Beneath the city of Varona, the daily cacophony of bustling citizens is replaced by the sound of condensed water, echoing out through the silence. Many of the passageways that are found underground lead to dead ends. Some, however, lead to ends that are worse than having to retrace your steps. The corridors twist and turn, forming themselves into a maze of interconnected tunnels. Tunnels that are not so easily navigated.

Especially not by the uninitiated.

With some corridors holding more significance than others, certain measures have been put into place. The aim being to incapacitate, rather than incinerate, potential intruders, or any curious souls who might happen down there by chance. If they don't manage to get lost in the maze first that is.

On one such passageway, just off the main hall, is the door that leads to Dropper's office. Inscribed on the plaque is written - Head of the Assassins Guild.

Inside the Guild Master's room, bookshelves line the left wall. Their contents neatly arranged for all to see. Shelves and drawers are on the opposite side and the tools of her trade are displayed on top. In the center of the room is a beautifully-engraved desk made from mahogany. Dropper is sitting on a leather chair behind it. The seating apparatus clearly being several sizes too big for the dainty woman as she continuously shuffles about while carving her name into the front of the desk.

With the blonde bombshell becoming the head honcho due to her partner's drunken shenanigans in front of the big boss, she is feeling a bit under prepared. Hence the most-recent act of vandalism.

Her feelings aren't because of her skills or due to lack of talent. Dropper considers herself to be one of the best Assassins in Varona and it isn't an exaggeration to say she's correct. She truly is one of the best Abi has to offer and deserves the position she's been given.

The truth is, traveling the country to end the threats that others cannot is much easier than running a guild full of people. Even if half of them are dungeon born, talking in front of groups is not one of the skills in Dropper's repertoire

With her name etched into the desk, Dropper gets off the oversized chair and leaves the room. Walking down the dimly-lit corridors, she quickly reaches the open-plan training area. The latest batch of inductees are being tested to check how the level of their skills have risen.

Living in such a peaceful city, there aren't many people who would want to involve themselves in the darkness that lies behind the facade of humanity. Only certain individuals seek out to join the Assassins Guild.

Or would be the case in any regular Assassins Guild. For some reason, Abi's seems to be packed with new initiates wanting to join their ranks. The main hall is packed and Dropper quickly turns off to take a smaller hall.

If anyone needs her to speak before the large group of people, one of her assistants will surely let her know.

Rian, one of the promising human Rogues, is working on his Shadow Step technique alone in the training hall. As she watches him, Dropper notices that he keeps stumbling out of the shadow instead of emerging cleanly.

"Having difficulties?" She appears behind him, hoping he might learn from seeing the skill performed firsthand.

"I am," he answers glumly "Why does it feel like I'm tripping through the shadow?"

"The shadows move us wherever we want them to, or where they are present may be a better analogy. It's tricky. Shadow Step is more like a teleport. You move through the shadow, but come out in the same position you went in with. That's why you're stumbling out of the end." Offering her knowledge, the fire in Rian's eyes confirms her suspicions that the young man will make a good Assassin one day, even if he is a human.

"Thank you, Guild Master." Rian offers Dropper a dungeon salute. The humans had caught members of Abi's family performing the motion a while back, and it caught on like wildfire.

Not knowing how to take being called master and wanting to enjoy the warm feeling she got from it, Dropper leaves Rian to continue his practicing and runs straight into Marie.

"Hey, Dropper!" Having finally been given the go ahead by Abi, Marie is here to learn before she's sent out anywhere on Syndicate missions. "Abi said I should come and see you to learn some stealth techniques."

Sighing inwardly, Guild Master Dropper returns the Space Mage's smile. Cursing her own master, she leads Marie to a separate, smaller training hall and begins instructing her in the basics.

The Assassins Guild

Dungeon Stories Volume 4

With each day that goes by, I spend my excess points adding more and more land to my own personal portfolio.

Me is no longer hounding me to spend points either as each piece costs 1000DP a time, running me dry rather fast. Other than the 5000 points I keep in reserve, that is.

You never know when the Bale of Fortune might need upgrading.

OK. Bad joke, I know.

Those points are only a small sum in the grand scheme of things now. Overstock hit max level today and I can now retain every single point of DP that I earn.

Finally!

You would have thought dungeons could hold that sort of amount without bother, or maybe they can and I'm the exception. Regardless, it's still a great accomplishment. One that I really didn't have to do much of anything to earn. Excess DP seems to be a regular occurrence around here and it was slowly trickling away until I unlocked Stockpile.

Such matters seem trivial now.

Miles away from my dungeon, but still connected through the insane logic of Land Acquisition, I can see the village of Orad in the distance.

The time difference is throwing me for a loop. To me, it feels as though it has only been a year since the last time I laid eyes on the place I once called home. In reality 50 years were lost somewhere down the line between the time of my death and reincarnation from human to Dungeon Core. In that time, Orad has grown more than I would have ever thought was possible.

Hence how I'm able to see it from such a distance.

It wasn't the smallest of villages to begin with, but at twice its original size it's now edging on the boundaries of being labeled a city. One that wouldn't take much doing to jump past either if we're being honest. With its current size, I wouldn't be surprised if it isn't the largest village in the entire Ishda region.

