The Newt and Demon

If Theo could be taught the spell array for a standard spell, he could reverse-engineer it to construct a simple ward. Whatever skills he lacked in the spellcrafting department could be made up with his Shadow’s Spirit Core. And with something like Death magic, he wasn’t planning to mess around. Zarali taught him the simple form of a spell called Death Ward and he learned that the concept of ‘death’ in the magical schools wasn’t as clear as the word.

Instead of just killing a person, the spell might take years off their life. It might wither a limb, remove a sense, steal attributes… It was nasty magic. Theo prepared to weave his spell, extending his aura around the group and turning off his defensive ward. First, he inspected the spell he had constructed.

[Deflect Death Magic]

[Advanced Ward] [Linked Ward]

Creates a reactive barrier that impedes all foreign Death magical energy from entering the bubble.

Trigger:

Detect Adverse Magic

Duration:

50 days.

He assumed he would need to maintain this barrier for their entire time on Frank, so he infused it with his most powerful ability. Spirit Weaving. He invoked it, weaving his potent soul into the spell. The field he had produced expanded around them, engulfing a massive area in the sky with his power. With the spell now active on him—and with almost no need to maintain it—he inspected the effect.

[Nullify Death Magic]

[Advanced Ward] [Linked Ward]

Creates a suppressive field that resists most hostile magic within the bubble. All death-aligned magic cast within the bubble will fizzle.

Spiritwoven Bonus:

The power of this ward is linked directly to the caster’s willpower. Effectiveness of this ward is increased depending on the caster’s willpower.

Trigger:

Detect Adverse Magic

Duration:

50 days.

The ward was already interesting. Theo had a ward that technically nullified all magic within a bubble. But Xol’sa kept talking about how nasty Death magic was, and how they needed something to target that type rather than using a blanket spell. The alchemist looked above as a wave of darkness rolled off from Frank. He had completed the spell not a moment too soon. High in the air, that wave of black crashed against his spell. Flecks of purple-blue energy rained down on the group.

“Ah. That was a powerful Death spell,” Xol’sa said, shaking his head. “Without your cheat barrier, we might’ve all just died.”

“Cool, cool, cool. Can I stab it?” Tresk asked, her daggers at the reader.

“No stabbing,” Aarok commanded. “Get ready for the beast to dive. Then we’re jumping aboard.”

Just jump on the giant horror from another world, Theo thought. After fighting stealth dragons… Another day in Broken Tusk, I guess.

Theo had little exposure to this world. It was his first time going into a dungeon with any intent other than to look around. He was part of the team that would clear the dungeon. It hadn’t occurred to him how strange that was until now. He watched as Frank swooped through the air. If it could even be called ‘swooping’. The way the monster moved was in a lumbering fashion, banking over the course of miles. It was even stranger how little wake it created from each maneuver. As the group waited to jump onto the monster, he kept his eye out for more attacks.

“The scale of that thing,” Theo muttered, watching as Frank finished his banking move and passed below the islands.

“Yeah, really boggles the mind doesn’t it?” Tresk asked. “Get ready to jump, stinky.”

Aarok headed the effort, standing near the ledge of the island and crouching. Enhanced by attributes, he made the jump over to the soaring monster with little effort. Theo watched as some fouled their jumps, tumbling to the depths below. He made sure to be near them, giving them a boost as they jumped to prevent their deaths. Future sight was overpowered, and there was no reason not to use it. Once most of the others were across—and the ones he saw through his Wisdom-enhanced sight weren’t sailing to the ground below—he made the jump himself. It was a bit too easy, thanks to his enhanced attributes.

The adventuring party from Broken Tusk was then on the back of some unknowable creature. And the only thing the alchemist could think to do was withdraw his knife and cut away at the flesh of the beast. The top of Frank’s body was a mostly flat plain of rubbery skin, covered in layers of vegetation and moss. Small hills poked up here and there, and he had to assume the size of the beast was greater than the area occupied by Broken Tusk.

