The Newt and Demon-7.58 - Dig In

While Elrin was busy soloing a super-strong dungeon by himself like a badass, Theo spent his time studying the interaction of magical energies. Within a dungeon, things were weird. Early on, the alchemist had observed the interactions between heavenly energies and dungeons. The energies within this dungeon were potent, yet the reagents within didn’t reflect that. They were normal, from what he could tell.

Theo had fun with his studies. He wasn’t certain he learned more than he knew before, but it gave him something to do. Even Tresk had run off to participate in the fight. Well, she stole some kills from Elrin, but that was her idea of contribution. Testing both the Iron Cap and LIzard’s Beard mushroom would be fun once he got back to the lab.

Of course, Theo had to update his people about where he was. A little underground adventure was fine, but his people would throw a fit if they couldn’t find him by the time night fell. With the exciting projects dragging their attention away from things like missing alchemists, he wasn’t surprised with the lukewarm responses he got in the interface. So, he turned his attention back to the dungeon and all the weird crap there, eventually catching up to Elrin and Tresk, who were busy clearing their way through the endless tunnels.

Theo passed through yet another tunnel, shaking his head as he saw how wide the cavern was. It was large enough to be considered a small town by kobold standards. Etched into the walls—starting at the ground and going all the way to the ceiling—were builds hewn into the rock.

“Looks like a city,” Theo said, squinting as he looked into the distance. The glowing fungus only did so much to illuminate the area, especially at a distance. “Exactly how big is this dungeon?”

“Bigger than the others I’ve seen in this world, but not as large as some I’ve been in,” Elrin said, scanning the area. “Unfortunately, we’ll have to clear everything to reduce the amount of magical energy. I don’t think the core will fall until all of that power has dissipated.”

“Oh no, we have to kill a bunch of monsters,” Tresk said in mock dismay. “What a cruel world we live in.”

Of course, the marshling was excited to defeat more monsters, but that left Theo bored and unable to occupy his mind. At least he had the dungeon to study and the various reagents he would find by going deeper. Tresk and Elrin rushed into the cavern to confront the endless hordes of strange kobolds while the alchemist inspected the area. He went along behind them at first, inspecting the bodies of the dead. Some were standard kobolds, if a kobold could be considered standard at all, while others were chimeric mixes. It wasn’t the first time he had seen a blend of natural creatures, but these were different.

The chimera kobolds were the base kobolds mixed with just about anything, from normal creatures like turtles, geese, and horses to more exotic fare like goblins, bird-people and, even stranger of all, dolphins. One example of the kobold-dolphin hybrid flopped on the ground before him, its fat tail pumping uselessly out of water.

Theo had to catch up to Elrin and ask a few questions. The man knew more than he was letting on, and Theo had questions about the nature of such a strange dungeon.

“Why would the system combine something like a kobold with a dolphin?” Theo asked. “It doesn’t make a lot of sense to me.”

Elrin slashed his halberd through the air, removing the head of a chimera with ease. “The system isn’t attempting to create anything useful; it’s creating them at random. I experienced this a lot back in my world. This happens when the dungeons go haywire.”

“I mean, we saw this in the negative dungeon, but we had a very good idea of why it was happening. However, I just don’t see the purpose here.” Theo said, crouching to inspect a kobold that had been mixed with a sheep. “What purpose could something like this serve? Is it random experimentation to find the best kobold?”

“When I fought the chimeras, the shade controlling the dungeons used this technique to find the best,” Elrin said, nodding in agreement. “He kept those winners back, putting them in a pool.”

“So, someone exploited the randomness of the dungeons,” Theo said, nodding. “See, that part makes sense.”

“Indeed. What we see here is leftovers from that feature that he exploited,” Elrin explained. “This is a painful echo of that. Which is why it must be destroyed.”

It seemed more like the system’s job than theirs. Well, since Theo sat on one of four thrones, perhaps it was his job. But he wasn’t empowered to do it. Whatever, at least it was fun watching Elrin and Tresk slaughter the weird monsters.

It took a long time to clear the entire dungeon. Unfortunately, Theo didn’t find any other reagents he thought he could use, but he collected plenty of mushrooms. One problem with reagents like this was that once he was out, he was out for good, and it was unlikely another kobold dungeon would appear below the town. So, he had to collect as much as he could. The only upside was that he could replicate the effects using alchemical infusion.

It took almost four hours to clear the entire dungeon. It would have taken much longer if the monsters had posed any threat to the party. However, since they could cut through each monster with little effort, they zipped through it. The final boss was a horrid amalgam of so many different types of monsters that it couldn’t even move. Elrin made quick work of it and presented them with concerning news.

“You’ll need to exit the dungeon before I take care of the dungeon core,” Elrin said, gesturing to the floating orb of metal and energy. “I can destroy the dungeon, but it will likely collapse quickly, and I’d rather you two not get destroyed with it.”

“How about you meet us back in town for some dinner?” Theo said. “I don’t know if anybody’s still awake, but we could make something at the manor.”

Elrin appeared to consider the offer for quite some time before giving a sharp nod. “Yeah, that sounds fine.”

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Theo nudged Tresk, and they both dropped through the space between realities. Using the Dreampassage skill within a dungeon was weird. It was like piercing through a few veils, rather than one. Since he had no intentions of coming back using that path, it was easier than expected. The alchemist steered them to the central meeting place in Tero’gal, intent on having a chat with Belgar before they headed back home for an enjoyable meal.

Theo landed at the crossroads, pausing as he set his jaw. Looking down the road to the west, he saw the path the spirits had once used to rollerblade. They had shifted through many trends, thanks to the time-dilation effect of the area. But that effect was mostly gone, leaving the locals to develop at a more reasonable pace. Their spiritual bodies were gone, replaced again with flesh and blood. The results were interesting, rendering them more like the mortals on the realm below.

