The Castle in the middle of nowhere.

Watching the spies' party being utterly defeated by the snowballs was less entertaining than I had initially thought. My thoughts started gravitating instead towards my unfinished business. There were, of course, class quests to give in Everlight, and I needed to check the progress of the Respite Tavern parties that were taking the Trials of Avalon. I returned to the Palace, thinking about my three most pressing matters: the extermination of winter beasts in Gorn, the retaliation mission to Mead Hallow, and finally, building the underground levels of the caves. I silently walked to the bathroom and took a shower, thanking myself for obtaining shower gels, soaps, and all the other necessary items. Opal would need at least a few days to finish her class quest, and there was no telling when or if she would be able to produce local soaps...

Anyway... As usual, my thoughts wandered as I had to do something I should do, but I was too anxious to do so. In the end, I could potentially unlock a mithril node when I expanded- the chances were slim- I knew that, but there was still hope. And as long as I didn't expand, I could feel like I still had a chance to get mithril. It reminded me of the feeling I had when I opened loot boxes in the vain hope of obtaining this one item I wanted... Oh, how distant and abstract those memories feel now; they had happened somewhere far away and so long ago... I smiled faintly at the thought of those memories.

I opened the door to the bedroom and heard the steady breaths of my beauties. They had already fallen asleep, and I wondered what I should do. I didn't want to wake them, so I sat down in my comfortable armchair. It was this type of armchair that, with one button, unfolded into almost a bed with its elevated footrest. I closed my eyes and silently exhaled... Time to be disappointed.

My caves... When I considered it now, I had no idea how caves were built. You had an entrance- a discovery worthy of some prize, I imagine, then you should have a cave...something. Chamber? I guess... But caves should be deep. Hmmm... What made a cave a cave? A random hole in the ground couldn’t be called a cave, after all. It must be big for people to fit in, maybe? It must be deep enough to no longer be lit by natural light from the outside? Ok... But did it really matter? Probably not. It would be a fake cave, so I could even lay it out as a maze with differently-sized rooms that would hold various nodes and denizens who would guard the nodes as well as be good encounters for... That's brilliant!

Ok. So my cave right now was an entrance and two rooms, one with all my mining nodes and the second with an elemental slime spawner. I know, the masterwork of this creation was just staggering, you don't have to stand up... So I created a series of corridors and rooms made from stone that at least looked a bit like a cave should, instead of bricks or resembling any other man-made structure. I moved the elemental slime spawner to the hidden room so the slimes could easily reach any part of the underground. What else would be good to fight underground? Spiders, rats, and snakes, that's easy, skeletons...maybe? I mean, skeletons work everywhere. So, to the caves they would go as well.

All right... Time for expansion downwards. It was not as costly as I thought it would be. Annnddd... Silver. Well... It was a good metal node.

Rare metal ore that is used not only for creating beautiful jewellery but used as high-grade material for embedding runes. It is said that silver weapons are lethal for the undead.

Silver would be useful, without a doubt. For sure it would be welcomed as currency. I could finally place most of the steel enrichment nodes here. Ekhem... In a hidden chamber... The layout of this floor was also quite simple, interconnecting corridors and chambers with some resource nodes. I noticed that if I placed an iron ore node here, it would give a much better quality resource than the nodes closer to the surface. So I would move all my iron nodes here, and on the upper floor, I would leave the coal, salt, copper, and quartz nodes. Let's see if I didn't get anything besides silver. But no. However, the discovery that deeper-placed resource nodes yielded ore of much better quality was very interesting, to be honest, interesting enough to go deeper.

Cave mushrooms are a dungeon-exclusive type of fungi. Depending on the stage of their growth, they can be used as a potion ingredient, food ingredient, or even alchemy reagent. Cave mushrooms infuse themselves with the ambient mana of their environment, storing it- the more mana is stored, the brighter the mushroom glows.

Rare grade material, guaranteed to unlock.

