Chapter 11

“Well, damn,” said Warley while Kiera just frowned. They watched as the foundation for a guild hall was swallowed by what must be the dungeon. The land just re-filled itself with loose soil.

“I guess the dungeon doesn't want us to build an access building right outside the dungeon entrance either,” said Warley.

“But how will we tax everyone who comes to the dungeon if we can't build a guild hall right outside the entrance chamber or right inside the second floor?” asked Kiera.

“Kiera, I hate to say it, but it seems like this dungeon simply won't accept us keeping people out of the dungeon. Everything we try to do to tax adventurers is being swallowed by the dungeon. We even tried building a wall around the clearing in the forest, but it simply got swallowed as well. I think we should just give up and allow people to come here for free,” said Warley.

Kiera had been trying every which way to make money off the adventurers coming to the dungeon. She still remembered the dungeon she had been to in Ilsan, where everything was taxed fifty percent and the entrance fee was two silvers. What the hell, Dorn?

Dorn replied, “If you won't take my advice willingly, I'll simply force you to take it. You must become stronger before you can tax people.”

Ignoring Dorn, she said out loud, “Maybe I could levy a tax against any businesses that operate within the dungeon,” Kiera said.

Warley sighed, before saying, “Unfortunately, Kiera, you simply don't have the political or personal power to enforce such a tax. You should be spending your energy on increasing your chi practice. You clearly have a high-level technique, so why don't you spend more time leveling up? When you are an S-ranked adventurer, you can levy any tax you feel like. You could even set up your own kingdom in here,” Warley joked.

Dorn sent her a sense of smugness. Kiera, finally feeling defeated, told Warley, “I suppose you're correct. I'm just so bored of practicing all the time. I need to form a party to start dungeon diving in earnest. Between Jeromy and me, we have a healer and scout, two of the hardest positions to fill. We just need a tank and two damage dealers to round out our group. But I don't want to just fill positions with D-ranked adventurers who don't know their asses from their swords.”

Warley smiled. “You know, you're technically a D-ranked adventurer as well.”

Kiera was surprised, saying, “What? But I'm a C4 rank practitioner. Doesn't that make me a C-ranked adventurer?”

“Nope, not until you take the guild test.”

“What does that involve?” asked Kiera.

Warley responded, “A test of your practical fighting abilities and a fee of 10 gold.”

Kiera, the ever greedy miser, said, “Screw that. I'll just stay as a D-ranked adventurer, thank you very much. Although, it makes me think, it looks like the tenth level of the dungeon is going to be rated as D9/C1 difficulty. In the future, you should just make passing that level be the test for advancement from D-ranked to C-ranked.”

Warley liked the idea. “That's actually really smart. Our practical fighting tests are really imprecise. If we simply used the instanced level of the dungeon at D9/C1, we could standardize all of our C-ranked adventurers.”

Warley, lost in thought, just walked into the entrance chamber and left via teleportation glyph.

He's probably going to check the progress on the building of the D-Housing city. After determining to build the village in the dungeon, the entire caravan had entered the dungeon. That was only two days ago, but already, the foundations of a city was being built up according to the machinations of the city planners. Without the need to build an inn, tavern, or church, the laborers had gotten started building the essential buildings for any village. They were building a smithy, an alchemy shop, an enchanting shop, as well as a general store for selling sundry items. The largest building they were planning at the moment was the guild hall. Finally, there was even plans for a government building, something Kiera thought was unnecessary, but she had been overruled. One disappointment Kiera had was no one wanted to build a bath house. They all said they could just go jump in the river.

Kiera sighed and looked out at the plains. That was when she saw the dwarf.

