“Deecy, what about if you came to the dungeon with me? You would certainly be a match for anything in there.”
“Again, it’s not the dungeon defenders I’m worried about, even though many of them are probably much more difficult to kill than the ones in your old home. It’s the traps inside – those would be much deadlier than anything I could handle.”
Fred supposed that it made sense; if he fell down a spike pit and couldn’t get out, he couldn’t see her enacting some sort of rescue – especially with her lack of hands.
“Well, then, if we’re heading toward the next town, can I ride on your back?” A tired and blank-faced look (for a Dire Wolf) answered that question.
“I can’t maintain this larger form for very much longer, and my normal form cannot carry you. In fact, I may need your help to carry me, as I think I’ve overextended my mana reserves to ensure your protection.”
What does that mean? When he looked at her closer, however, he could see what she was talking about; while her entire body was still divided by red and blue, the saturation of the colors was almost non-existent. He hadn’t noticed it before, but it had been fading ever since he had woken up. It had been so subtle, though, that it wasn’t until he really paid attention to it that he finally noticed.
Without another word, Fred watched, astonished, as Deecy started to shrink rapidly; ten seconds later, the formerly giant Dire Wolf was the size of a small cub, little enough that she could easily fit inside his bag if he wanted.
“Ah, that’s much better. This form requires much, much less mana to maintain, and will allow me to absorb and convert the raw mana from the environment at a rapid pace, even with you absorbing at the same rate. However, I won’t be able to protect you while I’m like this; it will take at least a day before I’m able to take a larger form, though not quite as large as before without more time.”
That certainly explains it – she can change her size depending upon how much mana she uses. I was wondering how she got that big when I’m pretty sure I didn’t imagine her that size when I Created her. Deecy, now in her Dire Wolf Cub form, lay down and curled up as if she was planning on going to sleep. I guess I can carry her, she doesn’t look too heavy. But wait, what was it she said… “What did you mean about being able to absorb mana from the environment? The only mana I’ve been able to absorb was from the beasts that I’ve killed.”
Fred had put his bag down while he asked her this, picking her up so that he could place her inside. Her head perked up and her eyes opened, however, when she heard him.
“What? That’s not right – dungeon cores should instinctively know how to do that! Even I can do this, though it is limited to the ambient mana in the air and the earth, and not from objects or beasts. Have you even tried?”
He felt a little indignant at her question, as if she was questioning his intelligence. To be fair to her, though, I was acting stupidly earlier. “Of course I’ve tried – many, many times over the last…nearly two years. I have a feeling it has to do with the absence of a dungeon of my own; at least, that’s what I gathered from what I had been able to understand from the system guide – which you now have inside your head.” He stared right into her eyes, projecting her accusations back on her.
Deecy actually seemed flustered for the first time, tearing her gaze away and laying it back on her body – which was now in his arms.
“Yes, well…I don’t have all the answers. Especially for a problem that has never existed before. I’ll…think about it for a while and see I can come up with a solution. For now, though, I need to rest – it will speed up my mana regeneration.”
So saying, she closed her eyes and was soon sleeping soundly, barely shifting even when Fred placed her in his bag on top of his food supplies. He pulled the drawstrings – closing up the top a little bit – but not so far that she couldn’t breathe or get out if the occasion warranted it. Though he didn’t know if she even needed to breathe to stay alive; come to think of it, he didn’t even know if she could be killed, and if she did die – could he bring her back?
She was asleep (or at least pretending to be as she regenerated her mana), so he couldn’t ask her about it, though he promised himself that he would make it a priority once she awoke. Even though she looked nothing like them, she embodied the closest thing he had to getting his parents back, and he didn’t want to lose her so soon after finding her.
Even if she did try to kill me. He smiled, adjusting the bag on his shoulder as he got accustomed to the extra weight. Well, no time to waste – I need to find the next town. And see what this Dungeon Adventurer Syndicate is all about.
Part III – The Dungeon Adventurer Syndicate
Chapter 14
The journey through the forest took much less time than he thought it would – just under three days to reach Gatecross. It was also boring and uneventful, though it did allow him plenty of time to talk to Deecy once she woke up; she never did figure out an answer to his issue with being unable to absorb anything but recently deceased beasts, but everything else she had to tell him was informative, if unimportant. Additionally, when he asked about if she could die and be brought back like a normal dungeon defender, she had no clue.
“I know that I will perish if I take too much damage, but I am not sure if you can recreate me like you did before. It could be that you could Create my form, but whether or not I would have your parents’ memories inside of me – I don’t have enough information to tell for sure.”
Most of the other information she imparted to him was more of what he had read previously, though it was expanded upon. And – most of it was useless to him since he didn’t have a dungeon.
What he did learn, however, was a little bit more about humans and the Dungeon Adventurer Syndicate; his parents had known much more about them than he had realized. He wasn’t sure if it was personal knowledge – because Deecy still claimed that a lot of his parents’ memories she had were still fuzzy – or if it was ingrained somewhere within the incorporated system inside of her. Either way, he was confused at why they hadn’t told him all they knew.
