Sunday started off busy, much like Saturday. With a few days until the trees were ready for the next harvest and without the ward stones eating up his time. Winston had time to focus on his

oven. The sky was overcast but it hadn’t started raining yet. Winston was sure it would start later on. It was always raining.

Winston did a few stretches then walked over to inspect his oven. The bricks had dried wall and the base was mostly flat. Now he basically had to make a sand-castle, cover it in clay, let that dry, and brick the whole thing. The process wasn’t complicated. Winston just used a shovel, piled the sand up and summoned water. Then he shaped the sand into an elongated rectangle with a very wide mouth on one side. The clay went on top and two hours later Winston had finished for the day. The clay would take forever to dry with all the moisture in the air, but he didn’t really need it until next Thursday when the coffee was done.

“Morning boss, you ready for the dungeon today?” Jason said as he grabbed his axe.

“Are we doing it today? You talked to Brad?” Winston asked, as he walked around his hut to his small herb garden. The only thing planted in it was ginseng, but he wanted to see what effect, if any, the frog blood and guts had.

“Yep. he said he’d do it, but it had to be today. He’s gotta get back to his guild. Apparently they got in a scuffle with another guild and they need their ward master back.”Jason said, as he rounded the hut with WInston.

Kisha was standing in the herb garden looking down at the new herbs. Winston walked up to see what had fascinated her and paused. A few of the plants had gained odd red veins down their leaves the color of blood, while the one with his [Nurture] spell on it had gained golden veins and was larger. In contrast all the plants around the gold one had gotten black veins, and the leaves looked more jagged. Overall they looked evil. Like the golden plant had sucked all of their good out for itself.

“Interesting effect.” Winston said thoughtfully. He was pretty happy. Even the dark evil ginsings should be good for witches and dark potions. “Can you tell what they are? Winston asked his apprentice.”

“Well, the plant you found was a normal Tropical Ginsing. They are pretty common around here, but are useful for a lot of things. The ones with the red-veins are now Blood-Drinker Ginseng. They should be extra good for health potions, maybe even some strengthening mixtures. Not sure about the others, but they feel powerful.” The young lizard-girl said. She was talking to Winston but her eyes kept looking over to where Jason was standing. He coughed slightly.

“Well…. I better go get to work. Brad said to be ready to go by 11:00 our time.” Jason said before fleeing into the jungle to chop down more trees. Winston chuckled as Kishia watched his friend run away.

Winston brought up his UI and checked the time. It was 10:00 so he didn’t have much time. What did someone even take to a dungeon? It was like he had potions or armor to get ready. Maybe he should get some food. Winston went and tossed a few oranges into his pack. He should see if Kishia could cook at all. He was tired of eating left-over dried meat from when he’d been in the 10 Kingdoms and the fruit he grew. He was going to go nuts if he had to eat oranges and apples for another month.

WInston spent the next hour putting in his order with Troll for next week. He needed alchemist tools and ingredients for Kishia, A few half-casks so he could start up his brewing again, and some real food. He was looking at the sky, trying to decide if it was going to rain again when Brad logged back in.

He looked around then waved Winston over. “Where’s Jason, I thought he was the one who wanted to do this dungeon?” He asked as he looked around for the large crocodile.

“My apprentice was making mooneyes at him so he fled.” Winston laughed. Brad actually chuckled.

“Well, he better get back here soon. I should be able to blast though all the mobs pretty fast but it’s gonna take a while to walk there since you guys don’t have mounts.” Winston looked over where bog was running around. He should really look into trying to get a saddle for her. She’d make a decent mount for him. She was big enough to carry his bulk.

Winston was about to reply when Jason walked back out of the jungle pulling his log-cart. “You guys ready?” He asked as he pushed the cart over to the growing pile of logs.

“Just waiting for you.” Winston said. “Now where’s this dungeon at.”

The three players and one bird set off, walking deep into the zone. The jungle started off fairly light but got thicker and more difficult as they moved. The rain also started again and water poured down from the canopy around them, soaking into Winston’s fur. Winston had a lot of stamina but even he was starting to feel it as they entered the third hour of walking.

“How much further?” Brad asked, as he stepped around some large and spiky plant.

“Another half-mile.” Jason said. That would have cheered Winston if walking through the thick jungle wasn’t taking so long. A half-mile might take them another hour. A tiger jumped them right before the dungeon entrance but Brad summoned up a shield and Jason hacked the monster apart with his axe.

The jungle suddenly stopped, opening up on a large basin, with a water-fall plunging down from the opposite site. Far below was the pool and the entrance to a cave. The visual was stunning. The waterfall cast a rainbow against the green of the jungle and the wet stone.

“This looks like tomb-raider.” Jason said. “I’m expecting another tiger to pop-out, or maybe a T-rex”

“I don’t think watching you leap from ledge to ledge will look nearly as good.” Winston added. “Well, Kishia might like to watch.”

“Screw you man, She’s like 14 and a lizard.” Jason said.

“Lusty Argonian Maid?” Brad asked as he raised his wand.