Then again, what do I know? I was comatose for a good amount of time which puts me well out of the loop. Maybe I should have been more inquisitive about how things have changed. I could have got a lot of information from my Assassins now that I think about it.

Never mind. We'll lay the blame on Abi of the past, Abi the Shortsighted, and pretend I'm not involved. Not that it matters now that I'm fucking free.

With a change of plan and new goal in mind, I change the direction of my skill and start purchasing towards my previous home. Less than a week later, four days to get there and two to unlock the land Orad sits upon, my DP influx has seen a 50% increase. It's truly amazing how easy it is to exploit the rule of having people in the dungeon when said dungeon is actually outside my mountain.

It would have taken me much longer to purchase the land beneath my former home if The Lord of the Bale hadn't granted my off-hand wish. Not that it was a bad wish. With Divinities' Presence at max level, I no longer have to worry about sustaining damage due to people being in or on potential dungeon land.

Now that I've acquired Orad, it should make reaching Ishda a much quicker endeavor thanks to the increase in my daily spending limit. Before I do anything else though, my mind is begging me to have a quick nosey around town to see what's changed and what hasn't, since I've been gone.

20 minutes later and I'm back in my tower on top of the Academy. I'm also feeling slightly confused. The lack of criminals in my former home, or souls in need of redemption, or imprisonment in my case, was the first thing that caught my attention.

I locked the small handful of redeemable souls in the ToT, then left them in the capable hands of Hana and Mira. The women shouldn't have much problems correcting the behaviour of their first visitors.

Also, I've only got the citizens of Varona to compare Orad against, but surely there should have been more yellow souls than five? Hell, a tenth of the entire village is already green and there's roughly 10,000 people living there. The ones who have taken their first steps to enlightenment, or whatever.

How!?

How can a place change so much in such a short amount of time? Hardly anything changed in the entire 16 years I spent there and there were a lot more less-than reputable people back then too.

"How is it so different? Orad's like... a completely different place." I tell my assortment of cute and cuddly companions. Sadly, none of them offer a reply.

I can wholeheartedly believe the words Katrina spoke back when she decided to join my family. Not that I didn't believe her before, but the ridiculous time frame was a lot to get my head around.

After seeing Orad myself though, it feels like more time has passed than I've been told about. There's barely anything remaining from the days of my youth. Sure, some buildings are still in the same locations, but everything about them is different. The construction, the layout and interior, all changed, all bigger to accommodate the increase in foot traffic.

Out of all the people that lived there before, there was only one person left that I knew. Know?

I do still know her after all.

Little Suzie Walker, who is now old Suzie Walker, still works at the family business. Having passed down the shop to her descendants, Suzie was muttering something about an item "not being right" and was in the process of telling her daughter how to do it correctly. As old ladies often do when they have nothing else going on in their lives.

At least it looked like she got to live a good life and reaching the age of sixty is a great achievement all on its own. If we forget that Marie exists that is. She's an anomaly, that one.

The space Mage, who has to be over a hundred years old and who also has insane grandeurs of being an Assassin, is currently out on a mission with Light. I really need to learn to put my foot down somewhere because I'm a downright pushover whenever they ask anything of me.

Marie is the only Space Mage I have and I hate the idea of the elderly lady being out in the field on assignments. I get that she's got skill. Hell, she went undetected around here for long enough and I thought my intruder detection was top notch. Still, I can't help but worry.

She's old.

It's like your grandma telling you she wants to come on your quest to slay the dragon. It just wouldn't happen and if she tried to follow you, you would somehow manage to stop her. My efforts in that department were to try to get Marie to teach magic to the citizens in hope we might get a few more Space Mages.

Two birds, one stone.

Occupied Space Mage making more Space Mages.

Sadly though, if my great-grandma wants to slit throats and take out the trash, I can't stop her.

Letting out a sigh, I bring up my most-recent gains, the ones from Orad falling under my control, before realizing that's the wrong way to think about what happened back there, lest that dictator joke comes back to bite me in the ass.

Abi the Dictator doesn't sit quite right in my list of self-named titles.

No, not falling under my control. I don't control shit.

Adding to the DP Factory, that has a much better ring to it.

Looking at the new features I've unlocked from expanding the DP Factory, the biggest assets gained are guilds.

Most are what would be classified as minor guilds. Ones that are primarily filled with non-combatant members. Sewing, Blacksmithing and Leather working all fall into that category. Normally I wouldn't bat an eyelid to that lot, but the guilds are missing from my city so it's a fantastic addition to Varona right now.

The best addition though and one that I hadn't even realized was missing, or thought about, as per the norm, is the Adventurers Guild. Which begs the question, where the hell did my adventurers come from then!?

Gorn obviously.

Since the city-sized army of people arrived here months ago with Wheeler, no one has been able to acquire a melee-related class. With all of them being classified under the adventurers branch, no wonder there aren't droves of new adventurers queueing up for the dungeon.

Which is also good in a way. I don't want to place too big of a burden on Simon's shoulders. Granted he's got Katrina, Anon and Sophie helping him out, but with now close to 20,000 people living in Varona, a sudden boost to the number of dungeon divers would throw him for a loop.

I suppose I'm going to have to create some assistants for him too. It's getting to that point where some of my family members feel like third cousins. The ones whose faces you remember, but their names are like water, slipping through your fingers.

Oh well. Here come a dozen more cousins.