I woke the next morning in Alexia’s arms. She shifted sleepily as I slipped out of her grasp and swung my feet over the side of the bed. Grey skies battled the early-morning sun outside as I found a fresh pair of trousers, my belt and a clean shirt. Alexia giggled behind me as I dressed.

“Selene wasn’t gentle with you last night, Master. You’re covered in bruises.”

I glanced down at my bare chest. Purple marks from Selene’s teeth stood out on my skin as a proud reminder of her attentions. I chuckled as I opened the bedroom door and glanced back at Alexia. She rubbed her eyes, sat up, and offered me a salacious grin.

“Should I try that next time we lay together?” she offered.

“I’ll leave it in your hands,” I said. “Get ready. We have a dungeon to visit.”

I heard movement from Selene’s room as I strolled past it toward the stairs. My body ached a little from last night’s exercise, but I knew it’d fade soon enough. Two maids shuffled past me in the first floor hallway and curtsied tidily as I approached them. Alexia had seen to it that each of my new servants wore matching uniforms. A white apron, dark dress and a neat bow in their hair marked them as servants of Garmont Manor. They breezed past me to the kitchen to start the morning’s preparations. I pushed open the front door, took a deep breath of the morning’s crisp air, and surveyed my farm.

The Perimeter Defense Squads stood to attention at the touch of my mind. Their numbers remained the same from the day before and indicated that Garmont’s borders had seen a peaceful evening. I ordered two of the Duelists to accompany me to the stable.

It took a few minutes to harness the draft horses and drag the wagon out beside the shack. I made sure to saddle Selene and Tytstian’s horses and bring them out alongside the cart. Selene and Alexia were my most trusted lieutenants, and they deserved their own method of transportation. I returned to the house, found my arbalest, and bundled two quivers of quarrels over my shoulder. My mission wasn’t to go to war with the dungeon, but I wasn’t about to disregard the Sage or Selene’s warning about the place. Some people simply couldn’t be bargained with.

I took a moment to consider which homunculi to bring with us.

The Slammer and Piercer combination was a tried-and-true method of fighting against unskilled opponent, but I had a feeling that the dungeon wouldn’t be as simple as holding off bandits from the borders of my farm. I decided on two pairs of Piercers and Slammers, added in two Duelists, and found the trusty Swordsman on patrol through the gardens. I added him to the group and ordered them to gather by the shack. They assembled before me as I considered my other options. I added an Archer to the group to supplement my own ranged combat abilities, and drew one of the maids out from the house.

The maid wasn’t a combat unit, but she could light fires and set up a camp.

I didn’t know how long it would take us to deal with the dungeon, and it never hurt to have a spare pair of hands. The homunculi assembled before me in a neat line and I did a rapid count. Nine homunculi in total, not including Alexia, of course.

A party of twelve to take on the challenge of Curkill Depths. Any more would’ve been an armed invasion, and any less seemed foolhardy. I took a few minutes to take the Essence Core from my Replicator and stash it in the wagon. Something told me that I’d need it before long. I ordered one of the Piercers to strip off his armor and did my best to piece it together over myself as Alexia and Selene finally pushed their way through the front door.

“Gods, that’s a small army,” Selene commented. “I thought you just wanted to bargain with the potentially-alive dungeon with a ravenous hunger for flesh.”

“Better to be safe rather than sorry,” I countered. “Besides, some of them will need to guard our camp outside while we go in. Last thing I need is a pack of bandits to plunder our supplies while we’re occupied with the dungeon.”

“Makes sense,” Selene admitted.

Alexia bounced up to her horse and patted its nose with a tender touch. The animal nickered softly and pressed its head to her chest. Alexia smiled at it, and stepped up into the saddle with relative ease. Selene mounted her own horse as I tied off the last piece of armor and climbed onto the head of the wagon.

“Do you know where the dungeon is?” Alexia asked as she pulled at the reins and turned her horse around to face me. “It isn’t like Thaddeus gave us a map to its location.”

