“Your Majesty, we have finished the assessment of the capital,” spoke Lord Pentecost minister of the interior. He swept into the throne room to see a forlorn King Edric Reagan slumped on the throne. Pentecost quickly climbed the five steps to sit in a chair on the king’s left side.

“Give me the summary Pentecost. I grow weary of all the banging and sawing,” said the king.

“Yes, your highness. It seems the dragons actions tore a two-foot-thick line from the west side of the castle clean through to the east side. The mages have managed to stabilize the building. As you can hear, reconstruction is well underway. I’m sure your royal ancestors didn’t know the crystal spires could open a huge portal to the Earthbound Realm. Luckily, the Dimensional Sentinel it awoke chased it through the portal. Young Lord Desentes managed to quell the incident at the coliseum with the help of your knights and a contingent of paladins from the church of Radiant. They swept through the arena and cleared out the demons that sprang up. Our diviners know a warlock was the one drawing them to our plane of existence although they can not tell us who it was. They say the information is shrouded. Your Generals are reporting troop movement from the empire along our western border. We still do not know what that winged creature was and the sword it carried disappeared. After the champions display in the arena, a new temple is being constructed for the first time in many decades. It is of course a temple to Chimera—” relayed the minister before getting cut off.

“What of Cullep? That treasonous snake must be put to the sword,” the king demanded.

“After we found the remains of the inquisitors, we sent to retrieve him, reports suggest he fled northeast. I have trackers out. We will capture him, I assure you my king,” replied Pentecost.

“Leave me. I must check in on the war front. Send in my war council on your way out,” commanded the king.

“One final thing sire, this is a piece of glass from the clean up in the coliseum. It seems to have some green fluid floating inside of it. Not sure what it is, but it may have something to do with the dragon. It was first spotted flying out of the arena,” said Lord Pentecost handing over the chunk of glass before leaving.

Outside the throne room Lord Pentecost was met by Wotan. Pentecost called for a messenger to gather the war council. The two men then walked past laborers furious working to patch up the split in the palace. A few minutes later they were both entered a waiting room. Wotan closed the door behind them and looked a little nervous.

“Out with it. His majesty is in a mood, and I could use some better news,” said Lord Pentecost while he searched the bar area for a glass.

“Your favorite vintage of wine was just delivered in those crates over there. I’m told the vineyard is under new management. I hope its still to your liking. But I will warn—” was as far as Wotan got before the lid flipped off the crate on its own to clatter to the ground. A bottle lifted up and flew into Pentecost’s waiting hand. After finally finding glass, he used telekinesis to pop the cork, then poured a generous helping for himself before dropping the glass and spilling its contents on the ground.

“Deacon’s Dingleberry Wine?!” stammered Lord Pentecost incredulously.

“Did you just eat those flying goblins?” Ralph asked.

“It sounds weird when you say it like that,” responded Deacon.

“It is weird, Deacon. What did I tell you about trying new abilities without training?” Ralph asked.

“I never have time to train. Never. When am I supposed do it? Tell me right now and I will do exactly that. You see you can’t, can you? Now what’s so special bout these goblins?” Deacon inquired as he hoped over the wall to grab one of the fallen bodies. Typhus joined him shortly thereafter. While the others ran around to the gate.

Looking at the bodies, Deacon noticed they were about four feet tall. The only uncharacteristic thing were the equally long dragonfly wings protruding from their upper backs. Deacon lifted one in the air by its wrist. The eyes were white with beady-black pupils. The teeth were the most unsettling thing about them. It was like they had three rows of pointy teeth, like a shark.

“No this is a big problem, kids. This is not what goblins look like. They are supposed to have broken irregular teeth and only one damn row of them. They shouldn’t have any whites to their eyes. I’m telling you I’ve killed my fair share of goblins and those are not goblin eyes. These are some kind of goblin abominations,” Typhus relayed to the group at large.

“Perhaps we should discuss this somewhere more private?” Sophie hinted as they looked at the guards racing out to the front of the gates. It looked like they were erecting some defensive barriers on the eastern side of the town.

