Chapter 226, 1/2

The Pit loomed below like a scar upon Veird that someone had corralled behind battlements, fortresses, and half-made walls. It also kinda looked like a skate park, what with all the totally tubular half-pipes and gnarly grinding areas. Erick felt that the neighborhood kids back on Earth would have really loved to use it as a playground. He supposed that ‘as a playground’ was sort of what the adventurers and newly-named delvers had been doing with the place, too.

Professional play, with gold prizes and stiff competition in the form of man-eating coral eels.

So like. A professional skate park. One with prizes and tournaments.

And also a lot of yelling, apparently, now that Erick had told the very-worried people near him that he was going to solve it all, and make sure no one died in the process. They didn’t seem to believe him right now, but at least one of them was far beyond being scared of the ‘big bad Wizard’.

Aroido, one of 49, and the ‘Face’ of the Aroidos, yelled at the Archmage of the Regency, “We had it contained, Wiloza! And then you had to go get House Benevolence involved! I had it contained!”

He was probably having a mental breakdown right now. Erick glanced at Poi, and Poi gave a small nod, so Erick decided to just let the man have his breakdown. Perhaps he could get it all out of his system, for now, and Erick could get some good intel in the process.

Wiloza was not prepared for Aroido to turn his ire on her, though. Wiloza instantly declared, “I thought it would be a simple prognostication!”

That relationship there was obviously a complicated thing. Wiloza was the ‘human oversight’ for the dungeons, which was a rather normal position for a kingdom to have. But such an arrangement was usually a small group of people, with one person in charge and several underlings, and then one repro for each dungeon under the auspices of the kingdom. Storm’s Edge had it all wrong, with Wiloza being the only one in that ‘Head Dungeonmaster’ position, taking the place of the entire office of workers, and with all the Aroido, all repros, being the majority of the dungeon-oversight forces.

And that was it for their entire office staff. 50 people. One ‘in charge’, who was only there in case of emergency, and 49 others all doing whatever they wanted inside the dungeons.

Erick didn’t have the full story about all of that, but he would be getting the full story eventually, and he was getting quite a lot of sideways-information right now. It wasn’t like he needed to go anywhere at this very instant, either, for Quilatalap had closed off his dungeon, and he probably wasn’t ready for anyone to come knocking on the gate quite yet.

And so, Aroido had his mental breakdown.

Aroido raised his hands and flapped them around angrily as he yelled, “It’s never a simple prognostication! The very second you got them involved you put me and my brothers at risk!”

Wiloza scowled. “You put yourself at risk when you chose to threaten those two immortals.”

“I had it contained! I was—”

Okay. Erick had had enough of that particular lie. “You did not have it contained,” Erick said, and Aroido suddenly realized that Erick was here, and that maybe he shouldn’t be screaming like he was. As Aroido fell deeply silent and Wiloza professionally demurred, Erick continued, “And it was a simple prognostication. This prognostication of a coming storm is a big deal for you, but we have dealt with many different situations like this before now. We can solve this —all of us together— and none of us need be enemies, and no one needs to die.” He said to Aroido, “But if you think the Regency will actually harm you, then you need to relocate. If you and your brothers want [Reincarnation]s, then I can do that, but you will have to submit to the [Reincarnation] process.”

For one bright, shining moment after mentioning [Reincarnation], Aroido was thrilled. He saw a path forward for him and his brothers. And then reality crashed back into the forefront of his mind. He said, “They would never let us go. We know too much about the kingdom.”

“The option is there. Consider it.” Erick moved on, turning his sight back to the Pit. “What was the plan here? Leave the immortals’ dungeon alone? Attack it and breach the seal, and the dungeon beyond?”

Aroido said, “We have a plan for if the dungeons ever truly break. It involves contacting the Dungeoneer’s Guild down by Adventurer City. They were going to have some big elites come in and break the cores if they ever got out of control… Or if me and my brothers ever rebelled.”

Erick mentally looked to Poi, asking him to get that information.

