Stepping into the room with the dungeon core felt like coming home. The sensation was subtle, but Hans felt safer within those octagonal walls, like he belonged there, like nothing outside could ever harm him.

  Hans could feel the presence of the dungeon core.

  No, presence wasn’t the right way to describe it. The dungeon core didn’t feel alive the way a beast or monster did. It was like having a secret diary squirreled away at the bottom of a desk drawer, a simple object that contained his truth. If that diary was out on a table in a busy room, Hans wouldn’t be able to pull his attention away from it. There was nothing alive about a book bound by paper, yet the idea of someone reading it was like being flayed.

  That’s how the dungeon core felt to the Guild Master. Not alive yet full of life and consequence.

  “Mazo says I need to meditate with you,” Hans said out loud, as if the core could hear him. “If our lives are tangled up the way she thinks, there should be something here, like a bond with a familiar or something. What do you think of that?”

  The dungeon core did not respond.

  “Yeah, I figured that’s what you’d say.”

  Hans sat on the dungeon floor next to the core’s protective cube. He rested his hands on one of the newer exposed roots, closed his eyes, and imagined his spirit venturing into the tendrils. That’s what Mazo had said to do. He was skeptical of his ability to do anything so Mage-like, but he did as instructed.

  The moment he willed his spirit to journey into the roots, his world went black.

  He had been here before, in this nothingness that was absolute and endless. Unlike the previous experiences, all corresponding to him giving his blood for a dungeon suggestion, Hans didn’t feel lost or adrift. This place too, felt like home.

  When Hans thought about the dungeon core room, he could see himself sitting on the floor, a hand on a bundle of roots. The urge to explore bubbled up, and he found that he could move through the dungeon. Any place he pictured, he could see it in real time, as though he was in the walls or the ceilings looking in.

  He saw the Forgeborne training room. It was empty at this hour. He found an alligator in the Bayou, sleeping beneath the dark water of the swamps. He saw the burnt-out chunks of a dead diamond elemental in the City of Glass. Bugbear shamans, cockatrice chickens, sedimanders–he could blink himself to every part of the dungeon.

  On a whim, he tried to visit the mimic lab but found himself at the door, unable to go inside. He was aware that something was in front of him, but the roots of the dungeon core couldn’t see.

  Oddly, the more he strained to bring it into view, like squinting to look through a dirty window, the more he felt his perception lengthening. Slowly, the nearest wall of the mimic room joined his perception. The crawling, stretching sensation continued, bringing more and more of the room into view.

  The roots of the dungeon core were growing, he realized. The mimic lab was built outside of the dungeon, beyond what the core had created, but now he absorbed it, making it part of his vast network of roots. When the room was perhaps halfway into view, Hans had another thought.

  He shifted his vision to the Leebel tunnel. He couldn’t see beyond the dungeon wall at the edge of the lake, but if he stretched… Ah, yes, he could slowly grow around the tunnel too.

  A few feet into the tunnel, Hans removed his hand from the bundle of roots. Sweat soaked his body, and he felt faint, like he had just done a hard, grueling run. Perhaps he had used mana to access and manipulate the roots, he thought to himself. The symptoms matched, and the logic tracked with what he knew about manipulating mana.

  How far could he spread the tendrils of the dungeon?

  Great. Yet another project.

  New Quest: Test the limits of the dungeon roots.

  “Mr. Hans?”

  Hans looked up from his desk in the guild hall to see Quentin approaching. He had only been in Kohei for a few months, but looking at Quentin now made it feel like years had passed. The soft boyish features of his face had the hard edges of manhood. Patchy stubble covered his jaw and neck, and he looked bulkier as well. The gangly Quentin must have put on fifteen or so pounds of muscle while he was away from Gomi.

  The Guild Master barely got to his feet when Quentin wrapped his arms around him.

  “I heard you died.”

  “Yeah… that’s complicated.”

  Quentin stepped back. “Buru told us everything. We rode the carts down to Leebel’s with him and Petal.”

  That was a relief. Talking about his own death was becoming tiresome, not that Quentin meant anything but the best in asking about it. Hans knew the young man had a good heart.

  “Kane and Gunther are home too then, I take it?” Hans asked.

  “Yeah. Buru took us to where my dad and Ed have been planting the lake. I wanted to stop by the guild hall before I went home.”