“Does everyone still have their limbs?” Aarok shouted, gaining the attention of the adventurers. It was strange, but there was no wind whipping over them. Perhaps Frank had control of the air, determining when he wanted to generate down force. “Good. Let’s take a minute, then we’re going to look for the dungeon core. Keep that death barrier up, and the stealth one. Eyes open for monsters.”

Theo took a seat. Maintaining his Death nullification ward would be effortless. Instead, he turned his attention to the chunk of blubbery meat in his hands. There was a thick layer of rubbery hide on top with a layer of dense fat underneath. He hadn’t even cut deep enough to access the meat of the monster. Judging by the sheer size of Frank, he had to wonder if that layer was several feet below where they stood.

The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

“Monster meat?” Sarisa asked, rubbing her hands together. “Hold on, I’ve got an artifice stove…”

“This is a reagent,” Theo said, holding it up for her to inspect. He then allowed it to crumble to dust as he absorbed the properties. “It’ll tell me if we’re dealing with something worse than we had expected.”

Sarisa nodded along, waiting for the verdict. Theo inspected the item.

[Shonfer Blubber]

[Alchemy Ingredient] [Ascendant Shonfer Ingredient]

Legendary

The blubber of an ascendant shonfer. Known for its passive nature, the shonfer still bring destruction wherever it goes. Its blubber contains excellent defensive properties.

Properties:

[Blubber] [Defense] [Barricade] [Hurricane]

“I’m not sure how useful the Blubber property is going to be, but the others sound useful,” Theo said, nodding along as he re-read the other information on the item. It presented a confusing idea. Loremasters were the ones who set item descriptions. So this shonfer creature existed in Iaredin, or the system had brought the description over from another world. As confusing as that was, the alchemist didn’t mind more properties.

“I still think we could eat it,” Sarisa grumbled, withdrawing her own knife to cut a section of the beast away.

“Let’s not go butchering the monster as we stand on it,” Aarok said, casting a glare at Sarisa. “I’d rather not get thrown off.”

After a few minutes of rest, Aarok and Luras organized scouting parties. Tresk would lead the main one, of course, but there were many concerns over the viability of scouting with the idea of death magic lingering in the air. For now, they would stick within Theo’s ward and move around as needed. Fortunately, his barrier covered a fair amount of the creature’s surface.

Conversation spread out amongst the adventurers as the alchemist kept watch.

The consensus was that the negative dungeons had to be dealt with immediately. Theo wasn’t sure what he thought about that at first, but as they spoke he came around to their side. The issue with the way dungeons worked was how they generated and released monsters. The floors of a dungeon normally needed to be cleared constantly, or monsters would leak out. That’s why when Theo first arrived in Broken Tusk, the swamp was lousy with wolves and goblins. Only when they started running it regularly did that problem vanish.

With a dungeon like this one, any monster could break free if people weren’t clearing it. And if any monster could get out, that meant Frank could be unleashed on the world. As the description of the item stated, it wasn’t as though the monster was inherently evil. Nothing about it seemed to drip with intent. Instead, it would bring destruction where it went passively. A combination of a massive body that was unlikely to die, and the presence of Death magic, it would be unstoppable.

That conversation led to another. Why was it the dungeon’s core was within the monster itself? While the adventurers here couldn’t say—they were all inexperienced when it came to dungeons—that didn’t stop them from theorizing. When one took into account the entirely random nature of a negative dungeon, they guessed the dungeon could be anywhere. In a giant Level 100 sky whale? Sure, why not. Underground in a pit of lava? Sure, go nuts. When literally anything was possible, the worst scenario was likely to make itself known.

“Looks like we have another rub,” Aarok announced, grunting and shaking his head. Tresk had just returned from her scouting mission. Theo resisted the urge to look at her memories. It seemed more dramatic to get the information from Aarok. “We got a dungeon in a dungeon.”

Xol’sa poked his finger into the air. “Excuse me?”

“Tresk found a dungeon entrance in the creature’s flesh. Just over that way.” Aarok pointed into the distance.

