The day after Baron Froom departed had left several things on my mind, not the least of which were the additional responsibilities I would need to complete to meet his request. While it was mildly overwhelming to consider, I also didn’t need to do anything this very day. It would be better if I took stock of my tower, supplies, experiments, and the various residents in and around me. With this in mind, I decided to start with the lowest part of my tower, the dungeon.

After a morning meal of eggs and oatmeal, of course.

A long flight of circular stairs led to the dungeon beneath my tower, where I found three and a half rooms.

The circular chamber that housed the dungeon core was alive with activity. The core itself floated above a pedestal, lighting the chamber. In rows around it grew my cultivar of the Asrid Flowers, the blooms bright yellow. Mushroom men watered, pruned, and harvested the flower petals, before they placed them on top of the dungeon core to quickly dry. The dried petals were then stored in a nearby crate.

This chamber, of course, was warded to prevent any of the dungeon creatures from escaping. Outside it, and opposite to the entryway was another chamber I had once created to store the various dungeon creatures and plants when I had come across a parasitic mushroom that required the previous dungeon environment to be burnt to the ground. Now, the chamber was mostly empty, the shelves of clear bottles and jars that remained held dried or dead things that I had decided not to return to the dungeon. Each shelf was clearly labeled with a sheet of parchment describing what had once been placed there, along with an illustration. This was the work of Lilly, my former Assistant’s sister.

I took measured steps into the dungeon and ignored the now knee-high mushroom men that stopped working to bow their greetings. Instead, I roughly measured the mana crystals that grew on the walls and ceiling, those crystals being the source my tower would draw from to support some powerful enchantments I had prepared but not yet cast. The glittering lights held from within the crystals gave me a rough estimate of how much more power the room could hold and how much I could draw from.

None of the spellwork I placed previously looked frayed with use, a good outcome. A few of the crystals looked cracked from having too much power drawn too quickly, but that was something I had expected and planned for in my spellcraft. This spellwork was, to me, the most valuable part of the dungeon. The dungeon had another room to the left, and the beginnings of a third room behind the crystal’s pedestal and opposite to the entryway.

In my last visit down here, I had turned the beginnings of the second room into a full room for the mushroom men’s village to relocate. It would free up the main room to grow more Asrid Flowers and mana crystals. I didn’t have any plans for the newly developing room, and decided to let it be for now. I did check in on the room for the mushroom village to see what changes they had wrought. Their social growth was amazing and a little frightening to me, as their miniature society continued to develop under my tower.

The room hadn’t gone through many significant changes since I last looked in. The mushroom people had grown a handspan taller and adjusted their homes to match. On the walls, flat mushrooms grew out like shelves and supported more homes. In various parts of the village, well-made statues depicting myself, Lilly, or some of my other assistants still stood. In other parts of the room, there were farms for other plants and pens for creatures like centipedes and frogs. The biggest change in the entire room was a platform that was raised two knuckles high that appeared to be some kind of arena. There, a mushroom man was in a fight against a centipede as long as my arm, all while other mushroom men stood around.

I watched for a few moments, trying to understand how the concept of a fighting arena had made its way to these people, before I shook my head. I didn’t have enough time to study the matter, which was unfortunate.

Perhaps I would need to hire yet another assistant solely to monitor the dungeon. Instead, I took myself upstairs to continue the survey of my tower.

The next stop was the floor halfway between the dungeon and the rest of the tower’s basements. The cellar. I stopped in for only a moment, mostly to check that we had good wine reserves, and noticed that one of my assistants had expanded it some. What was once a single hall, now had two additional rooms built from the sides. All the vegetables and fruit seemed stored on one side, but I was happy to see the other was entirely stocked with shelves of various wines. I would need to commend my new seneschal for his foresight.

The next floor up from my dungeon was my laboratory. Two doorways led off from the landing in the stairwell. One went directly into my laboratory and the other a prison cell containing a female scout. Murittita seemed much more composed than last I had seen her. The woman I felt the need to title ‘the quivering mess’ sat calmly on her bed with a slightly worried look in her eye, her thick lips pursed as if prepared to speak. I nodded a greeting to the woman with intent to let her be while I checked on my different experiments, but was stopped by her call.

“Matronless Wizard, something is wrong with your bird.”

It was one of the first sentences she had spoken to me without including a belligerent insult, so I considered that progress for the woman. Yet, I didn’t respond, not wanting to set her off. Instead, I raised an eyebrow and waited for her to continue. It didn’t take me long to realize she didn’t plan to say anything else, instead I noticed that she only stared at me. Her eyes, once lifeless, seemed to have a little spark to them.

