The guild got to send people in for regular training against a powerful and insidious dungeon without having to truly fear for their lives, and Xander got to create his art in quiet solitude for the rest of the time. The fighting had even become more fun since most of the people he was battling weren't total assholes. He still played a dark lord of necromancy, and actually had quite a bit of fun coming up with new speeches for monologuing.
It was also good combat practice for that matter, and he had become quite a bit more adept at fighting thanks to the constant influx of adventurers seeking to test themselves. Stats and features were all well and fine, but he had quietly noticed that your own knowledge and skill still mattered. Honestly, it made more sense than the System being able to determine everything by a set of arbitrary numbers. The numbers absolutely mattered, but were more like guidelines or modifiers instead of basic math.
Xander had gained a few levels, but none of the advancements had been particularly exciting. Even when hitting the milestone for 25 points in his mana pool, he had simply gone with the 50% increase in mana per ability point, which brought his total up to 375 mana. It had been interesting seeing the same option that was available at his 10 point milestone reappear stronger, since it had originally only offered a 20% increase, but Reggie explained that it wasn’t unusual for options to have stronger versions at higher milestones.
Even though he had gotten comfortable with his new role and with himself in general, Xander still couldn’t stop himself from thinking about Earth and his family with some regularity. There were many parts of his old life that he hadn’t liked, but there were just as many that he missed every day. Having the time, space, and resources to make his art endlessly was great, but he missed the internet with more and more passion every day. Without it, he had no access to the movies, books, TV shows, and other artist’s web sites and galleries that had made up a huge portion of his inspiration.
In fact, he had started running low on ideas as of late. Perhaps if he were able to explore Gaellus more it would have been different, but he had been cooped up in his dungeon for almost his entire time here. Even more discouraging was the total lack of progress on learning a way to get back home. He had tried on a number of occasions to ask Reggie about it, but the D.I.E. had rebuffed him every time. The System wasn’t about to give out information for no good reason, not even to one of its Dungeon Lords. Apparently, the information on Dryads had only been given to him since a dryad who had grown up here would have learned it anyway.
He sighed and fidgeted underneath the branches of Ma’ha’Zhanaeus, getting more restless with every passing thought. “Ughh, I need to get out of here, at least for a little bit.” he grumbled out loud. “Maybe I can go visit the locals?” Having nothing better to do, he got up and went to talk with Reggie. The little treant was in the control room like always. As far as Xander could tell, his assistant never really left this room.
“Good Afternoon Lord Xander, how might I be of service today?”
“Uhhh, sooo… I’ve decided I want to- no, need to get out of this dungeon for a while.” Xander said hesitantly, fully expecting Mr. Sinclair to get upset about the idea. Instead, his assistant just shrugged.
“In many ways, I’m surprised it has taken you this long to get ‘cabin fever’. I have already explained to you the dangers of leaving the dungeon. If you are killed outside of its grounds, you will not be brought back to life. All of our work here will go to waste, and the Grove of Bones will become just another regular dungeon.”
“I know-” Xander started, but was cut off as Mr. Sinclair kept going.
“That all being said, you have already proven yourself very capable, and have improved your capabilities since taking over here. I will tweak up the difficulty of the traps and minions so that few if any parties will make it to the Throne Room in your absence. Even if they make it there though, and somehow overcome its challenges as well, they will likely just take their treasure and go.”
“Huh… so you really don’t mind me leaving?”
“Of course I mind,” Mr. Sinclair snapped, but then added in a calmer tone, “I know you well enough to understand that I won’t win this argument forever, however. This day was bound to come sooner or later, and the Grove is in a good state right now.”
Xander smirked at that. “So are you finally admitting that making an arrangement with the locals was a good idea?”