Winston laughed but Jason sputtered, both were cut short as Brad started to cast. “Eir, Het, Ra, Nar, Po, Wed.” Brad said in a clear voice. Mana poured out of him and as he spoke the wind rose, wrapping around all of them as the rune he conjured manifested into a spell. It worked on completely different principles from Winston’s elemental magic. Instead of manipulating the mana directly like elemental magic. Wizards had to memorize runes, which they could conjure then combine into spells to get different effects. Wizards usually lacked the raw exploding damage potential at higher levels as other magic users, but they had a much larger bag of tricks. Brad proved that point as he stepped over the edge and floated down at the speed of a falling leaf.

A sorcerer could have done the same thing with air magic, but it would have taken an incredible amount of power and control. For a wizard they just had to have the right runes in their spell book. Once they called the runes and dumped in the magic the spell did the work for them. For a wizard it was only a moderate effort.

Winston looked down and stepped off himself. It was an interesting sensation as he fell slowly down the sixty-feet to the entrance to the dungeon. He had a bit of control over the decent but he still landed in knee-deep water.

He grumbled as he stepped out with soaked leg-fur. Jason slashed down next to him but Bog cheated. As she neared the water mana flared from her and a tiny cloud formed under one of her legs, giving her a foot-hold to leap daintily onto the dry stone surrounding the pool at the bottom.

“So that’s what Cloud Step does.” Winston said thoughtfully. He’d been wondering ever since her evolution. He looked up to examine the yawning darkness in front of them. It was a large tunnel that lead even further down, into the bones of the earth.

Winston took a deep breath and stepped forward.

[You Have Entered a Dungeon]

[Jugda Caverns]

[Class: Dungeon]

[Level: 24]

That was higher than Winson was expecting, but hopefully that meant this was the dungeon he needed to clear. That would finished at least part of his Runa Quest.

“Let’s do this!” Jason said as he pulled one off the axes of his back. Brad didn’t bother speaking at all and he just walked forward. The tunnel was wide enough for six people across with damp walls and brown stone. It was pitch black inside, but Brad cast lights that seemed to attach to either of them and hang above their heads, illuminating the hall, but killing their night vision.

They crept down the hall, or at least Winston crept. Jason walked like a stalking panther and Brad strolled casually. The first thing to charge them out of the dark were odd plant-squid things. Jason hurled his axe, burying it into one of the creatures while brad pulled a small wand out from his robe and flicked it at the other as he called three runes. Fire bloomed from the tip and smashed the creature backwards and against the wall, where it fell limp and burning.

Winston’s fear relaxed. The dungeon was far too high of a level for him, but for Brad this wasn’t even a challenge. He plowed through the all the pulls using only the simplest spells of two and three runes.

Winston, Bog, and Jason walked along in his wake, not bothering to do too much as Brad exploded all the various mobs. It was only when they came to the first boss-mob that things got a bit complicated. The tunnel widened out into a large room with a giant pillar of plant life in the center. The floor was covered in flowers and thorny vines, the air thick with the scent of plantlife.

The pillar pulsed oddly and Bard turned back to ask. “Bets?”

“Plants are hiding a giant eyeball that shoots lasers, and a mouth that shoots poison.” Jason said.

“It’ll animate all the vines on the floor to attack us. Probably summon those vines-things as adds.” Winston added.

Brad raised his wand but this time it wasn’t a simple spell. He chanted at least nine runes before he flicked his wand. A fire ball appeared in front of the wizard. Then, as if it was being multiplied two more appeared about five feet away hanging at the same height on either side. Then those fireballs created more fireballs until there were at least thirty small balls of flame half-circling the pillar of plants. Brad flicked his wand again and all the tiny fire-balls streaked forward like miniature shooing stars.

The effect was immediate, explosions rocket the chamber and a terrible screech filled the space as the boss monster came to life. The plants all detached from the central pillar and started to wave about as the vines on the floor animated and started to lash the air.

Winston leap aside as one of the vines snapped at him but even so he could still see the pillar. Four mouths opened and giant clouds of green fog started to fill the room as Brad started his next spell. Jason hurled axe after axe at the giant plant monster, while Brad hurled bolts of an off red-lighting that seemed to burn as well as electrocute. Winston was just wondering what he should be doing when the monster let out another screech and fell limp.

“Well, that was exciting.” Winston said. They waited for the poison clouds to dissipate before walking up to the boss, looking for loot. Winston wished he had his wheelbarrow, he imagined all this plant matter would make excellent fertilizer. Still he could get some of it. He looked around for the best chunk until he found a section of root right up against the things main body. Winston tried to cut it off with a knife, but Jason had to take his axe to it to get the root loose. Winston stuffed it into his pack and the boss dissolved into black mist, leaving behind a small pile of gold and a strange pulsing seed.

[Xargoth’s seed]

[Rare, Regent]

[The seed of Xargoth and the core of its power. This seed contains the power of twisted nature, of both growth and corruption. The seed would make an excellent regent for item crafting.]

“So, that’s poison mouths with no eyes, and vines with no adds. I’ll call it a draw.” Bad said.

Winston shook his head as he swept up the gold. The game divided it between the three. The monsters changed as the tunnels became less covered in plantlife. The next monsters seemed to be some sort of undead plant people, with bodies half-shriveled. They seemed to shrug off some of Brad’s magic so Winston opened up with his faith.

