Aliandra It was te afternoon by the time she and Mato reached the Adventurers Guild. Ali paused and stared at the heavy oak doors with their distinctive heavy brass handles gleaming from the reflected rays of the mid-m sun. It had been quite some time since she had ehe guild – so much had transpired. A plex knot of emotions twisted around inside her. The st time she had ehrough these doors had been before the business with Alexander Gray, before Roderik and the burning of her forest, and even before much of their exploration of the jungle level below Dal’mohra.

  “Are you ok, Ali?”

  She collected herself with an act of will and o Mato. It was just nerves. She straightened up and followed him into the guild hall.

  “Hi Aliandra, hi Mato,” Mieriel called out from her desk, her typically delighted lyrical voice guarded and ced with an undercurrent of uainty. She was elegantly dressed, as usual, in a creation that Ali would have bet had started the day in one of the many boxes stacked up in Lydia’s Allure earlier.

  “Hello Mieriel.” She had avoided the guild for a long time mainly because she had gotten such a bad vibe from Mieriel – reinforced by Malika and ’s suspis of memory tampering – but, now that she knew what had happened, she knew she no longer had any reason to be afraid of the Sun Elf. Her emotions, however, did not subscribe to dire from her rational faculties, insisting on doing their own thing.

  “Sorry,” Mieriel said, looking awkward and apologetic, clearly catg the tone of her emotional state with her potent perception skills.

  Spy – Sun Elf – level 53 (Mind)

  “It’s ok,” Ali answered, willing it to be so. It should be ok. “You leveled up,” she said, trying to shift the versation to something a little more fortable.

  “I got three levels from the preparation and the Town cil trial,” she answered, ining her head. Then she tinued, “There are some personal quests for you guys.”

  Personal quests? Someone wants us for a job, specifically? Ali reached out and took the envelope Mieriel offered her, noting, curiously, that there arate one for Mato.

  Your minions have defeated Mage – Skeleton – level 9

  Ali dismissed the distra.

  “Also,” Mieriel tinued, “If you have the time, there are a lot of new general quests and jobs up on the board reted to the undead. You might want to check it out. And, Aliandra, the Guildmaster would like to talk to you, if possible.”

  “Busy day,” Mato quipped. “Thanks, Mieriel.”

  “Yes, thank you,” Ali answered, tearing open her envelope and peeking inside. She found aly hand-writteer in Elvish with a simple request from Eliyen asking if she could escort Basil to the ke to colleana-purified water. Apparently with the blight and the undead, her elixirs were suddenly in much higher demand.

  Easy enough. Spying a curious footnote iter, Ali asked, “It says here that Eliyen made some sort ement with the guild store to pay me for mana-purified water?”

  “Oh, yes,” Mieriel said, smiling. “The guild pertage for mana-purified water has been increased by fifteen pert for every sale, and the difference is to be paid into your at. Is that acceptable?”

  “That’s good,” Ali said. I think. Without Malika around to firm, she wouldn’t know for certain, but it sounded generous. So far, Eliyen had been stious about keeping her end of the bargain and she trusted the herbalist. Depending on how much water she needed, Ali might soon refill her bank at. She could, of course, just make the gold directly, but Hadrik Goldbeard would probably be suspicious if she suddenly deposited a whole lot of a Dal’mohran currency again. I could palm it off on delving, I suppose?

  “What did you get?” Ali asked, ging the subject as she turo Mato.

  He offered her the note, and said, “Sigurd saw me using Tree Form from the city walls and he’s to pay me to try to se the blight from his farm.”

  “Will that work?”

  “Yes, I’m pretty sure I help him,” Mato answered.

  “Maybe you practice your pnt growth skill on his fields?” Ali leased to hear Mato thought he could help. Sigurd had been very o them, eve had bee on knowledge that she was a dungeon. Some people simply had remarkable iy.

  “Yup. Let’s check the job postings while we wait,” he suggested. He seemed to be quite excited about his personal quest – which was not much of a surprise. Mato always wao feel useful.

  The jobs board was a bit of a surprise – there were many more jobs posted than she had remembered from the st time she was here. “Most of these seem to be fallout from the Neancer,” Ali observed soberly.

  “Yep, seems like it,” Mato said. “Lots of requests for food, it must be scarce still.”