“That’s simply not possible,” Xol’sa countered. “Dimensional spaces cannot overlay each-other. They must occupy distinct spaces.”

“Talk to the giant flying whale, wizard,” Aarok said. “Let’s head over to the next dungeon and we’ll make an assessment there.”

The group got ready and marched across the monster’s surface. They had to stop a few times along the way when Frank angled his body. Several adventurers almost tipped over. But they eventually came to a cave-like structure with the undeniable shimmer of another portal. Xol’sa insisted on studying it before anyone went in, so the group went back into camp mode. Theo found no reason to object. An abundance of caution was necessary when it came to weird stuff like this.

“This is a normal dungeon entrance,” Xol’sa said, finally coming back to report to the group. “I can find nothing abnormal about it. Which is abnormal.”

“Right, because why would there be a dungeon in a dungeon?” Zarali asked. “Is there yet another dungeon inside that one?”

“And one after that!” Tresk shouted. “Dungeons all the way down, baby!”

“Perhaps,” Aarok said. “What do your senses say about the dungeon core, Xol’sa?”

“It says the core is inside the other dungeon. I normally cannot sense the contents of a dungeon, but this one seems to be the exception.”

“Any other useful information you can glean from the entrance?”

“None.”

Aarok jerked his head, pulling a few people into a private meeting. He dragged Luras, Zarali, Tresk, and Theo into a private meeting. His face looked troubled, but the alchemist couldn’t help but smile. He remembered a story he had been told about the half-ogre. He and Luras had wanted to join an armed force called the Qavelli Irregulars. It was meant to be a standing army maintained by the kingdom and sent to fight in wars. They didn’t fit into the normal rank-and-file, so they were given the title ‘irregular’. How far the man had come from being rejected to leading a dungeon no one had ever seen before.

“We’re riding on a giant whale,” Aarok said, pursing his lips. “If that wasn’t weird enough, we’re talking about jumping into another dungeon. What kind of risks are we talking about, Xol’sa?”

“Literally anything you can imagine,” Xol’sa said. “Although Theo might be more the expert on this topic.”

“Don’t look at me. This is my first dungeon.”

“You understand extra-spatial places, though. You have a world of your own, can travel to a floating island in the void, and have visited the domain of the gods.” Xol’sa nodded to himself, as though he understood the error of addressing his pupil. “When you push between realms, is there a common factor between them? What behaves differently?”

“Time, mostly,” Theo said with a shrug. “Whether we’re talking about time moving at a different pace, or time as the driving factor for wearing someone’s mind away, it is always time.”

“So if you put a dungeon in a dungeon, there may be time dilation effects,” Xol’sa said with a shrug. “And the expression of that time might be different. When dungeons experience a lot of time they…”

Xol’sa let the words hang in the air.

“Oh!” Tresk said, her hand shooting up. “They release monsters!”

“Unless they cannot release monsters because they’re a dungeon in a dungeon,” Xol’sa said.

“I’m waiting for the part where I understand this,” Aarok said.

Theo was, too. Xol’sa made it sound like the alchemist was the expert, then pulled this professor 180 on him.

“I suspect the nested dungeon is wall-to-wall monsters,” Xol’sa said. “Based on the energy readings I performed and the information I have.”

“There’s a simple way to tell,” Tresk said, shrugging. “Let me go in there.”

“That’s too risky,” Aarok said, shaking his head.

“Nah, I’m gonna jump in for a microsecond and jump out. Theo can watch through my eyes in his future sight and let us know what’s up!”

Everyone shared a look.

“That’s not a horrible idea,” Luras said.

“I actually agree,” Theo admitted.

“Fine,” Aarok grumbled. “Let’s get this over with.”

Tresk rolled her shoulders as she approached the entrance. All she had to do was have the intent of going in, and that fate would play out. Theo shifted his sight to hers, watching the world from a much shorter vantage point. He gave her a quick nod and she approached the entrance.

“Stop,” Theo said, holding his hand up and shaking his head. “Yeah, that’s not good.”

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