“Always a pleasure when you drop in,” Belgar said, trotting down the road with a smile on his face.

“Seems like I’ve been neglectful recently,” Theo said, watching as Tresk went dashing down the street. Even the mountain in the west no longer held both thrones of power. One was here, and the other was on the moon. On a sunny day like this, there were many people running around, living their lives. They no longer spent their days just having fun, instead performing all the tasks required by mortals. “Yet they seem happy.”

“Don’t be so hard on yourself,” Belgar said, slapping Theo on the back. “Tero’gal is its own thing now. You don’t have to worry about managing it like one of your towns.”

“I only have one town. Well, Broken Tusk is a city, now,” Theo said.

“Don’t sweat it,” Belgar said. “Wanna hear about a war that broke out last week?”

Theo sighed. Time moved at a two-to-one ratio here. Not quite as fast as before, but still quick enough for wars to break out, apparently. “What happened?”

“More elves, although that won’t surprise you,” Belgar said. “We thought the planet’s ability to change itself to stop people from being bad boys had been expended. But a small nation of elves to the north tried to start a war, and the planet stepped in.”

“That’s actually good news,” Theo said, brightening considerably. “Do you think the planet’s ability to shift like that will change after the system resets?”

“All I know is all worlds are going through a lot of changes,” Belgar said. “We’re not sure why, but we’re not complaining.”

The system exploited by the ascended people was one designed to turn realms, which were collections of influence, into places. Those places were often conceptual, but sometimes appeared as planets or masses of land. The Bridge of Shadows was the purest example of that. Uz’Xulven’s bridge had been such an excellent form of a realm, it had been integrated into Tero’gal as a permanent fixture. Drogramath’s world was a bunch of potion bottles with worlds in them, which made no sense. Something like that wasn’t carried forward.

“What about the local system?” Theo asked. “Do you guys have cores and classes?”

“Kinda,” Belgar said. “Here and there. Some people have classes and stuff while others don’t. Doesn’t seem to be logic behind it, to be honest.”

“But things aren’t going poorly?” Theo asked.

“Yeah, Tero’gal is taking care of us,” Belgar said, waving a dismissive hand.

“Any dungeons or other things to note?”

“Nope. No dungeons. Not really any monsters” Belgar said, scratching his chin. “Well, we have wild animals… Does that count?”

“I don’t think so. Anyway, I need to check up on you guys more often,” Theo said. “Even if it doesn’t seem as though you need it…”

After sharing some more pleasantries with Belgar, Theo and Tresk jumped to Alex’s location back on the mortal plane. She had already settled herself into the barn for the night, so they left her there. Instead, they departed and made their way to the manor. Both Sarisa and Rowan were asleep for the night. Rowan had wedged himself between a bush and the wrought iron gate in the backyard while Sarisa slept in her room on the first floor.

“Let’s fry up some sausages!” Tresk said, perhaps with a bit too much excitement.

Yet Theo still smiled, sneaking into their manor and firing up the artifice controlling the stove. “Where do they keep the pans?” he asked, searching through the cupboards.

“Up one,” Tresk said, gesturing to the top-most cabinet. “To keep the heavy stuff away from me. Little do they know, I have a stool.”

Tresk withdrew a wooden stool from the shared inventory.

“Ah, so that’s what you keep the stool in there for. Interesting,” Theo said. “I thought it was just more junk.”

Snatching a few links of dried sausages hanging by the sink, Theo got to work on frying them up. He had little else in mind other than frying them, but whatever. They’d eaten weirder things for dinner. Half-way through cooking the sausages, Elrin arrived, his giant tiger following into the manor with loping strides.

“Hey, just have a seat,” Theo said, gesturing to the table with his wooden spatula. “I hope you like sausages and… Let’s see what we have in this crate… Oh. Sarisa put some omelettes in here.”

“Just dump the sausages atop the eggs!” Tresk said, pumping her fist in the air.

Theo withdrew three plates of the pozwa egg dish from the storage crate, leaving the sausages to crisp up as he distributed the plates. Tresk’s excitement bubbled over and she dashed over to the chair, jumping into a chair and tipping it over backwards. After she righted herself, she placed her hands on the table and drummed her fingers across the surface.

Once the sausages had the right amount of crispiness on both sides, Theo distributed them between all three plates. Along with the crispy sausages came a faint layer of grease that poured over the already-glistening omelettes. Tresk had already been salivating, but if she had to wait any longer, the alchemist assumed she would have a meltdown.

“Dig in,” Theo said, trying not to laugh as he returned the pan to the kitchen. After a simple application of Cleansing Scrub, he left the kitchen as clean as he had found it.

“Nothing wrong with a simple meal,” Elrin said, cutting his food with his fork and taking a bite. “Not bad.”

“Is freaking great,” Tresk said, shoveling food into her mouth.

Most of all, Theo was shocked at the lack of conversation. He realized everyone was hungry, of course. It had been a long day in the dungeon, and everyone was tired. Well, Theo and Tresk were tired. Elrin seemed mostly to enjoy the comfort of having a warm meal.

“So, do you get tired?” Theo asked, finishing up his plate.

“Eventually,” Elrin said. “It would take quite a while, though.”

“Like… how long?” Tresk asked.

Elrin shrugged. “At this point, a few months of combat.”

“Months?” Theo asked, shaking his head. “You’re a monster.”

“I’ve heard worse,” Elrin said with a wink.

The meal was certainly relaxing, but Theo was ready to head into the Dreamwalk. After making some moss tea for everyone to enjoy, it was time for bed. Elrin was gracious enough to step out. The alchemist was mostly surprised since he couldn’t get the man to stick around for more than a few hours normally. Perhaps they had actually bonded a bit. If only a bit.