Honoured Mistress Hammond,

I hope this missive finds you well, and I also hope that it reaches you in a good and timely manner. You might find it strange that I should use such an unreliable and roundabout method of writing to you, but I have my reasons. It pains me to admit it, but I am a fugitive. Not from the law of your country, but of my own. Courier networks are one way that the hunters, spread thin and wide-ranging catch the scent of people like myself.

I wish that we could meet again, but by the time you read this, I will have left Latora for greener pastures. Sadly, the life I have chosen does not allow me to stay in one place— one country— for long.

The reason I am writing to you, aside from passing on my best wishes, is that I have heard that you might be visiting my homeland soon. I’m hoping that I can prevail on you to contact my sister, Jesridae, to let her know that I am alive and thinking fondly of her. We have been out of touch for many years, and she must be worried.

Like me, my sister chafes under the restrictions of the Grove. Unlike me, she was unable to find her way out. She is a person you can trust. If you mention that you are a friend of mine, I’m sure that she would help you to the full extent of her abilities.

Your servant, Aesrideu

What is going on here? I thought as I let the letter drop to the table. The others were looking at me expectantly, so I passed it over.

“I can’t believe you’re friends with an elf,” Felicia said. “Why didn’t you mention this before?”

“It wasn’t a big thing,” I told her. “I just had some questions about demons that he helped me with… we were friendly enough, but it was nothing special.”

“So when are you going to Elfland?” Janie asked.

“It’s called the Glade,” Felicia corrected. “But yes, when?”

“That’s the really weird thing,” I said. “Most of it is weird, but it all kind of makes sense if you accept that part. I don’t have any plans to visit… the Glade. I don’t even know where it is.”

“North of here,” Felicia said. “On the other side of the Tribal lands.”

Janie laughed. “Someone’s got a thing for elves,” she snorted. Felicia flushed.

“I… may have read some stories when I was younger. If I’d known there was an elf in Anchorbury, I might have visited sooner.”

“I suspect that if you had known, he wouldn’t have been there for much longer,” I told her. “From the sound of it, as soon as word spreads outside the town that he’s there, he’s gone.”

“Besides,” Janie added, “Even if you had been there, you would have had to fight your way past all the hungry upper-class ladies.”

“He wasn’t that hard to talk to,” I said, scowling at her. She rolled her eyes in response.

“She plays this town like it was a musical instrument, and she thinks she wasn’t special just because she was Level Four at the time? Trust me, those vultures knew better than to mess with you.”

“Well, maybe,” I admitted. “The fact remains that I don’t plan on visiting the elves, so who told him that I did?”

“There’s one obvious answer,” Cloridan said. “Well, seven.”

I scowled and looked at the letter like it was a snake.

“It could be a devious plan by one of your enemies,” Janie tried. “That got… leaked to your elf-bard. Didn’t you say that one of the people you were worried about was a Countess? She might have slept with him and let something slip.”

“He wouldn’t have—” I said but stopped myself. I wouldn’t have, but I had to admit that she was pretty and rich. Normally it only took one of those. “Okay, he might have,” I admitted. “But if he was really trying to warn me, wouldn’t he be more… specific?”

“It’s a stretch,” Janie agreed. “But if you’re looking for something other than the gods have got plans, and this is their way of booking out your calendar, that’s all I’ve got.”

“Maybe he was worried that if he mentioned the Countess, the hunters would have a lead on tracking him down?” Felica speculated.

“That’s so convoluted that it gets us right back to having been organised by a god,” I groaned. “Well, it’s not like we can do anything about it. I’ll just try to avoid travelling to the Glade.”

“What if that’s what they want you to do…” Cloridan said slowly. “Either the god or your enemy. Keep you in the city, or away from the elves, whichever one is their goal.”

“When you put it like that, I guess that there really isn’t anything to be done,” I groused. “Can’t go with the flow, can’t go against it, can’t even write back to ask what’s going on.”

“Just keep your eyes open?” Felicia suggested. “Make the best decision that you can with the information that you have available.”

“Yeah,” I agreed. “That’s all I’ve ever been able to do.

* * *

I stood at the centre of the hidden… Temple? Tomb? Fortress? I didn’t know. It might have been any of those, or none. Most recently, it had been a bandit base, and now I was claiming it for my own.

I bent down and placed Rhis on the stone floor.

Sufficient mana detected. Instantiate mana construct? [Y/N]

[Y], I thought. There was a momentary pause, and then I was in the white room.

“This isn’t really sufficient, Mistress,” Rhis said, scowling.

“It’s enough to work with, right?” I asked. “We’re well out the Order’s collection range.”

“It’s about what I had at Oakway,” he admitted. “But that amount was so limiting back then. I’d hoped for more…” He tried his puppy dog eyes.

“Don’t worry so much,” I said, laughing. “I’m going to get you more mana. I just wanted you already in place before the shaman arrives. I’m hoping that when he gets close, you’ll be able to draw the mana stream closer to you and use it, without having to rely on his enchantments the entire way.”

“I suppose that is possible, depending on what you mean by close,” Rhis said thoughtfully.

“The further the better,” I replied. “The further out you can grab the stream, the less certain of your location he’s going to be.”

“I see,” Rhis said, nodding thoughtfully.