You are a Dungeon, you are supposed to have gold within your grounds. This unlock is granted by the collective conviction of people of this world that dungeons have gold. It can be used for all sorts of things.

Common grade material/ingredient.

Glowing moss commonly grows in caves and caverns. It feeds on ambient mana, producing a soft blue-green glow that lights the darkness of its habitat, attracting unsuspecting animals to feed on their mana. It's used as a potion material.

Well... No Mithril for me. Two hmmm... Herbal nodes? Silver and gold. Sigh. From all the nodes I had unlocked, the most interesting seemed to be the Cave Mushrooms. I really hoped they would be mana potion ingredients. Glowing moss, on the other hand… I had no clue where to use it besides planting it all over the place to create climactic ambient lighting. I really hoped Aurora and Opal would make some sense of it. That left me with gold... What the fuck? Okay, it was a "precious metal," which meant it was basically worthless. I could probably use it as material, but I really hoped it was useful for alchemy and magic. Maybe for rune smithing? I could probably use it in my monetary system but I didn't think it was necessary. I have already introduced the people who visit Avalon to the fiat currency concept, and so far, it has worked very well.

That left me with my three-level underground. On the lowest floor, I was going to place gold and silver. Placing iron or other nodes here did not change their yield or ore quality over the previous floor. I almost forgot... Sapphire and Emerald nodes would go there as well. It looked good... Probably? Vernon and Beryl would have to take a look because they were experienced with mining operations. If anyone asked me, the caves looked good. The slimes would propagate nodes through the caves, changing their noted locations from time to time, and gradually, they would even shift nodes between the floors to ensure every node was in its perfect mining or gathering location.

Also, the second underground floor connected the caves with the Mausoleum on the other side of Avalon, making an interesting shortcut between these two locations. Huh... The shortcut between zones under the castle? For a dungeon, it was surely a neat feature. For a fortress, not exactly. So, it was time that I would make use of the stone blocks mined by prisoners. The series of gatehouses would act as an emergency measure and would cut the entire floor. Better to be paranoid than sorry later; a little reminder after the hornet raid.

The entrance to the caves was guarded by up to level twenty denizens. So I thought the gradual level increase throughout the floors would be optimal at, let's say... Ten levels per floor and a special boss room on each floor would guard a graded treasure chest. That should encourage adventurers to try their luck and fight with the bosses. Underground levels would be much more dangerous compared to open-air zones by definition. Fighting in a mine or other confined space was always much more challenging than dancing around each other in the middle of a flowery meadow or even in the forest. Every room and corridor was connected via special doors that, once locked, would look indistinguishable from walls. Thanks to that, it would be possible to change the layout of the floor from time to time... Once a month, I think. That would make a guild in town more inclined to keep track of cave layouts and where mining nodes were located.

Hmmm... Isn't that a bit broken? I could mine gold and silver, which would effectively allow me to utterly destroy the finances of gold-based countries. I focused on my gold node and opened its more hidden options. So the yield of a single node was incredible- one hundred grams of gold, modified by the skill of a miner. What was more interesting was its cooldown, which was a whole day. So I would not destabilise the currencies of anyone anytime soon. I thought that for now, the third level would be closed to anyone except my residents until I was stocked with everything I needed. This meant I was building a gatehouse in front of the stairs connecting the floors. Perfect.

•••

I opened my eyes and straightened in my armchair. As I suspected, Mithril was not counted among the cheats provided by Eriar. Fine, there had to be enough Mithril in the kingdom so I could form a mining node. The world around Avalon was still buried under the snow...

My train of thought was suddenly interrupted by an unexpected influx of mana. Someone had died! And again! What was going on here?!

•••

Glenn was heavily panting, holding onto his wound. Fuck! How could this have happened? But he knew very well... The Righteous Dungeon was fair in its challenges, and as long as they proceeded carefully, they never were in true danger… and this led to the disaster. Some other party members ambushed them on their way back to the Tavern. Gil was dead for sure; no amount of healing could save him, and he was not sure if Trix would survive, she was still warm, but he couldn't find her pulse...

