the world better for his presence.

Erick still felt ‘Called’ to do that ‘job’, even now… But it had only been several days since his retirement. It took a while to break a habit, didn’t it. Even now, Erick wanted to send out Ophiel and make this Grand Dungeon happen within a week, instead of however long it would take Vanya to do this job, the slower way.

… Gods above, what was he going to do with his life?

Was everything going to be slow now?

Like this dungeon delve?

Slow, and personable, and done over the course of hours, instead of using Ophiels in overwhelming force to enact his will upon the land? But that’s what he wanted, right? To go slower? To have less power over the world? But...

Oh.

Oh gods.

Oh no—

“Soltic?” Vanya’s voice came to him as though from a great distance, but she was standing only a meter away. “You okay?”

The two of them were a scant few meters from the next coral growth and Soltic had just been standing there, his heart beating wild, sweat crawling down his body, under his stuffy clothes. The Force armor around his chest was too tight. It was hard to breathe.

He looked to Vanya, and said, “Everything is changing again and I fear I am having an existential crisis, but I’ll get over it soon.”

Vanya looked to the dungeon, then ignored it all as she put a hand on Soltic’s arm, gently saying, “Let’s stop here for today. I can do the rest some other time.”

“No.” Softer, “… No. We came here. Let’s do this. Sorry. Let’s do this.”

Vanya paused, then strongly asked, “Are you sure?”

“Yes.”

They finished the dungeon as fast as they could, and then Soltic led the way out.

- - - -

After they stepped out of the dungeon, and before Vanya could ask what was wrong—

First, the Gold Taker stripped them of 80% of their stuff.

And then Soltic said, “Please ignore me and go back into the dungeon to do what you wanted to do. Your death and all the rest of it disturbed me in a way I was not prepared to handle. That’s all there was to it. I freaked. Sorry.” And because he didn’t want Vanya to worry, he added, “I would like to go back in, actually. To test out those sensory spells you have.”

Vanya took his hand, cast some flight spells, and said, “We’re not going back in there. Let’s go get dinner at Storm’s Edge.”

“… Okay. That sounds—” Soltic relaxed as Vanya pulled him into the air. “That sounds a lot better. We have— what? Looks like 300 gold?”

Vanya put on a smile, flying forward, saying, “More than enough for a nice night on the town.”

- - - -

Dinner was at an upscale place high above the harbor, where they served the best fish caught in the Letri Ocean. Afterward came a walk on the beach, and a nice, frisky time behind a dune. Erick spoke of when he had had a vision from Phagar, about doing this with the woman of his dreams, years and years ago, and here they were, finally doing it. Quilatalap, as Vanya, laughed for a long time at that. It was a wonderful laugh.

Eventually, they wandered over to the playhouses, where Soltic and Vanya took their seats among the crowd to watch a comedy-of-errors about a family and a murder and an estate. It was a nice evening, but then, at the climax of the second act...

The Son stood above the grave of he Father, calling out, “I have the deck of cards! I have the will of the magistrate and the binky of the babe! I will find who killed you, father! I just need to put the pieces into the puzzle box! If only my damned mother wasn’t guarding the box like a crime boss, then—”

Soltic had had his mana sense off for the evening, since they were watching a play and to see more than what was shown was to ruin everything. So he, and most of the audience, was surprised when a man jumped out of the side of the stage wearing white wings and a robe of eyes. It was a stand in for Ophiel.

Erick took a sudden hold on Ophiel, who was watching the play from the rafters, and who was suddenly excited to see himself on stage.

The Son called out, “Who the fuck are you?”

“I’m the Wizard’s [Familiar] and I’m here to solve the murder for you! It was the—”

The Son pointed a finger at ‘Ophiel’ and ‘Ophiel’ exploded into feathers and eyes, but really he just ducked below a fake hedge as an illusion expanded from the space where he had been.

The Son looked to the audience, cheerfully saying, “No spoilers!”

The audience laughed, and the curtain closed on the end of the second act. Some people booed at ‘Ophiel’, saying that including Ophiel in the play was a controversial thing. The people who booed were drowned out by the laughter at killing Ophiel. Or maybe it was funny to have such a persona here on stage? And to be disrespected like that?

… Well if Erick couldn’t laugh at himself, then he was probably too uptight about everything.

And maybe he was.

It was pretty unrealistic to have a simple spell ‘explode’ ‘Ophiel’ like that, though. As Ophiel telepathically told his father that fact over and over again, Erick quietly smiled and agreed. Ophiel hadn’t been exploded in a long time.

The third act of the play had ‘Erick’ coming in at the actual climax of the play and wiping away the entire problem altogether, solving the ‘murder’ as a simple act of chance, and creating four estates where there were just one before, separating the families out to their own properties. As a final touch, he installed a Gate Network between them. Very rapidly, the family decided that they preferred arguing with each other every damned day, instead of living apart.

Erick laughed loud at that.

Most of the audience did too, but afterward, there was controversy.

As the playhouse emptied, people spoke about the play in excited tones, and angry tones, and all the tones between. The regulars liked it, saying it was a fantastic performance tonight, while some of the people who had decided to see the play on a whim were less than charitable about the inclusion of the Wizard into the narrative. They had gone to a play to get away from world events, and you never knew when the Wizard was actually watching.

One conversation progressed far beyond some small talking between friends.

“Including The Wizard in the play was like including a Shade,” said one particularly uneducated person.

An older woman, with her friend, chose to shout, “He’s better than the shades! You young idiots don’t know how good you have it. Be silent!”

The young idiot and his young friend shouted back, “He took away [Teleport] and now we have to bow to the silver cost of using a magic that we should all have without him!”

It was an old argument, taken up by new people, but neither of them were prepared to actually argue. Their words devolved into name-calling, and then some guards got involved and split them up. There was no danger of spellwork coming out and harming anyone, though, for like they did at the Songli Highlands with the Songstresses, but in a much easier way, the Node Network and accompanying spellwork of Storm’s Edge locked down most magics of the violent variety.

“I liked the play,” Vanya said, as she held onto Soltic’s arm.

Soltic grumbled, unsure. Yes, he had liked the play too, aside from the involvement of ‘The Wizard’, but that sort of stuff was a part of his life now. His mind was mostly on the argument in the street. For a little while Soltic and Vanya walked in silence, down the street toward the flying courtyard, where they would be allowed to leave the city on a Platform spell.

The night was nice, and full of stars. It was near the end of the year, so the weather was cooler than it would be otherwise, but with Everbless controlling the weather, there was little doubt as to the true nature of the nice, calm night… Even beyond Veird’s normal, abnormal weather patterns. Like… The Underworld existed, and everything moved so oddly around here, so yes, the weather was always technically abnormal.

The weather tonight was wonderful, and the company was even better.

Soltic asked, “Want to go ask the Regency about what avenues exist to legally work on the dungeons?”

“That’s certainly a change of direction. Don’t want to wait on the Maryols to contact us with a go-time?”

Soltic said, “I’m not used to waiting on other people to act. But also I’m… I need to be doing something important with my life that’s more than… This. I mean… I love this, being with you. But…” Soltic looked out across the land. “I was doing a lot more before we came here.”

