Rhofhir

Across the vast reaches of a mana saturated space, a tinker took a moment to admire his handiwork before (metaphorically) stepping back and stretching.

The perseverance of life fascinated Rhofhir, and studying it offered a distraction from the isolation that came from being a Universal Divinity. He liked to keep an eye on the assorted divine cultivators, hoping he might one day get to shepherd into being a Galactic Divinity. It would be the closest he would come to companionship on his own level. So far, though, the depth of mana saturation in his part of the multi-verses was just too much for any of his cultivators to step beyond a Planetary Divinity.

Could it be something Rhofhir was doing that prevented this adaptation from occurring? Perhaps he should follow Morningstar's sarcastic advice and just drop all the elements together on a crusty magma rock, give the barest of radiation shielding, and see what crawls out of the muck. The Cosmic Divinity had slipped him a few samples of beings begun this way and so far Rhofhir had taken quite a liking to the human patterns. They got the farthest along the cultivation path, but were also having to overcome the most radiation sensitivity.

The goop colonies, though, had no problem with radiation, but rarely attained sentience beyond the level of the individual members of each goop. The colonies were just too efficient at the primeval stages to be forced to grow more complex patterns, or learn restraint. It saddened him that the few goop cultivators that did raise themselves up into the Divine sphere still hadn't learned that lesson, though they did serve as cautionary examples to the other cultivators.

Allowing the greater part of his attention to focus on the problem of his cultivators, Rhofhir checked the [Status] of each of his project worlds. None of them needed his immediate attention, so he turned back to the maintenance request from his Grand Tapestry.

It was about that time again when he should check on what new strands had been caught up in the weave and which he should pull to their own project world.

*~*~*

Lena

Lena sent a gentle bell sound into the main room of the [Prison] level ahead of her toon. It was a kindness, a courtesy that she had decided to use for anyone not looped into the G.C., even asshats like Feltz. She thought of it as Dungeon etiquette.

Dibbs stopped pacing and faced the origin point of her bell sound. Feltz stopped pretending to ignore his former apprentice.

"So the Grand Lady of the Dungeon decides to grace us with her presence?" Feltz asked, his tone mocking.

Lena ignored him. "Dibbs, are you ready to continue contract negotiations?"

"Getting awfully familiar, aren't you?" the archmage sneered.

Lena felt a push from her Aspect of the Analyst and chose to follow the instinct. She turned her toon to face the archmage and made an obvious study of him, keeping her expression neutral. "No one said you have to stay with Dibbs. You are free to exit the Studio, either on Malta or East Karth. Returning might be problematic for you, but you are welcome to depart."

"Ha! Like you could keep an archmage out if you wanted!" Feltz scoffed.

Lena kept that inhumanely neutral expression on her toon's face as she evacuated the mana in the room. She protected Dibbs from a repeat of the assault, but allowed Feltz to feel the full brunt of her ability to render an area within her zone as barren of mana as the world on which she grew up.

Feltz managed to keep hold of a significant portion of his personal mana reserves, but every construct and formation residing outside of his body collapsed. The older man's eyes widened, the skin across his cheeks drawing tight with shock, though he managed to give no further signs of his distress.

Into that mana deprived environment, Lena shoved a 20 cm thick plate of bronze up from the floor. In the ceiling, she made one of Candy's LASER cutter designs. She also grew a glass tube up to the ceiling that encompassed the metal plate and the exposed end of the LASER.

"Were it not for Dibbs' presence, I would not bother with the safety precautions. I would let the light, with which I am about to cleave this plate of metal, peel the flesh from your eyes, but I won't risk the damage it might cause Dibbs at this point. From what I've seen so far, you have no idea how to survive in a mana-starved environment, but I grew up without mana. I'm inclined to believe the Tapestry has altered the essence of who I was just to keep me from accidental destruction."

So saying, Lena triggered the firing sequence for the LASER. She rotated the focus just enough to carve a line from corner to corner of the plate. Feltz's hold on his internal mana slipped, only to be quickly regained, but he began to take on a sickly pallor.

Lena retracted the glass and the LASER. "Without mana, the fastest speed possible is the speed of light. You might want to consider how you might dodge that."

Then she took pity on Dibbs, on the terror she saw for his mentor writ large upon his face, and allowed the mana to return to the room. "Dibbs, please bring your notes and let us begin our negotiations. I'm sure that an archmage is more than capable of handling a short period of mana deprivation."

*~*~*

Dibbs

Dibbs bowed his head and, with one last worried glance at Feltz, followed the dungeon's master into a room she had set aside for their negotiations, as she called it.

