Robin grimaced and used [Legerdemain] to clean the blood splatter off of himself and the rest of his party members. The corpse of a large minotaur-like creature lay cooling rapidly nearby. Jhess was busily trying to figure out the best way to harvest its crystalline horns.

The party had made their way three or four more levels down towards the deeps of Tarin-Tiran. Ropurecht, guided by some insights from Nilsiir, had carved out a spiralling, sporadic domain as they went, carefully avoiding those areas claimed by the other living dungeon, Silinir.

‘That would have been a good one to feed Ruprecht,’ Robin observed as Jhess triumphantly brandished the first of the two horns.

Their dungeon ally needed a steady influx of energies claimed from living beings to fuel his efforts and expansion, and the crystalline-horned minotaur had been a tough fight. It had to have had a lot of life energy to offer up.

‘We’ve sent him plenty of monsters,’ Jhess replied. ‘Can’t let him have all the fun. Some of us need to work on developing our skills as well.’ She shot the bard a significant look. ‘We can’t always rely on having a dungeon along to help us to the heavy lifting.’

She wasn’t wrong. Ruprect wasn’t the most mobile of allies, after all, and he was as much a trickster as Robin. Relying overmuch on the dungeon would be foolish.

No matter what kinship Robin might feel with him because of their odd, shared connection.

‘How far are we from the target location? We have to be close,’ Drev said.

Robin reviewed the map Nilsiir had given them. It’d be easier if the illusion were able to travel with them, but that wasn’t possible. Nilsiir was currently limited in the places they could manifest. Though if Robin and the party succeeded, they’d be able to increase the number of those places and occasionally have contact with the living illusion.

The quest notification he had received after they had agreed to help Nilsiir listed three main repair objectives. They weren’t too terribly far apart, all things considered, but their progress was slowed by the need to try and avoid large chunks of territory claimed by Silinir.

‘It should be a few hundred feet ahead, in a medium sized chamber that according to Nilsiir was once a theatre of some kind.’ Robin was eager to see the place. It was important because it was a nexus of illusion magics keyed into the runic structures that underpinned Tarin-Tiran’s existence, but it was also a place where illusions were used at a high level of sophistication to produce miraculous entertainments.

There was no way he couldn’t learn a lot in a place like that. Maybe even snag a couple performance related perks.

Robin found he rather missed being in front of an audience. He’d have to rectify that after this adventure wrapped up.

‘Well what are we waiting for?’ Jhess asked, stowing the second of the crystal minotaur horns in her dimensional storage.

‘You,’ Robin said bluntly. ‘We were waiting for you to loot the corpse.’

‘You should have helped then,’ the rogue shot back, unashamed and unabashed. ‘Let’s go! There’s more treasure to be found!’

‘And great danger,’ Savra said suddenly, here eyes distant. ‘We should move carefully. Something is stirring in the darkness. Something that seethes with hatred.’

‘Oh yay,’ Robin said drily, ‘something new and different for us! Deadly monsters lurking in the darkness. Love that Tarin-Tiran isn’t afraid to go full on cliche. Love that energy for us.’

The party looked at him oddly. The bard just shook his head.

‘Humour from my land,’ he said. ‘Nevermind. Let’s go. Carefully.’

I am advancing down the tunnel ahead of you. I have garnered sufficient energies from my other efforts to make up some ground here.

Was that a bit of a waspish tone in Ruprecht’s mental voice? Surely not. The dungeon can’t be that annoyed they weren’t hand-feeding him ever single meal, right?

Right?

Robin made a mental note to have some more conversations with Rurpecht, and also secure some valuable to feed the dungeon in addition to the monsters they sent his way. It never hurt to be generous with alien entities that could exert control over your nearby reality to a shocking degree.

The party made its way forward, carefully checking the shadows for unexpected surprises. Ruprecht assured them things were safe, but with the magical nature of Tarin-Tiran it didn’t hurt to be too careful. The party had already run into a summoning trap that dumped a small pack of glittering-scaled kobolds upon them.

That had been within Ruprecht’s boundaries as well. Seems like while he could assimilate a lot, magic took a great deal longer than mundane materials, and the advanced magics of Tarin-Tiran, possibly warped by Silirin, were stubborn, persistent, and sneaky.

Exactly as one would expect.

So the party moved cautiously. Robin possibly less so than the others, keen to reach the theatre and the riches of knowledge it might conceal. His quest notification had implied—though not promised—that there might be such opportunities for going along with Nilsiir’s plan.