They had reached the flight square; the great open space where lanes of wardlight traffic illuminated the setting night, and all the spaces in between were filled with anti-flight spellwork, and other anti-danger [Ward]s of all kinds. All of the anti-magic spellwork of the Node Network was completely invisible, and linked together by a mostly-invisible Network that reached up from some of the taller towers around the city. Some of those tall towers were normal buildings that had been retrofitted to support the expansion and control of the ‘electrical grid’ of Storm’s Edge. Others were purpose-built to support the Node Network, and those ones were easy to pick out among the skyline. One of those hub-towers rose from the side of the flight square; it was almost like an Eiffel Tower structure; wide at the bottom and tapered to a point at the top, where a splash of invisible lines of power connected it to other tapered towers, all across the rest of the city. Storm’s Edge didn’t have the lines of light flowing through the sky that Candlepoint had, and that was by their choice.

Soltic stepped to the side of the flight square, to stand with Vanya for a moment, before he controlled his throat and mouth with aura control to ensure his next words were for Vanya only, and not for anyone who might be able to mana sense him well enough to be able to suss out his words. ‘What those kids said back there doesn’t bother me. Their complaints are valid, which is why I chose to step down from the House right now, but at the same time, none of them have to die in some random monster attack anymore. We did that. House Benevolence and everyone and you, too. We were proactive with the world, and now, here I am on a quest that isn’t involving me directly as of this moment, and I find myself unable to relax due to having everyone working except me. So yes. Let’s go around the Maryols and go directly to the Regency, or maybe we can invade the dungeon at night and dig deep into its guts, or do something else, whatever else, faster than how it is currently being done.’ He added, ‘Maybe I’ll be able to relax once I have a task in front of me.’

‘Let’s go bother the Maryols,’ Vanya sent, near instantly. ‘And then when they tell us they need more time, we can ask them about the Regency, to see how they think the Regency will react to being asked to change the dungeons. If we don’t like what the Maryols say, we can go on without them.’

Soltic grinned. ‘Sounds great.’

Vanya squeezed Soltic’s hand. “We might not be welcome in the noble district, but we can certainly try.”

“We can try.” Soltic nodded.

- - - -

The guard’s eyes narrowed, and he said, “This is not a place for sightseeing. Please return to the public parts of town, and do not return here without written authorization or escort.”

Soltic and Vanya had expected this, so they did not object.

Seeing that they weren’t trying to force the issue, the guard un-narrowed his eyes, and continued, “If you have a noble house which can speak for you, then feel free to send them a missive. There’s a cafe just over there. A lot of people spend time there as they wait for escorts to come get them.” He added, “Also, it’s really late for you guys to be trying this. I don’t know who you are, but it’s suspicious.”

“Ah. Sorry.” Soltic said, “We’re Underworlders, so—”

“I don’t need to know,” said the guard, without rancor.

As a tendril of thought poked away from her head, Vanya said, “I’m sending the message now to House Maryol’s castellan. We’ll go to that cafe.” She bowed to the guard. “Thank you.”

The guard’s response was to make a shooing motion with his hands.

Soltic and Vanya turned around and went to the cafe.

They sat down for coffee and cake, and watched the night sky poke out from behind disappearing clouds. Beyond the lights of Storm’s Edge, the sky was a deep field of black, festooned with stars. The moons were not out tonight, so it was very dark while some guy played soft music on a piano-ish sort of table instrument in the corner of the very nice, upscale bar. Erick knew the name of the instrument, but he called it a ‘piano’ in his mind. It wasn’t a piano, though.

It was different.

Everything was different again. Erick had grown used to Veird, and his place in it. He knew his future. He had had plans.

Erick controlled his vocal cords and his mouth with his aura again, then sent to Quilatalap, ‘So the whole plan for the grand dungeon… is Sininindi trying for a prototype Second Script?’

Quilatalap grinned. ‘You think so too, eh?’

‘But she hasn’t given you actual instructions for that Second Script?’

‘I’m sure I’ll get specific instructions eventually. For now, the plan is as she wants it. Mostly, she just wants the delvers to learn true magic, however I can make that happen.’

‘When you explained it all to the Maryols, you laid out your plan for the dungeon so that it could produce the most resources as well as people.’

‘That too,’ Quilatalap said, with a smile.

‘You know… It still weirds me out for gods to be making people, but I suppose that’s normal for gods to do and so I’ve mostly gotten over it, but still… It’s weird, right?’

‘They’re fully formed people who will be given an instant path to citizenship of Storm’s Edge if they pass a test, which they will pass in order to escape the dungeon in the first place. Sininindi wasn’t clear about much, but she was clear about that.’ Quilatalap sipped his cream coffee, sending, ‘Gods making people is about the least weird thing about these dungeons.’

‘… I suppose. So she just wants… To teach magic to people?’

‘Sininindi was rather unclear on what she wanted with regard to the way she wanted magic to work inside there. She only told me that she wanted me to ensure that the people who came out of the dungeon would be able to survive in any environment. That’s the only real parameter she gave me, and it’s a fine one. Everything else about the Grand Dungeon will be based around that idea.’ Quilatalap sent, ‘Probably going to have a central city and 6 side-dungeons, each of which teach a basic aura control and mana alter, as well as requiring spellwork that one learns from the other dungeons. We’ve even got 6 dungeons and a seventh one in the center, already, so the current resources on the ground work. The central dungeon will become a city like Storm’s Edge, but mountainous, and the other dungeons will be scattered to the edges of the Dark Reflection of this island.’ Quilatalap finished with, ‘If it all goes well, it should work out very well, and be a self-reinforcing system. Delvers will fall into the city to start with, and then work through the dungeons, while citizens of the city will grow in the city, and… achieve sapience and go through the dungeons— So that part isn’t so clear to me. Maybe I’ll have the delvers go through one of the 6 dungeons in order to reach the central one, or something. I’ll have to do something good with the octopuses and coral wyrms, too.’

‘Perhaps make it so that the dungeon people have six factions of magical learning inside, overseen by six octopuses or coral wyrms of various types, or something like that.’

Quilatalap smiled. ‘It’s going to be a lot of work. As long as Storm’s Edge approves of the idea and works with me to make it happen, we could have the preliminary dungeon up and active in as little as 6 months. It’ll only take one month before I’m safe here on my own, though.’

‘Even with you restricting yourself to ‘Vanya’?’

Quilatalap nodded. ‘That part shouldn’t be a problem, though if I do make a copy of myself in this dungeon then—’ Another tendril of thought joined the group, and Quilatalap looked away briefly. Vanya came back, saying, “Nero is at the entrance waiting for us.”

Soltic downed the rest of his coffee.

- - - -

Lord Jarod greeted them in the smoking library, dressed in finer despite the late hour. “Welcome back, Miss Silver, Mister Cross. I’m afraid your request for a meeting will have to be just with me, for Glariol is off entertaining friends at a neighbor’s house. I should be there, too, but your message came and I decided I could take a break for half an hour.” He gestured to the chairs, taking a seat as he said in a cheerful voice, “Sit! Please.”

Nero waved off, saying, “I’ve got to get back to the party, too,” and then he left.

Both of the nobles had been wearing truly nice clothes. By comparison, and though they had put on some of their nicer stuff after the dungeon, Vanya and Soltic looked like hobos.

Vanya and Soltic sat, as Vanya said, “Apologies for taking you away from your party, but we’d like to move faster on adjusting the dungeons into a Grand Dungeon. We’d like to do something on our end. Going to the Regency, talking around at the Dungeon Guild; whatever you feel is best.”

“Ahh…” Jarod nodded a little. “Did you manage to interface with Dungeon #1 today?”

“Minorly. We’ll have to get access to the actual dungeon core room for me to interface better.”

