“There's absolutely no way I’m going to try and merge this one.”

  Although his [[Skill Log]] listed all three horns as ‘Tier 3’, Merrick knew there was next to no chance that trying to force the tree together would have a positive outcome. He couldn't say with 100% certainty that he’d figured his [[Merge]] skill out yet, but everything he’d experienced in the dungeon that day had supported his initial post-success theory that the objects needed to be clones of each other.

  His newest tier 3 horn looked far too different from the other Tier 3’s to risk a merge operating under his current hypothesis so he stowed it away. Luckily, he still had nine more tier one horns from the first floor.

  He’d actually planned on experimenting with them to verify that he could merge three tier twos together before getting mobbed by the brambleblade carrying bramblekin. The thought was probably one of the larger contributors to him not trying to merge the gooderberries together.

  After a series of successful merge messages, which he’d expanded to read the output and seen that the GTR value had dropped to 8.3% on two of them and 16.6% on the third tier merge resulting in a total of 36.5% on the successful combination into a tier three, he held a third horn in his hand that was identical to the first two tier 3’s he’d merged.

  With an intensifying headache, Merrick took a moment to write out the numbers that did not align with his previous merges. The GTR value had plummeted for each of the tier two merges and the following value for the tier three merge had followed suit.

  “At least I’ll be able to figure out what kind of formula it uses for the GTR with increasing tiers with any luck.” Merrick frowned as he tried to find a silver lining. The rates going down arbitrarily bothered him and the only reason that came to mind right away was that the later horns had been collected on the first floor with his group, rather than deeper in the dungeon.

  “Maybe the bramblekin down here are more energy dense? It’d make since, I’m deeper in the dungeon and their drops are better than the previous floor. Even the one that didn’t drop a blade dropped three copper coins rather than one.”

  After jotting his notes, Merrick’s headache still hadn’t completely subsided. He could feel a sort of strain in the back of his mind reminding him of what it felt like to overwork a muscle and ignore his rest period.

  “Here goes nothing, hopefully there aren’t too many merges ahead of me.” Merrick grabbed one the three tier 3 horns that looked identical and channeled is [[Merge]].

  The grid that appeared before him was much larger than the one that conjured itself when he merged the coins or goodberries. It somehow always knew to adapt its size to whatever material he was attempting to merge, which he was thankful for.

  The new horns weighed about 20 pounds a piece by his estimate, and were unwieldy enough that he could only really pick one up at a time. Theoretically, he supposed, he could wrap his hand around the tip of the horn but that was just an accident waiting to happen. He placed the horn onto the center square of the grid and released it.

  Not for the first time, Merrick wondered what the process looked like to an outsider. Every time he’d asked in the past, he was told that nobody noticed him picking up or placing the objects, just that he’d had three objects and then a pile of dust after a flash of light. Even with forewarning, Rod’s father, Master Wyll, had been able to notice Merrick going through the motions of his [[Merge]].

  [Merge successful. One T4 Bramblekin Horn Merged.]

  [SML: ::100%, GRW Mod: 0%, GTR Mod: 221.65%, RFN Mod: 0%, CFT Mod: 0%. TP: 122.17%]

  [Total 122.17% Potential. No Excess Detected. No Personal Blessings Detected. Variant Change +/- %22.17. Standard Output]

  The horn landed in front of Merrick rather than in his hands as it usually did. It was just as well, the thing was larger than his arms and probably weight enough that it would have knocked him off balance.

  A quick glance at the feedback confirmed a few of his theories, though he’d need further testing to be absolutely sure that the excess ‘potential’ was unrealized during a ‘Standard Output’ merge. Otherwise the SML wouldn’t have still said 100%, considering two of the three T3 materials had been created with a larger amount of ‘Total Potential’.

  He also noticed that the GTR Mod was capable of going past 100. In theory that meant he’d have exponentially greater odds of having an Improved Output result the higher he merged.

  In practice, however, his head was pounding and he was thankful that he’d only gotten a Standard Output. If the horn had shrunk itself again, glowing or otherwise, he didn’t think he’d ever get out of the room.

  Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

  Merrick grabbed the horn and dragged it closer to the circular impression in the wall. Making sure to pivot it so that the horn would enter in the correct direction, he squatted over and lifted the horn from its base.

  “Where is all this weight coming from?” Merrick growled as he exerted himself to lift the horn that must weigh at least 100 pounds, “Mass shouldn’t be generated out of nothing.”

