The following morning in the common room of the inn at Soria.

I and just over half of my group were finishing up breakfast in the common room of the inn, as the Artificer’s grand niece was supposed to meet us, I was facing the door hoping to wave her over when she came in. Fortunately I didn’t have to wait too long for her to show up, it was hard to miss her as she was fully geared up for travel, and followed by an elder forest sprite summons. She paused just inside the doorway to the inn, and indicated to the sprite that it was to wait outside. As she looked over our group, she grimaced momentarily as her gaze passed over Sandoval, before settling on me.

A couple of moments later as she approached me, I greeted her saying, “Good morning. Serena I presume?” She replied, somewhat brusquely, “Yes, when do we leave?” To her question I responded, “We all should have finished breakfast by the end of the next half candle mark. Then we need to get the mules that Mayor Alfonso should have prepared for us. I also need to meet with your great uncle to get a copy of the map showing the dungeons location. I expect that we should be ready to leave town by the end of the third candle mark after dawn. I do have a question for you though, do you have a problem with Sandoval?”

She shook her head as she replied, “You won’t have to meet with my great uncle, I have the map he would have given you with me, in addition to my own talents. Also, no. I do not have a problem with, Sandoval was it? It seems as though he used a refresh spell sometime recently. Probably before he came down from his room, the residual mana signature is a little annoying.” At this last declaration from her, my eyebrows involuntarily raised, Ramirez had said she was sensitive to mana, this level of sensitivity was more than I expected.

After I took a moment to get my surprise under control, I pointed to the empty chair across from me as I said to her, “join me for some breakfast, or if not breakfast, at least some conversation whilst the rest of the group finishes up.” She nodded as she pulled back the chair and replied, in a more conversational tone, “sure Felipe, I’ll do just that. Thanks.”

At the same time, half a league southwest of the camp that Timoteo and Dimitri stayed at last night.

Dimitri and I had gotten an early start this morning, we needed to get back to Soria to report our findings. Frankly Dimitri was right, despite the likelihood that the dungeon was both sane and benign, unless we could get someone to translate, it just wasn’t safe for as small a group as we were to be there. The device the dungeon had awarded us was safe in my vest pocket, its light weight causing me to somewhat nervously pat my pocket to check that it was still there on occasion.

We had chosen a more westerly path back towards Soria than the one we had taken to get to the dungeon, in the hopes that we would manage to avoid the ogres and kobolds we had encountered on our journey to the dungeon. Unfortunately a consequence of this choice was that we didn’t have as clear sight lines as we were now journeying through the forest itself, as opposed to around its edges. So as to help make up for our reduced travel speed, Dimitri and I had decided that we would travel an extra half candle mark before dawn, and an extra half candle mark past dusk.

We had taken thirty days to arrive at the dungeon, we had just over 82 leagues left to get back to Soria. What with our new route, I was hoping that we came across some good game trails to help make up time. Ramirez had sent for a larger group of delvers to do a full evaluation of the dungeon, depending upon how fast they had traveled from Campanella they could already be at Soria. It really would be unfortunate if we passed by them and they didn’t receive the benefit of our initial evaluation.

Just after the start of the midday candle mark, three leagues northeast of the town of Soria.

Our group was making good time, the two gnomish sappers we had with us weren’t terribly happy about riding mules instead of their ponies, but it was unlikely that the ponies would be able to traverse some of the terrain we would encounter later on. The three pathfinders we had were ranging out in front of the main group, Serena, closer to them than to the rest of us, the elder forest sprite clearly showing the path Serena and the pathfinders were following. As one of the gnomes flicked his riding crop at his mules ear, he had to quickly move his foot out of the way, as the mule turned to bite in retaliation. We might have to swap him to a different mule if that keeps up.

Serena was going to be an interesting traveling companion, sensitive to mana fluctuations to the point of being unable to be around people performing spells of any kind without some form of shielding. Apparently the Artificer made an amulet which drains his mana field emanations which is the only reason she even tolerates his presence. Without it he apparently exudes significantly more mana subconsciously than most others have as a mana residue for their spells.

One of the pathfinders came back from his forward position and talked briefly to Serena before heading back out, but in a slightly different direction than he came from. Serena waited until myself and the rest of the main group had caught up before saying, “dire boar ahead, a whole herd. Erik, and the others are finding a way around for us.” I nodded then turned to the group, and said just loudly enough to be heard, “We’ll rest here for a quarter mark until Erik, Lief, and Karl find a way around for us.”