  “I help with that,” Ali answered. The zombies hadn’t destroyed any of her fruit trees, and she could alnt more wheat or rice. “Maybe ask Sigurd if he wants to stop by and fill up from the fields again?”

  “I’ll let him know,” Mato said.

  The blight aru were still causing problems for the surrounding areas. There was a general bounty on culling undead. “Wish I’d seen this before we cleared the cavern,” Ali said, adding the quest tuild ring by toug it to the part pio the board.

  “Mhm,” Mato said, still sing the board.

  There were quests from the logistics department at the Garrison requisitioning arrows, ons, potions, and bandages, some of which Ali noted as things she could help out with immediately.

  “Ok, I’m going to go see what the Guildmaster wants,” Ali said. “See you ter.”

  ***

  “Thank you,” Ali said, choosing one of the fortable seats around the coffee table opposite Vivian Ross in her office.

  “What for?” she asked, looking a little surprised.

  “I uand it was you who pointed and Mato in my dire when I was fag Alexander Gray,” she expined.

  “Oh, that… yes.”

  “I assume the cil didn’t approve,” Ali said.

  “They don’t know. Well, besides Dohey ’t disapprove if they are not aware of it.” She quirked a wry smile.

  “Did you put her up to helping too?” Donel Novaspark had been a devastating force with her Lightning, suppressing the undead army with c fire from the battlements. Every time Ali had been able to draw undead bato the range of the Gnomish mage, they had been obliterated instantly. Without her support, they would have surely been surrounded and overrun. Her involvement was one of the things Ali still hadn’t figured out, and if Vivian had been involved she finally had her expnation.

  “I might have suggested she stand otlements and do some target practice,” Vivian answered with a grin on her face. “I hope it helped. Bastian really had our hands tied, and if Donel wasn’t so iial, she would probably be in a lot of trouble with the right now. As it stands, he do very little to her because she trols all the advaeleportation into and out of Myrin’s Keep, and the flow of information with the rest of New Daria.”

  “It was a big help, thank you again,” Ali answered. The woman was not only powerful, but she was smart and politically savvy. I suppose she would have to be in this town.

  “It is me that should be thanking you for taking care of that thorny problem. Bastian and his friends lost quite a lot of political capital in that debacle, especially having earhe disapproval of the Pathfinders. I find myself in your debt, a I must ask you for some big favors.”

  “What do you need?” Ali wasn’t certain how to read Vivian. On one hand, she had been the oo order the invasive interrogation. But she had also stood by her during the cil trial, and even though bound by the cil rules, she had found ways to help Ali with the neancer.

  “I just wish I were still–” Vivian said, but she stopped and cleared her throat awkwardly as she caught Ali’s eye. “I was hoping to vince you to use your shrine again. William Turner indicated he is close to having enough didates to run another set of css trials.” Vivian paused for a moment.

  “And… you think you vihem to use my shrine?” A little shiver passed down Ali’s spine.

  “ving them won’t be an issue. Wot around from st time, and some people are deliberately holding off in the hope that your shrine will be avaible soon,” Vivian said. She took a deep breath. “You see, I’m struggling to recruit good people for the guild. The hat this ‘silent assassin’ is targeting our members has begun making the rounds. There aren’t that many people gaining bat csses, and the good ones are often snapped up by the garrison, or they leave town for more attractive or profitable jobs in Southport or one of the er cities. I recruited those that have been ied – on probation, of course – but they’re weak or have poor attitudes, and I think I will o weed them out soon. The only strong guild members are your party and those in Teagan and Aiden’s groups – more than half of which you’re responsible for unlog with your shrine.”

  How do I say no? Ali had been overjoyed to help people like Havok, Basil, and Ryn gain their csses, but she had no personal iment in the people this time around. The st css ceremony had been followed almost immediately by assassination attempts and the burning of her entire Forest Cavern, wiping out most of her domain in the process. But she helped me with the Neancer… and paying it forward is always good, but…

  “ I have some time to think about it?” She really wao talk it over with Malika, but she was still in Kezda rec with the elder.

  “May I ask what’s causing your hesitation? I thought you enjoyed giving them strong csses?” Vivian asked, surprise flickering in her eyes, but it didn’t sound like she wao force the issue.