Poi did not outwardly say or do anything, but a few more tendrils of thought flowed away from his head.

Meanwhile, Erick said, “I don’t get that. That last part.” Erick asked, “You’re the repro of the original Lord Aroido, yes? And your brothers are more copies of you. If they felt that you would ever actually rebel, then they never would have allowed that many of you to exist at once, yes? How many of there are you, anyway?” Erick pretended ignorance, “Ten? Twenty?”

“… 49,” Aroido said, after much self wrestling.

“A larger amount than expected.” Erick said, “That’s a non-insubstantial number to add to my usual monthly [Reincarnation] list. But it’s doable. I want you to really consider that option, Aroido, if they’re really going to kill you. House Benevolence doesn’t abide by the murder of uncooperative repros just because they’re uncooperative. It’s usually the grabbing of power and becoming a plague upon the land which makes us and the Core Delvers of the Dungeoneer Guild decide to end a dungeon core. Even after the debacle of the Freedom Dungeon over at the Freelands we only executed a few people, and almost none of them were dungeon-born.”

Aroido looked mollified, for now. His stance was back to normal. He had never allowed his tears to fall, but it had been a close call. His voice was even, as he said, “Thank you, Wizard Flatt. If you do not mind, I would like to speak a bit on the true situation unfolding here, pledge myself to House Benevolence, and then go get my brothers and help end this horror happening right now however we are able. And then we’ll move on, or whatever you decide needs to happen.”

Wiloza was saddened by Aroido’s change of allegiance, which surprised Erick a little bit, but not really. Erick had almost expected Wiloza to be angry at him, but the elderly archmage surprised him with her compassion.

Erick wasn’t ready to accept Aroido into his House yet, though. “It’s not quite that easy to become a member of my House these days, but your enthusiasm is noted, and marked. I suspect what’s going to happen here, at Storm’s Edge, is that I’m going to enter into a joint dungeon-creation endeavor with the Regency. That means a lot of things, but it also means that there might be places for you here at the Pit. I’ll probably ask Quilatalap to get involved here, too, in order to properly run the dungeon. That will happen either alongside Vanya and Soltic, or without them. I’ve yet to even ask Quilatalap about all this, so he might say no.”

Wiloza paled at the mention of Quilatalap, but she also saw this as a maybe-good-thing. She would withhold judgment until she needed to judge.

Through a pale expression, Aroido lied, “That would be an absolutely wonderful option, Wizard Flatt.”

“As I said, such a joint operation would mean many things, all of which will be decided later, if the Regency is even up for it.” Erick said, “Now, please give me your true order of events, starting from the first moment you heard of Vanya and Soltic. If you have the capability to do it through a memory [Telepathy] packet, then that’s good, too. You can give that to my man Poi, here.”

Aroido faltered. He wasn’t that good with [Telepathy], then? Not a whole lot of people were, but… That was surprising, too. Aroido was capable enough to have a Force Domain, but not capable enough to do well-made [Telepathy] packets?n/o/vel/b//in dot c//om

Something was going on there.

Wiloza spoke up, “I can give that information packet for I was there for most of the interactions with Miss Silver and Mister Cross, which is obviously a call out of the Silver Cross of Koyabez, but I admit that I was unable to find them inside any Church of Peace registry.”

Erick’s eyebrows raised at that statement. Wiloza was the second person to bring that naming scheme up. He kinda wanted to kick himself for calling themselves ‘Silver Cross’, for that was obviously a code name. Sometimes, apparently, he could still be dumb.

Poi did not smile or laugh at all, for he was more controlled than that, but Erick could tell that he was laughing inside.

Aroido, fully embarrassed and hiding it, blurted out, “I prayed to Koyabez not half an hour ago, and he deigned to give me a message through the Script saying that I should have trusted Soltic and Vanya more than I did.” Aroido looked to Erick. “I fear I have messed this up, and this is all going to get dumped on me.”

Ah. Good ‘ol Koyabez.

Erick hadn’t spoken to him in a while.

Erick said, “Let’s not worry about that right now. Wiloza. The packet.”

