Trash Mountain Dungeon

Lily never considered herself to be all that religious, sure she was faithful to the gods of her ancestors, they were the only reason the empire hadn’t burned her people’s forests down to ash. But all this talk of sects, gods, and dungeons made her feel severely out of her depth so, when the word got out that a group bearing the Reick standard, she began to panic, just not for entirely fatal reasons.

Reick the Opulent, also called Reick the Arrogant, was everyone’s God. Being the god of decoration and ceremony, he is often regarded as the god of fools and manipulators, never aloud, of course, few would risk divine wrath. The exact reasons for such a view were varied of course, and rarely did groups share their reasons one way or another. Still, overall, the sentiment was that Reick was a god that people were naturally attracted to because of his grandness, and the fact that ceremonies of all kinds exist in all people, many considered it a shame when he went silent. Strangely, the Lord of Golden Halls hadn’t been heard from in over a thousand years, and his followers had dwindled to a pittance from what they once were. So, for such a group to appear so soon meant that they either anticipated being invited or were just as desperate. Having almost free access to a new dungeon would give them more than enough gold to rebuild their temples and societies.

A cursory [detect magic] showed that they didn’t have anyone especially powerful amongst them, at least no one without an enchanted item of some sort. Although given her ability to ‘feel’ enchantments, she doubted her previous thought, hiding enchantments tends to give off a feeling of ‘shiftiness’ or create areas of ‘unassuming’ magic. She’d still need to be careful of course, the power of holy men and women was always difficult to sense, and the only reason she could feel the group heading towards them was because of her time spent with her father, a priest of Kurnos.

“Guess I’ll have to put off helping you for now, for now, stay focused on the, uh, rat problem, Arthur put you on.”

Ser Edward began walking back to his lord brother’s tent, ever since the assault by the Greebles and her injury, things had been strange. She knew why he cried; infernal magic tended to heighten emotions (along with a few other things) so any feelings of worry became much more prominent. Still, it didn’t stop things from getting weird, but they were working on it, so she had no complaints. But as the guard and laborers worked to get things presentable, she and her fellow mages went back to the interesting issue they had.

Essentially, the dungeon’s smaller beasts were beginning to leak out of the dungeon, not normally an issue of course, but once a stream of rats began to take over the local ecosystem, things got messy. Chicken coops were found empty, large rust-colored rats sat in their place, trying to look as chicken-y as a feather-covered rat could. Horses were getting set free by unknown forces, but always found with three or four rats jumping on the head or back, somehow egging them towards large holes they had dug. Worst of all, the quartermaster had even started complaining that small but essential things began going missing, arrowheads, the odd tool, and even a full helmet were reported missing.

The problem was that no one could figure out how and why they were doing this, a simple series of spells uncovered that it was indeed the dungeon rats, but no one could see or catch them in the act. They couldn’t even go to the dungeon intelligence for help either if Ser Edward was telling the truth. So currently, the supposedly powerful and well-funded circle of mages were stuck trying to summon cats, at least trying to anyway. It was an odd quirk of magic, but summoning cats was almost as hard as herding them, the willful little beasts were determined to not answer the summon. The few they managed to get were because they used the [force summon] ritual instead of [conjure beast] and even then, they had to bribe the blasted things.

Sigh

“Mulz, we’ll need to begin the ritual again, our current number of cats is far too low to deal with the growing population we’ll need-”

” I’m afraid you’ll have to put that aside mage Lily, orders from the lord.”

A messenger held out a small missive, the writings inside giving all of the mages not currently tasked with making the fort to assist Lord Arthur in receiving the group.

Oh, thank Kurnos ”It appears we have been asked to help the lord, but first, Mulz and Wexworth, your job is to continue finishing the fort, everyone else is to stand with the lord.”

Everyone gave appreciative looks, it was humorous the first time around, but forcing the little hellions to them was getting tiresome.

And so, everyone not working began to make way. They took up positions behind Ser Edward, who himself was behind his lord brother. The newcomers had just managed to climb the final stretch, a not-inconsiderable number of them were short of breath.

Lord Arthur began once they were closer.

” Welcome honored faithful to Reick, it seems you have arrived sooner than was expected, come, you may rest this way.”

Arthur directed the winded group to a clearing he had the workers make, it wasn’t too close to the camp, nor too far from the descent, but it was in the perfect spot for observation and if necessary, retaliation. As the group huffed up one last hill, they set themselves down, chugging their skins of water like dying men.

“We -huff- appreciate the hospitality, good lord, -huff- if it isn’t too much trouble, could we bother you for some bread and salt?”

Their faith must truly be in dire straits if they need to ask their host for something, this did give Arthur the advantage though, small as it would seem, to beg the host so openly and immediately made open their lack of resources and dependency on Arthur.