  “I am certain that the css ceremony is how Roderik Ice discovered I was a dungeon.” She grimaced at that memory. It was hardly the only reason, but she didn’t want to go there right now.

  “Aah… well I uand. Just let me know when you decide. In the meantime, would you sider repoputing the sewers? We’re being sed with undead from the southern forest, and most of the quests and jobs are too high level for the guild as it is right now. If Aiden and Teagan’s groups were all bronze rank, I think we would stand a much better ce of ing up the mess left behind by Alexander Gray. Your sewer was the perfect training ground for them.”

  Your minions have defeated Warrior – Skeleton – level 11

  “Why are there still zombies and skeletons? He’s dead. When I got back, the sewer and my cavern were crawling with undead,” Ali said. She checked her ring, noting that the quest ter for the undead bounty increased by one, even though the notification had e from her minions making the kill without her.

  “The forest is still ied with the blight,” Vivian said. “That miasma is spreading, and everything it kills is raised as undead. Without expeions h-level cure skills, the lower-level beasts and people are dying like flies. I’m hoping your friend, Mato, help out, but the scale of the problem is immense.”

  “Ok,” Ali said. “I’ll recim the seopute it with appropriate monsters. It shouldn’t take more than a day.” This request was easy enough. After all, she was going to o bee a real dungeon, and that meant monsters and traps, and figuring out how to dungeon.

  Actually, Vivian is an experienced delver.

  “Vivian, you spent a lot of time in dungeons, didn’t you?”

  “I did, but I’m retired after losing the rest of my team,” she answered, a shadow of some old pain crossing her face briefly.

  “Lyeneru Silverleaf paid me a visit.”

  Vivian cocked an eyebrow.

  “She told me I was a terrible dungeon,” Ali said, grimag at the embarrassing, blunt assessment she had been subjected to. “I had no monsters or traps or anything like a real dungeon. I popute the sewer for the guild members to train on, but I’d like to do it like a real dungeon. Do you have any advice?”

  “I… Well, that’s a request I never expected to hear in my lifetime.” Vivian’s brow furrowed for a long moment before she tinued. “Bosses – you need boss monsters. I don’t know how it works for your css, but dungeons are powerful, and terrifying because of the bosses they wield. And you o i in some kinds of traps. Just… nothing too diabolical for the training area, please. I’d rather not send our best guild prospects to their deaths.”

  “Ok, I’ll have to do some research. I don’t know how to make bosses yet, but I have a few things I study. I mean I didn’t even know my css was a duill retly. I’ll do the sewer ahe monsters and traps under level ten. Do you think that will be suffit?” One side be would be that the monsters and traps in the sewer might provide a safety buffer preventing the undead from reag town.

  “That’s perfect, thank you, Aliandra. I really appreciate it. And please let me know about the shrine whenever you decide. Even one more Havok, Kaitlyn, or Devan in the guild would be a huge success. With a stro of people reag bronze rank, we should be able to start pushing back the blight and the undead monsters.”

  Vivian Ross “How did it go, Vivian?” Mieriel asked her.

  How did it go? Vivian reflected on her life as part of an adventurer delve team and what had brought her to Myrin’s Keep and her desire to form a guild. Nothing in there had prepared her for Aliandra.

  The appearance of Alexander Gray had nearly undone her. Vivian grimaced. With what had happeo her css upon her evolution… She was easily able to deal with is like the Goblin dungeon-break, but the neancer might have been beyond her abilities now. If Aliandra and her friends hadn’t been up for the challenge, her precarious situation might have been unmasked – and with Mori, Bastian, and Jax all arrayed against her, that would have been an unmitigated disaster. She o accelerate the guild and the development of their csses. Somehow… before everything unravels.

  “She agreed to repopute the sewer. You let Aiden and Teagan know they should be able to use it by tomorrow m.”

  “But not the shrine?”

  “She said she wao think about it.” That was the thor problem. Aliandra had single-handedly tributed to the bulk of the guild’s recruitment in that o – and, if she ted by quality, rather than quantity, the ledger was skewed even further in Aliandra’s favor.

  “I imagine she wants to talk with her friends, and two of them are out of tht now. Give her time.”

  “I wish I knew what she wanted.”

  “Don’t force her, she has been through enough already.”