Wiloza sent a packet of information to Poi.

Poi pulled it apart, and then handed it to Erick.

There was little there that Erick didn’t already know, though it was odd seeing Vanya and Soltic from Wiloza’s perspective, as Vanya gave her presentation. Wiloza’s information packet was colored with her utter disgust of the whole affair, for she wished that people would leave the dungeons well enough alone. So what if they were breaking all the time? Big deal. If people simply left Aroido well enough alone, then the dungeons would work well enough on their own. Who needed a Grand Dungeon, anyway? No one. Grand Dungeons were nonsense, anyway; monster lures and killing zones were good enough.

From what Erick was now seeing, Wiloza was changing her mind on that most recent opinion, due to all this ‘nonsense’ happening all around the Regency right now. Her hope at the end of all this is for a dungeon that no one needs to worry about anymore; however they get there is fine by her. She just wanted less danger in her life. That’s why she became an archmage in the first place; in order to have the power to make the world safer for everyone all around her.

After pretending to take a moment longer to understand what he was seeing, Erick said, “That was informative. Now, before I give you two some orders, and then I go down to the dungeon, is there anything else major that I need to know about? Something that you don’t tell others. Something that seems to be missing from this information packet, Wiloza.” He looked to Aroido. “Something having to do with Gold Taker, the ‘archmage octopus’ that keeps your dungeons mana-positive.”

Wiloza stilled. And then she relaxed. She was ready for anything. But she did not speak.

Aroido sighed a little, then prepared to disappoint Erick, as he said, “Gold Taker is Everbless.”

Erick nodded. “Thank you for coming clean about that, too. Now that we’re all—”

“You’re immune to the intervention, too?!” Aroido exclaimed. And then his eyes went wide. “Ah. Pardon my outburst. Uh. Wizard Flatt.”

Erick bushed over that outburst, saying, “I am immune to a great many things, as most Wizards are.”

Aroido suddenly had half of a thought.

Erick realized what that thought was right before Aroido could fully form that thought. Perhaps he shouldn’t have made a link between Wizards and immunity to magic, but he wouldn’t [Return] in a social situation like this. He had just fucked up a little bit, as yes, Aroido paled, and yes, he put a few things together that he probably shouldn’t be putting together—

“I think Soltic might be a Wizard,” Aroido said, very seriously.

“No!” Wiloza shouted, her voice full of sudden despair.

“It fits!” Aroido said, “He’s immune to the intervention, too!”

Erick ended the conversation with a wave, saying, “Then the fact that you’re still alive is proof enough that whatever happened here was not meant to harm you, so I urge both of you to put away preconceived notions about Wizards and what might be lying in wait, and relax a fraction. Anyway! Aroido, at my side. Wiloza, here with Poi, on the battlements. You two should converse about the happenings here, and know that I’m watching.” He summoned and stepped onto a Platform, and then he looked to Aroido. “With me.”

Poi stood strongly, as ordered. Wiloza glanced to Poi, and then gave a courtly nod.

And Aroido walked forward, onto Erick’s Platform spell, softly saying, “He might be a Wizard.”

“Aye; he might be a Wizard,” Erick said, as he lifted the Platform into the air and began moving down into the Pit. He aimed for the black disk hanging in the air; the locked Dungeon #6. “Or he might just be someone Called by Sininindi in order to do a job.”

Looking a little sheepish, Aroido said, “… You are probably correct.” And then he added, “If they should open the door… I might have angered them a great deal. But I… Uh…” His voice trailed off as he tried to decide what to say, but he had nothing else.

“Don’t worry about it,” Erick said, “We don’t have nearly enough laws to protect repros yet, or at least not enough to deal with the various situations that arise from their creation. Culture is similarly backed up with problems and ways of handling the introduction of completely new people, directly into the world. I’m sure, in time, that ‘a repro’ will likely become just another thing that a person is, and not a reason to kill them, or otherwise. The shadelings are still having a lot of problems, all of them alongside the same veins as all the new repros of the world. Personally, I empathize that it must be terrifying waking up and being both yourself, and something else entirely. You probably had a lot of issues in the beginning— Probably still have a lot of issues, if you feel that the Regency will kill you for whatever failure happened today.”

