Rise of the Archmage Alister

It took another hour mixed between Wisteria angrily shouting at Alister, and her actually getting herself ready to go, before they were out the door and headed, with guards in tow, to the dungeon. It wasn’t far off from the village because they kept the dungeon in check, and made sure that no monsters would escape and cause problems. It also was close enough that they could make use of it for food and materials by going into the dungeon multiple times. The fact that it was relatively easy to pass meant that it was little risk to village guards or to passing adventurers to take a job listing for materials.

Now that Wisteria had calmed down again, Alister was very excited for the prospect of this strange new pocket dimension that they called dungeons. It was something entirely crafted by the system, with influence from the surrounding landscape or events that occurred in the area, but dungeons could also be this completely obscure and strange thing that had no basis in reality. It was a hat trick, a roulette, complete chance of what could’ve been created there.

In this case it was something relatively sensible. Giant bee creatures were not unheard of, and the existence of monsters that desired their honey made sense as well. But the idea that you could choose to cooperate with one or the other was what was so fascinating to Alister. How many different permutations did the system have to go through? How many different possibilities did it count for, and how? There was no magic that he knew of that could do anything remotely similar. And while he was done externally freaking out about it and every other thing that was stunning to him, he certainly wasn’t going to merely ignore it.

The dungeons entrance resembled a well-crafted door set out of place in the environment. There was a building of sorts crafted around it that resembled a mausoleum, but was made out of wrong materials. The door itself was a pale blue, the kind that had two doors that open in the middle, with handles that looked like a honeycomb and windows in the doors that resembled stained glass trying to mimic honeycomb material.

For the building itself, the strange mausoleum was just as well made out of the same bluish material with fake windows that resembled a beehive. And upon closer inspection of the material itself, touching the wall of the building felt wrong. It felt like his mind couldn’t accept whatever he was feeling. Like in one moment it was wood, but at the same time stone, and yet also metal… or was it sand, clay perhaps? He disliked it but a small part of himself wondered what would happen if he took a chisel to it. Would anyone care if he managed to take a sample of the building?

His father answered the question for him before he could even decide to ask it, “You can’t break it. Whatever it’s made out of, we just refer to it as the opal material. No one has been able to take a sample from a dungeon building itself, so let’s not waste our time trying, yes? Don’t worry, Alister, inside you’ll be able to get various pieces of loot that you’ll be able to make notes on or whatever it is you want to do later.“

Alliana was stretching, looking adorable in tight fitting clothes and pants unlike what she usually would wear. Her red-brown hair was done up in a short braid. The guards that had accompanied them eyed her with concern and nervousness, and Morgan looked at her like she was a hypocrite.

Morgan wasn’t mad, she was just frustrated. Alliana spent so much time worrying about what other people would do and chastising them and then would do whatever she wanted to do anyway. Morgan just supposed she would to have to get strong enough that no one would care what she did, not her father, not the king, no one but the gods.

“I’ll let you press the button, sweetheart," Alliana said smiling, “in your system, you need to invite everyone to a party, OK? It’s safer to do so that way, even if it’s a little bit less efficient when you have a party this large. “ She gave a side glance to the guards, knowing that their involvement would mean less XP per person, but it wasn’t something she could help.

“I don’t see an option for that in my status page,” Alister said staring at a screen. His mother pointed out to him where it should be, describing to him the steps it took to get to it, and Alister pressed the buttons. A party system. It was a good idea. Especially if you could keep tabs on each other’s locations and how injured each other was. It must’ve been incredibly useful for healers especially.

The mention of less XP was not as big of an issue for him right now because his major goal was to unlock his class, which he had done. Now that he didn’t feel like he was holding Wisteria up, he didn’t feel that same rush or need. Without that rush he felt like he could focus on gathering information as well as leveling himself up over time. Honestly, now that he was level 10 and had his class, he wanted to put more focus into strengthening his core. It was something that he had been putting off. He knew how much of a pain in the ass it was going to be, after all he had already done so once.

He knew exactly what pain was awaiting him. And with Wisteria attached to his hip he had no choice but to include her in such endeavors. That inclusion meant that he had to have a better plan.

Alister nodded, snapping out of his thoughts as he solidified the party. He approached the doorway with some hesitation, and looked to Wisteria, “I’m sorry, by the way… Are we ok?”

Wisteria folded her arms, looking away, “Yeah we’re fine. You’re a pain, but it’s whatever. Thank you for actually saying sorry. Just don’t do it again unless it’s something actually important.”

“Yeah… I won’t. I shouldn’t have done it…”

“No you shouldn’t have. It’s fine. I’m not that angry… Let’s start this dungeon. I hope I can sell some of the loot…”

Blas raised a brow at Wisteria and whispered something to his wife while Alister touched the door.

[Would you like to enter - Bees and Their Honey - Low Class Dungeon?]

[Y/N]

Alister pressed yes, and felt the sensation of his control over his body being wrenched from him. Like being grasped by a massive invisible hand, he tensed in place, and his vision went dark.

It was over in an instant, and they were in a different place, now inside the dungeon, but Alister was panting. His adrenaline was surging. That was an awful, horrible sensation. Being grabbed like that… He didn’t realize he was shaking in place until his mother touched his shoulder and he jumped.

“Alister-” she started, but he didn’t let her get a word in.

“I’M FINE!” he snapped, “I-It’s… it’s nothing. It’s just a bad memory. I… I just… didn’t… expect it. I’m ok. That… thing, that sensation, is a horrible one. It’s best that it’s so short.” Everyone was staring at him. Alister cleared his throat and focused his vision forward into the dungeon.

It was a wide field with a forest on one side and a burrow of some sort on the other. Within the first twenty feet of the forest, they could just barely see the hints of cream and yellow that denoted a ginormous bee hive.