  “Oh, no, I wasn’t pnning on f her. I… I’ve learhat lesson.” It was just that the idea of f a w retionship with an actual real dungeo and even sprained several long-held expectations and truths she believed – had believed, she admitted to herself. “It’s just hard. We o increase recruitment. You know how dangerous the initial levels are.”

  “Well, about that…”

  “Oh, no, what did they do this time?” She sighed. A few of the probationary members seemed to think that their guild membership veyed rights alements that they had no business demanding. She had only accepted them into the guild because of the dire state of recruitment, and, of course, it was now backfiring. I should have trusted my instincts. I miss the days of simple adventuring…

  Aliandra “Is that enough?” Ali asked as she sealed the st bottle and stored it. Even removed from the ke the mana-purified water glowed a brilliant blue – far brighter with mana sight, but even to her mundane se still looked impressive.

  “Yes,” Basil answered. “Eliye have enough moo buy all this back from Weldin, so we’ll have to make potions first and work our way through the stock.”

  It erhaps an overly plicated system, Ali decided, but it seemed to check all the legal boxes. As a member of the guild, Basil could harvest the water and legally sell it to the guild store. As a registered herbalist appreo Eliyen, he could purchase it back, paying the additional guild markup and taxes – which was how Hadrik Goldbeard was kept happy – and Ali would get paid.

  “How long till you have the potions made and distributed?” Mato asked. “Some of the farmers caught the blight.”

  “It’s hest priority,” Basil said. “We have the first batch ready in a couple of hours.”

  “How about I e with you?” Mato said. “I have a job to se Sigurd’s farm, and he will want one of those potions – I could take it with me.”

  “If we’re done here, let’s head out,” Ali said. “I want to work on the sewers, so I walk with you for a bit.” Chatting amiably, the three of them headed back together.

  “Oh!” Basil excimed. “You rephe flarden!”

  “I missed it,” Ali said. There were more Mystic Bluebells than perhaps strictly necessary, but she still thought it had been worth it to make a point to Lyeneru. Silly perhaps, but it still made her feel better.

  “Where did you get pea?” Basil excimed.

  “Bakahn Vilge in northern Toria,” Ali said. She had pnted a fair amount of it in the bamboo forest Malika loved, but it had also gone really well in the flarden.

  “ I take a sample?” Basil asked. “I’m sure Eliyen knows how to use it.”

  “Sure,” Ali nodded. It was not her goal to turn it into a resource, but if Malika’s flower helped, she wouldn’t begrudge them gathering some.

  “You know, I ask Eliyen for some cuttings from her roses,” Basil said, quickly gathering some of the flowers and st them. “Maybe we add some of those to the garden? Also, I know where to find some chrysanthemums in e and pink – I think those would go nicely off to the left side over there.”

  “I’d love that!” Ali said, and for the rest of the way to the passage up to the sewer level, Basil tinued gushing about his favorite flowers, what he might be able to find, and how they might enhahe garden.

  She smiled to herself, finding that his tagious enthusiasm never seemed to get old. When they reached the location of the old rockfall and the glowing golden staircase she had made, Ali bid the two of them goodbye and summoned her Grimoire, calling a couple of Kobolds to guard her in case she entered any loose zombies.

  The mana from her domain below didn’t quite reach the sewers – she hadn’t been that ied in reg them until Vivian had requested it, so she hadn’t pnted anything that could reaearby. With just a few minutes’ worth of work, she pnted a stand of Living Bamboo along the cavern wall, reag up till the tips of their stems brushed the lower cavern roof along this edge. She turo the imprint and spread ivy and several species of creeper from the jungle below across the craggy wall and through the hole into the sewer above, careful to avoid spshing herself with the foul-smelling effluent that poured out from above. To bolster the are portion of her domain, offsetting the density of nature mana beginning to spill from the Living Bamboo, she pnted several thick patches of blue mana grass around the base of the spiral staircase aled up in the hollow spaces between the rocks.

  It was easy work, but as she got into it, her miuro Lyeneru and her sudden appearan her domain.

  “Dungeons don’t think like that,” she had said.

  This is harder than it seems. Ali paged through her Grimoire for a bit and then summoned a Luminous Slime. The slime blobbed and wobbled, casting long shadows from the massive bamboo stems with the bright yellowish light of its amorphous body.