“Runa let the light of your flame drive back the darkness!” Winston shouted as he called faith from his staff. As the blue-silver light washed over the creatures the shriveled plants that made up their bodies started to burn. Screams filled the tunnels as the monsters burned but they didn’t stop. They kept charging forward but Jason polished them off with his axe. The monsters became less like plants and more like zombies or ghouls as they pressed forward. Winston found the whole thing a bit boring.

With Brad they could just bulldoze through the whole thing. They didn’t have to worry about tactics or pulling extra mobs, they didn’t really even have to try. Brad just mowed everything down, or hurt it so badly Winston and Jason could finish them off. The second, and final boss battle came a few minutes later.

The boss was in some sort of off archaic temple. The natural rock of the cave had became worked stone, marble by the look of it. Odd cave paintings of twisted figures covered the walls. A ghoul stood in the middle of the room. This one was larger than the other and radiating black power.

“Buy me a second.” Brad said as he started to cast a spell.Winston looked at him incredulously but Jason hurled an axe, before grabbing another and throwing it as well.

“Bog! Foul Charge” Winston shouted as he summoned armor for her. She was tough so she should be able to tank for a while with his armor. It was a shame he couldn’t heal. With his faith pool he’d be as powerful as any priest and have all his farming power besides.

Bog charged forward and smashed into the boss, his black power seeming to clash with the blue-silver faith of Winston’s armor. Small bolts of power flashed back and forth as the two opposing forcing annihilated each other. The boss reared back and punched the massive bird, she let out a squawk as she cartwheeled across the floor and her amor shattered, but she looked more mad than hurt.

She rushed back to her feet but was interrupted as Brad finally threw his spell. He’d summoned up some sort of laser-shuriken. He’d warped the air into five lenses witch seemed to reflect and focus a single line of light. It formed into a pentacle and was spinning like a circular saw. Brad had poured so much magic into it reality itself seemed to warp. Then he flug it at the ghoul and it chewed through its body, leaving it to fall into two pieces.

“Well, that was anticlimactic.” Winston said as he walked over to the boss. He’d been hoping for some rare herbs but he honestly didn’t know what he was even looking for. Everything in the plant section had been all vines and some flowers but he wasn’t sure what was valuable and what wasn’t. He should have brought Kishia but he hadn’t wanted to put her in danger.

Still, it hadn’t been completely for nothing. Jason had walked over to the body that had already started to dissolve into black dust. When Winston got there the only thing left was black stone heart. Behind where the boss had been standing was a chest and Brad headed for it, popping open the top to reveal gold coins and a few precious stones, as well as some scrolls, and a potion of some sort.

“Can I have this?” Winston asked, as he raised the black stone heart. “I can buy it, but I need to sacrifice it to Runa for a quest.”

“My quest is done.” Jason said. “I just need to go back to the ferries. Still, my first dungeon and no real loot.”

Winston reached into the pack and pulled out the seed from the first boss before he handed it over to his friend. He was getting the final bosses loot and it wasn’t like he could so much with the seed. If he planted it, it would just turn into a monster. That wouldn’t help his farm. It might bump up his farming skills though, but a giant boss monster would wreak his entire orchard in a few seconds, not to mention blow up the runes he just had made.

“What’s the take?” Winston asked Brad.

Brad thumbed through the pile of gold, scrolls, and the potion. His head bobbed back and forth slowly as if he was doing some mental math. “Maybe two grand. Likely less.” Jason grunted.

“Not bad for an hours work.” Jason said as they found the hidden tunnel that lead back to the surface. Most dungeons had one and climbing back up from the pool would have taken forever. The four of them headed back through the jungle to the farm, making Winston grimace as he noticed the sun already setting. The dungeon had been fast, but the walk had taken forever.

Half a day and for just two grand. He walked to the center of his farm where the shrine stood with its everburning flame, flickering between silver and blue. Winston closed his eyes and tried to focus on his faith. The game could read thoughts and faith required both will and sincerity. Winston sighed then focused his mind.

He didn’t try for any fancy speeches but he did try to add a little ceremony with his movements. He took the black stone heart and tossed it into the silver flames. The flames sparked and flared as the evil heart burned in the silver fire. The shrine rumbled a few another few inches as his UI beeped.

[Divine Mandate Updated]

[The Goddess Runa has tasked you with helping her claim Jogda has a sanctum. To do so you must complete a series of tasks.]

[Task: Convince three villages to build a shrine to Runa 0/3]

[Kill the divine champion of Grisith 0/1]

[Sacrifice the boss loot form Jugda Caverns 1/1]

[Reward for Success: Improved Relations with the Goddess Runa, A Divine Power, Experience]

[Warning: Divine Mandates are not like quests. They are not optional and failure to complete them will result in a complete loss of skill ranks with the applicable God or Goddess.]

Winston read the message then waved it away. Christmas Break started Monday so he didn’t have school for at least two weeks. His time restrictions would be lifted and he’d have time to start on his first shrine. Hopefully he could finish his quest before he went back to school.