Though the illusory High Priest’s words also still niggled in Robin’s brain. What precisely was this system that allowed him to manipulate his powers and offered guidance—possibly manipulation—in the form of quests? Illusion, divination, there was a lot of very high level magic bound up in whatever the enchantment was upon Robin, and while it might be manipulating him it also offered him a great deal of power and a lot of say in how he accrued, shaped, and used that power.

‘Careful,’ Jhess warned.

Robin had nearly put his foot down on a pile of lose gravel. That might have sent him sprawling and almost certainly would have resulted in a bit of noise that might alert whatever it was that was dark, dangerous, and waiting for them up ahead.

He nodded his thanks to the rogue and adjusted his gait, resolving to pay more attention to his current problems and less to hypotheticals brought up by the words of an illusory high priest of a trickster deity.

Put like that…yeah, Robin definitely needed more information before coming to any sort of conclusion.

There was less wear and tear on their surroundings, deeper in the city. The fighting had hit less hard here, in this area, and the buildings were less exposed to the elements. There was much to admire in the smooth shifting between architectural styles as modes and materials changed as they made their way along.

Some of the enchanted lights still worked, though whether that was down to craftsmanship or the influence of Silinir, Robin couldn’t say. He kept his eye sharply tuned for any evidence of runic structure or eldritch knowledge. Even if he couldn’t decipher it right now, his power of recall might make it possible to do so in the future, when he was more advanced in his facility with magic of all kinds.

Speaking of magical knowledge, Robin cast a small illusion of hte runic structures Nilsiir had instructed him to memorise before embarking on the quest. Theoretically they would help repair the damage time and the living dungeon had done to these key locations, allowing Nilsiir to manifest and regain some control of the surrounding area. If Robin and his party could restore all three, Nilsiir had promised them not only that they’d be able to open one or more of the hidden treasure vaults of Tarin-Tiran for Robin and his friends, but also that the illusion might be able to curtail some of Silinir’s excesses, making the city safer to explore.

‘What do you think of this whole proposition,’ Robin murmured to Savra as they walked. ‘How far would you trust Nilsiir?’

The seeress looked at him and Robin was pleased to se a hint of surprise cross her face.

‘I would not trust the High Priest so far as I could throw him,’ she answered wryly, ‘and yet helping him is, from what little my vision can see, the correct course of action for us. It will be dangerous, true, but I see great opportunity there as well, perhaps even wealth whose value outweighs any dangers we might face.’ She weighed Robin with her eyes. ‘Curious that you would ask me my opinion on this now.’

‘I agree it’s worth the risk.’ Robin shrugged. ‘Doesn’t mean I don’t want to make sure there isn’t an angle I’ve missed, and you’re the other person here most likely to spot such a thing.’

‘I think it overall a good thing if Tarin-Tiran should rise again,’ Savra said after a moments consideration. ‘My Lady would approve, I think.’

‘It must be hard, being cut off from her voice in this place, of all places.’

‘It is. Though it is also very…instructive.’ Savra grimaced. ‘I think perhaps that may be part of what I am to take away from here that is of value. A bit more self-reliance, a bit more caution in thinking through the visions that I can see, though they are fragmented and unsure.’

‘I do wonder what that’s like, sometimes,’ Robin admitted. ‘Feeling such a close connection to your deity. I imagine it’s nice, but I suppose part of that depends on the deity in question.’

‘There is almost always a euphoria to it,’ Savra replied, ‘even in the case of the foulest of gods, goddesses, or deities. The touch of the divine is primal, it is a connection to an aspect of all creation and that is always a powerful thing.’

‘The sublime and the grotesque,’ Robin murmured, half-remembering something from an art history course he audited for a couple weeks, but never actually took.

‘Exactly so,’ Savra nodded. ‘It is more intense if you have a connection to the aspects your deity represents or embodies, of course. Like a sailor who truly loves the sea connecting to a goddess that represents it, but the feeling will be there even if he instead came mind to mind with a god of the lonely desert. It is like looking upon a beautiful untouched forest from a great height, or being carried into the air the first time when flying. There’s something primal and wondrous, even though the experience may also be terrifying. It is hard not to respond to that, as a person of almost any kind or heritage.’

Their conversation as interrupted, however, by Ruprecht.

We’ve got company up ahead!