“I have a rough idea,” I replied. “The thief wanted to lose him in the foothills. We’ll find the easiest path away from his property and into the wilds. It shouldn’t be difficult from there.”

“Where did you learn how to ride, Lexie?” Selene asked.

Alexia patted her horse’s neck. “I didn’t. It’s just instinct, I think.”

“Mind your rear end,” I warned her. “It gets rather tender after a few miles.”

“Oh, I’ll be fine, Master. Don’t worry about me,” Alexia giggled.

I turned to the team of homunculi around us. The maid climbed into the cart and sat down. The Archer and Swordsman joined her while the others fanned out in a rough triangle formation around our transport. I tugged at a chafing edge of my ragged leather armor, double-checked our provisions, and then led the way toward the northern exit to Garmont.

I set an easy pace over the road toward the Emerald Sage’s house. Alexia and Selene chatted to each other as they matched the speed of the wagon, and left me to keep a watch on the road ahead. We passed several groups of ragged adventurers bearing guild colors, but they scuttled away quickly enough when they caught sight of my contingent of homunculi.

We passed the fork to the Sage’s house an hour later and stayed on a northern path. I turned the cart around when I saw a trail snake out to the west into the hills. My homunculi trudged beside the cart at a steady march. The gentle slopes grew steeper as we left the rolling green hills behind us. Stones jutted aggressively out from the hills and I took notice when Selene suddenly cut off her conversation with a sharp breath.

“What is it?” I asked her.

“Magic,” she said faintly. “But it’s all wrong. Too chaotic.”

“You can sense that from here?” Alexia asked.

Selene nodded. “You get a taste for it as a warlock. Useful for tracking demons.”

“Which way?” I asked.

“We’re on the right path,” she answered. “You’ll want to keep to the left fork in the road ahead, and it’ll take us right toward it.”

I nodded and urged the draft horses forward. The meandering road cut through a narrow gully and forked out in two directions. I followed Selene’s suggestion, slowed the horses and sent the homunculi out ahead. It was a perfect terrain for an ambush, and I wasn’t about to take chances this close to the end of the journey We followed the track, rounded an enormous boulder, and found the entrance to Curkill Depths.

Black stone warped its way out of an enormous hill in strange patterns that drew the eye. My head throbbed strangely as I focused on them and I decided to avoid the strange designs that decorated the entrance to the dungeon. The arch-shaped entrance spiraled out of the hill and clung to the edges of it like some kind of otherworldly tumor. Purple flames crackled in blackened sconces set into the arch and sent shadows dancing in strange, uncomfortable shapes. I pulled the cart to a halt, stepped off the driver’s seat, and buckled a quiver of bolts to my belt.

“It feels so strange,” Alexia murmured.

“It should,” Selene replied. “That’s what ‘eldritch’ means. In the Institute we used to call it ‘wild’ magic. The kind that grows out of the earth and spreads its corruption across the land.”

Set up a camp by the entrance, I ordered the maid.

The homunculus hopped from the back of the cart and immediately began the process of setting up a small fire under a small overhang to our right. I directed the Swordsman to watch over the maid and ordered the rest to follow me from a modest distance. I turned my attention back to the task at hand, and shivered with anticipation. We were close to the Sage’s manuscript, and a new set of powerful recipes.

Our only obstacle stood right in front of us in all of its unholy glory.

The entrance to the dungeon radiated power. I didn’t have Selene’s fine-tuned senses when it came to magic, but it was impossible not to notice the coldness emanating from the entrance to Curkill Depths. Alexia and Selene dismounted and joined me as I strolled closer to the dungeon’s front door. A crackle of deep unease blasted down my spine and settled in my gut as I tried to peer down into the dungeon.

“You can feel it too, can’t you?” Selene asked me.

