Why isn’t this working?

Serenity woke up to a mild headache and voice resounding in his head.

[Dungeon Bind]

There wasn’t anyone in the room with him, but he still heard it. For a moment there was a pressure on his mind, but it shattered.

Come on, work.

[Dungeon Bind]

The same feeling swept over him, then dissipated.

I’m not going to accept that. Please stop. Did you have to wake me up?

There was a pause, then the voice spoke again. You can talk?

Seem to be able to. Can you? Oh wait, you just did. Yep, sounds like we’re talking.

Serenity wasn’t feeling particularly happy with the voice-in-his-head. Whoever it was.

Waaait. You’re in the A Rest from Death Dungeon, aren’t you? Trying to bind it. Nope. Not happening. Go away. I’m not going to Link to someone who tries to Bind me without my permission.

Dungeons don’t get to give permission. They must be bound for everyone’s safety.

You didn’t have to fight any monsters to get in, there weren’t any traps, you have comfortable chairs and beds. Oh, and it looks like I did remember to plant the apple tree too. Good. So you even have free fresh fruit.

Which part of that makes you think you have to bind me to be safe? Go. Away.

As he told the man to go away, he could feel the man’s presence in the dungeon; it felt good, almost like scratching an itch he hadn’t realized he had. There were two other people with the man, who he realized had to be the “dungeon expert”.

The other two can stay. You should leave. If you really want someone to Link with me, they can try and I’ll see if I’m willing to accept them.

The “dungeon expert” ignored Serenity’s words.

[Show Status]

[Dungeon - A Rest from Death]

[Subsidiary Dungeon]

[Monsters - 1]

[Display Monster Information]

[Monsters - 1]

[Monster: Vampire, Tier 2]

[Status: Healthy]

[Location: External]

[Next Monster Spawn: Disabled]

Weird. There’s a monster but monster spawning is disabled. This dungeon ought to be able to support more than a single Tier 2.

Serenity heard an echo, and suspected he was hearing the man speak out loud, rather than to him.

[Show Primary Dungeon Information]

[Dungeon - Name Hidden]

[Primary Dungeon]

[Dungeon Master - Hidden]

[Monsters - Hidden]

[Dungeon Location - Hidden]

I should have checked this first. No wonder I can’t Bind it, it’s already Bound. Explains who’s talking, though. Must be the Dungeon Master. Seems like I can’t take it away from him, either. This is a lost cause, too bad. Not that this looked like a very worthwhile dungeon anyway, who wants to fight in a home?

Serenity had the feeling the man didn’t know he was projecting his thoughts.

The echo started again. Serenity was sure the man was talking to the two guards.

We’ll have to destroy it. I can’t Bind it, so it’s not safe to leave it the way it is. At least this way we can get some value from the shard fragments.

Serenity was going to have to try something he hadn’t yet. He tried projecting his voice from the Core so that all three of the people in the dungeon could hear it, not just the asshole who’d decided to destroy what he couldn’t control.

Hey asshole. I told you to stop that. You saw I don’t even have any monsters here and I can’t make them, what the fuck is wrong with you? Get out. This is made to be a safe place and you will stop trying to destroy it.

It felt like shouting, but he wasn’t sure how loud it actually was. The Dungeon Binder flinched and the other two men started looking around, like they thought someone else was there. Hopefully that meant they’d heard.

The Dungeon Binder took something out of a side pocket of his bag and tapped it against the Subsidiary Core. Serenity felt a resonance in the Core; it didn’t hurt, but it was clear the man was doing something so he assumed it was either an attack or something to make an attack easier.

GET OUT

As he shouted, Serenity pushed through the Core and displaced the man from in front of the core to the top of the stairs, just inside the door. It felt oddly good; Serenity was pretty sure that teleporting the man took the same stuff - probably essence? - that was used to make monsters, and that it had been building up in the dungeon since the dungeon didn’t make monsters. Some of it went to Desinka, but the dungeon made more than she needed.

The other two men looked around. One started to go for a weapon, so Serenity figured he’d better explain.

He’s fine. I moved him to the exit, that’s all. Please take him outside. I don’t approve of him being in me anymore.

That sounded wrong, but it was accurate.

Actually, it sounded really wrong. There had to be a better way to say it, but Serenity wasn’t going to think about it anymore.

The two guards headed to the entrance, finding the sputtering Dungeon Binder, who was saying something about the dungeon being “impossible” and needing to be destroyed “for everyone’s safety”.

They shooed him out of the dungeon - one of them even told him it was “probably safer outside” - and the door closed behind them.

The dungeon felt uncomfortably empty without them, but Serenity was happier with the Dungeon Binder gone.

Serenity felt energized when he finally got moving in the morning, despite the lost sleep. When he stepped into the common area, he found Hale and Raz eating off a large breakfast tray. It looked like enough food to feed six or eight people … or Serenity with a little food left over for the other three.

