* * * PARTHIA – ADVENTURER’S GUILD – GARONMOUTH * * *

Three weeks before the present

Several important individuals were sitting around a large polished table in an imposing room. The walls were covered with assorted trophies, some of which were only impressive if their story was known. They were holding the Guild’s monthly meeting.

At the head of the table, sitting on an impressive example of the special chairs the dwarves had developed, for use in areas where the dominant species were over-tall, and in their eyes at least too spindly, was the guild master Sofos Ironfist. Sofos was an impressive looking dwarf, he had a long plaited white beard, and piercing grey eyes in a craggy face.

Taron the Ravager, the grizzled veteran in charge of training and security was speaking, for once he had something of interest to report. “There are stirrings amongst the gods, Hel-Arlizzy had awoken. His altar is accepting offerings, it shows every sign of being active. The old one seems to be challenging Azurea in a small way.

“Then there was all the fuss because Ocidon the Earthshaker had manifested in his temple, and spoken to his faithful.”

Soros looked round the table and noted several sour looks, his officials to a being, were not happy with this sign that the long dormant gods were stirring once again. Conflict amongst the gods, however low key, was not good for business. It tended to incite the fanatics.

“Sarannas you will need to prepare yet another evaluation. It appears that the temple of Ocidon has access to a new dungeon,” grumbled Sofos.

Sarannas sighed, the bloody things seemed to be popping out all over the place recently. This one was the fourth in their jurisdiction just this month. “Right, I’ll see to it. Can it wait until one of the other evaluation groups get back? We don’t have any experienced evaluators around at the moment.”

Sofos grimaced, “Sorry no. The damn thing is way out to sea, we’ve acquired a chart from the Star of Ocidon courtesy of Fingers Caracaa. The trip will take about three weeks, you know how our charter reads regarding evaluations. How about Torgan the Black? He certainly has the experience.”

“We used Torgan to kill two rogue dungeons. You know dungeons seem to sense things like that, it’ll go all out trying to kill him and the evaluation team,” stated Sarannas.

Sofos shrugged. “Do your best Sarannas. There was nothing out there when we did our last annual scan. And that was only seven months ago. There is something there now. It’s a young dungeon, shouldn’t be too powerful.”

“Famous last words,” grumbled Sarannas.

“Just do it! Send Torgan,” ordered an exasperated Sofos. “In the meantime I’ll inform that pious idiot Sanderson the Wise that as per our charter, we’re going to evaluate their dungeon.”

“This isn’t a good idea Sofos, but you’re the boss,” grumbled Saranas.

* * * PARTHIA – NEAR BLUE LAGOON * * *

Silverstreek the matriarch of the pod was hunting for somewhere suitable for her pod. The situation was becoming more urgent now that several of her sisters and friends had calves by their sides. And several of the other members of her pod were nearing their time.

This didn’t mean that they neglected play. They explored even as they leapt and danced through the waves.

Then, very faintly in the distance, they detected a strange song. Curiosity won the day, and she led her pod towards the source of the song. They remaimed ready to break away and flee at the first sign of danger.

Soon all the members of her pod could hear the stranger clearly. The voice was that of a young female. She seemed to be all alone. Silverstreak led her pod towards the stranger with greater confidence. Surely the lone female would welcome company, and if a solitary female could prosper, the chances were good that there’d be safety for her young family.

As they got closer to the islands they were heartened by the amount of fish they found. It would seem the young female had a rich territory.

* * * PARTHIA – MARY * * *

Trisha found Mary playing in the lagoon; she was obviously delighted by something. Trisha watched her partner’s dolphin avatar dancing through the calm blue waters of the lagoon with a certain degree of amused fond tolerance. ‘I can’t remember any tales of any other dungeon that was willing to just waste time playing,’ she thought to herself in bemusement.

“What’s the occasion Mary? Are you celebrating something in particular?” asked Trisha with a fond smile.