“Yeah. It’s an odd blend of ‘fuck off’ and ‘come closer’, isn’t it?” I turned to my homunculi and motioned for them to follow us. “The sooner we get this done, the sooner we can leave. Keep your eyes open for the corpse of an adventurer with quality armor.”

I took a deep breath of mountain air, steadied myself, and then plunged through the entrance.

A wide stairwell with long, shallow steps carried us down into the first chamber of the dungeon. Purple flames crackled overhead as my eyes adjusted to the new environment, and I took a moment to study the terrain for an ambush. The walls jutted out at odd angles and made it impossible to figure out the overall shape of the room. Geometric patterns swirled over every surface in jagged displays of confusion-inducing artwork. Alexia sneezed behind me and dust clouded around the walls at the sudden noise.

“Gods help us,” Selene whispered. “Could you keep it down?”

“Sorry,” Alexia replied quietly. “I can’t help it.”

I positioned my two-man teams of the Slammers and Piercers ahead of us and moved the Duelists in behind them to create two ranks of units between us and the centre of the chamber. I tore my eyes away from the hypnotising architecture and decided that the first chamber was roughly circular in shape. Thick doors of black stone decorated with veins of amethyst marked the way forward. A spiked archway of bleached bone framed the exit and rippled strangely in the purple light.

My foot scuffed against a puddle of dry blood on the floor.

“Alexia, can you-”

“Doesn’t work on dried blood, Master,” Alexia told me quickly. “If it’s still liquid, I can use it. The fresher it is, the more powerful the magic. But I can’t weave anything from a bloodstain.”

I nodded and crept toward the center of the chamber. “Von D. said that each dungeon layout has some kind of ‘trigger’ to it. To progress to the next room, we’ll need to find a switch, or kill dungeon creatures to progress.”

“I don’t see anything,” Selene said. “Perhaps the dungeon doesn’t want us here?”

“Dungeon!” I called out. “Could you please open your doors to a few visitors?”

Something shifted in the shadows of the ceiling. I slid a foot back, brought my arbalest to my shoulder, and tried to line up a shot on the movement. A glistening creature spun off the ceiling and landed in front of my homunculi. Bone-white claws glittered in the weird light and two pairs of slitted eyes narrowed as the creature glared at us. Adrenaline charged through my veins as I studied the monster for half a second. Shaggy fur clung to the creature’s body. Its forelimbs were long and muscled, tipped with wicked talons.

It snarled and opened a maw of jagged, uneven teeth. Black ichor leaked from its mouth and pooled on the stone floor at its feet. Selene gasped as the creature lunged at the nearest Slammer.

Keep it back, I ordered. Piercers, move in! Archer, support them from the back!

The Slammer dropped his shoulders and caught the creature mid-flight. The monster’s vicious claws tore through the homunculus’ wooden shield like it was paper. My Piercers lunged forward a fraction too late and the creature tore through the Slammer’s throat. Blood fountained in the air as I raced to the left to get a better shot at the monster.

“What the hells is that thing?” Alexia shouted.

“I don’t know!” Selene called back.

“Call it a Creep,” I said to them as I dropped to a knee.

The Creep batted aside the incoming pikes and sheared effortlessly through one of the Piercer’s spears. I narrowed my eyes, fought off the distraction of the patterns on the walls, and then pulled the trigger of my arbalest. The steel crossbow jolted in my hands and a bolt rocketed into the Creep’s ribcage. My projectile bounced off the creature’s matted fur and clattered uselessly against the ground. The Creep hesitated for just a second, turned its glittering eyes toward me, and snarled at a pitch that turned my blood cold.

Two more bundles of black fur and claws materialized out of the ceiling and dropped into the midst of my homunculi. An ambush. I pulled my homunculi back into a concave arch and sent the Duelists forward. Arrows whipped past their heads as the new homunculi drew their rapiers in a flash of steel and sprang toward the threat. I slipped my foot through the stirrup of the arbalest and cranked the bow into the loaded position.