  She took a moment to reacquaint herself with the bizarre, alien senses of the ooze monster, but it wasn’t nearly as disorienting as she remembered. She could feel-hear the vibrations of the Kobold guards nearby, accurately pinpointing their position by the sound of their heartbeats tig the entire membrane of the slime’s body.

  That’s so weird, she thought. Her skills had leveled up – that had to be the expnation. She had more intelligence, more perception, and her Martial Insight skill had grown. She still struggled to correte the strange seo what she perceived with the more familiar senses she had been born with, but she sat with it patiently until it progressively resolved in her mind. Then she added the senses of her Fire Mage.

  It took several mio get used to the sed pair of eyes. The Kobold’s vision was different than her own, seeing much better in the darkness, but it was maintaining two points of view that were the most discerting. She took some time to her mind around the extra stream of information, deliberately not fav one or the other.

  I o get used to this if I want to get the most out of my skill.

  She climbed up the stairs and into the sewer, calling for her moo follow. Her Kobolds scampered up the spiral staircase, triggering an explosion of vibration senses from the slime while it simply flowed itself up the ivy-draped wall and along the rocky ceiling before smooshing itself into the sewer room, through a little crack.

  Her domain mana was already beginning to percote up through the bamboo and ivy ahrough the brick floor of the sewer chamber, propagating far faster now, partly due to her css and skill growth. The biggest boost in speed, however, had e when she had added Are Recall – the Mastery skill beiher skills in many surprising ways.

  First the domain, then monsters. Ali opened her Grimoire, and then, ironically, summoned a monster first. Her Moss Creeper bobbed gently on the ground in front of her.

  “Pnt moss everywhere,” Ali said, sending it scampering off into the darkness. “Verdant Moss.” She summoned a few more and then did the same with Spore Spreaders. Delegating filling the gaps to her summoned minions, Ali spent the couple of hours walking through the sewers with her Kobold bodyguards, eling enormous amounts of mana through her imprints, ying down moss carpets and golden glowing mushrooms everywhere.

  This is so much faster than st time.

  She took the time to add variety. Psathyrel mushrooms in the sewage els were a must, the pce reeked – but she phose by proxy, more willing to let her Spore Spreaders get dirty than stick her hands in that foul stream. Here and there, she added jasmine for its pretty white flowers and the distinctive st of their perfume and instructed the Spore Spreaders to be liberal with the kinds of mushrooms they grew. If the adventurers were going to level up iunnels, they might as well do some good harvesting ingredients for the Alchemists or Herbalists. Or perhaps even the Chefs, given how scarce food seemed to be. If they earned some doing so, Ali imagihey’d probably spend it buying armor or ons from the store, which would help them grow.

  tent that her minions could finish filling in the vast work of smaller passages, she stopped and paged through her Grimoire. Ok, which monsters?

  Slimes for sure. It was a sewer after all – even if it was beginning to smell much better. Too cramped for wolves. She stopped and sidered the Goblin imprint for a while. She had felt rather unfortable about making Havok fight Goblins, but he hadn’t seemed to mind at all.

  Goblins and Slimes it is, she thought, deg not to be squeamish about it if Havok wasn’t. Her Kobolds were mostly way too high level to be an appropriate challenge.

  She began summoning, idly studying the casg runes as they swirled off the pages, enjoying the familiar sense of the slow tick of Sage of Learning as it helped her uand the magistru. She kept particurly close tabs on the css level of the monstrous Goblins, making sure to keep everything below level ten as Vivian had wanted a bronze rank training ground.

  She didn’t particurly wish to optimize the gear of the Goblins she was summoning, so she simply fed her Grimoire the extra mana a her ization choose random appropriate gear for them – mostly the worst quality daggers or leather armor, but her skill at least seemed to make generally ok choices. As she studied her magic, though, something of a pattern began to emerge. She paid closer attention, and after a half-dozen new summons, she was certain.

  So that’s how it ehe css level!