Yet, once I stepped inside my laboratory, I immediately saw what she was referring to. The bird, a once colorful animal that could repeat words was one of two that were gifted to me by my former assistant Baron Froom.

The animal was supposedly long-lived and would make a good potential familiar, the other being a tortoise that was also in the room. Instead of finding a colorful speaking bird sitting in its cage, I found a hip-height monstrosity that could barely breathe. The feathers had turned grey, and looked to have tiny faces in them, the beak was more predatory, with a longer sharper point.

Even more startling, though, was what it said. As soon as it saw me, it shrieked, “Blood!”

The sound was so loud, I stopped in my tracks. When it did it again, I applied a spell I had crafted for Chelsea, something that would make the speaker not heard by those around them, and paced around the cage.

It was a disappointment. Since the animal was something caught and found in Tervan, I suspected that it had some sort of link with their bloodgod and gained an aspect from it that caused it to monsterize.

I felt torn on the matter.

On one hand, studying such a phenomenon could lead to new spellcraft. On the other, I didn’t know if the reach of that god included seeing through the eyes of such an animal.

The tortoise was doing fine at the moment, but now I had doubts. If this bird had become my familiar before it monsterized, would that give the Tervan’s bloodgod a way to attack me? If so, would some other deity, one that linked with tortoises have the same option? Doubts such as these were why I hesitated to bond with one of the familiars gifted, something that I was now doubly grateful that I waited on.

I allowed myself a sigh, and used a combination of earth magic to kill and fire magic to burn away the corpse of the dreadful creature. I simply couldn’t risk having something like that around. If the Histories were to be considered, the gods were quick to kill any who opposed them. The elven side of my heritage already placed me in a questionable spot and I had no urge to test if those waters were hot.

Shuffling sounds from the cell caught my attention, and I saw Murittita huddled on the floor again.

I considered that she had been here for more months now, with less improvement than I hoped for and that the calming effects of the tea might do well for her. Somehow the crates I had brought to war had not found their way back to me, and I was uncertain what kind of outcome would come from that.

Still, I put the thought to the back of my mind for further consideration later, and directed my attention back to why I had come. On one side of the laboratory contained cells hosting rodents of different types, each with a variation of the longevity spellwork cast on them. Their short lives made it easier for me to determine the effect of the spell, and the small bodies were easily destroyed if they turned into an abomination.

Beside those experiments were three extremely warded cells, each with a variation of the parasitic mushroom that had been fed only hydra body parts. I had already released one into the hydra that filled the western canyon.

Along the far wall were the monsterized versions of the Asrid flowers, many of which exhibited signs of further evolution. I had already proved the Asrid flowers came from a dungeon monster plant, so it was only curiosity regarding what the evolutions would entail that kept this experiment ongoing.

The desk on the left side of my laboratory contained an assortment of things. A long table held up my notes and journals associated with each experiment.

Crates filled with unused equipment and supplies sat well-marked and organized. The broken cage of the parrot and the remaining cage containing the tortoise were closer to the entrance, near where I stood. I used a quick cleaning spell on the dust that had accumulated in my month-long absence from the room, and then opened the tome I used to track my other experiments.

With a burst of magic, I reached out to look through the wind elementals I had monitoring the experiments in the canyon of hydra, and began to write. The illusionary rabbits continued to function as they had last time, distracting the hydra into fighting each other. The pile of hydra infected with the parasitic mushrooms had grown. It had become a squirming mound that covered half the width of the canyon, but too dense to observe how well the mushrooms performed. The fifth-tier earth elemental I shaped into an ever-rolling boulder continued to churn through hydra. Now, more boulders followed behind it like chicks behind a hen. While I felt some concern about the growth of naturally occurring earth elementals, I would only continue to observe. Naturally occurring elementals were something I hadn’t seen before, so I was eager to see what the outcome might be.

After I recorded the results, I rose and stretched my arms. I had only worked for an hour, but I needed to continue to review my tower.

If I didn’t force myself to step away now, I would likely find that I had spent days reviewing and tweaking my experiments. I paused on the way out to glance at the freed Mirktallean slave, and ask her a simple question.

“Are you ready to be freed from your confines?” I spoke with a calm, emotionless tone as if whispering to an unruly horse. Yet the woman, who was on the bed with her arms around her knees only shrunk back into herself and shook her head vigorously. I waited for a few breathes to ensure that was truly her opinion and not an instinctual reaction, before departing.

The next floor contained my tower crystal and its guardian monster, a young giant spider that hid among the rafters I designed. I had spent a few hours last week changing the design so that the acoustics of the room echoed back words in a delightful manner. Yet I had been in the room yesterday, and didn’t feel the need to further review it.

