Jana walked through the streets of the dwarven city, its buildings tall and rugged. Her presence was concealed such that nobody even seemed to notice her, as if she was just a passing mist. This was an ability that she had only recently learned, and one which would not work on those near her own level of power.
When she approached the Lord’s Hall, she saw two elder-level dwarves standing guard. They each held a spear tipped with shimmering metal, no doubt stormforged weapons. Jana walked past them without causing either one to change their expressions in the slightest. Even when she opened the door they were guarding, it was like they didn’t hear the noise.
As such, she simply continued to walk, until she arrived at a large, luxurious office. A middle-aged dwarf with a long, grey beard sat behind a desk, looking over some paperwork. Jana calmly sat down across from his desk before clearing her throat, undoing the glamour disguising her body.
The dwarven lord jumped in fright, his chair sliding back behind him before it hit the wall and toppled over. “W-who are you?” He spoke in shock, seeing that this stranger had appeared in his office without a sound.
Immediately, he thought to call the guards, but did not wish to agitate a being that was clearly capable enough to end his life long before they arrived. Worse yet, there was the chance that she might simply disappear through whatever means she used to arrive undetected. Although he was scared, he could do nothing about it for the moment.
“My name is Jana. I am the current leader of the Durak Nomads, which you would likely know as the Water Clan.” Jana remained calm as she spoke, though she knew that there would not be a dwarf alive on this island who was around when her people left it.
“The water…” The lord muttered to himself, wracking his brain before his eyes went wide with shock. “The traitors of the dwarven clans!”
Jana grit her teeth, glaring hard at the lord. “We did not betray anyone. We left in order to stop our people from being enslaved and forced to serve the other clans as transportation. If we had not done so, we would have never been free to roam the mainland.”
The lord sucked in a breath when he heard Jana’s tone. “What do you want with me?”
“It’s simple.” Jana explained, giving a long sigh to help calm herself. “The other clans have all been annihilated as far as I can tell. When sweeping through the area, I was unable to find traces of them. However, our nomad tribe has flourished.”
“We have moved to a land far to the south, joining with an ancient ally. At the same time, the path to other worlds has opened for us in that area. And so, I wish to offer you a chance.”
As the lord was absorbing this information, Jana leveled another hard look at him. “I can take everyone away from here, to our new home. In doing so, you will all gain the cultivation knowledge that we have accumulated over the years, which will allow your elders to experience further breakthroughs in power.”
“Or… I can leave. Nobody need ever know that I was here. You will run this tiny corner of the world, isolated from the wonders you could be experiencing. Soon, the star beasts will become more powerful. When that happens, they will no doubt descend upon this land and destroy it. If you stay here, you must do so with the confidence that your little weapons will be able to triumph over creatures the likes of which you cannot imagine.”
The lord bit his tongue, holding back the obvious retort. She was not threatening him, but offering him a chance. Still… “Why can you not give us this information and leave us in peace?”
Jana shook her head at the request. “I have no intention to babysit you all. Even if I had brought the documents on the process with me, they would be of little help to you without someone present that could personally guide you through the process. By the time you decipher the teachings and stumble through on your own, it would already be too late.”
“I was born in this land, and I am the last of the original Water Clan that still lives. If not for this fact, I would not have come here. But, as I was chosen as the Forgemaster’s Champion, I have come to offer you this chance to escape destruction.”
There was another moment of hesitation before the lord nodded his head. “I… we will accept. I’ll need to gather everyone, however. This isn’t something that can be done immediately.”
However, Jana’s words cut off any plans he had to take things slow. “I leave in seven days. Anyone who isn’t at the south shore of the island will be left behind.” Before the lord could offer up a retort, Jana’s figure seemed to fade away once again.
Within the Admin Room, I slowly stood up, letting out a slight groan as I did so. I had been sitting for a while, watching the various changes taking place within the world. It felt like I had watched a full movie marathon, and now needed to get up to stretch my legs.
“How’s progress coming on the runic magic?” I asked Aurivy, who had apparently decided to join me for my brief walk. She still held the information sphere in one hand, clenching it tightly. I could tell she wasn’t done absorbing the knowledge within it yet.
“It’s… going.” She answered with a sigh. “Right now, I’m trying to figure out where to put some of these runes. There are a lot more of them than any of the other tiers. And from what I’m seeing, there are a few that are absolutely necessary in order to cast a fourth tier spell.”
“Oh?” Given that I was likely to be using this magic myself in the future, I was quite curious about its structure.
“Yeah. With the second tier, you were able to set some changes to the spells, such as adding arrays or repeating casts. In the third tier, you could structure the spells as complete sentences to add additional clauses. ‘Strike every human target three times, ignoring allies’ and things like that.”