  With mountiement, she pushed on the skill and quickly discovered she could influehe level within the range of the variants she had destructed. This is going to save so much time! Fully absorbed in her momentous discovery, she fot all about the sewers and immediately tried to summon a maximum-level Kobold Acolyte – but although she tried everything she could think of, she was uo influehe Grimoire to surpass the highest-level Kobold she had destructed. It doesn’t seem to be a matter of trol, she thought, p the problem. Are Recall gave her enough trol to influehe runes with a substantial amount of precision. It was more like having too few pieces to finish the puzzle.

  Wait… I go the other way? Far less useful, of course, but if she could downlevel monster summons, that might add a lot of variety to her sewer, batting the problem of diminishiurns that came with killing the same variety of foes repeatedly.

  With her excitemeurning, almost as strong as before, she eled her mana into the Kobold imprint, choosing an archer, and while it was in the process of being created, she spent mana to ize it, suppressing the monster’s power. The lowest level archer she had recorded in her imprint was a level eighteen, however, when her spell pleted, she knew she had been successful.

  Archer – Kobold – level 4

  Your reserved mana has increased by +8.

  Perfect. Her archer came equipped with some crude leather armor and a shoddy-looking bow, but for what she was trying to make here, he erfect. She immediately created a horde of friends for him, mixing in rogues and warriors, letting her ization pick the gear to save time.

  “Guard the sewer against all intruders,” she said, addressing the Kobolds as they stood in a line awaiting her orders. As ohe rogues all faded into the shadows, and though she couldn’t see them with either her mundane or mana sight, she found she could still hear their heartbeats with the tremor sense of her Luminous Slime. She smiled, happily, as the Kobolds scattered to explore their new domain.

  As she anized her space, a rough order emerged. She poputed the areas he sewer entraunnels with the lowest level Goblins and Toxic Slimes, reserving the downleveled Kobolds for her mid-rahreats, giving them tunnels and nooks and permission to struct crude traps with whatever they could find – even going as far as to create some extra ons for them to use as materials.

  Retreating progressively through the sewer toward the passage leading down to the forest, she steadily scaled up the level of her minions, summoning Brine Oozes and Kobolds in the level range of five to ten. This should give a nice ramp. It didn’t hurt that the highest-level Kobolds would be able to hold their own against the vast majority of the zombies and skeletons that still seemed to be trig in, drawn by her domain mana.

  When she reached the final room, she paused. This needs a little work, she decided. The decrepit brick floor looked like it might be about to colpse, shot through with cracks. And this room would be a good space if it were bigger. Maybe I think like a dungeon after all! Ha! Setting to her task wielding Domain Mastery, she removed several walls, merging the room with some nearby smaller ones, and widening it into a sizeable chamber. She widehe sewer el, now flowing with clear water, thankfully, giving her Brine Oozes some more space to lurk. She left the crumbling brick but reinforced the foundations below with grao forestall any possible acts. Then she finished up by poputing the room with several level ten Fire Mages, warriors, and rogues.

  Domain Mastery has reached level 15.

  After sidering it for a few more moments, she summoned a swarm of stinging jellies and dropped them in the wider water el. The swarm monsters were a ridiculously cheap way of filling space, six being summoned for the cost of a single normal monster of the same level – and they made a good water threat.

  And finally, my traps. She spent the half an hour inscribing Runic Circles of her old favorite Grasping Roots everywhere to serve as traps. Attached to the rapidly propagating domain mana, those cost nothing to maintain, so she was rather liberal with them.

  Vivian should be happy with that.

  She paused to admire her work, taking a moment to add a mushroom here or there as needed and pg a few clumps of Blue Mana Grass for Basil to find.

  There, Miss hoity-toity legendary Night Elf. Is this dungeon enough for you?

  Obviously, her minions were not going to keep someone as strong as her out, and she nearly fell hing as her imagination served up Lyeneru’s mildest sneeze clearing this level in a hurrie – but her level ten kobolds should be more than suffit to keep most of the zombies and other random monsters, or even townsfolk, from passing through.

  How else I think like a dungeon? Deep in thought, Ali made her way out of the sewer, flying down into the Forest Cavern, but a fsh of red and the distant thump of a Fireball detonating snagged her attention, even before the chime sounded.

  Your minions have defeated Warrior – Skeleton – level 6

  Keeping a healthy height among the trees, Ali flew over to find two of her Kobold Fire Mages running from several skeletons and dodging behind trees to avoid the ice bolts of a low-level skeletal mage.

