Ar'Kendrithyst

Melemizargo floated in the water that was also air, amidst false suns that dotted the oceanic sky overhead, all the way to the top of this dungeon space. His wings and body were a shadowy expanse, creating a true abyss all around this level of the dungeon and everywhere below, while his eyes mirrored the bright spots of light up above. He smiled, and his fangs glowed white, as he said, “But first, let us take care of this little ritual you did for me. I am quite thankful for that, but more so for the notice that you’re back. Now thatwas truly kind of you.”

Erick stood in the roofless core room of dungeon six, directly in front of Melemizargo, like an ant standing before a man. Quilatalap stood at Erick’s side, wearing his ‘Vanya Silver’ [Polymorph] form, holding in his hands a rapidly-developing dungeon slime that would become the master of this place. That slime burbled as it was still developing and had no idea what it was right now, but Quilatalap was in complete, calm awe of this event happening in front of him. He was also a little weirded out, but only due to the words that had come out of Melemizargo’s mouth.

Erick was weirded out, too. They’d get to the discussion about how he had ‘fucked up an [Onward] and missed 11 years of his life’ soon enough. For now, Erick said, “Yes. This ritual.” He asked Quilatalap, “Anything in particular you want?”

Quilatalap’s eyes went wide as he stared at Erick in complete disbelief—

“Ah! You must have skipped over this: I can’t give out boons without regard to the Pantheon’s protocols, and I certainly can’t give out requested boons anymore. At least for a while. Every boon I give is logged with the Relevant Entities and is used to judge my sanity and cooperation ever since that Anarchy Wizard debacle… But enough about that embarrassment! Let me see here...”

Erick did remember that, but he didn’t feel like arguing with Melemizargo about anything at this moment in time.

Melemizargo gazed down at Quilatalap and the core, then he glanced around, his massive head swinging around in the airy water, spilling swirls of darkness as he moved. And then he turned back to Quilatalap. “How about a half million mana core to start, and I’ll link up the other cores in the area to this one— Ah. No.” He glanced to the air. “A notification that that is too much, and that Sininindi demands I do nothing at all, but that’snot going to happen. So this is what I’m going to do: I’ll make the core a 250,000 mana core, and you’ll have to link the Grand Dungeon together on your own, which you were already going to accomplish through a series of dungeon wars, if I envision that correctly. How were you planning on doing that? What’s your plan after this hostile takeover?”

Quilatalap calmly said, “If further violence proves to be necessary, and if I receive no help at all, then I will seal the dungeons from delvers and create undead which will gradually grow the mana capabilities of this dungeon. From there, I will have them flood out into the overworld on missions to capture the other nearby dungeons. If the response from Storm’s Edge is hyper-violence, calling in resources beyond their own, then I will have to flee, but if they give anything less than that, then I will be in control of the seven dungeons of this Pit in 2 months at the earliest, and 6 months at the latest. From there, it would be a year before I would open the dungeons to delvers.” He continued, “If violence is not necessary in order to get my way, then with the cooperation of Storm’s Edge, and after a week of remaking, the dungeons will open to allow delvers to continue delving. The first floor of the Water Dungeon and all the other Elemental dungeons will take me a week. In a month, the False Society will be active. In 6 months, the whole place should look rather presentable to any sort of inspection, from anyone, and this whole place will be back on track for proper growth.”

Melemizargo nodded. “Let’s bump that dungeon core starting bonus up to 350,000 mana.”

Darkness swirled into the dungeon core, then soaked into the inner facets of the smooth crystal. And then it grew. Three seconds. That was all it took for the core to triple in size, growing from the size of a human head, to the size of a human curled up in a fetal position. It pulsed with power, and the entire dungeon suddenly seemed more real in some unknowable way. It was a sensation akin to only knowing that there had been a buzzing sound all around after that buzzing sound went away.

Erick had felt that sensation before, in other dungeons, but it was always odd to feel when reality stabilized around oneself. Quilatalap’s dungeons were still far and away more stable than this place, but with Melemizargo’s empowerment, this dungeon was a lot better than what it had been.

Quilatalap dropped to one knee and bowed, saying, “Thank you.”

The Vanya-slime had enough wherewithal to bow with Quilatalap, though Erick might have been anthropomorphizing the little slime too early, for it flopped about quite erratically.

“My pleasure!” Melemizaro looked to Erick. “Let us take that talk now.”