Aroido breathed calmly, but Erick’s words were hitting him hard. He was not going to have an emotional response right now, though; he decided. And then he began to spill, “We’re not actually all repros of Aroido. That’s part of the problem. Aroido died— He was murdered years ago. And we’re all sort of… Copies of copies. It’s been difficult. We’ve had dungeon breaks before, all the time, for every fool and their sister thinks they know how to make it all work well, but all they do is try to kill us and then they fuck up the dungeons in the process. It’s only ever since Everbless began helping to keep the dungeons in mana that we stopped breaking all the time.”

They reached the floor of the Pit. Erick dispersed the platform underfoot, and both him and Aroido dropped a centimeter to the ground.

Aroido continued to say, “Everbless will show up when he feels like it. He’s always…” Aroido shook his head. “Aroido died, and we repros had to work overtime to keep the dungeons afloat, and after a few breaks killed the majority of our elder brothers, we had to repro ourselves, so… Thus began a chain of events that ended up with all of us being repros of repros and… Personality drift, and all that.”

Erick nodded a little, in understanding. “That’s been tough for you, because now they don’t think you’re real people anymore.”

“Yes! Exactly!” Aroido backed up. “They’re nice enough to us but… Those in the know don’t treat us well at all. It’s the little things. And… Sorry. You’re busy right now. I just needed to say this because… I mishandled the entire situation with Miss Silver and Mister Cross.”

Erick nodded. And then he walked over to the giant black disk sitting in the air, like a swirl of darkness five meters across, its bottom-most edge hovering a handspan above the flat ground. It was the entrance to dungeon 6, and it was closed, but it actually wasn’t closed at all. With a bit of mana sense, Erick watched as mana naturally flowed into the darkness. It was an anemic, slow sort of flow; the sign of an unhealthy dungeon with most of its inhabitants dead and gone.

Quilatalap was probably faking that flow somehow, though, to throw off everyone out here who might be watching.

With a quick conjuring of Force and Benevolence, Erick created a bright white staff with a knotted head. It was just a normal sort of conjuring, but one didn’t go knocking on dungeon gates with their bare hands.

Aroido had been standing four meters away from the black [Gate], but at Erick’s conjuring, he rapidly retreated, only stopping when he was a good fifteen meters away.

Erick waited for him to stop retreating, and when he did, Erick pulled back for a good strike, and then he struck the [Gate]. The staff touched darkness, and was halted. Not a single sound came from that action. Not a fraction of the black air of the [Gate] was disturbed. Erick pulled back his staff, and darkness clung to the head, like he had stuck the staff into black gum. That blackness snapped off when he pulled far enough away.

Erick used an actual [Strike] the second time, empowering his weapon to hit as hard as it possibly could, based on the angle of his attack, the object he was hitting, and a bunch of other factors governed by how the Script made that particular form of magic work.

The staff hit the dungeon [Gate] and the darkness flexed, a dull gonging sound filling the air.

Erick pulled back and hit the darkness twice more. Twice more the air sounded with a dull gong.

And then he stepped backward.

He waited.

After a moment of nothing, Aroido spoke up, “I don’t think she’s going to open the [Gate] for a polite knock.”

“I’m polite unless tested otherwise.” Erick added, “And I can wait.”

Four silent minutes later…

“I’m going to knock again,” Erick said, right before he knocked again, this time much harder. “They probably heard it that ti—”

The black disk swelled open like a bubble rapidly popping, leaving behind a hole in the world, revealing a half-decayed army on the other side.

A regimented horde of undead stood upon a vast stone plain, each of them wearing black armor and standing with a spear at their sides. All of them were in various states of decay, but most looked like they could last for at least one or two good battles. The general at the head of the army looked like he could last a whole campaign, though. He was a gargantuan man made of solid bone, twice as large as the rest, wearing black armor accented in gold. His spear was more of a halberd, and his eyes glowed with red light.

