Dungeon of Knowledge

Chapter 209: Visiting An Old Friend (Part 1)

AliandraAli put the finishing touches on her newest teleportation circle and watched in satisfaction as her domain mana surged through the electrum she had embedded into the stone. Her collection of circles was growing. Her memorization of the Volle locus hadn’t been quite perfect, but it was nothing that a quick trip to Professor Addlestone in the Novaspark Academy of Magic couldn’t fix. Now she had an easy way to go visit Naia.

Happy with her work, she flew up to the upper floor of the library, dodging the swooping golden glitter dragonets who wanted to play, looking for Mato. With Calen and Malika away in Ciradyl, she didn’t want to leave him by himself without any warning.

She alighted beside the couch, finding him sitting there chatting with Lira.

“Hi, Lira, Mato,” she said.

“Hi, dear. Mato was just telling me about the new dungeon infecting my forest.”

The way she said ‘my forest’ referring to the desolate blighted wasteland that remained, caught her attention.

“Are you ok, Lira?” she asked, concerned by the sadness in her eyes.

“I had hoped that when the blight faded, we would be able to replant my forest. Even if it takes a long time, I would see it restored. Now this…”

The way her aunt’s voice hitched made her heart do the same.

“I will help you find a way to restore the forest,” she said. It was a promise she had no idea how to keep, but she would find a way. At least she knew the first task – they already planned on tackling the dungeon that Calen had found taking over the area.

“Thank you, dear,” Lira said, smiling at her. “What were you so busy with down there among the roots of the tree?”

“I was making a new teleporter to Volle. I was thinking of paying a visit to Naia.”

“Your slime dungeon friend?” she asked. “It’s been a while since you saw her.”

“Yes, I wanted to check in with her, she had some trouble with beetles last time. And I have a lot of oozes I can share with her.”

“Mind if I come along, too?” Mato asked. “I could use the opportunity to stretch my legs.”

“Not at all.” It surprised her that Mato would be interested in visiting, but his company would be welcome – and it might be nice to introduce Naia to another friendly person.

***

“I found it,” Ali said, feeling the thin underwater channel she had squeezed her ooze through open out into the vast underground chamber she had helped Naia escape into.

“Good, but how are we going to get in there? I don’t think a rat could have fit through that gap,” Mato said, looking dubiously at the small bubbling book that poured out of the cracks in the rock.

“Give me a few minutes, I’ll make a teleportation circle,” Ali said. She carefully inscribed the circle into the damp riverbank, taking care to keep it even and level. “Ok, the circle is here,” she told him. “I’ll go inside and make the destination circle.”

“I can see it now,” Mato said, reminding her that he had advanced his survival instinct and could now sense mana too. “The mana, anyway.”

“Ok, two minutes,” she said, and switched locations with her ooze, dumping herself in a pool of water inside the underground cavern. She had forgotten to check – oozes were not much affected by being in or out of water, and so they didn’t register it as a different state. She clambered out of the pool and knelt on the rocky bank to inscribe the other half of her teleportation circle, and as soon as it completed, Mato appeared in the center.

“You look wet,” he said, waggling his eyebrows at her, but his gaze quickly left her sorry, bedraggled state and roved around the cavern, alert and curious.

“Don’t ask,” she said, grumpily and removed her mana from both runic circles, causing them to evaporate.

The vast chamber was just as she remembered it – a thundering waterfall into a massive pool of preternaturally clear, glowing water that lit the entire cavern. Twisted through it all, she could see the thick ropy web of Naia’s unique flexible domain mana. But there were no oozes or monsters anywhere she could see.

Given the mana, she knew Naia was around somewhere, but it might take them a while to find her.

“Ali? Friend?”

Ali turned at the sound of the small tentative voice, but all she found was a small pool of water and some gravelly scree piled up against the rocky wall.

“Naia? Where are you?”

“Hiding.”

“Why? Oh… This is Mato, he is a friend.” Naia had clearly grown, or at the very least had advanced her mimicry magic, because Ali could not find her no matter how hard she

“Yes, just give me a few moments to make some monsters.”

Your reserved mana has increased by +2387

It was a good thing Ali had unsummoned her forces before she had left, given just how much she was spending to summon this army. She had no idea what they might face in there, so she had brought a little of everything, weighted toward her most effective minions. Her only exception was that she left out all the oozes, certain that Naia could provide better ones. She nodded at the sight of her assembled minions, happy to see her Grimoire had equipped her Acolytes and mages with a few level-appropriate mana potions each.

By the time Ali was ready, Naia had summoned a puddle of oozes which scattered to the ceiling to give room for her ground-bound minions, and they continued. The slimy passage wound back and forth in treacherous switchbacks, growing Creep Spores that charged them with mindless aggression as soon as they were spawned. She quickly learned to spread her minions out, as small as they were the explosion of rot did a lot of area damage.

“Something is coming,” Mato announced, immediately shifting into his Bear Form.

A loud crunching noise filled the tunnel and suddenly, a hole appeared through the fungal creep and a pair of mandibles emerged, belonging to a sleek burgundy beetle almost as large as Ali’s torso, which dropped down into the tunnel with a strut that more than hinted at belligerence.

A second beetle followed, and then a third.

Mato roared and charged them, followed quickly by her melee minions, but the beetles were hardly a threat, quickly dispatched by their superior forces.

“The fungal creep ate the beetles I killed,” Naia said. “And now it sends them to attack me.”

“That’s a dungeon for you,” Ali said, following along as Naia continued directing them past forks, branches, and fungal-creep-filled side caves. Mato switched back into his Beastkin form, perhaps to converse more easily.

“There it is,” Naia said, as they entered an unexpectedly large cavern. There were many dark openings high up in the walls and ceiling, indicating passages leading elsewhere into impenetrable gloom, and out there in the center of a creep-covered floor that pulsed slowly as if breathing stood a squat, massive plant. The trunk seemed woody, hardened, gnarled, and twisted, but covered with ethereal glowing blue flowers that seemed to wave in an unseen breeze upon the end of short stalks. Out of the top of the squat trunk rose two fat branches that ended in a giant bud each, covered with wicked-looking thorns and woody ridges. All around the base of the plant, briar-like tendrils twisted and knotted in continuous restless motion.

“Boss?” Mato growled.

The mana in the room was twisted and drawn tight, coiled up around the plant in a way that was rather familiar to her by now. It was no wonder Naia had been having trouble.

“Almost certainly a boss.” She wasn’t quite sure, but she would guess it was not a raid boss, but still, a dangerous foe for Naia to face by herself.

“It is scary,” Naia said, her membrane shivering.

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