Neophyte World Builder

Chapter 125: The Found and the Lost

LYNEN

The six creatures were not like the others they’d encountered. Lynen didn’t know much about the Plated Ones, but he’d seen most of the variants and knew they usually clustered together. He stared for a long time, committing every detail he could see into memory, then slid back down the slope to rejoin the others.

“Two warrior-types, one flyer, one worker, and the other two are a type I don’t know.” He ran his hands through his plumage, shedding the cap that had restrained his brightly-colored feathers. His Totem gave him sharp eyes, but the vivid feathered crest that grew in had made scouting difficult at times.

Savis grunted, “That’s barely nothin’, what are they doing on our side? I don’t like it.”

Lynen nodded in agreement, and saw Velie doing the same. Savis wasn’t known for thinking things through. The bolstan-Totem man was very direct, relying on his huge mass and raw muscle to carry him through any problems. When he smelled a problem with something, it was time to tread very carefully. Six Plated Ones alone, away from any expedition or attempt to establish another hive, was too strange.

“They’re pretty far from where we usually see them…” Velie muttered that while she climbed up the hillside, taking a quick look of her own. Her vision wasn’t nearly as good as Lynen, but sharp eyes weren’t needed to make out the general shapes.

Pacer, the youngest in the group, scratched at the back of his head and twitched his ears. “Should we report this, or try to press on to the dungeon?” It wasn’t a bad question. He had no idea of the protocol for this, and the poor kid hadn’t even faced the Plated Ones before.

“They might be gone before we can get word back,” Lynen countered. “But if they got this far on their own, I’m wary of engaging them. We’re all highly-skilled, but I’d bet they are as well. Are they scouting out a location to try for another hive?”

“Actually,” Velie began.

“Scouting for a hive usually involves waves of flyers, then deeper probes by cultivators.” Their fifth and final member, Risel, interrupted in a clinical voice. “It is close enough to the coast to be viable, but setting up a hive this close to the City of Sound would be foolish. If they are here to scout that – which I doubt – they will merely return to state it is a waste of time.”

“HEY!” Velie barked, louder than any of them would have liked. A literal bark, showing just a hint of the felltracker she claimed as her Totem. All four of the others, Lynen included, jerked to look at her in surprise.

She cleared her throat. “Sorry. But I am pretty sure they’re here for the dungeon, too. It looks to me like they’re planning on scaling the slope up to the City of Sound. I think they’re just like us… dungeoneers.”

Lynen frowned and considered the idea. As if on cue, the wind picked up enough for the City of Sound to funnel it through the towers and streets. The angle and speed of the wind would determine which ‘song’ the dungeon played, and this one was soft, sad, and mournful. He’d never been one to listen to a lot of music, but even Lynen could feel the notes touching his soul.

He shook his head. That was ridiculous. It was a quirk of the dungeon, one that made it famous enough that the Academy was willing to establish a branch this far out, so distant from the main Academy. Other ‘songs’ that it played were pleasant, like lullabies. Still others triumphant and energized. Every dungeon was different, and the City of Sound had a more intricate yet less dangerous quirk than others.

“Clashing with another group of dungeoneers would be bad… but are you sure? They are pretty unusual, we’ve never seen any sign that they organize like that, but still...” Lynen glanced back at the small mound that hid them from the group of giant insects.

Savis shrugged. “They’re bugs. Move in, build a hive. Kill things around hive. Just like other bugs, only bigger.”

Lynen wasn’t fooled by the simplistic speech patterns Savis used, and neither were the others. No one gets to be a dungeoneer if they’re stupid, and while Savis was hardly the brightest in the bunch, he knew what he was talking about. Moreover, it agreed with what Lynen knew.

“Yes, yes, but think about this.” Risel waved a hand to get everyone’s attention. “You’re right, Savis, but how is it that the Arthen Kingdom moves in and sets up a camp? They send in laborers surrounded by soldiers who guard them, and the laborers efficiently put up a new encampment. If you couldn’t understand their language, wouldn’t it look the same? Perhaps they are not dumb animals, they are instead only sending over their disciplined troops to make an outpost.”

Pacer groaned. “So because they haven’t shown us they aren’t intelligent they might be? That sounds a little tortured. Maybe they’re all just lost.”

Risel frowned at the youth. “Don’t be ridiculous, I’m saying you’re ignoring all the other signs. I have been thinking about this for some time.” He gestured to Lynen’s sword. “Like us, they use weapons, even if most of them appear to be some kind of resin instead of metal. They gather in communities and choose their sites carefully. We haven’t seen any of the hives overseas yet… they may be less organized and more like a village.”

He turned to point at the top of the mound. “Now we see them not just with equipment, but in a small group making a deliberate move toward the dungeon. At this point, we can’t not assume they are intelligent and dangerous. They clearly have a goal beyond founding a hive.”

Lynen clenched his jaw… then sighed. “Do you think your translation spell is powerful enough to speak to them? Because I only see three options. We can go talk to them now, before they head into the city. We can wait until they leave the city and assume they aren’t doing anything nefarious to the dungeon, or we go into the dungeon by another entrance and hope we don’t run into them.”

The mage shrugged. “I doubt I could understand them perfectly, but it should work for general meaning. We will have to be careful, though.”

Pacer frowned. “We could ambush them. It’s five to six, but maybe with surprise we could take them. Last I heard we usually gave better than we got in fighting the bugs.”