"You should have given us everything..." a cold and cruel voice sounded nearby.

"Glenn? Take Trix and run to the Tavern!" Fania kneeled near him and wiped the blood that covered her face. "Oh God... Glenn?!"

"I don't think I will be able to run anywhere, Fania. Where is Kumak?"

"He is trying to stall them with Eri. I must help them, or we..."

Fania was unable to finish her sentence as she fell on Glenn with a painful scream. The arrow in her shoulder miraculously missed her vitals, but Glenn was unable to heal her. Suddenly, a large spider jumped out of nowhere and caught Fania. The spider lifted the screaming and terrified woman towards its mandibles, and her scream was abruptly cut. Glenn clenched his teeth and tried to stand up, but Trix's body hampered his efforts.

"Radiant Heal!" a wonderful voice sounded in the darkness.

Glenn's wounds closed up, and he felt much better, but Trix was dead. However, Glenn pulled out his short sword and rushed like crazy towards the spider who was still holding Fania. Glenn, crazy from grief and fear, wanted to save his beloved woman, but a second arrow would have hit her right before his eyes if not for the spider, which moved its head, covering the woman with his own body.

"Glenn!" Kumak and Eri ran towards him, covered with blood but seemingly unscathed. "Oh God... Trix!"

"A spider caught Fania! Quick!" He pointed toward a large spider that almost disappeared in the fog.

"It's too late, Glenn! Glenn!" Eri caught him around the waist, crying. "We must run to the Tavern! Something else is here! Probably nighttime monsters!"

"But... Fania!" he cried.

The spider suddenly leapt back towards them and caught them off guard. Instead of attacking them though, it softly laid the body of Fania on the ground. She was as pale as the snow she was lying in, but Glenn could swear he saw her breath fog in the chill air of the star-lit night. The spider ignored the battered adventurers and jumped into the fog. Glenn was not waiting for it to change its mind, rushing towards Fania.

"She is alive!"

"Yes, she is..." the voice Glenn heard before sounded once more. "And you can all calm down."

Glenn turned around and saw an astonishingly beautiful Elf woman wearing a magnificent gown. From the fog right behind her emerged a man with glowing blue eyes. He was wearing a magnificent robe like the lady was, but his face was clouded and angry.

"I got them all," his voice was full of anger. "They shouldn't have done that! They almost were eligible to be tested!"

"I saved these three, Theon. But this girl... She is still critical." Upon hearing this, Glenn took Fania in his arms and definitely looked towards the sky.

"You won't take her away! I will not allow her soul to wander forever in this place!"

"She will not," said the man with confidence but without much hope in his voice. "Can you save her?"

"Whether she will live or not only depends on her. I have done everything possible, Theon. Hmm...almost." Glenn realised the man was talking to the Elf woman. She pointed at Fania with her magic staff, and incredible golden magic rings formed behind her. "Purification!"

A golden light flashed somewhere from below Fania, but nothing much changed. The Elf woman waved her hands in frustration.

"I can't help her if I don't know what is wrong! I'm sorry..." She suddenly stopped and looked at the man who was with her. "I will try to use it..."

"Glenn! We must go! These bandits are still somewhere!" Kumak tried to tow his friend, but he just angrily hit his arm.

"You two go! Take Trix and Gil with you!" he yelled, barely holding his tears. "I won't leave her!"

"Glenn..." The Lizardman looked at Eri, but she just shook her head in denial.

"Glenn, we can't..." Eri almost cried.

"There are no more bandits in the fog. *sigh* There shouldn't have been any in the first place." The man was visibly ashamed. "Irene, what do you want to try?"

"SAVE HER!" A golden light exploded from the woman called Irene, briefly changing the night into day.

Glenn had to cover his eyes, but a sudden movement in his arms almost made his heart stop. Fania gasped for air and tried to break free, but he held her as hard as he could.

"It's okay, Fania!" he yelled.