Jarod’s eyes went a little wide, both in surprise and joy.

Soltic controlled his own expression. He hadn’t noticed Vanya interfacing with the dungeon… But then again, he was kinda out of it by that point. It had taken him a few hours to come to terms with Vanya’s death and resurrection, and then the rest of the delve didn’t really help, either.

“What did you discover?” Jarod asked, excitedly.

Yes. What did she discover?

Vanya held up a hand and conjured a lightward image of the dungeon, and then all the rest of the space down below those surface stone barges. She explained, “The dungeon is shaped like this, with the working part at the top, and then another 5 kilometers of space down below. Maybe more. All the fish and organization is done down there, in the depths, and that’s where the dungeon master lives, too, cultivating gold from a massive central expansion somewhere at the very bottom. The coral is all made of bone taken from the kills of the monsters, or from the fish that live in the space which the octopus eats. The dungeon master is a variant prismatic octopus that is both very happy with his job of maintaining the dungeon, and very capable. I believe this means that the octopus has been soul edited by some Soul Mage.” Vanya finished with, “I found out a lot more than that, but those are the big things. Whoever is maintaining the dungeon is doing an exceedingly good job, and they have an extensive amount of magical knowledge in order to facilitate this creation. I did not, however, find a repro of anyone person-shaped, so this means that whoever is editing this dungeon this well doesn’t need, or wants, to make a repro in order to facilitate their act of dungeon creation. Or maybe there’s some [Polymorph]ed person-repro in there, but I do not know of that.”

“That’s…” Jarod looked around, his mind whirring, as he thought. He came to a conclusion fast. “You said you wanted to speed up this process? I think we can do that. I told you about a few people you would need to get to know, and one of those people is at the party we were at. Aroido Tidewalker, of the Tidewalkers. You know of them?”

Vanya nodded. “The ruling family of Storm’s Edge. The Regency. The one in charge of overall operations of the dungeons.”

“Aroido is a smaller part of the Regency, but he is the one in charge of the dungeons, and he’s always suspiciously tight-lipped about all that. If you use what you’ve told me on him, but subtler, you will either be able to get him to open up, or he’ll shut you down and ruin your chances of doing this the easy way.” Jarod asked, “Do you want to do that? Take that chance?”

Vanya smiled. “Yes. I do.”

“Good! We could find you some clothes in the closets and dress you up for the party. It’s an informal thing but you’ve still got to look presentable. It’s already late, so you won’t get more than a minute of his time, so make it count.” Jarod said to Soltic, “And if you promise not to expose anyone’s deepest secrets then you’re invited, too.”

Soltic smirked a little— And then he lost his smirk. “Ah. I can promise that. How is Barda, anyway? I haven’t seen her around.”

“She’s taken it rather poorly, but she’ll acclimate.” Jarod stood, saying, “I think we have some outfits in your size, too, though Shavon might need to [Adjust] them— Ah. She’s the maid you saw on your way in...”

- - - -

Soltic strode into the garden party from the side entrance, linking House Maryol with House Stormson. He was wearing clothes that were not his own, but which had been [Adjust]ed to him well enough. He looked like a rough sort of gentleman, while Vanya looked like a rough sort of gentlewoman.

Jarod was literally a step ahead of Vanya, and already showing off Vanya to some other noble from Storm’s Edge; one of the hosts of this outdoor gathering. Lord Faar Stormson. Faar was among a good 50 other nobles of various power and influence, and already engaged with three other people when Jarod butted into the conversation with Vanya, but based on Faar’s easy acceptance of Jarod’s interruption, they seemed like good friends. They were neighbors with an entrance between their two properties, so they probably were actually good friends.

Soltic was not invited into that discussion. He just held back for now, though. A few people glanced his way, but they ignored him as Jarod had.

It was a nice sort of event, Soltic figured. Food was in abundance on a long table, with cut fresh fruit arranged on platters, spiral-cut ham in an artful pile, and a bunch of other finger foods along with small breads with which to make sandwiches, if one so desired. Servants were on hand to make sandwiches for those people who couldn’t be arsed to make them themselves. It was probably 11:00 PM, or close to there, so to see this many nobles still out and about was rather odd, but no more odd than anything else Soltic had ever seen.

Maybe they had late parties all the time?

Probably.

Another servant came up to Jarod and handed him a mixed drink on a silver plate, which the lord easily took. Jarod thanked the host for the refill, as he continued to talk up Vanya. Finally, Jarod introduced Soltic, as a matter of politeness, but Soltic didn’t say anything except for ‘Greetings’, along with a little, polite bow. He was playing the part of bodyguard boyfriend; Vanya was the one on display. Soltic was perfectly happy with that, because it wasn’t too long before another servant came by with a pair of glasses of red wine; one for Vanya, and then a second for Soltic.

It was a pretty good vintage.

Soltic smiled a little as he sipped a wine he knew all too well, as evident by the wine bottle, sitting behind the open bar a good ten meters away. This wine was from House Benevolence’s time-enhanced vineyard, and according to the host, he had ‘finally been able to purchase’ some of the ‘300 year old wine’. This was something of a joke of some sorts, apparently, and there was much polite laughter to be had by all. As Soltic listened to Vanya speak to the host about their time in the dungeon, with Jarod interjecting every now and then, Soltic sipped his wine.

… It was really good wine, actually. Before Soltic knew it, he was done with his first glass, and the host encouraged Soltic to have another. The host was trying to distance the brooding, silent Soltic from the bubbly Vanya, and since the separation was fine with Vanya, Soltic walked over and got himself another glass. There wasn’t much else to do, anyway.

The plan was simple, and Jarod and Vanya were already doing the plan, with Lord Faar joining in on the plan rapidly enough, but the target, Aroido Tidecaller, had yet to appear. According to their host, Aroido was inside the house, called away to business. With any luck, he would be back soon enough.

“A refill on the time wine, please,” Soltic asked the barkeep.

The man pouring drinks was a stout young person, dressed in normal finery for nobles, and not at all in the uniform of the servants walking around and handing out drinks and food. He was probably some young son of the house here. Maybe a cousin of this noble family, like how Nero was a cousin in employment of House Maryol.

The barkeep took a look at Soltic. “… Should you be here?”

Soltic smiled a little. “I’ve been to more parties like this than I could count. Right now I’m just playing bodyguard for a potential new dungeon master, if my girlfriend gets her way.”

The barkeep relaxed then refilled Soltic’s wine, saying, “Good luck to her; she’ll need it.”

“Ha! I was all for us moving to Candlepoint, or somewhere around there, but there’s something about Storm’s Edge that captured her attention. I heard that this happens to a lot of dungeon masters, and some more than others.”

The barkeep regarded Soltic a bit stronger than before. “Most dungeon masters that pass through here get a feeling and decide to check out that feeling. Dreams of the Goddess, sometimes. Did your woman have a dream like that?”

“Well…” Soltic played at being reluctant, and then decided to not do that anymore. He asked, “Does she actually talk to people sometimes? Solid talk, I mean.”

The barkeep was quietly triumphant in his successful assessment of Soltic and Vanya. Without betraying that emotion at all, he said, “There’s been solid talk in every direction you can think of, except from Her, and that’s fine; the gods are not here to live our lives for us. The real problem is that everyone wants different things out of the dungeons, and the few people who have tried to change the dungeons always cause some sort of small-scale disaster. The Lords and Ladies all desire the dungeons to be more profitable, though, so they keep trying, and that includes Lord Aroido. He’s probably not coming back to the party, though.”