  This won’t do. She dropped a waist-high barrier between the skeletons and her Kobolds with a gesture and a fsh of her mana. The two mages chirped their approval, instantly ung a pair of Fireballs that instantly turhe bunched-up warrior skeletons into a pile of smoking, bed bones on the ground and then unleashed a fming barrage of Firebolts at the hapless ice mage.

  But before the chime even sounded, Ali heard moaning from the ke’s southern outlet tunnel and two zombies emerged. The very same tunnel she and Seri had bsted open so long ago to release the fury of a waterspout on the Goblin siege.

  So, that’s where they’re sneaking in… She spiraled down and nded beside her Kobolds, ign the heat and fshes as they turheir magic upon the newers. Fixing this hole would be some work, but nothing she couldn’t hah Domain Mastery – her mana in this area was easily strong enough – but then she paused. Hmm… If I close it, where will all the water go? Visions of flooding her Forest Cavern did not appeal to her.

  Worse still, another skeleton cmbered out of the tuo the delightful wele of a Firebolt in the face. Where will the zombies and skeletons go? If Lira was right – and it certainly seemed that way – they were being drawn in by her mana. If they couldn’t get to it, they would probably go searg for another way in. And that might take them around to the farms.

  More Kobolds, she decided, but when she checked her current mana reservation, she winced. It was all well and good for Lyeo tell her that dungeons thought with their minions – but the Night Elf didn’t have to deal with spending the mana to support them. How am I going to defend this area? It would take a rge squad of Kobolds to reliably hold the undead while the mages destroyed them. At least a couple of warriors for the frontline – and a few Acolytes due to the Fire Mages’ pent for bsting everything with nard for friend or foe.

  Ali sighed. This was far harder than she had imagined.

  Wait… what about traps? Lyeneru’s book mentioraps, but she hadn’t o read the book to realize that dungeons used traps – they were notorious for it. Everyone associated dungeons with traps and monsters. And treasure… but Ali didn’t care too much about that st part right now. She had an invasion to deal with.

  She flew down till she was right beside the offending tunnel, drawing her Kobolds with her for prote. “Protect me,” she said and then ighe sounds of bat as she set to inscribing a runic circle.

  Grasping Roots – level 25 (Nature)Summons Grasping Roots on anythiering the circle.Runic Circle

  Perfect, she thought, attag the glowing circle to her domain mana. It couldn’t move, or think, but it would defend her cavern – and more importantly, she could use her domain to power it instead of reserving her own preana. Just like the sewers. Except, she didn’t o be careful of killing the newbies down here and she could make a far higher-level circle. She stepped away, studying the glowing green runes on the ground, spanning nearly two meters in diameter. Except, from the eyes of her Kobolds, the effect was nearly invisible. Without mana sight or another specialized perception skill, her traps were perfect.

  She didn’t have to wait more than ten minutes before a skeleton emerged from the tunnel. With bated breath, Ali watched it g its loose jawbone and surveying her forest before it took a few steps forward shambling right across her runic circle. Thick roots burst from the grouwining the monster rapidly.

  “Shoot it,” Ali said.

  “At ohe Kobolds hissed, and fire rained down oruggling skeleton.

  Your minions have defeated Warrior – Skeleton – level 8

  The quest ter recorded on Ali’s ring ticked up by one. Perfect.

  Besides, she had another idea brewing – but first she should finish this part. It took about half an hour for Ali to inscribe enough Grasping Roots circles to satisfactorily cover the entire el of the outflow stream on both sides. When she was done, she summoned a handful of lower-level Kobolds. “Make more traps in this area, especially different ones,” she instructed. They set to with devious grins and the enthusiasm of a cohort of overexcited squirrels.

  Huh. She obviously o challenge her creatures more often!

  The Kobolds had proven to be resourceful trap-makers when she and Mato had been forced to creep through the ruins of Dal’mohra. Some had poison skills – not that poison darts would be effective against skeletons and zombies – and there had been rock-fall traps and tripwires. Ali grew a stand of Living Bamboo up against the far bank, some handy vines ging to the wall, and a few assorted patches of poisonous mushrooms for them to sge for materials.

  I think that should do it, she decided. She would o che on them regurly, but for now, she was happy with her solution to the problem.

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