“The fourth tier… the standard for a spell is a paragraph. On average, it takes thirty tier four runes to cast a true fourth tier spell. For instance, say you were casting a fire spell… You wouldn’t simply say ‘Fire blast, explode on impact’.”
Aurivy shook her head in frustration before continuing. “Instead, it would be more like… Extract and condense oxygen from the surrounding air, and ignite the oxygen. Mix in sulfur and saltpeter, surrounded with a barrier of nitrogen. Project forward until collision, dispersing nitrogen barrier.”
My eyes opened wide when I heard that, a spell which sounded almost like the technical details of a simple fireball. “And… what happens if you just use the runes for ‘fire blast, explode on impact’?”
Aurivy let out a groan, closing her eyes to think. “You’d have a small burst of flame in your hand, but it would immediately erupt. At least, if I’m reading this information right. However, ‘macro spells’ are a much more common facet with this tier.”
“Spending twenty seconds casting every spell would be an incredible weakness. So instead, there is the suggestion to create a library of spell macros, and there are even runes that let you link macros into additional spells.”
“Returning to the fireball example, say I assign that spell to the ‘fireball’ macro. I can then add in third or fourth tier modifiers such as ‘Mass Array’, ‘Multi-Cast’, or ‘Homing’. With the fourth tier requiring more proper understanding of the magic that the caster is using, as well as creativity to form the effects, it will weed out a lot of the less capable mages.”
I gave a small nod at that, agreeing with her view. Until now, a lot of spells have been easy to decipher and replicate, as they were shorter and straight to the point. But here… it sounded like you had to tell your mana precisely what effects to replicate in order to get the results. This meant that a spell could be weaker than the first tier if worded improperly, or possess a godly power if properly formed.
Of course, this all hinged not only on the idea that the mage themselves could formulate these spells, but that they also knew the related runes. Which was the problem that we were encountering now. “Maybe, instead of single runes being found at a time, you should provide complete spells.”
Giving another nod, I followed that train of thought to explain. “This way, you will provide them with a template for the complete spells, while also giving them enough runes to craft their own. As for the rarer runes… perhaps you could work together with Ryone to include spells that could incorporate those effects.”
Aurivy thought about that suggestion for a moment, before nodding with a wide smile. “I think that could work. Maybe we can even make it thematic, so that it looks like the spells we inscribe caused some phenomena on the area we put them. Such as a fire spell in an area surrounded by flames.”
I couldn’t help but chuckle at that, nodding my head. It would certainly add an element of intrigue to the discoveries, though it would also make it easier for them to decipher the meaning of the runes. That wasn’t entirely a bad thing, though.
Mother has brought us presents. A voice echoed through the collective, stirring the sleeping minds to life. For years now, the only time that a voice had spoken was to talk about the beings challenging them, or to share knowledge of new spells and monsters. Anything related to ‘Mother’ was bound to be a hot topic.
Mother?
What did she give us?
Did she say anything?
When will she visit us again? The questions poured in too fast, causing the first voice to experience a brief disorientation. This was the most excited that they had been in so long, so their responses were understandable.
She said she’ll visit again soon. She brought us two new slimes. As soon as the voice, the dungeon known as Trials, said that, there was a pang of disappointment felt throughout the connection. Their interest plummeted as soon as they heard that the ‘present’ was only a pair of slimes, as opposed to new techniques or magic items.
Don’t be so hasty. Mother said that these slimes hold the key for us to become like her. They have the bodies of gods, just like Mother. And she wants us to study them. Once more, the connection flared to life. Immediately, the attention of the dungeons across Earth, Desbar, and Deckan, as well as Desbar’s subsidiary worlds all focused on the Trials dungeon.
It had been many years since the dungeons discovered the method to use their Akashic link to connect to the dungeons of connected planes. This was a discovery they made on their own, not one that they had learned from their Mother. When they told her about it, she had been so proud of them.
Now, they had the chance to earn that kind of reaction once again. Immediately, every Dungeon Core in existence began to work on a single topic, tens of thousands of minds all focusing on analyzing every aspect of the two curious slimes. In many ways, the dungeons still had very childlike minds. And now they were children with a new puzzle, knowing that they would be praised if they managed to solve it.
Your slimes… I have seen them before. Another of the voices spoke up. This was the dungeon that rested beneath the elven capital. They have a familiar energy. I believe that they trained initially within me, starting from lesser slime breeds. This isn’t a new breed of slime, it’s an evolution that they obtained as a result of their own efforts.
What’s the difference? One of the younger voices in one of the subsidiary worlds of Desbar asked.
It would be harder to replicate a new breed of slime. We would have to trace back its ancestry to find the breeding conditions. After that, we would need to replicate the conditions for each step of their growth in order to obtain the final result.
On the other hand, an evolution such as this is something that can happen within a single generation. And Mother said that we would be able to apply this to ourselves…
