« Um... Mary, sorry to disturb you but I got tricked into a bet. Um, could you please add a room or cave to one of your Mock Turtle dungeons with no more than one monster type and maybe some non hostile vegetation. Um... please make it challenging. »

« Bettin’ Trish? ‘K, I’ll think of somethin’. »

Mary wondered which of her portals to pick and finally decided to use the one across the valley from Andy. She opened out a large cavern behind the current entrance hall and created a new room to house the portal on the far side of the new cave. Then she filled it with horsetails, cycads, Cycadeoidea and pines before installing a herd of twenty Deinonychus.

« Hey Trish, cave’s ready. Hope you win your bet. »

* * *

Taron the Ravager and his Veterans were seated around their camp table while they discussed the results of their evaluation. They agreed that with a little care it was still an excellent starter dungeon, at least for the first two levels. And that, except for the dungeon’s heart chamber it was not too challenging.

They started the report with the statement. Beware of artillery, this dungeon has awakened and is on its second companion. Then they added their findings and recommendations. They signed and sealed the report and handed it to runner that had been supplied by the guild that had asked them to do the survey.

The Mock Turtle dungeon had changed, it now had an entrance into a large, nay huge brightly lit cavern covered with dense vegetation. They ventured in cautiously and soon ran into feather covered monsters that seemed to be some kind of cross between reptiles and birds. The upright claws on their hind feet were vicious.

They were able to clear this cavern without too much difficulty though Jiira had a lot of work. Then they found the portal. Having been warned what to expect they again cleared the cavern though the combination of treacherous footing, melee attackers, the giant crabs and shooters, the fish made it tricky.

They pushed on and managed to clear another cavern, their leg armour being the key to their success. After the third room they withdrew to rest, make plans and evaluate their treasure.

Fingers grumbled, “we’re missing out, I know we missed valuable herbs in there, just because they’re all so – strange, or should that be rare.”

* * *

Trisha was bouncing with glee, “Hey Mary, we won that bet, Marigold owes us a favour. We can send other you a companion if she wants one.”

« We is it? And where can I find another you? »

Mary watched Trisha fumble for an answer before taking pity on her friend.

« Do you think we will have to stick big arrows in our mock dungeon saying ‘Treasure!’ for your average delver? »

“Um, no, that wouldn’t be nice. They’ll just have to learn,” Trisha answered.

* * *

Robin led his company back to the dungeon and they traversed the portal, tramped through six rooms of the mock dungeon and used the portal to exit near the dungeon of Heaven’s Belt. They headed north and reached the sea two days later.

They boarded a coaster heading east and on agreeing to help with defence if needed got a nice discount.

The coaster was slow and stopped at nearly every port or harbour along the coast so it was over two weeks later before they parted company with it.

They followed a small river into the mountains and stopped in a slightly enlarged village. There were a small number of obviously new buildings. An inn, a small alchemists shop and a small single storey building that proclaimed itself the Adventurer’s Guild.

Just to be polite Robin checked in with the guild and learned what he could before retiring to the inn.

They visited the dungeon in the morning, and Robin sent in small groups to test the dungeon and his recruits. The twins were coming along nicely and had no trouble with the lizardmen. He even picked up a couple of new recruits when they realised that his company was actually training their lower levelled members. The rogue didn’t appreciate the discipline Robin insisted on but Seela the illusionist was happy to comply having despaired of finding a group to adventure with, illusionists not generally being regarded as desirable.

Deep in the dungeon Fleabite the Imp was worried, the adventurer’s company had been hanging around for three days and the big tiger man was good. Even the illusionist was becoming useful to the company. If the big wanted there was nothing to stop him reaching the core and ANS 39 had become sort of a friend.

* * * INTERLUDE * * *

After a bit of a amicable discussion Mary realized that the officer’s principal interest was in some attributes her jeep had manifested recently. Attributes she hadn’t even been aware of. As her jeep was parked in her domain she checked the current state of the enchantments it possessed. She was able to discern enchantments to nullify vision, sound, affecting silent running and sonar and radar.

She just sat there for a minute or so before replying. How to do this without admitting she mostly hadn’t a clue as to how her jeep seemed to be using the manna she kept giving him. This time thankfully the desired enchantments were at the top and hadn’t embedded themselves fully.

“I’m not going to spend my time enchantin’ your stuff, but if you can find me some engineerin’ officers, preferably ones who haven’t chosen a class, and get them to choose some variation of enchanter. I should be able to teach them. I suspect they will have to level up a few times before being capable of some of these enchantments but. Yeah I’m certain it’s doable.”

“Can you prove that you can do this, there’s a destroyer in Pearl we could show you.”

Mary glanced at her parents, “tempin’ as that is, there’s no way I could enchant somethin’ that big on my own. Hmm... maybe a patrol boat or a small frigate? Though the frigate might be pushin’ it.”

She watched as the naval officers suppressed their excitement and decided to offer something more.

“Unnerstand that ‘cordin’ to the System I’m a Oceanic Ranger subclass Enchanter, so for me enchantin’ is secondary at best. If you can get someone who is primarily an enchanter, they would be better at this kinda thing. Also could promise not to teach anyone not cleared by the government the anti radar and anti vision enchantments.”

“A promise wouldn’t really be sufficient Mary. We would require at the very least a non disclosure agreement.”

“Um, ‘K. But if you find a mage with the right spell, he could ensure a promise was magically bindin’.”

“Can you do that? Is such a thing truly possible.”

“Me? No not a mage but ‘cordin’ to the System, yeah it’s possible.”

“Thanks for talking to us. How would you all like to visit Pearl this weekend courtesy of the Navy.”

Mary glanced at her mother, then her father.

“Sounds interesting, We’ll do that,” said her father.