It was a thoroughly impressive and terrifying sight to Aroido, who exclaimed, “HOLY FUCK A NECROMANCER!” and then he backpedaled as fast as he could, casting some spells to [Fly] away.

To anyone not experienced with these sorts of things, and to many people who did have experience with these things, Aroido’s response was normal.

Necromancers were nothing too scary to Erick, though, and especially given how little time ‘Vanya’ had to prepare. Necromancers were rather horrific to go up against when they were truly prepared. That was one of the reasons that assaulting the Fractured Citadels of Quintlan was a near-impossible endeavor.

When a Necromancer didn’t have time to prepare, you ended up with this; a rather ragtag-looking army, propped up by quick-cast spellwork that could only really offer physical protection, and not the magical protection that an undead army truly needed.

Quilatalap could have done a lot better given how much time he had had, but ‘Vanya’ wasn’t going to go that hard, for she had to keep her head down a little bit, or else people would know who she was. There were probably some real heavy-hitters hiding in the back, waiting to respond if they needed to respond, but these guys were nothing special… Except maybe the guy in front.

There were a lot of different ways to tell that this army was nothing special. The main one was the easiest to see; Their armor. It looked real, but it wasn’t. All of that armor was conjured on all of them, instead of real, and since it was not real, it was not enchanted. And since it was not enchanted, it could not prevent the easiest way for one to win against a necromancer.

Oh, sure, there were some specialized conjured armors that would protect mindless undead from what Erick could do to them, and Quilatalap knew all of those methods, but this stuff here was not the good spellwork.

Soul Magic, that greatest of spellwork that made necromancers terrifying and horribly strong, was also their greatest weakness when employed like they usually employed that magic; outside of themselves. The base level of raising undead and making them fight for you was incredibly easy to disrupt if you knew how. [Dispel] was not the answer here, because they were souls conjured into bodies, and that natural layer of defense worked well against casual [Dispel]s.

And so, there were other magics to use. [Piercing Dispel] kinda worked, if you managed to hit the controlling spellwork in the center of the undead body, but since the army had armor and dispelling the control magics would just make the undead horde go ravenously insane, [Dispel]s of all sorts weren’t the real answer.

The real answer was [Untether], and its secondary version, [Chaining Untether].

Untether, instant, long range, 50 mana

Break the chains of the tethered soul.

Chaining Untether, instant, long range, 100 mana + Variable

Break the chains of the tethered souls.

[Untether] even worked on basic angels and demons and, to a lesser extent, [Familiar]s of all kinds. It was like a specialized [Dispel] —a Tricking Magic— for all summoned creatures.

A horde of undead? Not a problem. Just [Untether] the basic souls from the bodies and the undead would drop real-dead, their temporary souls released from their mortal shells into the afterlife. Actually fighting the horde with anything less than that would be an exercise in futility, or at least an exercise in bringing a knife to a gunfight; sure, you could still win that gun fight with your knife, or [Fireball], or [Lightning Bolt], or whatever, but it would be unnecessarily difficult.

All of those thoughts instinctively ran through Erick’s mind as he saw the undead horde.

But then came the final thought, that this was Quilatalap in front of him. All of this right now was a show to legitimize Vanya’s presence, for all those watching through [Long Range Scry]s, or otherwise, so he wasn’t really worried about going up against a necromancer like he usually would be.

He was sure to make some of his surprise at seeing a Necromancer show, though.

And then Erick called out to Aroido, “Aroido! Don’t run. We’re just talking. Come back. Now.”

Aroido warred with himself, there in the air about 50 meters away. He hadn’t gotten far.

While Aroido was dealing with his own emotions, Erick looked at the red-eyed undead captain, and said, “Hello. I’m Wizard Erick Flatt. I would like to have a conversation with the new dungeon master, alongside the old dungeon master. My hope is to resolve this without bloodshed or any terrible happenings and maybe ensure that some sort of cooperation should take hold, since you did come here Called by Sininindi, after all.” Erick made a show of turning around to look at Aroido, who was still 40 meters away, and then he turned back. The red-eyed undead had not moved at all. “Aroido will be back shortly.”