Serenity sighed to himself and wondered if there was any way to use that excess monster-stuff to feed himself as well as Desinka. He’d been eating incredible amounts for the past few days, yet he seemed to lose weight. He was tired of eating this much. He hoped it was because of how much curse-breaking he’d done; several days of constant magic use was kind of ridiculous, and he was going through a healer pretty much every hour as they tried to keep up with him.

He was thankful it was over. There were almost certainly some people carrying the curse who hadn’t been found yet, but a normal curse-breaker could take care of them; they simply couldn't manage the numbers he’d been handling.

“Come on in Serenity, don’t hang out in the doorway.” Raz called out. “Hale decided we needed to talk in private, so he got breakfast. He said if you need more, he’ll order more.”

Serenity was hungry, but mostly he felt worried. “So, about the DeathLord title. It’s not- I mean, I don’t define myself that way. I don’t want to be a necromancer, I just want to save my world.”

Hale swallowed a bite of bagel covered in a fruit filling of some sort. He must have decided to go all out for breakfast; neither bagels nor fruit were on the normal breakfast menu downstairs for anything Serenity would consider a reasonable price. “Tasi’s a Death mage. I knew you were too, it was pretty obvious when I heard you can only break Death curses. All I’ve seen you do with it is heal and threaten, the most impressive thing was your teleport. If you tell me that’s Death magic-” Hale shook the rest of the bagel at Serenity in a way that was either supposed to be threatening or joking. Maybe both?

Serenity chuckled. “No, that was SpaceTime. It’s one of my better Affinities. I need to work on it more, there ought to be more I can do with it. I can’t really use it to fight at all.”

If Hale was this understanding … well, Serenity was pretty sure it was a combination of him growing up around Tasi and not really understanding what a DeathLord was. Raz clearly didn’t mind, either. Katya was the most likely to be an issue; Serenity would have to feel her out as well.

“Eat up. Once you’re done with breakfast and Katya’s back from the outfitter’s, you get to answer some questions.”

Serenity looked at Hale in question as he picked out some sausages to start with. “Questions?”

“We’re going to follow you to your home. I don’t even know what it’s called. What is it like and what is the problem there? Why do you need us?”

Answering that question took Serenity the rest of the day. It wasn’t until afternoon that Hale called a halt to the questions about Earth to plan the entry into the Necropolis. It was easy enough; one of the Catacomb Dungeons under the Shining Caverns was well-known, completely mapped, rated Tier 1 and considered to be ridiculously easy for a prepared full group, with a five-person limit.

Serenity resisted telling the others that a four-person dungeon would probably be enough when he found out there was a good option that allowed five. It was possible it affected only the Tutorial Great Dungeon, after all, or maybe it was caused by the link with Moira. Serenity didn’t think that was the reason, but it was possible.

The City Lord smiled as the group walked into the same study they’d seen him in the previous day. He was sitting at the drafting table, but stood and headed to join them in the sitting area in front of the fire. “Welcome! Did you have a chance to plan the way into the Necropolis?”

Hale picked a chair and sat down cautiously. “It’s pretty simple. We’ll go through the Wailing Woods Catacomb dungeon; it’ll take all of us and the first exit includes a black door. Serenity’s a Runesmith and can ink a pattern on the portal door that will prevent anyone from knowing who’s coming through the portal.”

“I know runes, I’m not a runesmith. There’s a big difference,” Serenity muttered. He’d corrected Hale on that several times that day, but no one seemed to pay attention.

“I don’t know where the Wailing Woods portal exits, I was hoping you might know?” Hale paused, inviting Stojan Tasi to comment.

“It’s not the best exit, but it’ll do. Risky part of town, but we can deal with that. We’ll want to exit in the morning, but it’s a fairly easy walk to the Necropolis Lord’s Residence, so it’s not a bad choice. You’re confident the runes will work?”

“You didn’t know I arrived here. I was only using them to protect the new dungeon’s location for Katya and Hale, but it’s pretty easy to block information when there’s that much space to work with.” Serenity shrugged. “Probably cost a couple monster cores again, it’s not hard.”

Stojan Tasi looked at Serenity for a moment, then muttered, “Newly integrated world. It’s the only explanation.” He shook his head, then turned back to Hale. “We’ll need to get you all some new outfits. You’ll be escorting me, after all, and we need to both look dangerous enough to be a reasonable escort and yet get across the Necropolis safely. That means we either have to look pointless to bother or so dangerous no one wants to cross us.”

Serenity realized he’d done both in the Necropolis as Vengeance; the first time he’d visited, he’d been poor for his Tier and didn’t look like he had anything worth stealing. He’d also spent a lot of time around groups, though protection wasn’t the reason. Later, he’d been able to quell trouble simply by looking at it. It’d happened a few times, but he’d never had to fight.

Not until the last time he visited. That time, the problem wasn’t people from the Necropolis, it was others.

And once again, the Final Reaper was the only survivor. It was a trend Serenity intended to break.