“I shall allow it, but while I have it sent for, do tell me your names.”

Irritation flashed across the still-winded man’s face, to be spoken so casually and without any of the respect of his office must have been infuriating.

” I-I am head priest Linde, and I lead the priesthood of our diamond lord Reick at the summons of the lord Nightingale.”

The now-named head priest hardly looked the part, his robes were far from opulent, to say nothing of his followers and subordinate. Their attire was far too simple and modest to be acceptable by their standards, and for the leader to have mostly decent robes put the final nail in the coffin, they were broke as hell.

But her thoughts were interrupted by the approach of the runner, carrying a few of the cook’s older loaves and one of the emptier bags of salt. It would have been grounds for blood at this point but with one side being near destitute by most standards, especially their own, all they could do was swallow their pride and feast on stale bread. Arthur was playing a dangerous game, but anything shy of direct interference by their absent god would be meaningless, Arthur held all the power in this exchange.

"I do hope our cook's bread is up to your standard head priest, but perhaps it would be best if you saved some room for the feast later, after all, we do have to welcome your holy host."

The man was halfway through a loaf when he processed Arthur's words.

"Of course, good lord, we would be honored and will be ready for your... graciousness."

The priest kicked his subordinates, drawing their attention back to the noble they were now indebted to.

"Very well then, I shall leave you here to prepare your camp, we may speak business tomorrow."

And with that, the Nightingales began to file back to their own camp, however, Arthur pulled her group aside.

"Helvina, Lily, I need you and everyone not building the fort to start preparing as many magical defenses as you can, I want no one going in or out without me knowing."

The two women looked at each other; they could do it sure, wouldn't be too difficult especially together. The main issue was one they had been dealing with ever since they settled, the dungeon mana had been coating the land thickly and it's been supercharging the already-in-place wards despite the rapid lowering and stabilization in recent weeks. Putting more could cause spell reactions to occur, and no one was willing to risk accidentally teleporting everyone and the mountain into the plain of fire or brine. That being said, it wouldn't be a bad idea to have extra protection, and it wasn't like there weren't ways around that particular issue.

"It'll take some time, but we should be able to get it done."

"Excellent, I'm counting on you two to safeguard us."

He walked away, likely back to dealing with their headache of a situation, leaving Lily and Helvina alone, bringing to mind that the two hadn't spent all that much time alone.

"So, um, what first?"

"Beats me, but if nothing else we can start with the basics."

"Right."

The two made their way behind the still-being-built wall and began their magic.

"It's great that there's so much mana in the air, makes this part easy, now, together."

They raised their hands and staves up.

An almost invisible barrier formed around the main camp, [lesser ward]

The air began to swirl around each member of the camp, fires from the brazier took a deeper orange, the waters stilled but let not a single pest drink nor lay in them, and finally, the dirt solidified under each person's step, [elemental protection]

Boundary lines formed in the earth, separating the camp and the world beyond, [worldly separation].

With that, the two had done in a few minutes what would normally take entire groups of mages days to cast, such was the potency of a dungeon. They could have gone further in all honesty, Helvina knew several water protection spells and was more than capable of binding an elemental or two to the camp, and worse came to worse, Lily knew enough wood magic to call forth brambles and vine walls. But to go further would be to risk everything, the protections so far would be more than enough for the majority of issues sans perhaps paladins, but only an archmage or a highly specialized barrier mage could hope to keep a divinely chosen out and they had neither on hand.

"Should we stop there?"

"With spells, but the fort could use some more material defenders to bolster its ranks."

Not a bad idea, but it would be expensive.

"Costs?"

"Not that much, well, not in the long term at least."

She pulled out a crystalline orb, kinda looked like it came from the dungeon.

"I went with some of the men into the dungeon before and managed to snag this beauty, it's rather flawed and it does need recharging now and then, but it works."

"And it is what exactly?"

Helvina smirked.

"A golem core, of course, I haven't had too much time, but the dungeon utilizes constructs as well as ratmen, so I figured I would take some inspiration and make my construct."

"Hm, neat, but unlike the dungeon we don't have the exact luxury of just making a body out of nothing, where do you plan to get the body for it?"

"That's where things get a bit dicey, there's something I need to make it work, something I failed to ask Arthur for."

She looked to the dungeon.

What could she... ah shit, Lily knew what she wanted.

"Fuckin, OK, I'll help, but neither of us can say a word."

"Had no plans on it, c'mon, I'll get my stuff, we go in tonight."

This was probably a terrible idea, but terrible ideas are how Lily got into this situation in the first place, and one way or the other, terrible ideas were probably how she would get out.

Let's go challenge a dungeon.