The red-eyed undead said, “Then I will level our complaints against him when he deigns to stand before me.”

Erick nodded once. And then he waited.

Eventually Aroido floated over, trying to be stoic, but he was sweating and his face was rather pale. At least he was putting on a good facade. Erick felt for the guy, and for his brothers.

Aroido did try to multi-kill Soltic and Vanya, he was doing that out of a desire not to be real-killed himself. Erick would be getting that story soon enough, though. Probably as soon as this red-eyed guy said something about it.

Aroido touched down on the stone two meters away from Erick—

Red-eyes said, “When we wouldn’t give him answers about our lives, Aroido and his brothers assaulted us, and then threatened to multi-kill us until he got the answers he wanted.”

Aroido defended himself. “We would have been killed or disappeared if Vanya and Soltic managed to make a new dungeon anyway. Our hope was to discourage them and make them go away.”

Erick nodded. “And what do you mean by ‘disappeared’?”

“When one of us goes crazy, or tells anyone about this system of having 49 of us— Anytime it even looks like we might tell people anything at all, we are led into a specific house…” An instinctual sort of fear took hold within Aroido, but he managed to beat that fear down far enough to continue, “We go into that house and then we are never seen from again. Wiloza tries to save us from that fate, but… I’m not the first ‘Face’ of the Aroidos, Wizard Flatt. Not by a [Long Bolt]...” Aroido paused for a moment, then said, “Sometimes my brothers do go crazy. It happens whenever there is a dungeon break, and then all the masters are purged from the system… But. I humbly suggest that the Regency is too liberal with this option.”

“Where is this house?” Erick asked.

“At the end of Seafoam Road, in the noble district,” Aroido said, as though he was offloading a thousand-kilo weight from his shoulders. “It’s the only house there; you cannot miss it— It’s a manor. Seafoam Manor.”

Erick said to the air, “Goldie. Check on that list of facts, please.”

A nearby shadow made a show of moving.

Aroido’s eyes went wide, and so did the red-eyed man’s, but less so, as they watched the shadow meld back into nothing, under the open sun. The shadow hadn’t even been there till it showed itself.

Erick looked to the red-eyed skeleton man. “What is your name? I haven’t gotten that yet.”

Red-eyes languidly turned his blazing sight back to Erick, and easily said, “This one is freshly born and not a real person. For now, this one is a vessel for Vanya Silver to speak through.” Vanya said, “In time, he will become real, and thus take a position as one of the bosses of this dungeon, Wizard Flatt.”

“Ah! Splendid,” Erick said, “You’re in quite a lot of trouble, young lady. Or should I say ‘apparently young lady’? Some sort of immortal, I understand?”

“Yes.”

“… A woman of few words, then.”

“I have given these people no reason to distrust me, and every reason to allow me to do my goddess-given mission of turning this set of dungeons into a real dungeon, one where people can learn real magic.” Vanya asked, “Have they told you all of what I planned to do? And my qualifications?” She held herself back from spitting her next words, but it was a bare thing, as she said, “And why are you even here?”

“I’m here because of a Benevolent prophecy about how these dungeons need to hold all the life of the Archipelago that we wish to save from a coming catastrophe which will occur anywhere from between 4 to 10 months. Maybe sooner, maybe later. But somewhere around there.” Erick spoke seriously as he asked, “Would you be able to fulfill that sort of requirement? Or is that more than what you can handle on your own?” He gestured to Aroido. “Because there’s 49 helpers right here, though he seems to be scared for his life, thinking that the Regency will murder them all if they are found wanting in their job.”

Aroido breathed out relief as yet another thousand-kilo metaphorical weight fell off his shoulders; Erick believed him. And then he realized that Erick was setting him up to work with the necromancer on the other side of the [Gate]. Somewhere in there he thought back to Erick ordering a shadow to go and investigate the house on Seafoam Road, and that piled onto the man’s mental problems.