“Absolutely not… it has slowed down your growth to a nearly unacceptable level.” Mr. Sinclair replied with an irritated glare. The heat was all bluster though, Xander could read his assistant, and friend, much better after spending so much time together. The D.I.E. could do the math, and could see that the local adventurers had gotten markedly better, earning levels by defeating his minions and traps, just like he had gotten stronger by beating them and sending them packing. Sure, maybe he could have earned a few additional levels by going full murder-boss, but he slept better at night this way, and no high level parties had come to root him out. It was a win for everyone, and Reggie knew it even if he wouldn’t say so.
“Whatever,” Xander chuckled at the recalcitrant entity, “So how long do you think I can reasonably take before people notice and it becomes a problem?”
“A few days at most really. I would much prefer that you wait until you have some way to return to the dungeon quickly when called, but I also doubt you will be able to restrain your impulses until then.”
“Mmmm, that’s actually a good point in some ways, but who knows how long that could take. Look, I promise to be careful, and I’ll avoid any kind of trouble. I’m in no particular rush to get killed out there either. I mean, I don’t want to die anywhere if I can help it, but you know what I mean.”
Mr. Sinclair nodded. “I already said I wouldn’t stop you, but do at least take some basic precautions before you go.” It was clearly a command, not a request, but that hardly surprised Xander either.
“Yes ‘Master’, I’ll be a good boy…” he retorted with a smirk before going to get what he would need for his little excursion. He could feel the eye roll even though Mr. Sinclair didn’t move a single bit of bark in his expression.
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Heading to the treasure room first since it was the closest, he sifted through the spoils of the handful of adventurers that had been slain or even annoyed him enough to be looted before he kicked them out. After some thought, he picked out a set of leather armor, a sword, and a long cloak. It was all fairly low level and generic gear from what he could tell, but that was the point. After that, he sculpted some dungeon grown bone into a fox shaped mask, which he then painted with white and red pigments to hide the nature of its material. Finally came gloves, greaves, boots, and even a short scarf to make sure every bit of skin was totally covered and he could pretend to be any humanoid species he wanted.
Completely hidden under cheap gear, Xander resembled a very generic low level warrior except for the mask and his violet eyes that looked out through it. Hopefully the lack of minions, bone, and green skin would hide his identity. Of course someone with a higher level and the Identify skill could still tell that he was a dryad, but according to Reggie it was a relatively expensive and uncommon skill. It was also generally considered rude to use ‘Identify’ on people who you weren’t fighting, so as long as Xander kept from drawing too much attention it shouldn’t be a problem.
Grabbing a handful of assorted coins from the treasure stash as well, he set out with the intention of going to the village of Little Bend. He could have headed to Crandor first, but wanted to have a little test run somewhere safer before tackling the city. It seemed like a good idea to find a small inn and observe people for a while before trying to integrate into a totally foreign society.
The second that he set foot outside the gates to his dungeon however, Xander could feel a massive amount of his strength draining out of him, like a bathtub plug had just been yanked out of his soul. He stumbled at the unexpected weakness, and certainly the new armor didn’t help his balance much either. Luckily, his magical core was mostly unaffected, but a huge amount of his physical abilities came from the Dungeon Lord bonuses which had just evaporated like morning dew. “Holy fuck… was I really this weak before? How the hell did I survive like this?”.
Shaking his head, Xander kept moving, and after a little while started to grow more accustomed to his current state. It was somewhat jarring to find himself back in regular nature. The Grove of Bones might have incorporated a number of trees in both its structure and in his own personal grove of trees, but that was totally different. The air felt cleaner somehow, and it took Xander a moment to realize just how thoroughly overbearing his dungeon likely felt to outsiders.
It still took the better part of a couple hours to reach the edge of the forest where he could easily spot the more developed road that he and Augustus had walked together all that time ago. Looking in both directions, he spotted a small group of people heading this way from Crandor. They were way too far off to make out any details, but Xander assumed they were the next group of brave souls willing to test their mettle against the Evil Dungeon Lord. With a smirk, he quickly headed away from them and towards Little Bend instead. The adventurers could be Reggie’s problem for now.