The projection of light seated herself in a comfortable looking padded chair. A low table, set with carved fruits and meat cuts thin enough to see through, occupied the space between her chair and the only other chair in the room. Dibbs chair had started out as an exact duplicate of the Design Lead's, but the second day of these negotiations it had changed height and the cushions had firmed, making it more to Dibbs' preference. Neither he nor she had said anything about it. The chair for Dibbs was the same as yesterday and he eased into it, controlling the need to tremble at the memory of having his very soul gripped by the void the dungeon's master so casually conjured.

Without seeming to pay him any great attention, she said, "That really bothered you. I'm sorry. Please, feel free to take the time you need to compose yourself. He's a very stubborn creature, isn't he?"

Dibbs found himself grimacing in agreement. "That's a kind way to put it."

The Design Lead leaned back. "He really is fortunate that my grandmother's nearly as bad as he is. Otherwise, I might not have the perspective to be patient with him. Candy wouldn't agree, but Mamaw had already decided that Candy needed her protection by the time I was born. Family dynamics are always convoluted, to some degree. Maybe that's just relationships in general. Like yours with your mentor."

There was a shrewdness in the way she said that last bit that raised the hairs on the back of Dibbs' neck. "What do you mean by that?"

Her voice came across as musing, philosophical. "Diversity can be a wonderful thing, but it also incites fear. The world my friends and I come from, there are only humans at a level this Tapestry System would consider Aware, but that just means that we have more time to see the differences between our types of human. The continent of ancestral origin, and the customs inherited along with our ancestry, tend to be the major lines of distinction, but it can often be worse the more alike two factions are. Well, at least until they can identify a common enemy to wage war upon. I haven't truly seen enough to be sure, but I get the impression that the dungeons of Rhofhir act as a unifying force for all the Aware races."

Dibbs wrapped his hands around the arms of his seat to keep them from shaking. He glanced toward the doorway, not at all reassured to see that wards against eavesdropping were already in place. Swallowing against the dread clamping around his throat, he asked, "How so?"

"Dungeons exist to breathe mana into Rhofhir, and the easiest way to do that is to send out monster hordes. However, a dungeon that remains well harvested manages the same purpose. It acts as a reason for the Aware races to prioritize cooperation over conflict.

"How that affects your mentor and you, well, the same things that made Mamaw decide to protect Candy have made it easier for her to interface with the Grand Tapestry than talk to another sapient being, and we're getting the information needed to operate dungeons. Candy believes it may be less restricted than the information available to the general populace of Rhofhir. Or perhaps it is just differently restricted. When we linked up with the dungeon of [Priesley's Folly], Candy discovered that we have access to a far more detailed view of the statuses of our contracted creatures than an Aware individual is capable of sharing with another being. An Aware contractee can see all of the details of any monstrous sapient contractee or below, but only the Zone Arbiter — that would be me — can see all the details of Aware contractees' statuses. You have the hidden title [Dungeon Born]. Your mentor doesn't know that, does he?"

Dibbs had to swallow the vomit that burbled up his throat with his fear. He did not speak.

The Design Lead's expression softened. "I feel sorrow that you're getting the raw end of things, but not enough to give up my friend. I've come to accept that you and Brad are both sincere in your belief that if you release him, the Arcane Asylum will react with extreme violence first, both to him and to you. I'm dropping that requirement for your new contract. In addition, I'm willing to add three guarantees.

"First, I have not, nor will I, disclose your nature as a dungeon born human without your honest consent. That's a freebie, my apology for forcing you into this position to start with.

"Second, I will provide you with as fully stocked of a wizard's laboratory or study or whatever you wish to call your workspace here in the dungeon with the understanding that what you experiment with and discover will likely be added to the Studio's repertoire of techniques.

"Third, after Brad frees himself — with or without our aid — from your control, you will have the opportunity to renegotiate a contract that will prevent you from being bound to another dungeon without your consent. That you're getting because Brad respects you. He doesn't trust that the control formation isn't screwing with his emotions, and I think it will be in his best interest to realize that it has nothing to do with his sympathy for your situation.

"In no way will I cede to you the right to constrain Brad's mind, his emotional heart, or his soul with that damned control formation.

"That's my starting point. We've danced around enough. Now it's time for you to tell me what you want and what you're willing to concede to get it."

Dibbs didn't even have to think. "A similar autonomy, under the constraint that I not act against Brad's best interests."

"Or the Studio's?" the Design Lead tacked on with an arched brow.

"I'll concede that for Feltz's safety," Dibbs said, his stomach churning at the risk he was taking.