“So for now, just focus on expanding to cover this structure.

“That will take quite some time with my current levels,” Rhis informed me.

“Oh? Have you got an estimate?”

The white room flickered, and then we were standing back in the underground base. This version of it was lit with a sourceless bright light, instead of my own light spell. Everything could be seen clearly.

“I should be able to absorb most of what you see here, and register a second floor with my existing mana” Rhis said. “After that, though, I will only be regenerating 24 mana a day. I can only guess at how much more there is to absorb, but it will take six days to accumulate enough mana for a third floor.”

“That slowly? This doesn’t look much bigger than that dance hall.”

“The mana levels are much lower. This instantiation, there wasn’t enough free mana to start me with full mana. Please consult your [Dungeon Status]”

I did, and saw that he was right.

Dungeon Name

Tower of Learning

Level: 7

Current Mana: 80

Dungeon Traits

XP: 38,736,321

Mana Cap: 120

Next Level: 100,000,000

Mana Regeneration: 12

Floors: 1

Upkeep: 0.0

Name

Rank

Effect

Spatial Control

Monster Classes

Treasure Classes

Trap Classes

Environmental Classes

Mana Efficiency

10

5

5

5

5

5

Teleportation, Portals, Expansion (8)

Lizards, Goblins, Insects, Mammals, Fish

Coins, Gems, Ores, Mystic Crystals, Crafted Items

Simple, Advanced, Natural, Magical, Lava

Desert, Jungle, Swamp, Forest, Mountain

10% bonus mana regeneration per rank

“That is low,” I admitted, wincing. “Increasing your floors will increase your mana regeneration though, right?”

“Yes, but there is a diminishing return. It costs more for each floor. At current mana levels, I estimate I can create no more than five levels. The fourth floor will take seven days to save up for, and the fifth, nine more days. After that…” He paused. “The cost for the sixth level will be more than the mana cap.”

“How much would you need for the portal?”

“At current levels of mana, I would need… seven levels to create such a device.”

I sighed. “Well, we’ll just have to get you more mana, won’t we?”

He nodded eagerly. “That would be ideal. Shall I proceed with the expansion and the second floor?”

“Yeah, I’ll be back in a bit.” I turned to head outside.

“Mistress? You’re leaving me?” Rhis asked anxiously.

“Just for a bit,” Belatedly, I remembered that I was in the white room, and walking away wouldn’t do anything. With an effort of will, I shifted my perceptions back to the real world. Connected to my will, Rhis seamlessly shifted realms as well, crafting an illusion of himself without missing a beat.

“I’ve got to place that enchantment up top, to conceal your mana funnel,” I told him.

“But, but, there might be beasts or monsters down here, that could steal my core!”

“I doubt there's anything more than a couple of rats,” I assured him. “There’s no food.”

“One rat is all it would take though,” he said. “They just have to touch the core, and then… I’m gone.”

“That… is a good point,” I said. “Do you want me to get the others in here to guard you?”

“That would help with my mana regeneration,” he said automatically, “But, are you talking about Felicia, Janie, or Kyle? They’ve all been casting covetous glances at me when you aren’t looking. You can’t leave me alone with them.”

This again. Refraining from rolling my eyes, I pulled up a monster from my memory. “Fine. I’ll let you have one Phantasmal monster, to scare away any beasts.”

I used the dungeon to cast the spell, which would allow Rhis to take control of it. The Phantasmal Alien appeared between us, flexing its claws, and dripping Phantasmal slime on the floor. It didn’t actually hit the floor, just smoked away into nothing.

“Ooh,” Rhis said. “Can I get a real one of those?”

“I hope not,” I said. “This should be scary enough for you.”

Rhis nodded eagerly, and I left him to his work.

My apparently untrustworthy companions were camping outside of the crack in the cliffside. Felicia waved at me when I emerged.

“Everything go well?” she called.

“Yeah, it's fine, just got to plant that enchantment now,” I said, looking up. Free climbing was never my thing back home, but I had a few advantages now. I eyed a likely hand-hold, about three metres up, and jumped.

Climbing like this… maybe I should take it up as a hobby. It was easier to see what people saw in it, now that I had the physical capacity and the Skills to make it easier. I swarmed up the cliffside like an Olympic athlete on speed.

When I got to the top, I was in for a surprise. There were structures here. Ruined ones, long overgrown with brush and trees.

Interesting. These have got to be connected to the structure below, right?

I took a quick look, but couldn’t find anything that looked like a way down. As overgrown as they were though, that didn’t really mean anything. Any shaft or passageway was likely to have collapsed, or been covered with rubble from the building containing it. Maybe Rhis would find something going up.

That wasn’t what I was here for, so I didn’t spend too much time on it. Rhis’s mana funnel was clearly visible. It wasn’t as big as the one in Dorsay, but to the right eyes, it would be visible from a long way away. However, it was easy to conceal with the enchanted item that I’d made back then. I propped it up in one of the corners of a building that had most of its walls and then positioned a few loose stones to conceal it.

I climbed back down and invited the others inside. Rhis would just have to get used to his paranoia. I broke out some wine, and we clinked Phantasmal crystal goblets together.

“Stage One is complete!” I declared. “Stealth Dungeon has been achieved! Now we just need some more mana.”