“Ah… Dammit. He’s why we came over here at Lord Jarod’s request.”

The barkeep smirked. “Lady Glariol brought up the topic of dungeons about twenty minutes ago, probably because she knew her husband was bringing in a dungeon master, so Aroido took a bottle of wine and left. I don’t think he’s ready for the next disaster quite yet.”

“I heard it was like 80 dead. Not too sure how long ago it happened, though.”

“Seven months ago. A guy from some small spit of a town on northern Nelboor by the name of Jenkins. The man was a devout follower of Sininindi; a Beastmaster who brought with him that radiant eel which has now been copied into every dungeon we have. It was the only addition of his we kept. Everything else was [Cleanse]d, as far as I’ve heard.”

Soltic reached out his hand for a shake, saying, “I’m Soltic Cross, from down by Geode Bluite.”

“An Underworlder?” The barkeep smiled as he shook Soltic’s hand, saying, “Terop Stormson.”

Soltic paused, as he allowed realization to show on his face. Terop’s smile turned a bit more mirthful. Soltic let go of the noble’s hand, saying, “Ah. Stormson, of the—” He gestured to the party. “Of the Stormsons.”

Terop refilled Soltic’s glass as he asked, “So what can your girl do with a dungeon?”

“Practically everything,” Soltic said, rolling with the conversation. “She’s versed in all magic and most every monster out there. I’m sure if she had the support of a major city, she could make a Grand Dungeon.”

“Sounds great,” Terop said, without meaning it much at all. Then he asked, “Why don’t I know of her?”

Soltic laughed. “Do you know of every dungeon master the world over?”

Terop gave an easy nod, saying, “You’re not new to this at all. Huh. Vanya is likely the same. Good to see.”

“What do you mean?” Soltic asked, mocking offense. “We’re just some delvers.”

“You seem right at home here, and that’s not normal for most delvers.”

Soltic smiled. “What advice would you give someone trying to make a Grand Dungeon out of the Pit?”

“Trying to appease too many people at once collapsed the last dungeon alteration, so don’t do that. All you really need is the Regency and the nobility at your back; the priests of Sininindi will fall in line if you’ve got us, and the Sailors are rather neutral…” Terop’s eyes went west, to the garden entrance. “Ah. Looks like Aroido is coming back after all. My mistake.”

Terop had a rather good mana sense, it seemed. Not nearly as good as Soltic’s, but Terop could see around a hundred meters away, over by the mansion, where a man was walking down the hallway inside the house, headed toward the garden. Though it had been hard to see past some of the Privacy spells layered inside House Stormson, Soltic had noticed the man long before Terop had noticed him.

The man was Aroido Tidewalker, for sure. He was also drunk, in his 40s, dressed in a shimmery dark blue suit, and wearing an expression of sorrow on his face. He held an empty bottle of wine for a moment longer as he walked toward the garden door, and then he realized he was holding an empty bottle. It was the ‘Wizard Wine’, so it wasn’t the cheap stuff, either. He had gotten wasted, for he did not want to be here, but he was here anyway. It was his job. So to do that job, he [Cleanse]d himself. He remained standing even as he winced at the pain of sudden alcohol loss and the resultant dehydration. A flicker of some Healing Magic fixed his dehydration well enough, and a glass of water from a nearby server ensured that the problem remained fixed.

“He’s coming back?” Soltic asked, looking over by the garden door, pretending not to believe Terop.

Terop chuckled once, then said, “Come now, Soltic! Your mana sense is good enough to see him already.”

Soltic’s eyebrows raised as genuine surprise came over him. “And here I was thinking I was being covert.”

“So maybe you’re not that used to noble circles; I spotted you from kilometers away.”

“I can tell you right now, that what you just did was a lot more of an accomplishment than what you believe.”

Terop gave a gentle smile. “Why thank you, Mister Cross, if that is your real name. So what is it, Vanya Silver and Soltic Cross? Silver Cross? Like the Avowed Pacifists use?”

Soltic froze. “Oh. I never noticed that.” He played it off, “… In all these years.” He smiled. “I like it.”

Terop raised an eyebrow. “Huh. So—”

He cut himself short.

For Soltic didn’t manage to hide his surprise as Aroido came out of the mansion with an unexpected guest hanging over his shoulder; an ethereal, many-tentacled thing, invisible to almost all senses, and yet decidedly there, like a [Familiar]. It was hidden almost as well as Ophiel, too, who had remained above and beyond the party, watching quietly with his many eyes. It was very well hidden to mana sense, too; Soltic hadn’t noticed it until he set his actual eyes upon it.

Terop asked, “Or maybe you didn’t see him? For it looks like you know him? Did I overestimate your mana sensing capability, Mister Cross?”

Soltic looked to Terop, and made a snap judgment. “Can you see the thing floating on Aroido’s shoulder? Visually. Not with a mana sense.”

“… What an odd thing to say. No, I cannot.” Terop looked with his actual eyes to make sure. “No?”

Soltic saw that he had made a social blunder of an unknowable sort, and so, as he often did when he made these sorts of mistakes, he thought about reversing time. Once again, he came to the same conclusion he always had; he would not reverse time to undo this faux pas. Magic was fine for solving every single problem in life, except social problems.

“Must be my imagination.” Soltic sipped his wine as he watched Aroido walk across the yard, toward Lord Faar Stormson, Lord Jarod Maryol, and Vanya Silver. The maybe-[Familiar] trailed along near its maybe-maker, undulating a bit like a cross between a pufferfish and a jellyfish, looking like a very small version of the Gold Taker, that hovered above the dungeons of the Pit. Maybe it was the smaller version of Aroido’s [Familiar], because now that Soltic was thinking, the tangle of invisible, intangible tentacles could be Aroido’s [Familiar]. Soltic watched from afar, as he asked Terop, “Have you ever been in the dungeon—”

A few things happened fast.

Jarod introduced Vanya to Aroido as a visiting dungeon master. It was a pleasant enough introduction, with a few small smiles and a joyful tone. Aroido froze a little; barely perceptible. But the tentacle-[Familiar] expanded, a great central eye developing in the middle of the creature as it stared down at Vanya.

And Vanya looked at the thing, then turned back to Aroido. It was barely a sight; almost not a real look at all. It was enough to let the thing know that it had been seen; that it was witnessed. Erick had no idea why Quilatalap had done that. Maybe he had seen something he didn’t want to see? Who knew.

The tentacle thing attacked.

Vanya was half-unwoven in front of Soltic’s eyes, before Quilatalap stopped the action and controlled the situation. But the damage had been done. Vanya stood as a creature of bloody bone, with flesh missing from half of her body, while those kilos of viscera had been spread around the area in an explosion of gore. His true nature as Quilatalap wasn’t exactly revealed, but it was surely compromised, and his fanged soul was on full display, so some of the smarter people here would know who he was.

Terop instantly knew who he was, gasping, “Quila—”

Erick did not waste a moment. It was a lot easier to dump well over a quarter-million effective mana on the appropriate spell here, under the power of the Script, than it was in the dungeon. His Intelligence Stat was the only reason he could do this at all, at this level of not-real-Wizardry power.

[Return].

Soltic once again stood beside the bar, holding his wine. He had just given Terop a compliment.

Terop gave a gentle smile. “Why thank you, Mister Cross—”

Soltic set down his drink, saying, “Thanks for the talk, Terop. Gotta be closer to this.”