Erick rapidly said, “I needed to speak to you about what comes after Yggdrasil’s release, too. We’re still not opening new worlds for 90 years, at least, to give everyone ample time to prepare.”

“Sure sure sure.” Melemizargo waved a wing, like half of the black world rising and then falling in the airy water, leaving behind a vast portal, large enough for the God of Magic to float through unimpeded. On the other side lay a mountain city vista and a blue sky, overlooking wild jungles as far as the eye could see. Melemizargo moved through the portal, taking all the shadows with him, saying, “Come on then!”

Erick rapidly asked Quilatalap, “Are you—”

“Are you fucking crazy— go through that portal now. I’ll be fine with this core! Love you.”

Erick smiled. “Love you too. I’ll be back soon.”

And then he centered himself, and followed Melemizargo to lands unknown.

- - - -

“Oh,” Erick said, looking down as he hovered in the sky. This wasn’t ‘lands unknown’. “This is Mount Ascendant.”

As the gargantuan portal winked shut behind him, Erick found himself in the air over the mountain that Melemizargo had claimed for his purposes years ago, over on Dungeon Island; the largest of the three major islands located southwest of the main continent of Glaquin. Most people called this place Mount Ascendant, though it had other names. ‘The New Ar’Kendrithyst’ was one of them, though that was a misnomer, and most people only called it that jokingly.

The mountain was one of those impossibly tall mountains that could only ever exist on Veird, where gravity was a suggestion, and not the rule. Recently, it had been a single, whole mountain, but then Melemizargo had split that mountain in twain with his own impossible forces. He had cracked the mountain from north west to the east, and then lifted up the southern piece, the larger ‘half’ of the mountain, by a few extra kilometers. Tens of dungeons lay within that dark crevasse, between the north and south parts of the mountain.

It sort of reminded Erick of a cake he had baked one time, that had cracked mostly across the middle.

The lower, northern part of the city, was a gently curving expanse of cultivated gardens that looked, to the untrained eye, like wild spaces; like an extension of the jungles of Quintlan all around the base of the mountain. This place held no wild oozes, though. This place was a rather nice location for anyone searching for any powerful or useful herbs, flowers, mushrooms, trees, and all other manner of forest flora. It was also home to several special dungeons filled with special fauna, located beyond black arches, half-hidden here and there. A lot of monsters that were very desirable for their Familiar Forms lived inside those special dungeons. Hunting one of those monsters was usually a Test of the Dark all on its own, but if you could get here, and if you could find those hidden dungeon entrances, then you could take that test.

The upper, southern half of the mountain was where civilization grew.

All over the cliffside, and then for a 20-ish kilometer-sized spread down the southern slope of the mountain, lay a ‘Dead City’, festooned with magnificent, airy architecture, with domes and spires and sky bridges and crystal towers, all growing tall upon the ridge, and everywhere else. It was almost completely uninhabited, though, except by the people who oversaw the six major Grand Dungeons located within the city, and within the crevasse down below. But you couldn’t just walk into that city, and go to those Grand Dungeons. That city itself was a test, for before anyone could challenge the dungeons therein and claim some truly grand prizes, they had to first evade and also kill the sentinels of that city, gathering keys to allow them passage past the absolute defenses located just in front of the dungeons themselves. If the tester lost those ‘hunter versus hunter’ battles then the sentinels would not kill the tester; they’d take an arm or a leg, and set down some curses inside those broken limbs that prevented restoration for a few days.

Erick glanced downward, and saw those sentinels floating around the city, far below. They resembled elementals made of white crystal, gold and silver, and flowing black magic. Some of those creatures looked up at him, up there in the sky. Some of those sentinels were even positioned by massive anti-castle cannons, waiting to shoot him down.

If it weren’t for Melemizargo flying down across the sky, his wings spread wide billowing, those sentinels would have shot Erick down already. But the God of Magic was here, guiding Erick into his new city, leading the way to a massive circular platform located in the top center of the city.

Erick followed, as an obvious guest.

Erick had been here a few times already and he had lots to do back at Storm’s Edge, so he didn’t want to spend too much time here, but he did need some answers.

He hadn’t really [Onward]ed himself through eleven years, did he?

Erick had a hard time believing that, and yet, Melemizargo would not lie, and he was rather sane these days.

So Erick checked on the blue boxes of the pair of magics he had made together, eleven years ago. The first was [Return].