And just like that, Aroido was now wearing multiple tons of metaphorical weight. Erick saw as the man accepted his lot in life, though; there was absolutely no way for him and his 49 brothers to live on their own, outside of the auspices of some sort of power. House Benevolence was a fine power to live under.

No emotions at all passed across the undead servant’s face upon hearing Erick’s news of a Benevolence Prophecy, for that wasn’t how this undead captain was set up. He was, in effect, the perfect way to separate oneself from a meeting, and to ensure that no microexpressions or otherwise gave away what the operator was thinking.

Of course, red-eyes could just be Quilatalap in a new form, but probably not. This one here was probably set up to die, if necessary. There had been no way for Quilatalap to see what was happening outside the dungeon once it was sealed, just like there was no way for anyone to look inside when it was sealed. (Except for Melemizargo, and other godly beings, of course.)

Vanya’s voice was steady, but subtly worried, as it came out of red-eyes’ mouth, “I would like to hear this prophecy.”

Erick told Vanya the prophecy.

And then Vanya said, “I will be able to do some sort of a… ‘Grand Shelter’, but it will require a great deal of changes to the plan… And I could use the Aroidos’ help. For starters, I need— A lot. I need a lot.” And then, perhaps a bit miffed, she said, “I wanted to make a real Grand Dungeon; not a shelter. This is not what I signed up for with Sininindi.”

“Then make your dungeon how you want,” Erick said, “But add a big red button, or something, in the center of the place that can transform the entire dungeon into a shelter when needed.”

“But that means no permanent traps and—”

“Miss Silver,” Erick said, “I appreciate your plight, but if you cannot do what is needed then perhaps you and Mister Cross should leave this dungeon to the Regency and to House Benevolence.” And then Erick added, “If, however, you are fine with this adjustment, and you are simply playing for more resources, or what-have-you, or whatever, then please state your terms now.”

“… I was going to have a False Society in here anyway.” Vanya added, “So I suppose being able to house more people is fine— No.” A moment passed in silence, and deep, deep worry. And then Vanya blurted, “There’s 25 million people in the Archipelago.”

“Yup.” Erick nodded. “The problem is a lot larger than the one you signed up to solve.”

Aroido quietly said, “22.5 million.”

Red-eyes’s eyes went wider, which was probably an affectation, like when he purposefully glanced at the shadow that was Goldie zipping away. But then Vanya spoke, and Erick thought that maybe it wasn’t an affectation at all.

Excitedly, she said, “Holy Gods. That would be the largest dungeon this world has ever seen!”

“Yes. Everyone is in a bit of a panic over here because of that and a dozen other issues,” Erick said, “So while your enthusiasm is noted, make sure you don’t get too carried away with this task laid before you.”

“Right, right,” Vanya rapidly added, acting suitably chastised.

Aroido nodded solemnly.

Erick continued, “My primary concerns are having enough space and amenities inside this dungeon, and for there to be a way for people to get into that space as fast as possible. House Benevolence will be able to provide some sort of Gate Network shenanigans to alleviate some of the stress of moving that many people, but I imagine that you would need to grow this dungeon far, far beyond your original plans. It also will only nominally be under Regency control, because when the issue is this large, involving this many different nations of the Archipelago, I am stepping in, and House Benevolence is taking a concentrated interest in this land. I plan on stopping whatever disaster is coming, but—” Erick asked, “Are you prepared to be the master for a shelter of 22.5 million people, if necessary?”

“Fuck no I am not prepared for that, but I can be.”

Erick smiled. “Good to hear that. You and I will have a discussion later about all this, in private. For now, what do you need to happen, in order to make this dungeon work how it needs to work?”

“Give me a minute to think.”

Red-eyes went silent; distant. Erick and Aroido waited.

Vanya said, “I need the Aroidos to move their dungeon entrances back to the Pit, and then I need them all to detach from those dungeons and come into this dungeon, while I send out minions to secure those other dungeons under my own power.”