Terop responded behind him, giving an approving comment about how comfortable Soltic was butting into noble talks, but Soltic was already focused on Vanya ahead of him. Quickly, he mana sensed the recent past, reacquainting himself with the full breadth of the conversation between Vanya, Jarod, Lord Faar Stormson, and the incoming Lord Aroido Tidewalker. He also gave a direct, surreptitious glare at the thing hovering above Aroido’s shoulder, as Aroido was walking his way.

Vanya was a bit weirded out by the sudden inclusion of her boyfriend into a conversation that did not include him, and so were the other two, especially here at the introduction to the target, but Vanya easily recovered as she saw the look on Soltic’s face. She said, “Ah. It appears Soltic is here to talk me up to the Dungeon Lord.”

Loor Faar judged Vanya poorly for Soltic’s introduction, and for Vanya’s own words on the subject, but he kept his comment short, “Another person to speak for you is a good idea, for half of what you suggest seems impossible.”

The conversation rapidly closed ranks, back to normal, as Vanya easily said, “Nothing I have suggested is impossible, Lord Faar. One only has to look at the Grand Dungeon of Dungeon Island, or the Grand Dungeon of Benevolence, or the one at Bluite, or at the Highlands. All of them work on the same principles.”

Soltic listened to Vanya, but he also paid special attention to the thing floating behind Aroido, and how Aroido’s once-dutiful stride across the lawn had turned into something less sure; more cautious. That was because the thing hovering behind him was freaking out. It had seen when Soltic had seen it, and now, tentacles came out, and so did eyes.

And then the thing fled, vanishing entirely as it disappeared into the wind. Aroido resumed walking as though nothing had happened, though everyone had seen the unnatural pause in his stride. No one except for Soltic and Vanya had seen the creature, and—

Vanya said to Erick, “Reverse it again. Tell me what you saw afterward.”

Quilatalap could sense when Time Magic was used around him, though he had no idea the reasons for that use unless he had been brought into the fold in that use. He could even reverse time himself, a little, but Erick was just so, so much better at it.

[Return].

This time Soltic walked over to Vanya, sending to her, ‘Do not be alarmed, but I had to reverse time twice now. Don’t look at the tentacle thing. Don’t acknowledge it at all. The first time it tried to kill you for talking about being a dungeon master. The second time it ran off terrified that we both had seen it. I can reverse smaller times again, but the first one took a lot out of me. We’re here at this juncture now.’

‘Understood,’ Vanya sent, as she continued to talk to Faar and Jarod, betraying nothing untoward at all, as she casually ignored Soltic’s physical presence.

Both Faar and Jarod ignored his presence, too, though Faar had a flicker of concern pass across his unassuming face as he glanced at Soltic. He was worried about why Vanya’s boyfriend appeared when the Tidewalker came out. When Vanya was done saying her current words, and as Ariodo was walking down the garden path toward them, Faar said, “Another person to speak on your capabilities will be good, but this [Telepathy] during a polite conversation is a bad look.”

Vanya said, “Apologies, Lord Faar.”

Aroido walked across the lawn, his passenger following along dutifully as though it was his [Familiar]. But it wasn’t… Probably. Erick couldn’t quite put his finger on it, but he knew that the tentacle thing was something other, and that Ariodo suffered its presence because of some unknown necessity. Duty, perhaps, but to whom? There was really only one answer there; duty to the Regency.

If it weren’t for how the tentacle-thing acted when it saw Vanya, and then how it acted when it saw that two people could see it, then Soltic would have dismissed his concerns over the thing like he had dismissed all the bigger versions of it, hovering above the monster road and the Pit, where people called it the Gold Taker, and yet… it oversaw all off… The dungeons.

… Wait.

Was it Everbless?

He was too young to be making [Familiar]s though, wasn’t he? Well. No. Maybe not.

Ah.

Shit.

This could get bad.

‘I think the tentacle thing is Everbless,’ Soltic sent to Vanya.

Before Faar got upset at the overt [Telepathy], before Jarod joined him, Vanya easily whispered to him, “Now now, Soltic. We've had enough of that—” Her words cut off, and then she cut off the [Telepathy] connection from her end, severing the connection like she had given Soltic a small slap across the face.

It was the right thing for her to do, socially, and Soltic accepted the reprimand with dignity.

For Lord Faar put on a gentle smile, as he extended a hand out and open, to greet Lord Tidecaller, “Welcome back to the party, Aroido.”

Aroido steeled himself, “Yes yes. Lovely party. Please get on with the sales pitch for the dungeon idea. Miss Vanya Silver, if I have been informed correctly? Get on with it.”

Vanya took center stage as she did a small curtsy. “Greetings, Lord Tidecaller. I’m a dungeon master from near Geode Bluite, with a few dungeons to my name, and a few more out in the depths. My partner Soltic Cross and I were journeying to Candlepoint and maybe Dungeon Island to see about getting into the Grand Dungeon creation business on the Surface, where all the real action is, but I had a dream of storms, and so we sojourned here, to see about plying our trade at Storm’s Edge. I am fully capable of working with the needs of a large city and the assorted people therein to bring prosperity and true magics to a great many people. My initial idea is to start with the seven dungeons you already have and join them together, reusing most of the resources I have been able to see there as a public delver. The octopus and the coral wyrm are wonderful, and the current public areas will work well for a first floor. From there, I would create a False Society in the center dungeon with six Primary Element dungeons all around the central one. Delvers would come in from the outside to farm the dungeons, and trade with the people of the False Society, while the people of the False Society work from the inside outward to become real people, and to bring their gold, knowledge, and themselves, out into the real world.”

The tentacle thing had been surreptitiously gazing around until Aroido had said ‘dungeon idea’, and then it focused; It opened its central eye and stared down at the petite woman standing before Aroido, its tentacles whipping around for a moment before it settled down, and listened.

It poked at her with a tentacle.

The tentacle passed right through Vanya’s head, twisted around a bit, and then pulled back. There was no blood. No gore. Nothing happened. Vanya did not flinch at all as she spoke her speech. The tentacle was completely ethereal and intangible, so it didn’t do anything, but it was still a violent-seeming action.

Soltic managed to delay his own flinching for a moment after the poking, so that he could play off his flinch as a worry over Vanya’s words, when she spoke of the ‘dream of storms’ part. Aroido’s eyes turned to him when he flinched, but then went right back to staring down Vanya, trying to judge her on every word spoken. Soltic would have been able to gauge whatever was happening there if he had had some more time to see and think—

But then the tentacle thing poked him next, going for his heart.

And Erick flexed a Force spell on his chest. It was instinctive. It was maybe the wrong move. But it had been done, and Erick had done it, and now they were here.

The tentacle deflected.

Like a completely weightless thing, the invisible, intangible thing had struck Soltic’s chest, and the strike went wide, like a stream of mana hitting lead. Soltic had not expected that, but he betrayed nothing on his face, or in the steady beat of his heart.

He had gotten used to controlling his physiological reactions these days; he was very good at that when he wasn’t surprised too badly.

While Vanya continued to speak, the tentacle thing jerked back, surprised at Soltic’s power, and then it paused. It focused a hundred eyes on Soltic. It grew in size and concern behind Aroido, thicker tentacles spilling out into the empty air. Soltic didn’t even look at it— Ah. He could play off the deflection as a permanent spell reacting to the attack, couldn’t he? Soltic felt secure in that idea, for there has been no Force at all behind the tentacle’s touch—

The tentacle-thing poked at Soltic’s chest with a wrist-thick spike.