Hopefully this isn’t a daily occurrence, I really do want to keep up the pace from earlier. We still need to see if we can meet Timoteo and Dimitri on their way back, assuming they are indeed heading back. The dungeon could very well have killed them if it was hostile and they weren’t careful. That would be most unfortunate as any information they may have would be most useful to us as we made our own evaluation.

Today, dusk, fifteen leagues west of Iltasadum.

Ninazu’s possessor may have given us the order to corrupt this new dungeon, but I was gleeful that I was in charge our group. Each of us forced our hosts bodies to keep up the brutal pace. Interference by the elves and the other races would be less than desirable, an abyssal dungeon for us to use as a base would give us a stronghold to subjugate this world. Some of the newer possessed had heard rumors of another abyssal dungeon on this world, but as the humans sometimes say, the more the merrier.

We ran on through the night, making our way around the Spine of the World, attempting to cross the Spine directly would lead to the demise of our hosts. Already we were having to pause our course to gather sustenance for our hosts, such frail beings, we couldn’t have them die on us before it was time. Hopefully we will come across some ogres or kobolds to bolster our numbers, who knows what those annoying elves may have done before we arrive.

Five days later, a candle mark past dawn twenty-two leagues southwest from James’ dungeon entrance.

Timoteo and I had managed to find several long game trails that helped us speed our pace. Based upon the looks of La Cima, we should be nearly a quarter of the way back to Soria. I suspect that we are outside of kobold territory at this point, although we are both still watchful. I swallowed a mouthful of water from my water skin, hopefully we will come across a stream soon, setting up a dew collector to fill up our water skins really doesn’t work all that well. At least it gives us something though.

I brushed a bush out of our path, then felt a drop of water hit my snout. I looked up at the sky, looks like we won’t have to set up a dew collector tonight. The rain may be a welcome source of water, but if it lasts too long it will slow our pace down significantly. This dungeon could very well change everything we know about dungeons. I hope that Timoteo is right and the dungeon is benign. Unfortunately we just can’t trust it until after we can understand it, and it can understand us.

I wonder if the group coming up from Campanella will include any dwarves, if it does, they are going to be drooling over every little device in the place. Hades, if Ramirez ever goes up to the dungeon, he will probably never leave. That mattress was so much more comfortable than my bedroll once I got it adjusted, that it isn’t funny. Although I don’t know what material the mattress itself was made from, I suspect that what made it adjustable is some form of air bladder. I wonder if the dwarves could emulate such a thing once they have heard about it.

We still had a long sixty or so leagues ahead of us. As I came across a small rocky outcrop that we were going to have to traverse, the rain started falling more heavily. I turned back towards Timoteo, and asked, “Do you want to camp early and wait out the rain? Or should we push on?” Timoteo glanced upwards, then whilst wiping the rain from his brow replied, “Let’s push on for now, if it hasn’t slowed by early afternoon we’ll make camp then.”

Ten days and forty leagues after Felipe’s group left Soria.

We had been pushing the pace fairly hard despite the fact we had been having to follow animal trails to make time. Erik and the other two human pathfinders were good sorts, and had managed to steer us around one other herd of dire boar, and three families of dire bear, so far. Despite their comparatively young ages and lack of magic, the three pathfinders acted as though they had lived in forests like this all their lives. Honestly it was a bit surprising that the only elf with equally good forestry skills was Serena, Ramirez was right in that she wasn’t a pampered city elf.

She got along reasonably well with the non-magic members of the group, but it was easy to see how any magic performed in her vicinity made her uncomfortable. I had asked her about how her sensitivity affected her own magic, she had told me that she simply had to grit her teeth and bear with it. I had glanced at the elder sprite after she told me that, and she told me that she summons it once a ten day. I had to admit, as I watched her re-summon the elder sprite last night, that it was a real display of fortitude, as she had grit her teeth throughout the entire ritual.

The gnomes really were not having much luck with the mules. They were now on their fourth set of mules, somehow, they just didn’t get along. I had asked the gnomes if they had any idea why the mules didn’t seem to like them, when everyone else in the group had no more trouble than usual. All I got back from them was a bunch of cursing, Hades it was impressive how many different curses they could string together in one breath.

As dusk approached, Erik came running back to the group. After he took a moment to catch his breath, he said, “Leif saw smoke about half a league north from us.” I looked around at the slightly expectant faces of the rest of the group and said, “Well, lets head that way and see if the smoke is the campfire of the two scouts from Soria.” A few short moments after we had adjusted our course, I turned to Serena and asked her, “Serena, do you know either Timoteo or Dimitri?” As she pushed past some branches, she said, “I have met Timoteo on a few occasions, he sometimes has had some nice pelts from his hunts. I purchased one a few winters back, it made for a good rug. I haven’t met Dimitri, although his wife Yaryna comes out to purchase herbs from me, instead of going to the shop in town.”