The Design Lead was quiet for several long heartbeats while her light projection made a show of studying him. Then she said, "On the condition that Archmage Reibsamak Feltz takes no hostile action against myself, my Territory Managers, Brad, or the creatures or structures of the Studio, neither I nor any contractee of the Studio will take a hostile action against him. Now, we both know that he's going to be verbally hostile, so I'll even limit the amount of hostility with which my contractees respond to him to the most hostile he's been in the prior seven days."

That was far more generous than Dibbs could have hoped for. "Three days." The words slipped out without his volition.

The Design Lead, in a firm tone, said, "Seven."

"Four?" Dibbs pushed.

"Did you want that to be fourteen?"

Dibbs decided to quit while he was ahead. "Seven. Thank you."

"[Offer Contract]:[Casper Dibbons]."

*~*~*

Atolandr

"I'm not sure I heard what you just said," the guild master of the Priesley's Folly branch of the Adventurers Association said.

The trio of high tier adventurers sitting across from him grinned. They called themselves Bergma's Hounds, being that they were two wolf kin following the lupine Bergma. Their closed jaws made their smiles more of a baring of teeth than a friendly gesture.

Bergma leaned forward, nonchalantly scratching behind his low seated ears. "It's simple, Atolandr. Just because these people say they're in control of the dungeon doesn't mean that they are. We're not even asking for your formal permission. Just an inattentive guard. We'll see what's really going on, collect from our client, and share the information with you."

The big bear kin refrained from rubbing his forehead. He already had all the confirmation he needed, but Bergma and his Hounds had always been a very reliable team. They had to be, considering that most of Priesley's Folly were cat kin and elves. Neither race particularly trusted lupines and their ability to dominate wolf kin packs. "You sure you're not being set up?" Atolandr asked.

The lupine shrugged. "Once born, death is the only certainty, my friend. I'm taking precautions, but I have to admit that's more from habit than genuine concern."

"Fine. When do you want to walk in?"

"We can be ready to go in the time it takes you to guzzle down some honey," Bergma said, his jaw dropping into a more relaxed smile.

Atolandr chose to ignore the playful jab and just grunted while rising. "You'll go in under a stealth cloak. I'll go let the guards know you'll be down shortly. I want to be on hand if those Travelers catch you playing in their puddle."

*~*~*

Candy

Due to her ability as a Territory Manager to communicate directly with the golem core, Candy handled most of the fine tinkering required to get Larry operational in his new construct body. She happily lost herself in examining the way the connections between the core and the construct lined up, how those connections firmed up with a combination of magnetic and mana-driven stabilizers that held the core suspended in the center of the core cavity. The stabilizers allowed for highly directed pulses of mana to travel through what turned out to be an artificial nervous system.

"This is just amazing," she said to Brad, narrating her observations to him. "I mean, seriously, this could be the key to fully responsive prosthetic limbs!"

Brad nodded along, but seemed less amazed than his lab partner. "The mages of Rhofhir have a pretty good grasp on the applications of mana, but they have barely scratched the surface of metallurgy, for example. They rely too much on mining dungeons for their resources, and the Grand Tapestry for research."

"You sound pissed off by that," Candy said, dropping into her neutral face.

Brad shrugged. "A little bit. I got the impression that there are mages that start off wanting to do actual, honest research, but that curiosity gets trained out of them with the emphasis the mage schools place on refining [Skills] instead of developing their own."

Larry's tail twitched, drawing their attention back to the golem they were experimenting with and off the mages that made that possible.

"Speech test ready," Larry said. The voice was of a higher pitch than Candy had expected.

They went through the various operational tests, many based on Brad's own experience getting used to his new body. At the end of it, Brad said, "Looks like Larry's doing pretty well for just waking up. It took me about a week to get used to movement. I'm not sure how that will translate, seeing as he isn't having to unlearn walking to pick up slithering." Looking at the other golem, Brad asked, "How are you feeling, mate?"

"Please clarify the question," Larry answered.

"Right," Brad said, more to himself than anyone else. "He's not sapient."

"And not getting visual data," Candy said, frowning. A red hued hologram sprang up, a notation toward the bottom attributing it to Larry's structure. As Brad watched, Candy updated the hologram to match what was currently going on with their new golem core. Then she overlaid the scans they had taken of Brad, using blue for his schematics because it was closer to the green he liked and would render the matching parts of the schematics purple, a color she preferred.

The hologram shifted to mostly purples with a fine web of red lines laying over the top. Candy checked in with Larry and discovered that he was receiving very fine tactile information. "Brad, how sensitive is your skin?" she asked.

Brad shrugged. "I feel pressure, no pain. We would have to run tests to determine the actual range, but I haven't had problems with strength control for fine work."

"Just pressure? Not temperature?" Candy asked.

"No. Temperature is a non issue for golem-me."

