Mary was happy for her sea sprite, Trisha was having so much fun networkin’ an’ planning a dungeon for the other her, it was well worth a favour or two, just so long as one or two remained for her own plans.

Speakin’ of plans, time to bully Ralpindi an’ start, her mini dungeon under the sea floor was ready with an assortment of crabs, lobsters, those weird shrimps, snakes an’ such, she even had a Jackalwere as a little surprise. Then she was kind of fond of the boss she had cobbled up based on her AD&D games with Flip back on Earth even if she’d had to revert to using a monster core to keep the silly thing viable. So Tentacles a named monster would lord it over her new diversion. Poor Tentacles wasn’t as bad ass as a Mind Flayer but he came close using magic spells and abilities instead of psionics.

Then she indulged in a series of back and forth with Ralpindi and gained his reluctant acceptance to her plans, she had to cash in two favours but felt it was worth it.

Next she pestered Andy and happily cashed in two of his favours on the same deal.

Sandrinna was somewhat harder to convince until she had a complete change of heart for some reason. Mary was unsure of the reason and not being one to look a gift horse in the mouth cancelled two favours for her cooperation.

‘Three locations, mmm, better expand that little mock dungeon and boost Tentacles an’ move him down a bit. Wonder what else...’

« Hey Trish! Why didn’t you tell me about changing Cats to Felidae. An’ that sabre tooth cat is cool! »

‘Mmm but it still needs a few tweaks... There!’

“What are you talking about Mary? What are Feli... Oh dear! I think your other self chose that and Bluey...”

Trish looked over the new options, “Oh this will be a big help.” She muttered as she dived back into planning the new dungeon.

* * *

Drina was standing at the bow of Wave Skimmer with Joy and Pounce as had become her custom relishing the occasional bursts of spray sent up by the knife sharp bow of the schooner.

Her parents were watching the surfaced sea wyvern that was having no difficulty keeping up with Wave Skimmer and listening as Captain Goodfellow talked with Robin and updated himself with the capabilities of the two monsters and their riders. It seemed that the sea wyverns could land on land and though slow and needing magical assistance to take off again they would still be formidable. Both Robin and Danny knew the necessary spells, so at a pinch Drina could be evacuated.

That evening over dinner Rhondaa commented on the existence of the sea wyverns and asked her daughter if Mary had any more surprises.

Drina grinned as she fed Pounce a titbit from her plate and replied with a giggle, “Lots!”

Rhondaa gave her daughter a flat disapproving look. Drina unperturbed fed Joy a titbit, tilted her head to one side and widened her eyes, “mama Mother has lots of things going on an’ I think more trips like this are in our future. An’ you an’ Danilus are all goin’ to be very surprised at where we’ll be goin’.”

“Will you please stop talking like Mary.”

“Guess it’s catchin’ with her bein’ constantly at the back of my mind.” Explained Drina spreading her hands.

“Mary is still with you now despite us being so far from her domain?”

* * *

Seercove had never seen anything like it. First Arbol’tar one of the priests that visited their village occasionally to hold services at their shrine had turned up with another priest from the temple at Garonmouth, they were escorted by two temple guardsmen and accompanied by a band of weird beastfolk, some strange tiny hairy guys as well as wolf, cat and badgers.

Then that strange looking three masted ship arrived in their bay and instead of lowering boats to land the passengers the passengers all dove into the water and swam swiftly ashore. The experienced eyes of the fishermen noted the two huge monsters that had accompanied the strangely rigged matt black ship.

They also recognised the flag, it was the same that Captain Tomcat’s ship flew.

Their visitors emerged from the open bay in an open defensive formation around a little sea elf girl. The girl in question looked about with interest and headed for the waiting priests.

“Why uncle Zorglub, fancy meetin’ you here, I see congratulations are in order. Things must be interestin’ with you as a priest,” Drina greeted her honorary uncle.

“Drina, you’ve grown.” Zorglub raised an eyebrow and smiled, “so how do you like responsibility little Voice?”

* * * INTERLUDE 1 * * *

Markus just lay in bed in a semiconscious state, he was running a high temperature and his blood pressure was elevated resulting in several nosebleeds. He was hooked up to several instruments and an intravenous drip.

And off to East in Bavaria in a cave under Mount Untersberg where the Emperor Frederick was sleeping with his knights a small Erdmännlein or dwarf who had inadvertently intruded therein some centuries earlier woke to a blue screen and on his grunting a startled Ya found himself transferred to a spot under a bed of a man who was a dungeon. Alaric was not best pleased but he was grateful to be awake so he was inclined to aid his new companion Markus.

