ushernet Chapter 93: Volle’s Dungeon
Chapter 93: Volle’s Dungeon
Chapter 93: Volle’s Dungeonby Bixi Bargainhunter, Silver Cog Trading Co.
Aliandra
The Novaspark Academy of Magic certainly looked impressive from the outside. It had expensive-looking metal window frames and built-in stone relief sculptures that must have required an exceptionally talented stone mage to create. It was the first time Ali was really noticing the building from the outside – every other time she had been here, she had entered through the teleportation locus using the magic of a recall potion while escaping some imminent disaster.
It was clear that the architect had envisioned this as the most important building in Myrin’s Keep, if one discounted the city defenses, towering well above the surrounding structures. There were even several spires soaring to greater heights out of the roof – Ali chalked it up to the stereotypical scholarly mage obsession with towers colliding with the elegant structure and design favored by the architects and stonemasons.
It stood as an isolated and fortified bastion against the storms of crime and corruption that prevailed in Myrin’s Keep, dedicated to magical study and education. In a way that was common in many similar towns, even back in her time, it also served as the hub of information and travel – a nexus connecting the entire town to the outside world. Here it was that one would find the telepath classes connecting to the kingdom’s information and news networks; the teleporters, both classes, and artifacts, that powered the most urgent of couriered letters, packages, and even the transport of people and merchant stock, provided one had enough gold.
“What are you guys going to do while I’m gone?” Ali asked, suddenly realizing that everyone had been helping her to prepare, but she had no idea what they were all planning.
“Captain strategy professor here was retained by the Guildmaster herself to deliver a lecture to the newbies this week. So, he will be anxious and studying,” Mato said, nudging Calen with a good-natured smile on his face.
Mato was clearly proud of Calen, and Calen was just as clearly embarrassed and uncomfortable by being unexpectedly thrust into the spotlight.
“Um… I forgot to ask if there’s anything you don’t want me to share about your skills? I have to talk about our two raid fights,” he said, fighting a little against a blush.
“I trust your judgment, Calen,” Ali said with a smile.
“Be safe, ok?” Malika said, giving her a quick hug before pushing the door open for her.
“You too,” Ali said, wishing her friends goodbye before she headed out on Eliyen’s quest, hopefully to return with the reagent they needed to recover. It was awkward to have to travel everywhere in town as a group, but Ali appreciated the priority her friends had placed on each of them being safe, particularly with unknown assassins prowling around looking to score a quick bounty.
Ali flew into the opulently styled lobby and joined one of the many lines to see the busy receptionists. She hovered about waist high to a human, mostly to ensure she didn’t get stepped on or tripped over in the busy throng, rather than any need to be taller. A few people glanced at her in surprise, but most seemed to be intent upon their destinations.
Soaring above her were high vaulted ceilings, buttressed by dark gray marble pillars. The polished stone floor was inlaid with delicate tracery, and artistic designs, and adorned with expensive-looking carpets, and even the reception desks seemed to be made of dark, mana-imbued, polished wood. It was as clear a statement of established wealth as any Ali had ever seen, and served to contrast just how new and basic the Adventurers Guild was – simply by the comparison with their respective lobbies. But it was the abundance of magical enchantment that really caught Ali’s attention. Everything leaked, oozed, effused, and shone magic – as if the entire lobby had been the subject of generations of magical projects by graduating students. The walls had protection enchantments, cleaning enchantments, light enchantments, and hundreds of things Ali couldn’t even guess at, forming a riot of color and motion in her mana sight.
She presented her paperwork and was immediately and efficiently escorted by an intern to a private office somewhere deep in the bowels of the academy. Suddenly, her hurried guide vanished, and Ali found herself alone in an unfamiliar corridor, before a nondescript wooden door with a simple sign beside it.
Ali reached up to knock, but before she even touched the door a soft chime sounded amid a burst of unusual mana that briefly bent and distorted the air around it.
“Please come in.” The voice sounded raspy and crackly, like the auditory equivalent of the texture of ancient parchment.
Ali pushed the door open and flew in, finding herself in a small, extremely cluttered office lined with bookshelves and bizarre pieces of apparatus. Hovering above a desk covered with dog-eared books, unfinished scrolls, discarded pens, and dried-up ink was a wizened man with a shock of crazy untamed gray hair, wearing a rumpled rune-covered robe. All around him floated a cluster of books and scrolls like a flock of attending birds just waiting on his attention, or perhaps hovering over the desk unable to find space to land.
“Mmm…” the old mage responded, squinting at the document she handed to him. “Teleportation service, of course.” He looked at Ali with a smile that looked equal parts good-natured and manic.
“If you’re ready, we can have this done snip snap!”
Ali thought, nodding her answer to his question. But she couldn’t deny she was excited to see his unusual space magic affinity in action. She just hoped he would be using his own skills, rather than some artifact to send her.
“Why don’t we have you stand in this ring here,” he said, indicating a spot on the cluttered floor. They both looked at the ground, and the mess down there, and then Ali met his eyes again raising an eyebrow in question.
“Oh, hmm…” he waved a hand and Ali was treated to the glorious pulse of his reality-bending mana radiating out from the center of the messy floor, pushing the discarded books and papers to the edge of the room and revealing a beautifully etched teleportation circle.
“Sorry about that.”
“No problem,” Ali answered with a happy smile, alighting in the center of the runic circle, quickly pulsing her Sage of Learning and Runic Script skills to memorize the unfamiliar runic structure.
“Right, maybe dismiss the sparkly golden disk? Just in case it interferes.”
Ali obliged. Her barrier probably wouldn’t interfere with his space magic, but it didn’t hurt to be careful, especially considering the delicate nature of long-distance teleportation.
“Let’s see, where were you going again?” He consulted the paperwork, reinforcing Ali’s association with eccentric absent-mindedness. “Aah yes, Volle. Miserable town, that one. I don’t recommend staying longer than you must.”
Not quite able to suppress a smile, Ali followed the pulse of his unusual mana as it surged within him, erupting outward to pour energy into the runes inscribed around her feet.
“Hold onto your hat!” he announced with a gleeful grin, as his long wispy white hair began to float and wave in the currents of his magic.
“I’m not wearing a…”
There was a sickening lurch as the entire office bent inside out, and Ali was suddenly elsewhere.
“…hat.”
“That will be one silver for entering the town of Volle.” The voice sounded as scratchy as an irate cat and quite bored. “And I’ll need to know what business you have in town.”
Ali shook off the lingering sense of disorientation and retrieved the silver and her permit papers while examining her memory of the shape and structure of Prof. Addlestone’s impressive teleportation spell.
“Oh, you’re here for the dungeon. It’s a mile out of town on the northern road. You can rent a cart for a reasonable price, or you can make your own way there.” The man took her silver and returned her permit along with a receipt for the entrance fee. “Keep that receipt, the guards will want to see it. Destructive magic is strictly prohibited within the town.”
Ali stored the papers in her spacious and mostly empty guild ring storage enchantment. Knowing that she would have to empty it for inspection, she had made sure to bring only the necessities for her mission, leaving everything else with Malika for safekeeping.
As soon as she stepped outside the building, she was assaulted by the stench and sight of squalor.
All the discussion with Eliyen, and her own – admittedly inadequate – re
But it didn’t come back, and soon Ali was swimming down through the exit tunnel among all her slimes, easily overpowering the occasional Brine Oozes that came at them one at a time.
she thought. But the crudely drawn map had indicated some unspecified danger in some of the upcoming chambers. She would just have to remain vigilant.