Candy sucked in her cheeks and nibbled on the inside of her bottom lip as she considered. After a moment, she said, "I'm not seeing any difference between the schema for you and Larry except for what Lena did, and that seems to be giving Larry a wide range of wave form sensitivity. I'm tempted to say it's like his skin has become some odd mix of heat pits, eyes, ears, and barometer all at once. I have to poke at Lena about this."

«Hey, cous?» Candy poked over the G.C.

«Emergency?» came the distracted question.

«No,» Candy said, guessing what was coming next.

Lena surprised her by asking, «How much attention?»

That was new. «What did you do to Larry's sensory inputs?»

Lena's wisp toon popped into the lab. "The colors of mana stones match various types of affinities, right? I change the mana affinities when I use [Applied Color Theory]. That changed the balance of the mana channels, so I reset the balance. The channels are quite fine, very delicate on their own, but weaving the channels into something more durable also helped restore the balance." Lena's wisp hovered over Larry then Brad. "As far as I can tell, you just didn't put any restrictions on the things that Larry can identify, but Brad's channels have been throttled down to something a human psyche can handle."

"How can you tell all this?" Brad asked.

"Dungeon senses," Lena said. "Every sensor Candy builds, every tool my cores get to study, they all expand what I can feel, detect, and understand. I have to route most of the raw information through my cores, though, and all I'm personally getting is more of a weird sensation I don't even have words to describe. Aaron and I both got skills for guiding monster creation during the link up with [Priesley's Folly]. That might be factoring in, too."

Brad slumped back. "That is so broken!"

Lena's wisp bobbed up and down. "You lose some, you win some. I need to use my full focus now. I'll check in later and you can tell me if you need anything else."

Lena didn't wait for them to respond. Her wisp just blinked out

*~*~*

Bergma

"Boss, we can still back out of this, you know." Halradien spoke with his head downcast and his voice soft, even as he filled his vest with sneak balls and smoke bombs.

"You got the coin for a trip home?" Bergma asked, already knowing the answer.

Kizmel grunted. "Not your problem if we don't," she said, settling the straps of her leather cuirass into a more comfortable position before tightening the buckles.

"Yes, it is, dame. You chose to be my Hounds; I chose to accept your fealty. Your minds and hearts are mine to guard as my body is yours to shield. You've never half-way shielded me. Why would you think I would ever half-way guard you?" It was a familiar back and forth. Halradien and Kizmel both loved the thrill of delving, but hated the idea of Bergma being in a dungeon. Bergma wasn't about to leave them without magical support in such a magically volatile place.

"Don't you 'dame' me, pup! I work for a living!" Kizmel snapped back, her jaw dropping with a canine grin.

"Work? Bah! You're having too much fun for this to be work!" Bergma shot back.

The difference between a wolf kin and a lupine in appearance had more to do with where their ears sat on their heads, the length of their muzzles, the density of their fur, and a subtle difference in their posture. A wolf kin's ears sat more toward the top of their head, usually with a touch more point to their tips. Their muzzles were twice the length of a lupine's, their fur more coarse and thick, a small kind of natural armor. Lupine chests were flatter, their hips more horizontally aligned, which made it easier for them to stand as broad as the elves did. Wolf kin had a natural posture ready to leap forward, or duck and dodge. The wolf kin made for excellent melee fighters, and the lupines had always had more of a propensity for mana manipulation.

It hadn't taken the trio long to gear up, mostly because they had long ago taken to carrying their possessions with them at all times in spatial rings. The rings had been pricey, but it beat worrying that whosoever happened to be their current landlord would look the other way as local boys picked through their belongings. That only had to happen twice before Bergma was able to convince his Hounds that the spatial storage wasn't just a fancy toy he'd taken a liking to.

Atolandr may have done his best to perpetuate the stereotype of grumpy bear kin, but as long as one didn't threaten one of his people, his grump was mostly for show. Threaten one of his and one didn't have to worry about his grump anywhere near so much as his claws. The Hounds respected that, and so they got along quite well with the East Karth Adventurers Association's guild master here in the Folly. When one of Atolandr's clerks handed them each a skill band that replicated [Stealth Cloak], it was a pleasant affirmation of the guild master's respect for them, not a complete shock.

They did not need to invoke the [Group Awareness] spell imbued within each member of the Adventurers Association upon their acceptance. The Hounds had worked together for long enough that it had become a permanent enchantment amongst them. When they activated the skill bands they may have lost sight of their companions, but the instinctive awareness of where each Hound stood and a general sense of their intended actions came through their [Group Awareness] enchant.

Halradien led the way, Bergma in the center, and Kizmel guarded their rear. They gave an unseen bow of respect to Atolandr as they slipped into the dungeon.