Deacon didn’t know what good ground based barriers would do against flying goblins but if it made them feel more secure, he was all for it. Deacon did manage to slide several of the goblin crossbows into his bag with Polterheist. He had the seed of an idea forming in his head about them. That’s when Hani made his presence known by kicking one of the goblin corpses releasing a morbid jingling from the bells on his boots.

“What are you going to do about the one that got away?” asked Hani.

“Nothing much to do now. They will most likely report back that there is a settlement here with a powerful magic user. That should protect this town in the short term. Depending on what kind of leadership they have. Can you do that thing? You know where you talk to the ghost,” Typhus asked sheepishly.

“Not here. I think Sophie’s right. We should get a room at the inn and talk there,” Deacon replied.

“Perhaps we should introduce Sophie to Alfred…” Typhus suggested under his breath.

“You call your dick Alfred?” Sophie asked with a raised eyebrow.

“What? No!” Deacon said looking completely mortified.

Once they settled up with the inn keeper who was very curious why six people only needed one room key, they walked up the stairs to the second floor. Tantus said he’d wait downstairs with Hani and the other members of the caravan. The excessive amount of winking he did while looking at Deacon didn’t escape Hani’s narrowing gaze. Deacon was slowing with each step as he approached the door knowing he was about to reveal his biggest secret to the Vice-Guild master. He understood she was sweet on him but when it came to down to it, she was senior member of his organization. Could he trust her with this knowledge? Armand didn’t was dead set against having anything to do with one of Philo’s creations. This was it. The moment of truth.

“Ok everyone inside, I’d like to talk to Sophie alone please,” Deacon said. The rest all filed in and closed the door behind them leaving Deacon and Sophie alone in the dark hallway.

“Why are we always alone in a dark corridor? I hope there are no Cobeara here,” Sophie joked.

“Not funny, that was horrifying for me,” Deacon said with snicker.

“What’s this all about? Aren’t we just going to game plan what to do next in this room? Most people just rent a common room. It usually has a big table, and we can get dinner delivered,” she said.

“I’m about to show you the Regulators biggest secret. It’s not supposed to be mentioned outside but Typhus can’t take a hint. I need you to know that you are not in any danger from this,” Deacon warned her.

“Ok now I’m getting a little nervous. Are you all with Amanda or something? I’m not going to judge you,” Sophie stated with the slightest hint of worry in her voice.

“By the ten hells, do you think of nothing else?” Deacon said as he opened the door to the very cramped room. Typhus, Amanda, Ralph, Deacon, and Sophie squeezed into the room that had one cot, a window, and that was it. They managed to close the door as Deacon pulled Alfred’s cube. Only it wasn’t a cube anymore. It was a cylindrical object about a foot tall. Alfred still had that black and green undulating techno-magic appearance though. Deacon then received a prompt on his slate.

Dungeon Cube Evolution- Your dungeon cube has evolved to its second form, Dungeon Nucleus. This is the result of absorbing higher quality soul essence. The shard of divinity has lost forty percent of its potency. This grants the Dungeon Nucleus the following aspects: External Interaction, Soul Bestiary, and Untethered.

External Interaction- The presence of your Dungeon can now interact with you outside of its pocket dimension. This is limited to communication and minor influence on your environment.

Soul Bestiary- You may now store collected souls in your dungeon halving the cost of materials and energy necessary for your dungeon to create creatures. This only applies to creatures that have a soul.

Untethered- This dungeon no longer requires a stationary environment to be activated. Please be aware that activating the dungeon while in motion can have unforeseen side effects.

“Hey, Alfred evolved,” Deacon said as he looked at the nucleus.

“Why are you calling that thing Alfred?” Sophie asked.

“Because that is the name Master Deacon gave me,” came Alfred’s voice from the nucleus.

“It talks!” Sophie screamed.

“Okay, hang on. This is my personal dungeon named Alfred. He’s the secret member of the Regulators. This will be easier once I’ve done this,” Deacon said as he placed Alfred on the ground and the room changed around them to that of Deacon’s mansion on the hill overlooking a small forest to the left, a pier with a Ferris wheel complete with boardwalk stalls, and a medium hedge maze off in the distance. Alfred materialized from the wall, straight backed with a towel draped over one arm.

“Hello Ms. Turner, I am Alfred. Deacon’s dungeon spirit,” Alfred said.