Having only walked this road once before, he was surprised when he easily remembered all of the small landmarks and trees nearby. Even the banks of the nearby river were familiar. It was well into summer by now, already heading towards fall, but even then the arrangement and angles of the trees on the edge of the forest felt familiar. After a few more minutes of being puzzled, Xander could have slapped his forehead if he wasn’t wearing a mask. Of course his Eidetic Memory would let him recognize everything that he had seen along the way! It was still a shock in some ways to realize just how much detail the ability would retain for him.
Several hours further down the road, it was easy to spot the bloom of unnatural growth that had resulted from his first reclamation of the bandits. Some of the plants had flourished and spread, and others had been drowned out or just died, but the circle was still clearly distinguishable if more hazy. Xander actually smiled behind his mask at the thought, though he couldn’t help but feel just a twinge of guilt at the first two people he had killed.
But no, that wasn’t quite right either, he had killed a gnoll first. They were supposedly sentient according to Reggie, though treated as aggressive monsters by most civilized societies. Xander wasn’t exactly sure what to think, but the gnoll had immediately tried to kill him as well, so he let the debate go for now. He was mildly concerned that his morality was slipping even further from his norm back on Earth, but he pushed that concern down too. He could worry more about it when he was strong enough to survive this world.
Refocusing on his walk, he figured that this was as far as he had ever travelled along this road, and being distracted could be dangerous since he had little idea what lay ahead. There could even be more bandits for that matter.
An unknown number of hours of walking later, and Xander found himself wishing that he would be attacked by more bandits. None of the stories he read or shows he watched had accurately conveyed just how freaking boring it was to walk from one place to another for hours. Yeah, the scenery was pristine and pretty, but it also all blurred together after a while. With no one to talk to and nothing to do, he was bored out of his skull. “I would kill for a frigging cell phone right now…” he grumbled to himself.
On top of the mind numbing boredom, for some reason he was also starting to get physically tired, which just hadn’t happened to him since he had gotten here, more or less. “What the hell? I don’t need to eat and I shouldn’t need water yet. Hell, my mind hasn’t even been doing anything strenuous… what the shit is going on here?” A nearby clump of flowering weeds said
Xander blinked, half startled at the voice in his head, but he also calmed right back down once he had realized the source. He still didn’t understand what triggered plants to talk to him. If he talked directly to one of them, it would always reply, but if he was just talking out loud it was a complete toss-up. Sometimes a nearby plant would reply, and other times they wouldn’t. He had mostly gotten used to the random bits of mental conversation, but with how tired he was feeling it had been more of a surprise this time. Shaking his head in bemusement, he just kept walking. Thankfully it wasn’t much longer before he spotted a bend in the river that the road paralleled, and saw the small village nestled in that bend.
A number of farm houses dotted the landscape on both sides of the river, and the town itself seemed to straddle the bend, a few structures even built on stilts over the moving waters and adjoined to a good sized bridge. Aside from their interesting placement, the buildings all looked incredibly basic, simple wooden boxes with thatched roofs. “Man, they’ve really got the whole medieval look down pat.” He had been expecting something a bit less… dark ages, but the village looked less ‘fantasy anime’ and more ‘dirty and gritty cable show’.
That changed somewhat when he started moving closer and his viewing angle changed. A slender silver tower with a small glittering blue crystal on its top rose from the roof of one of the buildings that sat above the river. The object was only a couple of feet tall, and the blue of the gem had blended in with the waters at first, but once he had noticed the device it seemed almost alien compared to everything else around.
There weren’t many people moving around as he approached the village, and he paused just outside of it on the muddy road, looking for any signs that might give him some information. There didn’t seem to be any writing, but the few larger buildings that clearly weren’t just houses had signboards hanging outside, each with a picture carved into them.
“Can I help ya… sir?” came a gruff woman’s voice from off to one side, nearly making him jump out of his skin again. Turning, he saw that one of the locals had approached him while he had been deep in thought. Getting himself under control, Xander smiled awkwardly in an attempt to reassure the woman, before realizing after a few moments too long that he was wearing a mask. What a great way to start off introductions.
Should I continue NaN after 'Book' 1?