Soltic reinforced his ethereal Force.

The tentacle was like an improbable object meeting a Juggernaut who had decided to stand Unwavering. The tentacle-creature ended up moving backward instead. It did not like this. Like a monster roaring in rage, but on a muted television, out came more tentacles, writhing and whipping, while Aroido, Faar, and Jarod remained completely unaware of the tentacle-thing and Soltic’s interaction.

Aroido gauged Vanya’s speech, then asked, “You would attempt a False Society? Here? You would have us all fall to a ‘slave revolt’, then, and they would be right to revolt.”

“They would not be slaves,” Vanya instantly said, her expression turning harder. “I would not let them be treated as slaves, either.”

“Hmm!” Aroido said, “Easily said by some untested dungeon maker from some simple part of the world where the Geodes solve all your greater problems for you.”

“If that is what you think the Geodes do, then perhaps you know nothing about them, as well.”

Aroido smirked, his combative stance and tone vanishing as he said, “Who doesn’t love a stormy woman—”

Meanwhile, Soltic had just deflected twenty tentacle stabs, each of those stabs going wide after hitting, each of them passing through the other people near Soltic without so much as ruffling hair. Soltic’s mana wasn’t draining that hard, either; ethereal, intangible Force was rather easy to protect against once you—

A tentacle went for his left eye, filling Soltic’s vision with a heat-mirage weapon of slender destruction. He flinched at that attack. He couldn’t help it—

He rubbed that eye, and played off the flinch as something must have gotten in there, or something. The tentacle thing seemed to find great joy in this, for it puffed up and spun around and flexed happily, just like how Yggdrasil sometimes acted out with his [Scry] eyes, but without the tentacles…

And now that the tentacle thing was doing that, there was absolutely no doubt in Soltic’s mind that the tentacle thing was Everbless.

“—So I’ll tell you what.” Aroido said, “You’ve been Called, according to Jarod and Faar over here, and that is the only reason I entertained this conversation at all, but since you speak well enough I suppose I should fully entertain these ideas of yours. Come to the Castle tomorrow, Miss Silver. Mid afternoon, Dungeon Office; you’ll find it well enough. Bring every idea you have, as well as copies of your previous dungeon work, as well as locations. We’ll be checking on those dungeons to make sure you are who you say you are, and if everything goes well, I suspect you’ll get a chance to show your stuff. We’ll go from there, if we get there.” He didn’t bother with Vanya a second longer, as he turned toward Lord Faar and Jarod, saying, “It is getting late, and I must be off. Good night, good sirs.”

Faar and Jarod saw the man off, walking back through the house at Aroido’s side, talking of this and that.

And for a moment, Vanya just stood there, looking appropriately happy at the turn of events.

The tentacle thing had stopped its assault for a while as Aroido spoke of Vanya being ‘Called’, and now it simply looked at Soltic and Vanya, as though it wanted to stick around and investigate. But it couldn’t. The thing— Everbless, for sure. Everbless bounced and fidgeted in the air, his tentacles buzzing outward in clear distress as he turned back and forth, flicking his sight from Soltic to Aroido and back, before turning back to Aroido and hurrying to catch up with the rapidly disappearing man, and the accompanying fellow lords.

Vanya played the part of a happy girlfriend and Soltic played his part, too, as she pulled him down for a quick kiss, and he lifted her up into the air, for a longer one; a celebration of getting their foot in the door on this whole Grand-Dungeon-thing. In the moment, it was only partially an act; Erick was truly happy for Quilatalap, and Quilatalap was truly happy that he would finally get to work on a False Society dungeon. He hadn’t gotten the chance to do that at Candlepoint, or anywhere else, actually.

No wonder he was thrilled about this opportunity.

It wasn’t thirty seconds past the good news when Glariol and Nero came over, and began speaking about dungeon creation with Vanya. From there, Vanya went over to the other noble families, in order to speak with them about her ideas.

Soltic got to hang back and drink wine at the bar with Terop.

As he refilled Soltic’s glass, Terop said, “That’s about as good of a first impression as you can make with Aroido.”

Soltic smiled. “Was it?”

“Oh yes. He’s hooked. He wants to know more. Congratulations on your move to Storm’s Edge.”

Soltic chuckled a little. “I guess so, eh?”

“You two should get married, otherwise, if this thing works out, she’s going to get taken from you.”

Soltic’s grin faltered. “I’ve asked already. She’s said no; Not yet.”

“Prosperity can open new doors. Maybe you should try again?”

Soltic paused in thought. “Maybe.” And then he looked to Terop. “You’re a pretty good guy, aren’t you.”

Terop was briefly embarrassed, and then he got over that, and said, “I’ve been trying this [Benevolent Sight] some here and there.”

“Oh? Uh… How is that working out for you?”

“Pretty great, actually. Have you tried it?”

“… No comment.”

Terop chuckled. “Very well.”

The party lasted another half hour, but people started leaving as soon as Aroido departed. Soon, it was just Vanya, the Maryols, the Stormsons, and a few others, and then, it was just Vanya, Jarod, and Faar.

As the clock struck some time after midnight, Faar said, “I do declare that we have a few clashing ideas of what a Grand Dungeon should be, primarily in the nature of the Second Script imposed in the place, but that is something that we’ve been arguing over every chance we get. We’ll continue to argue over that many times over. Perhaps, you might consider a multi-Script dungeon? If that is possible?”

Vanya was rather solid as she said, “Impossible. Dungeons need singular focuses. Getting the seven different cores to play well with each other will require a shared system, just so that they don’t try to overwrite each other all the time.”

Faar sighed, and gave a polite smile. “Then the argument shall continue. Till another day, then. It was lovely meeting you, Miss Silver.”

“Thank you for your time, Lord Stormson.”

The night sky was dark and full of stars, and the land was cool and breezy, as Vanya and Jarod walked ahead of Soltic, through the gate that joined the Maryol estate to the Stormson estate. They made it past the gate before Jarod allowed himself a relieved, happy, near-joyous chuckle.

Jarod whispered, “That went so perfectly well! You’ve a good head about you, Vanya. Now we can only hope your dungeons stand up to scrutiny.”

Vanya grinned as she said, “Used to be you could tell people that you’ve done things in the Underworld and it’d take 3 weeks for anyone to find out otherwise.”

“Thank the Wizard for the Gate Network,” Jarod said, chuckling. He added, “You two simply must stay the night. I insist! We’ve got good guest rooms, so will you?”

Vanya looked to Soltic. Soltic gave her a small look back.

Vanya said, “Soltic and I need to discuss something in private. If we can do that in your house, then we agree.”

“Of course! I have the latest Privacys installed by vetted Lighter’s Guild members.” With a hint of playful sarcasm, Jarod added, “I even promise I won’t spy on you, if you can promise the same.”

“I promise,” Vanya easily said.

Soltic just grinned a little, not saying anything at all.

- - - -

The guest rooms of House Maryol were rather wonderful things, with all the modern amenities made possible with the Node Network of Storm’s Edge.

Soltic stepped out of the [Cleanse]ing shower, which was a spellwork that produced hot, cleaning waters, and stepped into a drying platform that triggered under the application of his weight. Wind blew upward, rapidly drying him off, before a small scent of flowers applied itself to his body. When Soltic put on his gifted bathrobe, it was the softest, driest, cleanest thing, kept that way by a constantly-[Renew]ed enchantment on the upper back, which got charged by placing it onto hanger, and then placing the hanger onto any of the hooks in the bathroom, or in the closet. There were a lot of self-pressing clothes and self-cleaning clothes like that in any modern noble’s wardrobe.