« Had a breakthrough Trish. I remembered somethi’ Gerald Durrel wrote ’bout one of his trips to South America. Electric eels. Can use the idea here. »

“Um, what are electric eels? For that matter what’s electric?”

« Electricity is – erm – lightning. »

Trisha watched her dungeon frolicking in their lagoon, and wondered yet again why her explanations so often just complicated things. Who was Gerald Durrel, what was South America? And what did eels have to do with lightning? She deciding to get to the bottom of this explanation later. She was tired of letting things go and getting surprised by the results. At least Mary did explain. If asked the right questions.

But first she had to give her the bad news, “Danilus has just heard from the high priest of Ocidon’s temple in Garonmouth. Sanderson the Wise has learnt that the Adventurer’s Guild is sending one of its teams to evaluate you – us. The problem is it is a team they use to kill rogue dungeons.”

Mary stilled and coasted to a stop facing Trish. Trish started to worry at the look in dolphin Mary’s blue eyes.

« Let me see if I’ve got this right, The beep Adventurers Guild, is sending a bunch of idiots led by a beep official dungeon killer, to beep evaluate me. So that means that ’cause he’s a dungeon killer I can go all out. An’ no one will blame me or be surprised. Oh WOW! This is gonna be fun! »

Trisha felt breathless, “But Mary, Torgan the Black is an elite adventurer, he could probably defeat you all on his own,” worried Trisha.

« Nah, not a chance, he’s gonna fry! ... My first elite, can’t wait. Hey Trish don’ worry. I’ve got it covered, I’ve improved the lampreys, they’ve got steel teeth now, I’ve got some squid to ink up the place, and my new ’letric ’cudas ’ll fry anyone stupid enough to wear armour whilst swimmin’. Yeah Earth’s ’letric eels couldn’t kill someone healthy, but my babies can deliver close to a thousand volts, for near a second. Ain’t magic enhancement great! »

“But – but think what it’ll do to your reputation,” worried Trisha.

« What? Like, don’t beep mess with the spirit dolphin, ’cause she’ll kill you. »

“Erm ... No, more like, killer dungeons that can kill elites are considered too dangerous to exist.”

* * *

« Heh! Oh look Trish. Several mama dolphins and their kids have just entered my domain. Lets go greet ’em. »

And with that Mary took off heading for the open ocean, heading to where she sensed the dolphin pod. She marked them as friends to prevent accidents. She recognised them as members of a nursery group so didn’t expect any problems.

Silverstreak spotted the stranger coming; she was not hiding and seemed friendly. And she was young, and showed the fearlessness of youth that was more usual in the males. She was unusually pale, so possibly was alone due to being ostracised for her unusual appearance.

A boisterous meeting ensued as everyone introduced themselves. Mary showed her visitors a safe route through the reef, avoiding the commercial channel to the temple’s dock. Mary explained the presence of the humans and of the temple.

Silverstreak consulted with her friends. They decided to bide for awhile, the lagoon and surrounding waters were teeming with fish. And only a few readily identified species had to be avoided.

The young female was overconfident, and she was strange. She was constantly heading off by herself, she was obviously a loner by choice, a fact that did unsettle them slightly.

* * *

Trisha watched her friend head off to welcome the dolphins. Then she dove and went directly to inform Danilus and the equally concerned Altor, of Mary’s reaction. Then she went to find Purple Murex and Blacksand to give them the news.

Her duty dealt with, Trisha retired to study what Mary had been up to. She found that there were now several varieties of Barracuda. The deadly flying fish were now far more numerous, with six schools patrolling the ocean, and the usual two in the lagoon. There were two varieties of lampreys, the monstrous new steel toothed variant, capable of boring a hole of between fifteen to twenty centimetres in diameter, and the original smaller specimens.

Once again Mary seemed to be avoiding big terror inducing large monsters, for multiple deadly smaller but more agile threats. There even were some strange fish hunting birds in the mangrove swamp by shooting darts of poisoned water at them.