“A lot of the information they had was compiled over centuries and millennia of observations from every dungeon core; they probably only taught you the things you needed to know, leaving out things that seemed unimportant. I’m sure if you knew what questions to ask, they would’ve shared it with you. The one thing that I can 100% confirm from their memories was that they loved you, and anything that you needed to be a successful human – and dungeon core – they would’ve given you without question.”
He considered her explanation for a while, finally agreeing with her. He had learned so much over the last four to five months from living amongst the humans; it was hard to believe that he would’ve thought to ask about it, or even that his parents would’ve thought it was important to tell him about.
However, the one thing he couldn’t understand was why they didn’t tell him about the power within the humans that allowed them to manipulate themselves, as well as the world around them. From what Deecy “knew”, they didn’t manipulate elemental mana the way dungeon cores did; in fact, she didn’t think they could even see it. Instead, they used some innate power within them to do many of the things a dungeon core could do (and many things that they couldn’t). Dungeon cores couldn’t see this power, necessarily, but they definitely observed the effects – which was what made them powerful enough to invade their dungeons.
They could fling around various elemental attacks, increase the strength and/or speed of themselves and others, heal grievous wounds almost instantly, raise the dead and have it fight for them temporarily (but not dungeon defenders, fortunately), and even permanently enhance their own bodies in different ways. By some unknown method, these “Adventurers” got stronger the more they visited their dungeons, which was well documented as different dungeon cores saw the same humans become more powerful over time.
These different power “ratings” were talked about cons
tantly by the humans as they made their way through dungeons, so it wasn’t long until the dungeon cores had adopted the same rating system. Deecy explained it thusly:
Rating G: --> Least powerful
Rating F-A: --> Increasingly more powerful as the rating moves up a letter
Rating S: --> The most powerful
Each alphabetical rating had a “strength” rating to it – numbering 1-10 – with the smaller the number, the less powerful. So a rating of G-1st was the least powerful of dungeons, which were frequently seen with juvenile dungeon cores that were just released from their parents’ protection. Newborn cores didn’t even rank, usually, as they were so weak that they could barely defend themselves, let alone create a large enough dungeon to challenge even the weakest human. The accumulation of mana and the strengthening/development of their core crystals were what increased a dungeon core’s rating, though it could take years or decades to increase even one point in the rating scale.
A human with a G-1st rating was usually just starting out as an “Adventurer” and didn’t pose much of a threat, but they could advance in power much more rapidly than a dungeon core. Groups of humans invaded the dungeons together, so that even four or five G-1st-rated Adventurers were typically more than a match for the defenders and traps inside the weakest of dungeons.
On the other end of the spectrum, S-10th-rated dungeons and Adventurers were the best-of-the-best, the strongest of the strong, the most powerful in the world. Deecy didn’t have specific numbers, but from what she had access to she believed that there were very few on either side that were even at the S-rating, let alone at the 10th level.
Therefore, dungeon cores and humans had a symbiotic relationship; cores accumulated more mana – which was called “spiritual” or “free-floating” mana as it wasn’t attached to any specific element – by the mere presence (and deaths) of Adventures inside their dungeon, and those same Adventurers got stronger and more powerful somehow from being inside those dungeons.
Additionally, each group had a long-standing non-verbal “treaty” in place with the other; dungeon cores wouldn’t go out of their way to destroy every single human that invaded their dungeons, and Adventurers wouldn’t attempt to acquire or destroy dungeon cores.
On the core side, it made sense – the more humans they killed, the less would be willing to come to their dungeon and provide spiritual mana to provide for the dungeon’s growth. Simple and obvious.
On the Adventurer side of things, it had been centuries since anyone had attempted to steal or otherwise acquire a dungeon core; the reprisals from other dungeon cores in the area – when the last one was destroyed – was so severe that more than half of the local human population was wiped out. Just because they had dungeon “defenders”, didn’t mean that they couldn’t be sent out with an extra helping of mana to become dungeon “attackers”. Fred knew this firsthand very well, unfortunately.
Which all meant that Fred had to be careful with what he did in the near future. He needed to become a part of the Dungeon Adventurer Syndicate, despite his old friend Regnark’s misgivings about the organization; he needed their help to be able to both get to and talk with a dungeon core. Based upon the warnings from Deecy, it definitely wasn’t something he wanted to try to do by himself.
As he got closer to where he thought the town might be, the number of trees filling the forest started to decrease in number drastically; in opposition to that, the nearby dungeon cores he could sense rose exponentially the closer he got. His effective “detection range” was only a couple of miles, but at a few points he could pinpoint at least 20 cores surrounding him in every direction. With Deecy’s help (who had continued to stay in her Dire Wolf Pup form to absorb and conserve mana), he was able to chart a course through the various dungeon entrances, which eventually ended up with them on the road again.