  “They’ve made a lot of progress there,” Hans said.

  “It looked super creepy riding the ferry across. Buru hadn’t mentioned the underwater bronzewoods yet, so we were all a bit spooked when we saw all these glowing shadows around the boat.”

  “I guess it would be strange to see them for the first time with no warning,” Hans observed. “They still have a lot to plant yet.”

  “Yeah, that’s what Buru was saying. Did something happen with the undead? There seemed to be a lot less of them than when we left.”

  Hans thought. “Nothing official happened that I can recall, but we’ve probably gotten better with patrols.”

  Talking about the undead still appearing from the mana poisoning on the surface made Hans realize he hadn’t left the dungeon since his return. Thinking about stepping out of the dungeon and into the sun gave him a strange sense of anxiety and fear for reasons he could not define.

  “You must be tired from the trip,” Hans said, forcing his mind to return to the present moment.

  “Maybe a bit,” Quentin admitted. “I knew you were okay, but I needed to see it, you know?”

  The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

  Hans nodded. “I understand. I want to hear about your summer, but go home. Spend some time with your dad and get some rest. I’m not going anywhere.”

  “Promise?”

  Laughing, Hans said, “Yeah. I promise. Actually, you all should come over for dinner. If not tonight, then sometime soon. Your dad and Ed are invited too, of course.”

  “I’ll let them know.” Quentin smiled, stepped away to leave, but returned to hug Hans again before finally departing.

  Kane and Gunther having grown over the summer was not surprising, yet Hans found himself looking up to speak to Kane, and Gunther’s hug may have come close to breaking the Guild Master’s back. Gunther still had the face of a shit-stirring troublemaker, but no one squaring off against the tusk in a sparring match would call him a boy. And Kane. If Hans didn’t already know him, he might have mistaken Kane for Galad at first. His orcish bulk had filled in, and his eyes no longer had the levity of youth. They were serious and focused.

  Seeing students grow up was always bittersweet. Watching innocence fade was hard at times, but knowing that Kane had the mind of a professional adventurer was comforting. Sure, it was sad he would be going out into the world on his own adventures from then on, but he was ready.

  Hans worked through all of these thoughts while Olza gushed at how much the three boys had changed. They blushed and stuttered in response, so maybe there was a bit of boyhood left in them yet.

  Soon, everyone sat around the table on the rooftop of Hans and Olza’s home. Uncle Ed, Roland, Tandis, and Willow joined in welcoming the young adventurers home.

  “Well? How was it?” Hans asked as he scooped mashed potatoes onto his plate.

  “Master Bertram is a badass,” Gunther said immediately. “He’s so strong.”

  Kane and Quentin nodded their agreement.

  “He’s really strict,” Quentin added. “Not mean or anything, but every training session was hard. No matter what.”

  “Hard how?” Hans asked.

  “We’re tired after a class in Gomi,” Kane began, “but Master Bertram worked us until we could hardly move. Every session. Made me want to crawl all the way back to bed most days.”

  Hans chuckled. He knew that style of training well.

  “We got to clear out a real goblin nest,” Gunther said, his mouth full of steak. “There were Irons with us, and they were all nervous. It was weird.”

  “Nervous?”

  “Mmhmm. They were all worried a berserker might be around. They were right. There was a berserker, but ogres are way worse. When we told them we’d fought ogres too, they said we were lying.”

  Smiling, Hans asked, “Do any other runs while you were there?”

  Kane nodded. “Two gnoll jobs, but those were boring. It was just camping, mostly.”

  “A farmer found tracks near their property,” Quentin explained. “We went out with a Ranger to try and track them down. Spent five days the first time and never found them. The second time, we were out for three days when we found them, but they ran. We lost their trail too.”

  “Gnolls can be tricky,” Roland observed while Uncle Ed nodded his agreement. “If they decide to run, there’s no catching them.”

  “What did you think of Kohei?” Olza asked. Hans smiled to himself. He could tell when she had heard enough adventurer talk and wanted to change the subject.

  “It was huge,” Gunther answered immediately. “They have five taverns. Five! In one town!”

  The adults at the table laughed. Kohei was only slightly larger than Osare but was substantially larger than pre-war Gomi. Hans hadn’t given much thought to what it would be like going from small to big for the boys. With his own life starting in Hoseki, all of his experiences were the reverse.