It was Savis who cut that idea off before anyone else could. “Kid, that ain’t how this works. If those are dungeoneers, they’re way far from any of their hives. They could be level 20. They could be level 60. We don’t know. Too risky.”

The youth stared at Savis for a second, but when the one most eager to fight urges caution, even the impulsive listen. Pacer held up his hands. “All right. In that case, better to get it out of the way first. I vote we do it now.”

Savis grunted in agreement, and Risel also added a nod to that. That was already three of the five – more than enough to decide the action. Privately, Lynen was curious where this would lead, so he wasn’t disappointed in the outcome.

Velie rolled her eyes. “Fine. I was going to say we should just slip into the dungeon by another entrance, but I can see I’m outvoted. Just don’t blame me if they rush us in an attempt to eat us before hitting the dungeon.”

Took them long enough.

Cayla was pretty disappointed in how slowly the vaskans and Culling’s people had put together that something was weird with the dungeon monsters. She’d have thought the strange beasts she had been throwing at explorers would have made it obvious she had something going on. Instead they’d blamed it on the unusual nature of the dungeon itself.

She couldn’t really be that angry. She had made her ‘body’ much different than most.

The vaskans were hopeless about it, though. Not because they were totally incompetent – they had beaten her Anchor Monster a few years ago and she was just farming more reward for now. A few more years as a dungeon wasn’t a big deal for her. Valesfen would be alive for hundreds, maybe thousands more.

Also she’d felt guilty about leaving Culling so soon, even if he’d gotten more confident lately.

It was the Plated Ones – the Polyform Colonies, as the System called them – that had been the ones to figure it out. Their explorations into vaskan land had never lasted long before the vaskan drove them out, but it had exposed them to her music. Culling’s music sounded different, but the realization that a paired dungeon was here had provoked something aside from an invasion force.

She felt heartened, in a way. And also sad. She’d never gotten on well with her own kind when she’d been a vaskan, as almost all of the tribes around her own had been so insular and violently against any outsiders. She herself had been the same, until she’d met Valesfen.

Cayla didn’t hate her own kind… she was just disappointed in them. The ones closer to her dungeon had proven to be a little more open-minded, but they’d still waged a territorial battle against the Plated Ones. She could understand that a little better, given that the Plated Ones were technically invading, but neither had considered the other equals.

She’d have to be careful to make sure at least a few from both sides survived to carry this news back. All were experienced dungeoneers, so she doubted a full wipe would happen anyway, but… every once in a while a group underestimated her Anchor Monster. From what she’d gathered, an Anchor Monster that hunted the invaders instead of waiting for them or just wandering randomly was pretty rare.

Checking her Quest tokens, she put two new ones together while she waited. As soon as the two groups cautiously entered the dungeon, she used up two of her three tokens to send out a quest to each group. They were now charged with keeping one another’s groups alive in the dungeon, which would nicely wrap up the question of whether or not they should allow one another in.

She was a dungeon, she didn’t want to play politics.

For a moment, confusion and worry ran through Cayla. What had she done this time? The Quest tokens were something she’d used before, if not very often. She hadn’t even been spending any DP when the message came in!

| [CROWN (ADMINISTRATOR)] has entered the chat.

| CROWN (ADMINISTRATOR): Oh, I remember this dungeon. Someone really has a talent for dungeon administration.

| CITY OF SOUND: Did I do something strange?

| CROWN (ADMINISTRATOR): Mildly. Don’t worry about it. The System flagged it because of how successful you’ve been in ways I didn’t anticipate.

| CITY OF SOUND: Is there something you need to fix?

| CROWN (ADMINISTRATOR): No. It looks like you’ve accumulated more than enough for the maximum reward, though. If you’d like to end your service after this group leaves, you’re welcome to do so. Normally I’d leave you guessing, but yours is an unusual situation.

| CITY OF SOUND: What about Culling Hive? What about the dungeon? I don’t want to leave Culling alone, he struggles with a lot of things.

| CITY OF SOUND: May I see Valesfen again?

Cayla couldn’t help but ask that. The initial offer had been horribly vague, and if all of this had been for nothing…

But it hadn’t been for nothing. She’d made a friend, and Culling’s alien nature had expanded her world once again. She’d never ‘seen’ the other dungeon, but to leave him by himself…

| CROWN (ADMINISTRATOR): Slow down, we can negotiate the terms one at a time. I’m a reasonable Administrator. Normally this would all be automated, but your case interests both myself and Duck.

| CROWN (ADMINISTRATOR): Culling Hive has accumulated a high score as well. We will offer to let him quit as well, I think I know what reward he’ll want and he can definitely afford it.

| CROWN (ADMINISTRATOR): Once you leave and move to the next stage, the dungeons will continue to function without intelligence. No new creatures or adjustments, just regular spawning of creatures in a predictable manner. After a few decades, that will slow and then stop as the dungeon ceases to operate. This is normal.

| CITY OF SOUND: How many of you administrators run the dungeons?

| CROWN (ADMINISTRATOR): Since you will not remember this conversation, only two. Myself and Duck, who is my assistant. The System has also been helping lately.

| CROWN (ADMINISTRATOR): Now, as for your question about the Elder Dragon Valesfen… we have a few options there. I could reincarnate you as a dragon, but I’m not sure that is the best idea. I could reincarnate you as a vaskan and let your memories unlock at adulthood, but that has its own risks.

| CROWN (ADMINISTRATOR): I have an idea that is a little different, but I think it is interesting. What do you think of this…?

Cayla listened.

Then she accepted.