  Merrick knew, of course, that there were spells that could conjure mass. Those, however, used magicka to do so. The energy dense resource pool was expended and then transformed into whatever mass the spell demanded, usually returning to magicka after a period of time. Cost, then effect. Energy, then mass.

  His [[Merge]] ability wasn’t using magicka though and his dusts had never returned to whatever invisible resource pool he was utilizing as far as he’d noticed. His ability shouldn’t be able to increase the mass of its creation without draining whatever base magicka the material had.

  That didn’t track either though, considering the ‘Critical success’ merge he’d created had somehow compressed itself all the way down to the original size but still looked like it was packed with magicka.

  Eventually, Merrick managed to get the horn to a point that he could shift his weight and push it the rest of the way into the hole. Just as he’d assumed, it was a perfect fit. The tip of the horn was able to slide directly into the ascending curve in the back of the divot as it finished sliding into place, he heard a click.

  The circular base of the horn was perfectly flush with the wall and, were it not for the different coloration, Merrick realized he wouldn’t have been able to see where the wall ended and the horn started. It hadn’t even registered with him that the wall was so smooth in that location until that point. Following the clicking noise, however, the reason for said smoothness was made apparent.

  A glow spread out a few inches from the horn on all sides before curving in itself and intensifying, forming a band of runes not entirely unlike what Mary had seen around the sealed exit on the first floor. The language of said runes looked different from anything Merrick had seen before, however, and after the first band of runes finished compiling itself they shifted in color from yellow to red before spreading once more.

  Over and over, bands of runes piled on top of each other, spreading out from the clean ivory circle that was the horn he’d inserted in the wall. The glow intensified each time as well and Merrick decided it was probably best for him to back away.

  Eventually, the runes stopped expanding and began softly glowing white. At this point, Merrick had long since averted his eyes. As magical as the sight was, after being in the dungeon with dim lighting for so long, watching the glowing runes spread out felt akin to staring at the sun as it came out from behind the clouds.

  The impression for the horn had been around chest height for Merrick, roughly 42 to 45 inches off the ground. It was still there, but now surrounding it were repeating bands of runes, about an inch thick each, reaching all the way to the ground and then under for most of them. The whole glowing mosaic of runes had to be at least twenty feet wide and tall, glowing brightly in the dark dungeon.

  Merrick counted the bands from the outside in and ended up deciding there were eighty lines of runes. Eighty inches in either direction of smooth, concentrated rings of magicka. He realized, suddenly, that what he was witnessing fit the loosest requirements for ritual magic that he’d read about.

  Almost as if it’d been waiting for him to come to that realization, the rings of runes flared brighter and Merrick scrambled backwards away from the wall once more. Much faster than they’d expanded, the colors of the runes drained away as the individual bands of magicka began rotating in alternating directions.

  The rock shifted silently as it spun like two competing whirlpools, each concentrated on the same point. Squinting his eyes into the bright light, Merrick noticed that the runes weren’t actually draining away but shrinking and collapsing onto each other.

  Within minutes, the previously blemish free ivory base in the center of the collage absorbed each of the runes like a camel draining away a trough of water in the desert. In some ways, the base of the horn now resembled the improved tier 3 horn in his backpack.

  Merrick was forced to close his eyes due to a bright flash emanating from the horn and when he opened them, the horn was missing. In its place was a gaping hole, no longer shaped like a horn but like a proper cylinder. Merrick even thought he could see another room through the hole.

  As he moved close to verify, his eyes struggling to adapt to the suddenly dim-again dungeon lighting, he heard a crack. Then another crack, followed by shifting stone.

  Warily, Merrick glanced at the ceiling above and was relieved to find that the sky was not falling. What did fall, however, was the wall surrounding the now-missing horn. The bands of runes each crackled and groaned before collapsing into rubble, revealing a wide, smoothly bored tunnel into another room in the dungeon.

  From where he was standing, Merrick could tell that the new room was different than any he’d walked into before. First and foremost, he could see the opposite wall right away, rather than it being obscured by a jungle of random trees, vines, and bramble. That wasn’t to say that the room lacked plant life, however.

  Merrick could see what appeared to be rows of neatly cultivated trees and bushes on either side of what appeared to be a path left intentionally clear. One that led from the tunnel open he was standing in front of to a large, non-plant structure of some type in the center of the room. One cleanly illuminated, somehow.

  He wasn’t able to make out what it was, but he could tell that it was a familiar shape from where he stood.

  A horn, larger than he was, sat in the center of a room that looked like a farmer’s field. A path, clearly laid out for him to traverse.

  “Sigh.”