Purple Murex and Blacksand made friends with the pod of dolphins and worried.

Altor likewise made friends with the dolphins and prayed.

Danilus just worried, whatever the result of the guild’s evaluation, things could only get tenser.

* * * PARTHIA – TORGAN THE BLACK * * *

Torgan the Black sensed the dungeon’s domain the moment the ship Heron crossed into it. Grumbling, he struggled into his armour, and came on deck. The other members of his team, the Stinging Hornets, dungeon killers all, joined him.

“Hey captain, how far are we from these islands?”

The ship’s captain was startled to see the Hornets all geared up, “With this wind it’ll be just over an hour, the isle is about six kilometres distant.”

Torgan and his team looked at each other in surprise. They lined the rail and watched as the islands slowly grew near.

“That’s a totally ridiculous domain. We may have to breath heavy before getting to the core,” joked Torgan.

« Five dungeon killers Trish, all five seem equally powerful too, we’re gonna feast Trish. »

Trish just worried as Mary marshalled her forces. Finally, a good twenty minutes after the Heron entered her domain she struck. A full eight of her new lampreys latched onto the bottom of the Heron in a wide circle, and started boring. The copper sheathing the hull only slowed them slightly, but the noise and vibration was easily discernable to the crew and passengers.

Torgan and his party came upright and looked to the captain, just as the Mk.4s began their run. As anticipated they were not effective against the armoured adventurers, but the crew suffered, and their work was disrupted. Evandor the mage was hit several times, he was able to survive, only thanks to the party’s healer. He was however out of action for a crucial few minutes.

The lampreys finished their first set of holes. They shifted and started a second set. Water pressure soon caused a two meter hole to open in the hull of the Heron. The Heron capsized and sank. The Stinging Hornets activated their magics of water breathing and moving, and started to drop towards the bottom of the sea.

“By Azurea’s pearly teeth, what happened, where were the monsters?” ejaculated Torgan, “who ever heard of attacking the transport!”

The experienced adventurers formed a defensive globe, even as they sank towards the ocean’s floor. All they could see were a few two meter long fish, and a rather larger eel like thing with a circular mouth, and several forty centimetre long squid.

Then the squid jetted towards them and squirted out a cloud of ink that enveloped them, the ink seemed to contain a weak anti magic aura. Thus they didn’t see the four dark coloured barracuda enter the cloud of ink as they approached to deliver their attacks. For one second, long jolts of just over nine hundred volts of electricity were delivered in a liquid designed to conduct electricity. Enchanted mithril armour did virtually nothing to protect its wearers.

The mix of more conventional Barracuda, and the lampreys persistent grinding, constantly interspersed with electric shocks, wore down and finally killed the Stinging Hornets.

The only result that counted as far as Mary was concerned; was that she now had access to mithril. And that meant she could try to give her lamprey mithril teeth.

* * *

« Purple, Blackie... Mary killed the Stinging Hornets. They didn’t stand a chance. It was easy... »

Blackie heard Trisha’s voice in his head. She sounded shocked, which didn’t surprise him in the slightest. He was shocked himself. The hornets were... had been, one of the most famous teams of adventurer’s on Parthia.

« Mary sank their ship, there are survivors from the crew. But the sea is full of blood and monsters. Can you see if you can do something to save them? Mary just doesn’t care. »

Trisha used her control of the dungeon functions to watch as Purple and Blackie led out some sea sprites on a rescue mission. She watched as they used some flotsam to put together a crude raft for the desperate survivors to cling to.

Once the crew were in safe hands, Trisha used the dungeon abilities to collect the deceased adventurer’s badges. Once that was done Trisha went to find Altor. She gifted him with the five elite ranked adventurers guild badges. “I don’t know what to do about these, Purple and Blackie are collecting most of the crew of the Heron. They are towing a rough raft they cobbled together to the settlement with the survivors.”

Altor took the badges and delivered them to Danilus, along with the news regarding the survivors.