These days, if a seamstress couldn’t keep up with the [Renew] revolution, then they were relegated to grunt work.

Vanya had opted not to take a shower. Instead, she [Cleanse]d herself, saying that was enough, and told Soltic that they would talk later; she had to work on some diagrams. And so, that was what she was doing now. With her back hunched, Vanya looked down upon a carefully-crafted lightward that detailed a rough draft of her proposed Grand Dungeon; six color-coded Primary Elemental areas all around a central, grey-white False Society area. She moved parts around with a bit of power, and added things here and there, while removing other things that seemed problematic, though their reasons for being ‘problematic’ escaped Soltic. He was focused on other things.

Soltic asked, “Ready for that talk?”

Without looking up, Vanya said, “Sure.” Then she sent, ‘You needed to use a [Return]?’

Soltic gave her a rough breakdown of the event.

Vanya had turned away from her work to look at Soltic as he spoke, her face growing a little more concerned as the story went on. When he was done, she sent, ‘I don’t think the tentacle thing is Everbless. It’s probably the [Familiar] of someone in the Regency. Maybe the Archmage of the Regent, Lady Wiloza Tidewalker. Maybe someone else. The Regent himself? Or maybe Aroido is a lot better at magic than either of us have given him credit for.’

‘… For the sake of argument, I’ll accept that those might be answers. But I have circumstantial evidence that I’m correct.’ Soltic sent, ‘The timeline of when the dungeons really took off and when Everbless gained his sapience match; all that happened a few years ago. Before that the dungeons were breaking all the time. And Everbless is directly involved in guiding the winds and the mana into the dungeons. It makes sense that he’s the tentacle thing hanging over the Pits, too; the Gold Taker.’

Vanya furrowed her brow. ‘… I don’t see it.’

‘Okay. Well—’ Soltic changed the subject. ‘What did it do when it touched you?’

Vanya paused again, and then her eyes went distant. She came back just as fast, confused. ‘… What were we talking about?’

For a moment, Erick wasn’t sure he had heard Quilatalap correctly.

And then Erick’s heart pounded hard. ‘You’re joking with me, right?’

Quilatalap’s tone turned serious. ‘No. I’m not joking at all. What just happened?’

‘We were talking about the tentacle thing over Aroido’s shoulder tonight, and how I think it’s Everbless, and then I asked if it did anything when it touched you. And then you spaced out.’

Quilatalap furrowed his brows again. ‘I need you to say that a few times, repeatedly, as I do something. I think I have been infected with…’ Vanya looked at Soltic. “What were we talking about?”

Erick remained calm, as he sent, ‘The tentacle thing, the mini-Gold-Taker above Aroido’s shoulder, touched you earlier tonight. I believe it might be Everbless, and it infected you with something. I am going to repeat this a few times until you tell me to stop. The tentacle thing, the mini-Gold-Taker above Aroido’s shoulder, touched you earlier tonight. I believe it might be Everbless, and it infected you with something...’

Quilatalap’s eyes narrowed, his breath hitched, worry appeared, and then vanished into an abyss of thoughtlessness. And then Erick repeated his words, and Quilatalap experienced the same set of reactions. As he repeated his words, he now realized that Quilatalap’s earlier hesitation to speak on this subject was due to whatever Everbless had infected him with. Why would Everbless infect ‘Vanya’ with this sort of thoughtlessness, though?

There was one obvious reason. Erick didn’t want to confront that reason, he had to. Everbless didn’t like people messing with his dungeons, so he had infected Vanya with this small curse, or whatever it was. He had almost infected Soltic with it, too, but Erick had deflected those curses, or whatever it was. It certainly didn’t seem like any curse Erick had ever seen before; those things were usually a lot more noticeable in the soul.

And Quilatalap’s soul ate curses for snacks! Literally ate them.

There was only one real conclusion to come to.

Everbless was doing something bad in those dungeons.

And something was preventing Quilatalap from purging—

Quilatalap tipped over, his heart stopping, his eyes rolling back in his head as all electrical activity in his brain ceased. He would have crashed to the ground but Erick was already [Return]ing. He wasn’t going to take a chance on anyone seeing Vanya dead for any length of time, and especially not the Maryols. The Privacy in this room was pretty good, but it was flawed in ways that allowed the Lord and Lady to look in on their guests if they wanted.

And they probably would do exactly that.

Erick sighed as he once again stood a few meters behind Quilatalap, freshly showered, his heart beating hard, as he watched Quilatlap work on her diagrams. He whispered, “Fuck.”

Vanya turned around and looked up at him. She smiled as she dragged her gaze up and down his body— And then she frowned a little, as though she was looking at a slice of cake she could not eat. “You look really fun right now, but I’ve got to work on this project. Was there something you wanted to talk about?”

“Yes. It’s very important, but confronting it right now is bad for this situation here. Do you want to let it rest for tomorrow?” Erick sent, ‘You are ensorcelled.’

Quilatalap’s eyes went wide.

Over a decade ago, Erick had left Quilatalap in a bad Fairy situation, at the Shadow’s Feast where the dungeons and Teleport Exodus were announced to the world. The two of them had spoken at length about that time, after the fact; a few times in couple’s therapy, a few times on their own. They had come to some conclusions. If Mind Magic, or anything like it, was ensorcelling one of them ever again, they would have a small discussion, if possible, to decide what could be done. If the ensorcelling left one or the other of them without their faculties, then the other one would do anything they could to break that magic, as soon as possible, and to damn the consequences.

There had been little need to enact that plan since then, but it had happened a few times. Each time was either no big deal, or a very big deal, with vast, vast consequences.

Quilatalap asked, “Are we in active danger?”

“I don’t believe so.”

“Are you compromised?”

“… Ah.” Erick realized that maybe, if he had been in full control of his faculties, that he would have recognized the link between the tentacle thing and Everbless a lot sooner than now. Or at least he wouldn’t have been so dismissive of the idea before tonight. “Not sure, but probably not anymore. Maybe a little?”

Quilatalap looked around, at the house, at his lightwards, at Erick.

“Gods,” Quilatalap said, “This is so rude of us to leave like this, but… I’m glad I gave them that excuse to leave earlier.”

Erick smiled.

They got their clothes back on and left, with Vanya making excuses to the butler they found on their way out, and saying that they might be back later tonight, if they could. That was fine with the butler. They would have someone ready to let them in at the gate to the noble district, when they returned.

- - - -

In a Privacy, Soltic and Vanya vanished through a [Gate], and ended up inside a remote mountain in Continental Nergal. It was about the most secure of Quilatalap’s strongholds in the entire world, because it was only accessible through [Gate], now that [Teleport] no longer worked. Just because it was kilometers under the Surface was no reason for it to look like anything less than a 10-Star hotel, though.

Carpets, drapes, illusionary walls that looked like windows to every part of the mountains. Nice furniture. Nice everything. This was a place of relaxation, with food stocks to last through armageddon, but there was no time for relaxing right now. Erick was pretty sure they were not facing a world-ending problem right now, but his mind usually went to worst-case scenarios these days. When those scenarios turned out to be less than horrible, he was always pleasantly surprised.

Quilatalap transformed back into himself and rapidly demanded Erick tell him what was happening.