“Selene, slow them down! Alexia, wait until we’ve cleared a gap before you pick up the blood!” I ordered.

The first Duelist stepped smoothly away from a flash of Creep claws and countered with a rapier thrust. The monster barely flinched. It coiled, ready to spring, and I sent a Piercer in to catch it from the side. A hazy blast of magic rippled through a gap in the homunculi’s formation. Selene’s ray of power washed over her target, spread over it onto the floor, and fizzled out. I rammed another bolt into the arbalest and saw a Piercer fall to a Creep’s claws.

The three creatures were pressing my homunculi back toward the entrance.

Their armored fur made Selene’s magic and my projectiles useless, and the homunculi couldn’t pierce the creatures. The Duelist’s agility kept them safe from the flashing claws and teeth, but my Slammers and Piercers couldn’t match the raw aggression of the dungeon’s monsters.

I needed a change of plan.

Duelists, keep them in place as best you can, I ordered.

“Alexia, you’re up!” I called.

One of the Creeps broke through the line of homunculi and barrelled towards me with a hopping gait. I cursed, jumped backward, and then fired straight into the creature’s open mouth. It stumbled and spewed black blood from its maw. Alexia blazed past me with a dagger in her hand. She swept her blade across the stunned Creep’s eyes and slammed a kick into the underside of its jaw. The Creep staggered backward as Alexia reached down and drew the monster’s blood into her hand. Black energy hummed from her hands as she shaped it into a spiked orb of power. The monster regathered itself, spat splinters onto the floor, and lunged up toward the ceiling.

Alexia caught it mid-jump with a blast of blood magic.

The orb detonated with a screeching howl of pure power. Black shards of energy punched outward in a wide arc and tore clean through the Creep’s fur. It collapsed to the floor in a heap of viscera and nerveless muscle and disintegrated into a cloud of purple mist.

“Support the others!” I urged her.

Alexia sheathed her dagger in a flash and gathered more monster blood around her hands before she raced back into my failing ranks of homunculi. My pair of Duelists moved with the speed of heroes in the old epics. They sidestepped the surviving Creeps’ attacks and delivered counter-strikes skilled enough to cripple even the best swordsman. But they weren’t fighting enemies that used weapons. The Creeps were creatures born of wild magic from the depths of the earth. Even the best bladecraft in my party barely slowed them down.

But I had a blood mage.

Archer, retreat, I ordered. Piercers and Slammers, double back and protect Selene. Duelists, back off when I give the order.

Alexia gathered the black blood in her hands into a melon-sized sphere of eldritch power and whipped it into the midst of the Creeps.

Now! I called to the Duelists.

My military-grade homunculi dived clear as Alexia’s magic exploded against the floor. Spears of thorned magic plowed outwards and punctured the monsters. One of the Creeps spun away across the polished stone and went still. I exhaled sharply as one of the creatures vanished into purple mist. The last Creep stumbled away, and Alexia advanced with a bloodthirsty grin.

Two of my homunculi were down, but we’d faced the dungeon’s first threat. It didn’t mean that we needed to press our advantage. If the dungeon was indeed sentient, then showing mercy to its minions would give a reason to believe the fact that we weren’t here to plunder Curkill Depths.

“Alexia, stop,” I ordered.

“Caleb, what are you doing?” Selene hissed.

“We’re simply here to talk!” I continued. “We’re not adventurers. There’s something that was lost here, and I’ve come to bargain for it. I’d rather not damage your lovely home or your servants, Master Dungeon.”

Flames crackled in the silence.

“Are you expecting the dungeon to talk back?” Alexia asked.

“Maybe it’s testing us,” I said. “Never hurts to be polite, either way.”

“That, or you’re assuming that a writer’s insane notion is correct,” Selene muttered.

The Creep leapt awkwardly onto the wall and vanished from sight. I waited a minute, confirmed that the monster had indeed left, and then flinched as the exit started to move.

Stone shrieked against stone as the huge doors at the end of the chamber swung open.