Aroido frowned. “What?”

Erick asked Aroido, “What’s the problem? All that seemed reasonable to me.”

“I have no idea what she means ‘send out minions to secure’.” Aroido said, “I can do all the rest but I’m not sure what she means to do, exactly.”

“A ritual to the Dark, to bring all dungeons together into one,” Erick said, then asked, “Right, Miss Silver?”

“Correct.”

Aroido paled once again, as he muttered, “Oh great. Cultists, too.”

Erick ignored Aroido’s discomfort and asked the man, “Can you do as requested?”

“Yes, I can, and I suppose falling to the Dark is… Well it’s notexecution, I suppose.”

Erick gave the man a look.

And Aroido straightened up, and realized where he was and who he was talking to. He rapidly said, “I can work with Miss Silver!”

“Good.” Erick added, “When I get a chance, and if you want, there are [Reincarnation]s waiting for you, if you are tired of your current life.”

“Right!” Aroido said, “You said that, too. I think some of my brothers will certainly take you up on that offer— Uhh. The dungeon entrances were moved into Regency control, into the bunker pit we have set up for a potential break… One time one dungeon broke, and then it rapidly broke two more before we got that back under control. I won’t be able to get to those places when they are under Regency control.”

Erick said, “I have already removed that separate area from Regency control, through a few polite conversations with the local guard.”

About a kilometer east of the Pit there was another, smaller ‘Pit’, located behind a mountain. A bunch of Regency soldiers had been there guarding the dungeons and wondering ‘where the fuck is Gold Taker; he should be here’, until Ophiel had shown up and promptly secured the area. According to Poi, who was in contact with Erick right now, the Regency was demanding Erick stand way, way down, but Erick had already told Poi to tell them that he was not standing down at all.

“You can go over there right now, actually,” Erick said, waving a hand and conjuring a [Gate] directly to that side-Pit. “The way is clear for you to go talk to your brothers.”

Aroido took all of a half-a-second to realign himself, again, to his new lot in life. And then he bowed and rushed through the [Gate]. Erick watched Aroido leap into one of the black holes in the world, under the watchful eyes of Ophiel, and then Erick closed the [Gate].

Erick turned back to Vanya, saying, “Still no sign of Gold Taker, or Everbless out here. I have half a mind to go right up to his tree and ask him what’s going on, but I have been told to stay away until recently. What has been your experience with him?”

“I have barely been able to interact with him, but he seems like a decent sort. If it weren’t for him then these dungeons would have collapsed a lot more than they have, but I don’t believe that a child should be killing people inside a dungeon, anyway.”

Erick nodded, and then he had an Ophiel flutter down from the sky, to hover in front of Erick, who already had an Ophiel on his shoulder. “I’ll be leaving Ophiel here at the entrance. Call out if you need something.”

Vanya had red-eyes go down to one knee and press one fist to the ground. “As you desire, Wizard of Benevolence.”

Erick nodded again, and then he left in a flicker of a lightstep, off to the next destination.

He felt that the act with Vanya had gone pretty well. He also felt that this whole thing was a great big mess (an understatement, considering 22.5 million people needed a shelter in the next 6 months), he was terrible about lying long term (and he was in the eye of the world usually, so people were always looking at him) so he was probably going to fuck that up sooner or later (hopefully a lot later; years, perhaps), Everbless was still worryingly absent (seriously; where the fuck was he), and whatever the fuck the Regency was up to at Seafoam Manor was probably something rather immoral.

… Hopefully not too bad, though. Hopefully it was just routine immoral executions. Those were easy enough to solve. Erick could arrive, say ‘no’, strip the bad guys from power and forcibly repent them, if necessary, and then that would be the end of that horror show. House Benevolence would come in next and deal with greater fallout, like putting survivors back into homes, getting them work, and then doing whatever else needed to be done.

With any luck, whatever was happening down at Seafoam Manor was not too deep of an institutional problem.

Toppling a government was never Erick’s preferred option.