“Dungeons and dungeon cores typically set up around human population centers; the greater the density of potential Adventurer presence, the more dungeons are present. Also, there’s typically better ambient mana nearby major human settlements, which is beneficial to dungeon core development and advancement. As you visit larger and larger cities, the dungeon concentration will increase exponentially.”
He couldn’t imagine what a larger city would look like, since his first glimpse of the town he was heading towards on his fourth morning out from the village of Northend was overwhelming. He had thought that the grouping of fifteen houses in the village was a lot; the town of Gatecross had nearly ten times that amount! What really caught his attention, however, was the sheer number of humans walking around on the stone-paved pathways in between the houses and…other buildings. His brief education from Regnark didn’t cover anything other than human residences, as Northend was essentially just a conglomeration of people living so far up north for the sole purpose of hunting and collecting furs and pelts.
Deecy was no help either, as she had no specific knowledge about human population centers other than the fact that they existed. I need to find someone who can teach me like Regnark did.
There was a stone wall surrounding the entire town, tall enough that he would need some help to climb over it; fortunately, there seemed to be openings on opposite sides of the town, which were protected by two humans in metal and leather-covered armor. Fred was reminded of the merchant guards he had seen in Northend; these town guards, however, looked to be better-equipped and…more dangerous. Sometimes he wished that his ability to see the level and stats of humans worked the same way as it did with dungeon defenders and wild beasts. He had a feeling that the town guards would be a much higher level than everyone else.
From his slightly elevated vantage point, Fred could see that the southern opening had quite a bit of traffic leading in and out of it; the northern one, however, didn’t have anything except the town guards, standing at attention but appearing bored. He hadn’t seen anyone traveling along the road on his way down south, so he supposed it made sense that he didn’t see anyone using it.
With eagerness in his step and the slight pangs of hunger itching at him (he had finished all of the food Regnark had prepared for him the night before), he walked down to the northern wall opening. When he approached closer, the two guards somehow seemed to straighten up and pay more attention to their surroundings.
“Halt! State your business in Gatecross or begone,” the left guard barked out as soon as Fred was within 20 feet.
That’s strange, I wonder why they need to know. “Uh…can I ask why you need to know?”
They seemed to stiffen at his question and Fred began to worry that he said something wrong. “Drop your weapons and—” the one that spoke shouted angrily, before the other one interrupted him in a calmer voice. “Please excuse my partner here, he obviously can’t see that you’re new here and don’t understand normal protocol. The roads around here have been plagued with various bandit groups lately, so everyone’s a bit on edge. We’ve had three caravans from the south already overdue, and the only one that went north more than a month ago hasn’t come back, either.”
A month ago? That sounds like the merchant that visited Northend. I wonder if he and his guards were attacked along the road? Most of Fred’s journey south had been through the forest, and it was only within the last half of the previous day that he had been actually on the road. Now he was doubly thankful for Deecy’s arrival, since it probably meant that he had bypassed whatever trap the bandits had in wait for travelers.
But that also means it’s unlikely that any more merchants would be willing to head to Northend, essentially cutting them off from the rest of the world. There has to be something I can do about it. As if reading his mind, Deecy butted into his thoughts from her spot in his bag.
“There’s nothing that you can do about it. You’ve got a bigger objective; don’t allow yourself to be distracted from that.”
While it was good to be reminded that he needed to keep his thoughts focused on his ultimate goal, Fred couldn’t help
but think about Regnark and the rest of the humans up north. He knew they wouldn’t starve or anything like that, but the lack of merchants coming up from the south might cause a few of them (or even his friend) to investigate why. He had a feeling that they would fall to the same problem the merchant had: bandits.
“Well, I can tell you honestly that I’m not with any of those bandit groups. I’m just here to see if I can…join the Dungeon Adventurer Syndicate. Yes, that’s what I’m here for.”
The guards didn’t look like they believed him, but they passed him through anyway. I guess I don’t look like much of a threat.
Before he got too far, however, the one that seemed a little nicer stopped him and asked about the road to the north. “No, I didn’t see anything out of the ordinary, nor did I see any signs of these bandits. Sorry.”
“Fair enough, just stay out of trouble yourself, young man. Gatecross’s DAS building is two streets down and to the left next to the blacksmith – it’s the biggest in town and you can’t miss it.” As if he was done with him, the guard turned back to the opening, looking once more to the north.
Fred thanked him (to no response) and followed the directions as well as he could, even though he didn’t know what a “street” was. He took his best guess and luckily found what he was looking for – a massive building that was at least ten times the size of Regnark’s house, with a big sign over the door that said, “Adventurers Welcome!” I guess that’s it.
Chapter 15
Fred had naively thought that he’d be able to go inside, sign up with the Syndicate really quick, find some human allies to invade a nearby dungeon, and be done with his objective before the day was done. Once he had the requisite information, he would then recruit some more powerful humans to exact revenge on whichever dungeon cores killed his parents, and then be done with it. Easy and straightforward.
Dungeon World: A Dungeon Core Experience Page 10