Instead, I continued my way to the next floor, one I both loved and hated.

The landing for this floor led to a small room that opened to two doorways. On the right, was my new sitting room. Four Senan couches and several Mirktallean Longchairs were carefully placed to allow me to rest in their comfort.

I need to further decorate the room, with wooden tables to rest my wine glasses and an elaborate painting or two. A rug would do wonders as well. Yet, despite my desire, I didn’t enter the room. If I did, I would likely spend the next few days in the comforting arms of a couch with a wine glass in hand as I explored my Authority over earth spells.

The other doorway led to what I called the Halls of Valor. There, pedestals and alcoves held the memories of lost friends and loved ones, or rather the items they left behind. The wall on the far end of the room supported the symbol of Bi, Senan god of strength and valor, and before it was a pedestal that held my most prized possession.

The Book of the Dead, a journal where I wrote the names and stories of those who had passed before me.

Those pages likely contained just as many dried tears as they held dried ink. Even as I gazed at it for the briefest moment, I felt a sense of melancholy threaten to overwhelm me. One day, I would do something more for those friends I had lost. Perhaps something that brought the images and memories recorded within to life in sculpture or mural. Not today, though.

The next floor, and the level closest to the surface, held the kitchens. The room had been divided into five parts, with the center of it being an oven heated by a fire elemental. This oven led up to the highest floor of the tower, though it functioned more as a heater for anywhere but here. Immediately from the landing was a small dining table and chairs, with two doorways on either side. One led to the servants’ quarters, the other to the kitchen and pantry. I heard the sizzle of fish grilling and smelled bread baking. I had no desire to disturb my servants at the moment, though, and continued to my first floor.

I was proud of my first floor, the entrance to my tower. The brass door that led outside was so well polished I could see the reflection of the rest of the room on it. The centerpiece of my room was a fire pit engraved with elaborate geometric designs, designs that extended onto the ceiling. The etched lines were filled with copper underneath and an amethyst coating on top. On the opposite side of the room, three grand windows with panes made of amethyst allowed a purple-tinted light to flood the room during the day.

My favorite part of the room, though, was the curving table that wrapped around the fire pit with stone chairs on either side. A wondrous gift created by my two former assistants, Kine and Walker. The table and chairs were all engraved with designs that matched the firepit and ceiling, though only the table had those etching filled in. What made it my favorite was how uncomfortable sitting in those etched stone chairs would be for guests, a silent way to let them know that I didn’t want to be bothered.

My Seneschal, Fentworth Aide, was seated in one of those uncomfortable chairs now. The man leaned back from the tome he had been scribbling in, something that looked to be a ledger for tracking expenses, and stood to greet me.

His black hair with speckles of gray and serious expression hadn’t changed since he took the position at my tower.

“My lord, what do you require?” the man asked, the pomp and dignity oozing off from him in a wave that left me glad I had hired the man. Formal and disciplined were his two best traits in my opinion, and I wished my other servants held themselves to the same standards.

“Today I have decided to take an account of my tower and its surroundings. You may join me if you wish.”

Fentworth nodded his head, closed his ledger, and tucked it under an arm as he took up position to my right and two steps behind me as we walked to the next floor. There, the landing let out to a circular room with four doorways and each doorway led to quarters for my staff. Two rooms were reserved for my assistants, though only one was in residence at the tower. My seneschal had taken another room, and the fourth room belonged to Lilly.

Thinking of her now, I hadn’t seen much of the young lady since I returned from the battle, with her only leaving her room for meals. I had related the news to her upon my return, but then had gone on to focus on the new options for spells that my Authority afforded me access to see. While I had no official responsibility for the young woman, I had unfortunately allowed myself to feel as though I did. Leaving her unattended, even with the responsibilities I had assigned to her, was an oversight on my part. Doubly so, knowing that she still grieved Walker’s death.

So, after I considered what I would discuss with her, I knocked on her door and waited. I heard the rustle of cloth and the shuffling of steps before her door creaked open to reveal a barely clothed young woman with messy yellow hair and a defeated look. Her shoulders were slumped forward, and her golden eyes took time to focus on me, as if she had just awoken.

Yet, despite all of those things, I felt an immediate swelling of anger. I gritted my teeth and scowled, lest I take my rage out on Lilly, but that didn’t stop my face from twisting as I saw something she had hidden from me.

“Master?” She asked softly, a hint of fear in her voice. Her eyes followed to see where I stared, before she quickly hid her arm behind her back.

Yet it was too late, and I had seen it. Around her wrist was a bracelet of tiny green leaves, leaves that grew from her skin.