The golden light dimmed, and Glenn could see Fania panting and crying. Her face was covered with sweat and blood, but Glenn was relieved. She held her shoulder with a painful grimace painted on her face, breathing heavily. But she was alive. Glenn, in disbelief, looked at the Elven woman only to see she was held in the arms of that mysterious man called Theon. Suddenly, four large eagles landed around them, and Glenn couldn't believe that this was the end. But before he could do anything, the man just nodded towards the fog.

"Take them to the graveyard, I'll decide later where we bury them." The Elf woman quickly returned to her senses but did not protest. On the contrary- she snuggled herself tighter to the strange man. "Don't mind the Storm Eagles. They mean no harm to you."

The Eagles turned around, absolutely ignoring everyone, and disappeared in the fog. Glenn, still holding Fania in his arms, looked at Kumak and Eri, who had tried to protect the bodies of Trix and Gil. Glenn gazed into the eyes of the man he thought was here to save them, but those eyes did not belong to a human being. Two brilliant lanterns, shining in the night like stars, but with deep blue. Glenn almost dismissed the notification informing them they failed the Trials of Avalon, but at the same time, the man began to speak.

"No... They didn't fail it. But even here, danger awaits for the unwary..." He looked softly at the adventurers, and the Elf woman stood by herself with a resigned sigh, as if she wanted to stay longer in that...thing’s...arms.

"My name is Irene va'Theon, the Saintess of Eriar and second Queen of Avalon. Please accept our condolences. If you wish, your friends can be buried in the Righteous Dungeon Cemetery… and don't worry. The Righteous Dungeon does not want to enslave their souls- on the contrary, its graveyard is consecrated, and their souls will be led to where they believed they would go." Glenn stared at her, unable to say a word. Was she a Saintess? But that was impossible... However, she was, without a doubt, powerful, so no wonder she was not afraid in the slightest... But the Queen?

"I can give you a choice as well," said the man. "You have proven your loyalty, bravery, and conviction. Glenn, Fania, Kumak, and Eri... You almost cleared the quest given to you by the dungeon. Do you want to learn how it truly ends?"

They looked at each other and at the cold bodies of their friends who had sacrificed themselves to save them. Glenn hugged Fania harder to his chest and looked into those glowing, blue eyes once more.

"Yes, my Lord... For them," he said, feeling Eri and Kumak's hands on his shoulders.

"Very well." Glenn felt the broken keys he had in his pockets break free on their own, flying towards the man. "Here is your reward. You can choose the doors on the left, and you will be rewarded with everything you gathered so far. You will also receive the privilege of seeking shelter behind these walls in times of need. But if you choose this door, you will forget everything about this quest, your fallen friends, and anyone else who chooses the second one."

The silver-outlined portal opened in the air, with an image behind it that was so familiar: the Respite Tavern. They looked at it for a moment but waited in anticipation of what else it would be: there were two keys.

"The second door will lead you to Avalon, my kingdom..."

"So you are the King of this place?" Glenn interrupted, too blunted with shock and stress to pay any attention to his almost suicidal rudeness.

"Yes." The man didn’t care at all about Glenn's attitude. He threw the second key in the air, opening the second portal, behind which the peaceful and incredibly beautiful town appeared. Despite the late hour, it was brightly lit, and some people were still roaming its streets. "I am. My goal is to change this world. I want to fix it, and those who chose this path will one day fight alongside me. I don't plan to destroy all evil because that is naive, I don't plan to create a world of carelessness because that is impossible. I want this world to be normal and relatively safe. Safer than this..."

He pointed to the blood on the snow and their murdered friends. Then he raised his arm, summoning two simple wooden coffins, leaving them after bowing his head slightly. Glenn finally let go of the woman he loved, and they noticed the Queen and the King had already disappeared, leaving them alone. They helped each other to lay their friends to the coffins, and then they talked a bit together. Kumak and Eir couldn't decide what to do- they were afraid of the battle that would soon take place here. Glenn, however, looked at Fania and they both nodded in agreement. This was their childhood dream.

To change this world...