First thing encourage the core to grow so that the excess soul stuff could be moved out of Markus’ body and brain, but why in Hel’s name was he forming it in his skull in the middle of his forehead. That ruby was going to look damn strange above his eyes.

* * * INTERLUDE 2 * * *

The neighbourhood was crawling with strangers, mostly male. Mary concluded it was only a matter of time before the authorities got round to obtaining search warrants, and a short time at that. So that left her with only a short time to distract them and get her people out from under.

‘Hey me, what’s needed to establish a dungeon?’

‘Sorry me I’m busy at the moment, wait, just let me put Trish on, she’s better at standard dungeons than me.’

‘’K thanks me. Hiya Trish can you help?’

‘Um, Mary err this is weird I seem to have a link to you too. Dungeons, why do you want to know about them.’

‘I’m plannin’ to set one up to distract the local authorities, there’s a park nearby an’ I seem to have lots of pos’ mobs.’

Trish grew excited; she was going to help with a real dungeon. She lost a bit of enthusiasm when she realised that this Mary had as much interest in residing at the end of a system of caves and tunnels as her Mary. But this would definitely be a real dungeon.

So an hour later a tired Mary with a newly purchased and enchanted large synthetic sapphire in her pocket parked her Jeep in a lay-by at her local park and then made her way to the duck pond at its centre. There she sat on a bench and pretended to watch the pond as she worked under the eyes of a fascinated pixie.

Two hours later she stretched to get the kinks out of her back, moved to the edge of the pond, scattered some breadcrumbs for the ducks as she surreptitiously dropped the sapphire in the small tunnel she had created. It slid, rolled down the slick ramp and vanished into the depths. She then returned to her Jeep and returned home leaving another expensive scrap of melted plastic behind in the lay-by.

Behind her unnoticed a Pixie ventured down the barely pixie sized tunnel. Silversword eeled her way to the bottom of the dungeon for yes Silversword was somehow able to sense that this was indeed a nascent dungeon. She explored the four levels and could see how the dungeon girl intended to expand it, the only thing, no things she didn’t understand was the empty soulstone sitting at the end of the dungeon where the dungeon’s core should reside, and two, the dungeon girl smelled of the wild deeps, and this dungeon just didn’t fit her.

Back on Parthia Trish was busy planning and contacting the dungeons that owed Mary favours, each was offered the cancellation of at least one favour for the help with planning and ideas and possibly more if a particular monster should fit the two Marys’ plans. She was however puzzled at Folding Deep’s hysterical amusement at the thought of a dungeon on Hawaii.

Mary got home just minutes before the police served the expected Search Warrant. She removed the hidden entrance she had used to take food to her ‘folk and also part of the tunnel as she inspected the warrant and confirmed the cops were who they claimed. Then she stood back as they searched the house for the presence of dog men, or so the warrant read.

As soon as the cops left she dropped into her armchair and re-established the entrance and removed the one in the von Hindersin’s house.

‘Hey Bluey I see I’ve got a slot for dungeon monsters available, any chance of upgrading our Cats to family Felidae?’

« ... Azurea! ... Felidae? Done! »

Mary blinked surprised in the acid way Bluey had said the blue haired cow’s name and reached absently for on of the fossils her papa had given her a couple of days ago, all of a sudden it seemed to call to her. Her fingers tingled, this had come from a Smilodon, aka S. fatalis, slowly the big fellow seemed to form himself in her mind directly under the new, no the updated entry.

Mary eyed the other fossils in the box and tossed three that she now sensed were just rocks, but that left another two... And once again the door bell sounded. Irritated she answered the door and was surprised to see Dr Cas with a man she didn’t know.

“Afternoon Mary, I thought this was Ms Rowley’s house?”

“Hi Cas, that’s my mama she reverted to her maiden name after the divorce, please come in, you wanna coffee?”

“No thanks Mary, is it all right if we, that is the university searches your garden for frogs?”

Mary opened and closed her mouth as her mind changed tracks, “Yes, by all means I’ll phone and let mama know but... Frogs?”

“Oh your neighbour has found several members of a totally unique species of frog and we are trying to find more and hopefully ensure they don’t become extinct almost as soon as they were discovered.”

Mary watched her mentor join a group of students and teachers as they spread out in her garden. She returned to flop down in her favourite armchair, she phoned her mama and left a message on her phone then turned her attention to a nagging itch at the back of her mind. It was the fairy, no something told her that the golden haired miniature be-winged lady was a pixie, and she was exploring the still unpopulated embryonic dungeon that she Mary had just created under the park.

‘Hey Trish, got a moment, whatcha think?’ asked Mary as she relayed the image up the link she shared with her other self’s companion.