Azure wakes up when a girl is brutally murdered in his dungeon, he helps her friend the beastmaster Benjolin become a powerful adventurer by training him and his bonded beast the dire bunny Puddles.

Years later the beastmaster returns and takes on a quest from the old dungeon, to bring an enchanted chalice to another dungeon and let the two entities make contact for the first time in known history.

After successfully completing the mission the beastmaster and his ranger companion Sara leave the misty vale but are challenged to their loot by another adventurer who somehow also reached the dungeon's core room a short time after they left, the dispute is resolved in court and Trev steals the deed to a barony from Sara because Ben wouldnt defend himself.

The old dungeon learns he can create new dungeon cores and imbue them with his own experience and some guidelines about dungeon management, his first attempt backfires as he is pushed aside from a part of his own complex and his little old cave where he could play with children from the nearby town becomes an independent dungeon called Vine Hollow where he is now only a guest.

The Misty vale dungeon refuses the contact with Azure Vale but forms an alliance with a human enterprenour that sells reformed wards to parties that try to challenge it, those who dont use the new wards find themselves victims to nightly raids when they dont expect to be attacked, the dungeon and its new friend also take prisoners to use as bait for other parties and playthings for the pervert fantasies of the human component of the duo.

Azure Vale sends another child on a quest to establish a new dungeon in an old tower nearby, although the plan is a success it backfires when the prize for the quest is an ancient weapon of great value that even its creation process has been lost in the mists of time, both child and dungeon go through rigorous investigations that although failing to reveal their secret still spark a nation wide treasure hunt and causes some would be adventurers to attack the semi sentient fairies that live in Vine Hollow.

The Crossroad Tower dungeon is prospering and a few taverns and some guilds build a semi town around it, crown officials demand that all construction be ceased and already built establishments be torn down when Trev saves the day by establishing his barony at the spot, he immediately encloses the new dungeon behind a fence and charges an entry tax to any challenger as his right even though its usually dealt with through the guilds.

Azure Cave is again foiled in its attempts to make contact with another dungeon when the Spearhead canion demands further proof of the theory and Misty Vale wouldnt answer their call through the artifact.

Tam becomes an adventurer and recieves the spear he gave to Ebi as a parting gift for his adventures, he reluctantly accepts it and follows his dream, when he conquers the Murky Swamp dungeon with a bit of luck, wits and a mighty legendary weapon Azure finally gets to make his first contact and now with the added proof Spearhead canion also joins their conversation.

Misty vale feels left out of the new dungeon network and plots to dethrone Azure as the head of the young coalition, it uses the connection to allow its human ally to conquer the relatively young Dreadful Meadow dungeon and sets the blame on Azure for giving outdated advice about dungeon tactics. The Dreadful Meadow dungeon is saved by Trev and with gratitude shift its support to Misty Vale for the leadership.

Sara follows a lead in her investigation about enslaved adventurers and comes upon an exploited unregistered dungeon in the republic of Sahemi where adventurers she once knew are used to extract treasures for the black market, she enters the dungeon and learns about the horrors occuring in the depths of the misty vale when she is captured and interrogated until she breaks.

When Ben passes a second year without hearing from Sara at their agreed rendevouz he becomes worried and starts asking the wrong questions in the worst possible places, after teaming up with Tam who lost his party to a freak dungeon accident they unravel the mistery from its other end by again taking on the Ravaged Desert dungeon that is a part of the dungeon coalition, this time Ben claims the barony and follows his leads from the rescued adventurers to go and save Sara, he finds her a broken husk but frees all the slaves from the republic indentured camp and sets his keep and barony on the border between the two countries.

Azure Vale calls Tam to it and gives him another dungeon core, this time Tam brings the new core to Bens keep and it becomes the first sentient non dungeon entity called Tiny Heart Fort, as a joke from Ben that calls his barony domain Heartland and the keep is still tiny even though its guardians are mighty.

Epilogue

Sara is slowly healing but relapses when she meets her torturer in a house party.