***

Vossan Graygranite was walking slowly towards the enormous statues. He could hardly believe that such magnificent carvings existed in this world. Vossan had been in Khal City on a diplomatic trip between their two nations (the dwarves had an entire underground country creatively named Under the Mount). Dwarves and humans had a mostly mercantile relationship. The dwarves were known as the world's greatest blacksmiths, crafters, and sculptors. Frequently, the humans would purchase their arms and armor from dwarves. As such, the dwarves were rich. Some of their money had to be paid back to the humans to receive food, of course. It was very difficult to have a thriving agriculture underground. The Khals had a recent surplus of food, as well as a desperate need to better equip their soldiers for the upcoming war. It was a seller's market, and Vossan Graygranite had led the dwarves to make some very favorable trades. As the trade delegation was leaving, Vossan had caught wind of a dungeon that was supposedly built on a black-gold mine. Being ever-curious, he decided to come see if it was true.

Vossan was a very sterotypical-looking dwarf. He was short, at about 4' 3”, but he was stocky with large muscles. He had dark black hair and a large beard that had been tied into four braids. Walking up to the statues in awe, Vossan almost ran into the red-headed human woman.

“Oh, didn't see you there, tall human. But these sculptures, they're incredible. Did the dungeon sculpt them?”

“That's okay, they have that effect on everyone. And we assume the dungeon sculpted them, but it's possible that the dragon who used to live here did it prior to the rise of the dungeon.”

“Hmm, they do seem to mimic the style frequently used by dragon artists. I've seen a number of their smaller works in Under the Mount.”

“The dwarves trade with the dragons?” Kiera asked.

“Of course; the dwarves trade with all races, and all races want dwarven products,” Vossan replied proudly.

“So are you a smith as well?” Kiera asked.

“Ah, well, no, I was not trained to be a craftor or smith. I'm something of a cross between a diplomat and a merchant, as well as the occasional miner. Which is why I'm here, I read a report of there being a black gold deposit and came to look at what the dungeon has to offer. Oh, and I'm a low C-ranked tank adventurer, as well,” Vossan said.

Kiera was ecstatic. “You're a C-ranked tank? Would you like to join my party?”

Vossan looked suspicious, “You're an adventurer? What position do you fill, and who else is in this party?”

Kiera excitedly said, “My name is Kiera Stanton, and currently, you'd be our third member. I'm a C4 level chi practitioner with a minor affinity in healing. The other member of our group is a B-ranked adventurer and an accomplished scout. His name is Jeromy Wither.”

“Hmm, how much pay can you offer? I'm Vossan Graygranite, by the way. Got anyone in the party who can do damage, though?” asked the dwarf.

“Well, at the moment, we have no damage dealers, but I can offer some gold for you joining our party. But I'm still just waiting, either for some more C-ranked adventurers to show up or for some D-ranked adventurers to level up. You'd be welcome to wait with us, if you want. In the mean time, you could spend some time on the mining floor.”

“There's a mining floor?” asked Vossan.

“Yeah, it's a pretty unique dungeon; you should go and check it out.”

Vossan got a bit of a manic look on his face, before saying, “Sweet, see you in there?”

“Oh wait, hold on. You're a dwarf, that means you'll get sent to a different quadrant of the housing floor. Come to the gateway between your quadrant and the southwest quadrant. That's where the humans are. I don't know which quadrant you'll be sent to.”

Vossan looked really confused. “Lady, I have no idea what you're talking about.”

Kiera laughed and said, “As I said, this dungeon is pretty unique. It's created an entire floor just for people to be able to live on. He used space magic to split the floor into four quadrants, one for each of the races. Each race who enters the dungeon will be sent to a different quadrant. I was just saying that the humans live in the southwest quadrant. There are three gateways in each quadrant that give access to the other quadrants. You can come towards the gate to the southwest quadrant to meet up with me and my other teammate.”

“Wow, that's a lot to wrap my head around. And why'd you call the dungeon a 'he'?” Vossan asked.

Kiera blushed and quickly said, “Oh I just think of it as a he. You know, like how sailors address their boats as 'she'.”

Vossan looked slightly suspicious. “Okay, I'm going to go check out the dungeon,” he said. “I'll come to the humans' quadrant after I finish inspecting. Have ale ready.”