Erick obliged.

It took Quilatalap two hours and three deaths to rid himself of his mental block, and when he did, he hadn’t rid himself of it at all.

“What do you mean you can’t get rid of it?” Erick asked, furious at Sininindi, or Everbless, or whichever one was responsible for this. Or maybe neither of them were responsible for this, but Erick didn’t see this sort of magic being anything less than divine in nature.

Quilatalap said, “It’s a meme, trapped in my soul, for now. I’ve faked its connections and worked around it. You probably have one in you, too, but I assume that the seal you have for Yggdrasil is also working on Everbless’s power a fraction, or something like that. Hard to know for certain in this situation.”

Erick had a swirl of emotions. He blurted out, “Is this why everyone says Everbless is a great kid? Because they literally cannot see the bad things he is doing?”

“Well… hard to say right now. On the surface this is probably true, but I find it hard to imagine Yggdrasil ever doing bad things when he was young; he came from you, after all. Both of them have come from you.”

“We’re not getting into the Nature versus Nurture debate, and to tell you the truth, Yggdrasil had some weird impetuses as a baby. I was actively transforming the world when he was a baby and Yggdrasil wanted to be a part of that. Who knows what kind of setting Sininindi is raising Everbless in!”

Quilatalap sat up a bit straighter. “Ah. Well… I’m rather sure that Everbless is a good kid, just like Yggdrasil. Sininindi is a fine goddess, too—”

“How can you say that? She did this to you—”

“Erick,” Quilatalap said, in the nicest, most serious tone he could pull off, “You have no idea what an evil god looks like, and I pray that when you do, you can survive that encounter. Sininindi is on the side of the Pantheon. She is a good goddess. She veers toward absolute freedom and the wild abandon of oceanic nature in all its glory, and yes, that is dangerous, but it’s not evil.”

“… Ah. Well. Sure? Sure.”

Quilatalap relaxed, smiling softly as he said, “And the thing I circumvented in my soul is— Well. I’ve done that before. It’s the Silences in the Script. Hard to get around without a teacher there to show you how, or if you’ve done it a hundred times already, or if you know the information before it was Silenced by the Script. This one was easier to get around than most, which means it’s not a true Silence.”

… If this was a Silencing, that meant this was done by Rozeta.

That meant that this was a conspiracy.

“… Is that… Better? Or worse? That this is condoned by Rozeta—This is ridiculous—” Erick scowled as he looked to the air. “Rozeta! What the fuck?”

A blue box appeared.

Don’t let Sininindi know that you know about the intervention (that she requested and got approved for) for that intervention is the only thing allowing Everbless to grow up outside of the spotlight, which is a good thing. Honestly, you should tell Quilatalap to allow the intervention to work on him; it’ll make it much easier for Vanya to be a part of the team down there. 

Everbless is a good kid, so don’t go thinking he’s doing awful things just because it looks like he could be doing awful things. Personally, I think he could use some Wizardly guidance, since, you know, you’re already down there and all that. 

Sininindi would take an impossible amount of convincing to let that meeting happen, though. If she finds out that you know about the intervention then she’ll get mad and you won’t be able to tell her anything, so I suggest you don’t let that happen.

Good luck!

“… Okay??” Erick said, in a way that was not agreeable at all. And then he thought for a moment, and said, more calmly, “Okay.” He decided, “I’m going to think on this for a while.” He asked Quilatalap, “Do you feel like making yourself ignorant of this situation again? Rozeta suggested that you do, for Sininindi got that intervention done herself. I am unconvinced that you should return to ignorance, but I trust you to make the correct decision, whichever one it might be.”

Quilatalap frowned a little as he thought. “I know I’ll mess up eventually, knowing that the Gold Taker is Everbless… She called it an ‘intervention’?”

“Yes. That’s the word. ‘Intervention’.”

“That explains why this anti-meme was easier to circumvent than most.”

“It killed you, though?!”

“That had to have been one of my many failsafe spellworks, triggering on someone trying to mess with my soul in an unapproved way. Other people trying to enact the same anti-memetic magics upon their own soul would likely fall into a temporary coma.”

“… Okay. Well. Everbless actively  tried to kill you, too? I saw him do that the first time.”

“I’ve no idea what caused that, since it happened in a time that did not happen. If I were to guess, I would guess… Maybe he got caught up on my soul teeth? And he reacted? I know I make myself a lot more vulnerable when you’re at my side, because I know I’ll be okay, but if you weren’t there in the first version, I might have had an instinctive reaction.”

Erick felt his heart swell and his face heat up at the casual mention of vulnerability and love. And then he returned to the conversation, saying, “I won’t be able to protect you when I’m not there.”

“With any luck I’ll be inside the dungeon by then, and so whatever Everbless tries won’t truly affect me at all.” Quilatalap said, “But if I die and need to be transported back to the Pit, I’d ask you for a [Gate].”

“And you will have it.”

Quilatalap smiled softly again, then said, “Thank you. I’m going to undo this anti-intervention. When I ask you about it, tell me not to look at the Gold Taker until we’re introduced properly, since I’m sure that will have to happen eventually. At that time I can fake learning some Sight spells to be able to see him all the time.”

“… Okay.”

Quilatalap looked up, retreating into his soul for a moment. A minute passed in silence, and then—

He blinked for a moment. And then he looked at Erick. And all around. And then back to Erick. “Uhh. Why are we— Oh.” Something else caught his attention. He looked inward again, speaking as his eyes looked elsewhere, “I have a note here saying not to remove this ensorcellement.” He frowned. “Ah. Fuck.” He came back. “That’s gonna be like having an itch I cannot scratch… [Witness] is working, but there are holes in my sight… My sight is being eaten by… Something.” He looked inward momentarily, then came back. “Ah. Shit. Fine. Tell me what I can know, Erick.”

“… Don’t look at the Gold Taker until it is introduced to you. Fake learning how to see it after the fact. Shouldn’t be hard once you talk to Aroido and learn more about the dungeons.”

Quilatalap stared for a moment. “That’s it? I can do that.”

Erick frowned. “I’m not sure I like being the only one who knows this secret.”

Quilatalap smiled. “You get used to it.” More cheerfully, he said, “Come on! Let’s get back to the Maryols.”

… And so they did.

- - - -

“Moooooom!”

As always, mother took a moment to appear upon the crashing waves and lightning sky. With eyes of storms, she asked, “What is it, my wonderful child?” her voice soft as a gentle wind.

“Another one I couldn’t touch! I poked in the eye! He felt that!”

Mom turned her Sight upon the world as she sought to See what her only child had seen. She came back and the winds fluxed for a moment. Her gentleness returned. “It’s just another one with over-protective spellwork. You must have taught him well in the dungeon! You’re so smart, yes you are.”

Everbless felt a thrill of joy. “He was in dungeons! I’m good teacher!”

“But in order to teach, there must be rules, and that means you must obey them as well. You poked that man outside of the rules, Everbless. You poked him at a party.”

Everbless felt the world crash at her words. The sky began to drizzle. “I’m sorry!”

“There there, little one!” Mom hugged Everbless, saying, “A little rule breaking is fine, but don’t make a habit of it. Leave the little dungeon masters alone, okay?”

“They’ll change my dungeons!”

“Maybe it’s time for them to change? That Vanya looks competent. You might like what she comes up with. Give her a chance, okay? For me?”

“… I have to?”

“Yes you do.”

“Oookaaaaaayyy.”