  Tandis leaned forward to look down the table. “Any tusk problems?”

  The young men went quiet.

  “What? That bad?”

  Kane gave Quentin a small nod, his signal that he should answer.

  “A party of Bronzes came out of the frontier and stopped in Kohei for a few days,” Quentin explained. “Two Fighters were in the group, and they dropped in to train with Master Bertram. We weren’t there for the beginning of all this, but apparently they were saying some nasty things about orcs and tusks. Mr. Marrok told them to shut their faces, but we didn’t know that at first. When we got there, they just mean-mugged Kane and Gunny a bunch.”

  Quentin took a long drink of water.

  “Mr. Marrok pulled us aside to warn us that the Bronzes were dirtbags, but then he says it was up to Kane and Gunny whether or not those guys stayed. He said he was happy to kick them out of the training room, but he wanted to give Kane and Gunny the option to spar with them first.”

  Training room justice. Hans was familiar with the practice.

  “We fucked them up,” Gunny blurted.

  Roland and Uncle Ed guffawed.

  “Why not just tell them to leave and be done with it?” Olza asked. Then she saw Hans’ face and rolled her eyes. “Machismo, I take it.”

  Hans shrugged. “The world is different in a training room. I was visiting a chapter one time, and this young Iron came in talking about how washed up the Guild Master was. He was too old to be teaching, couldn’t hack it anymore, the usual insults, you know? The Guild Master, he was a Diamond Rogue by the way, tells this kid that if he could beat one of the Apprentices in the room, he’d accept the challenge match.

  “This sixteen year-old girl steps up, looks this asshole in the eye, and says, ‘You man enough to fight me with fists?’ So she’s half his size, maybe ten years younger, and she squares up. Ten seconds into the match, she has an arm wrapped around his throat and chokes him unconscious. This Guild Master says, ‘Get rid of him,’ so half the adventurers in the room rush in, drag this unconscious guy outside into the street, toss his bag out with him, and then lock the door.”

  Roland and Uncle Ed thought that was pretty funny too.

  “Does that actually solve anything?” Olza asked.

  “Probably not,” Hans admitted.

  “So what’s the point?”

  Speaking with a surprisingly casual tone, Gunther answered, “It’s better for them to be afraid of us. Maybe they’ll talk less shit about tusks in the next town.”

  “That doesn’t actually address the hatred, though,” Olza argued. “If anything, it reinforces it.”

  “So? We already tried living with them, and that got us all killed. I’m supposed to be nice to people who treat me like an animal? Fuck that.”

  “Gunny,” Uncle Ed scolded.

  “What? I’m not wrong. Or do you mean cause I cursed at dinner? I’m sorry for cursing, Miss Olza.”

  “I agree with Gunny,” Tandis declared. “I’ll take care of anyone who would take care of me, friend or stranger. If someone would leave me to die in a gutter? I’ll give them the same treatment if it comes to it.”

  Roland stood. “We brought some cookies from Charlie’s. Who’s ready for dessert?”

  A tense, quiet table looked at him.

  “Great. I’ll be right back.”

  “I don’t get why anyone is upset about some hummies getting what they deserve,” Gunther said, breaking the silence. Hans couldn’t help but notice that Gunther used the orc pronunciation of the word humie. “We tried living with them. They rejected us. Then they murdered us. I feel as bad about stomping those Bronzes out as I do about killing goblins.”

  “That’s not all humans, though,” Olza responded.

  “So? Them standing by with their dicks in their hands while we got chopped to pieces is just as bad.”

  “Gunny,” Kane said firmly, shooting his little brother a hard glare. “That’s enough.”

  Gunther grumbled and dropped his eyes to his plate.

  Uncle Ed changed the subject by asking about food in Kohei, but the cloud lingered.

  Open Quests (Ordered from Old to New):

  Monitor for independently grown sections of dungeon.

  Complete the next volume (Bronze to Silver) for “The Next Generation: A Teaching Methodology for Training Adventurers.”

  Learn to help your advanced students as much as you help beginners.

  Relocate the titan bones to the dungeon entrance.

  Master your Diamond boon.

  Test the limits of the dungeon roots.