Kiera said, “Sweet, I'll see you then.”

Vossan walked into the entrance hall. After a good two hours staring at all the art and steles, he finally walked into the teleportation glyph and disappeared.

Vossan stepped into the arches room, looking at the Giant 'D' on the floor. This dungeon is strange. Vossan took one look at the stele describing the floors and rushed to enter the D-Mining floor. Arriving, he saw an enormous cavern, about five miles long on each side. The ground was covered in grass, and there were enormous hills that sloped up towards the ceiling. The room must have been a good 200 feet tall, with nearly another 100 feet of ground designed for mining. Helpfully, there was a stele pointing towards the various hills:

Tin

Southwest

Iron

Southeast

Aluminum

Central South

Copper

?

Gems

?

Quarry

North

Vossan went nuts. He pulled an enchanted pick out of his little belt pouch and went running off as fast as he could to one of the hills in the middle of the cavern. This must be where the copper is located. Luckily, there were helpful paths that went to each large hill as well as large square mines that entered each hill. The mine was just a square shaft the entered the top of the mountain. Vossan, breathing heavily, finally reached the top of the hill in the central part of the cavern. Entering into the mine, he found a staircase spiraling down into the earth, with square tunnels splitting off in all directions at various depths.

The staircase made Vossan stop and think. What a helpful dungeon, it made the stairs to Dwarven specifications. Vossan was sick of looking like a little child stumbling up and down stairs in the human kingdom. Of course, Vossan didn't stop for too long; he picked a tunnel at random and started swinging his pick at the walls.

After about two hours of non-stop swinging, he finally found his first copper vein. He even lucked out and found a piece of green malachite, good for Nature enchanting. With his success, Vossan spent another six hours, until the small vein he had found was completely mined. With his dwarven endurance, he could have gone all night if the vein was larger.

After satisfying his desire for mining, at least temporarily, Vossan remembered his duty to Under the Mount and pulled out a voice communication talisman. He reported to the King Under the Mountain his discovery as well as everything he knew about the dungeon, telling them to send a large force to create a settlement within the dungeon. He knew the dungeon would be an even better home than Under the Mount, and might someday become a second nation of Dwarves in the East Lucenia continent. If there were rarer metals found in lower floors, there might even be a great migration.

Remembering his promise to meet the red-headed human, he reluctantly left the mine, returning to the D-Housing floor. He looked at the spatial shield that Kiera had described and marveled over the mastery of Space magic required to build such an enormous shield, that was capable of splitting a floor that was clearly enormous. Realizing that the dwarven quarter must be in the Northwest, he headed south along the space shield, through the forest, eventually coming to one of the gatehouses Kiera had described. There, he saw the red-headed human through the space shield.

She was sleeping on the ground. Walking up to the shield, Vossan yelled her name.

“Mmm, what?”

“Wake up, I'm here,” Vossan said.

“What the hell took you so long? I've been waiting here forever,” Kiera complained.

“I got a little distracted by the mines, but it was totally worth it. I found a small copper vein and decided to mine it to completion,” Vossan bragged.

“That's great,” said Kiera, her face saying the exact opposite. “Come into the human quarter already.”

“Okay,” said Vossan.

Vossan walked up to the simple wooden gatehouse and saw that it was just a short hall with two space shields in it. He put his hand up against the first one and it went right through. As he touched the shield, he realized he could control who had the ability to cross through the shield in the future. He set it so that only dwarves could pass. They didn't need any pointy ears or other tall freaks coming in. He passed through the humans' space shield as well.

Kiera, bubbling with excitement, said, “Let's go to the inn; I can show you the other member of our party.”

“I don't remember joining the party; in fact, there was something about you needing to pay we had yet to settle.”

Kiera just laughed and started walking with her long stride towards the human encampment. “Let's get to the inn and you can have some ale.”

Eyes brightening at the mention of ale, Vossan walked quickly to catch up with her.