It was about a candle mark past dusk as we approached the fire. Our three pathfinders had already made themselves comfortable, and had obviously help to expand the smaller campsite. A slightly haggard forest elf stood as we came into the firelight, saying to Serena, “Well, I see your great uncle roped you into this too Serena.” As she stepped around a log, she replied, “He did. Good to see you didn’t get Dimitri killed, Yaryna would have been distraught.” She then turned towards me and waved a hand towards the standing elf and the wolf-man sitting by the campfire, ”As you can see we found the scouts, this is Timoteo and Dimitri.”

A short while later, after the rest of the group had started to set up for the night, I turned to the haggard pair and asked, “so, what can we expect from the rest of the journey, and the dungeon in particular?” The pair glanced at each other briefly, before Timoteo started to speak, “It is a good thing you chose to come straight up through the forest as we might have missed you otherwise, along the tree line we had encountered at least two different kobold groups and one very angry ogre. The dungeon, is both fascinating and a bit terrifying. First, a question for the group, does anyone know any translation spells of written intent?” After a moment Alesandro, one of the two wizards in our group and the only one from the southern continent, spoke up saying in a somewhat thick southern accent, “I do. I had to use it almost constantly the first two years after I moved up here from Athens.”

Timoteo sat back heavily on his bedroll, saying almost under his breadth, “Praise be.” After I let Timoteo have his moment of relief, I cleared my throat and asked, “So, does the dungeon not have a summons to speak for it, that it must write?” At the question, Timoteo looked over to Dimitri briefly before replying, “As far as we can tell, no, the dungeon does not appear to have a summons of any kind. Also, although I may not be able to read many of the languages on Patria, I have at least seen their form and can identify them. Neither Dimitri or myself were able to identify the language or even the number system used by the dungeon.”

As I was about to ask what he meant by that statement, Serena preempted me asking, “What do you mean by that Timoteo?” He took a moment to pull a small sheaf of parchment and a small tablet from his vest, before responding to Serena, “Well, as near as Dimitri and I could determine, the words are made of letters like the most of the civilized races languages with the notable exception of the dragon symbolic words.” He then paused and selected one of the pieces of parchment and passed it over to Alesandro, saying, “That is one of few the phrases the dungeon used. We wrote that from memory after we had left, so we are not sure we copied it correctly. Could you try to translate that?”

Alesandro looked over the parchment, then said, “One moment. My apologies Serena.” To which she brusquely said, “I know, just get on with it.” A short set of hand gestures and some muttering later and the parchment glowed slightly to our eyes, before then returning to normal. We all were looking at Alesandro expectantly waiting for him to tell us what it meant. He somewhat nervously cleared his throat as he said, “Well it seems to say, Hello guests here is some help.” He turned towards Timoteo and asked what we all wanted to know, “What did you all need help from the dungeon for?”

Timoteo then took the tablet that he was holding and passed it over to Serena asking, “Do you feel any magic from this whatsoever?” Serena looked over the strange tablet, the small rectangular windows were perfectly clear with no distortions. The symbols on the tablet were perfectly aligned to the center of their slightly raised pads, despite its strangeness, after taking a long moment to assess the device, she said, “No. This tablet has no magic in or on it at all. The dungeon even bothered to pull its presence out of the tablet. So what is this?”

Timoteo then explained to us all, “It is a device much like an abacus, this however, will perform the arithmetic for you. So long as the upper of those two windows has enough light.” As I was about to ask what he meant by that, he stood and grabbed a branch from the fire to use as a torch, then came around behind Serena. As he did, she hissed and looked at the device in her hand as though it was a poisonous snake for a moment, a moment later she said, “If you hadn’t had me examine this before you did that I absolutely would have thought this was enchanted. It certainly is not though.”

Timoteo returned to his bedroll, placing the branch back in the fire before telling us, “Everything in the dungeon is like that. Nothing is enchanted as far as we can tell, yet, things can move on their own, detect movement. Even, change entirely. The text we had Alesandro translate was displayed on a panel in a room without the dungeons presence. Even when Dimitri and myself were next to the panel, the text on the panel changed.” At this last declaration, everyone in the group listening gasped slightly. If the dungeon could do that, who knows what it could do. Alesandro just became the most important person in our group, we would need to know everything the dungeon deigned to communicate to us, and he was the only one who could tell us what it said.