Chapter 74

They stood at the threshold of a doorway leading down into a dark, foreboding staircase. The steps were carved stone, but they were so uniform in their making that it was like they had been cut with a laser, with no imprecisions or veins showing, nor even a layer of dust. At the end of the stairway light could be seen filtering in, although Jennifer was pretty sure that the light had not been there when the doorway had appeared.

Michael ushered them in, following behind them. As the light drew closer, Jennifer began to hear strange sounds, like those of a forest. There was fresh wind blowing through the opening, but the light was too bright to clearly see what was on the other side.

Then she stepped out. The first thing she noticed was the grass under her feet. Then both she and Trevor took defensive positions, more out of habit than need, surveying their surroundings. All around them were… trees. And sky, and a sun up above. A breeze was blowing from the mountain behind them, sweeping through the clearing they were in and carrying the scent of high-altitude flowers. A pang of cold told her that they were quite far up, and that there was snow not too far away. Below them, she could see the edge of a forest of conifers slowly giving way to oaks and caduceus trees.

Behind them, Michael grinned. “Welcome to the Misty Valley.”

He gave them a moment to get their bearings. He knew that it was their first time here, only Johanne and he having been here before. To everyone else, including Mr Tyrell, this was the first time seeing anything other the first floor of the dungeon. The man in question took everything in with inquisitive eyes, then pulled out his phone to begin taking pictures. After he was done, he took Johanne aside and started discussing things with her.

Jennifer thought he was more like interrogating her than anything else. The woman in question was shaking her head in reply here and there, and from the snippets of conversation Jennifer could hear they were talking about who could access this place.

“We still have to run tests, Travis,” said the woman as if the man was nothing more than an annoyance, “for now, we know for sure that anyone my lord wishes to access this place, as long as he is also present, can be allowed in. As you can clearly see, being here yourself and all.”

Travis nodded and scribbled something down. Johanne sighed theatrically and left the man to his own devices before taking her place at Michael’s side.

“This place…” Mr Chestermill said, “I can’t believe it. To think that there’s a whole valley deep down inside a mountain.”

“I think a spatial anomaly is at play, David,” said Mr Tyrell, “we are no longer simply inside the mountain.”

“Even more impressive. And no matter how much time passes here, only ten minutes pass outside?”

It was Michael’s turn to nod. Jennifer had also heard of this, but only now did the true implications of what she learned sink in. Gears started turning in her mind. This place could be a gold mine.

“Who can access this place?” asked Trevor, having come to similar conclusions.

“We are still working on figuring out access. We are going to need to experiment,” said Michael.

“I will come up with a protocol.” Travis pulled out his notes app.

“You can discuss it as you walk,” Michael said. “We have a ways to go, and I want you to meet a few people.”

People? Jennifer had no idea there were people in here. She thought dungeon divers were the only real people in this place, but it seemed like she was wrong once again.

As they walked, Mr Tyrell approached her. “Here’s the protocol,” he said, not even giving her time to think. She had to admit, the man was quick, quick enough to even put her off balance sometimes. But she would adapt and, of course, rise up to the challenge. She had been doing it for much longer than Mister Tyrell, after all. “After we start sending men in the dungeon,” he continued, “we will have them clear the first floor and record what sort of input the dungeon gives them. Then, we have either one of them be granted access or have one of us who already has access to the valley try to go to the second floor alone and see what happens. There’s many ways this could go.”

He nodded to himself before continuing. “If the dungeon immediately sends them to the valley, then it’s perfect for us. Michael is worried about people using the time dilation against him. Who’s to say a guy we thought was loyal to Candle Light wouldn’t turn on us and spend, say, ten years in here and emerge a powerhouse and kill us all?”

“It’s a valid concern.” She conceded.

“That it is. He’s thinking more and more like a leader rather than a lone loon. Now, if the dungeon sends whoever has access here directly, then the plan is to have Michael give everyone access. This way, he can use his troops stationed here to stall anyone going against orders and spending too much time in the dungeon.”

She nodded, getting herself into the groove now that they were talking strategy. Trevor also added himself to the conversation, clearly in his zone: “that’s a good plan. That way a deserter cannot escape down and gets sandwiched on the first floor.”

“It doesn’t work that way, sadly,” said the former CEO, and Jennifer noticed Johanne nodding along even though she pretended not to listen to them. “The first floor is instanced. If people go in at different times, they will not meet.”

“This means that someone could spend a lot of time in the first floor.”

“Yes, provided they manage to eat goblin meat before it evaporates, and a few other factors,” said the man.

Jennifer thought about it. “Couldn’t they power-up in the first floor, then?”

“It’s a concern but not a big one. There’s a limit to how much magic the first floor has access to. Johanne is convinced low Silver-rank is the ceiling of what you can achieve in that floor even with unlimited time.”

“I see. If the second floor is shared to all who have access, the troops will see an unauthorized, too-powerful delver and stop him. What if it’s not?”

My Tyrell switched page on his app. “There are three possibilities. First one is that access remains, but the delver can choose whether to go to the valley or not. This makes the plan unfeasible. In this case, and in the last case in which the delver can only access the valley if Michael is present, then we need to consider two scenarios. The delver would either get a similar challenge to what Michael got, or a normal second floor. He told me about what he found in the third floor, and he thinks that the valley was a fluke that most people won’t get. We will have to test this extensively. Not only do we not want other people to be stuck in a challenge that might kill them, we also don’t want people to power up too much if they succeed unless we can trust them.”

“I see. It’s a lot to take in.”

“It is.”

After they were done planning and scheming, they walked in silence for a little while longer. Michael showed them the features of the valley whenever they walked through a less dense section of the forest, which allowed them to see that they were quite far up compared to most of the valley itself. He pointed out the desert, the river, the volcano, and everything else around with explicit instructions to never venture outside of the forest should they get lost.

Then he pointed at the castle. “That’s Theobond’s kingdom. Do not, under any circumstances, go there alone.”

Ominous, she thought. Travis took over from there, explaining about Theobond and Michael’s relationship with the alien as if he had been there himself. Hearing about the theories about the dungeon abducting people, Jennifer thought she was prepared for what came after.

She was not.

“I want you to meet someone. My trusted general, someone who I trust with my own life. Meet Drullkrin.”

***

David saw the heavily muscled, tall and powerful humanoid step out of the forest. Even he, despite his old age and tempered emotions, had to admit to having been intimidated by the sheer presence the tall goblin exuded.

He was different than the other goblins. He was much less monstrous. More tidy, more handsome, more human.

Beside him, David saw that the others were all reacting in different ways. Travis was photographing the creature, and David noticed that the goblin had clearly been told about it beforehand because he was striking poses and grinning straight at the camera, clearly amused. Trevor had his arms crossed, assessing the goblin and nodding to himself.

He looked satisfied that Michael had been in the care of a competent and strong being such as Drullkrin. The two exchanged glances, and there was immediate understanding between them like they were old buddies.

Jennifer was once again slack-jawed, but she recovered swiftly this time and her face turned into a frown as she ran her own assessments of the goblin.

“A pleasure to meet you all,” said Drullkrin. His voice was clean and more melodious than David would have thought. High-pitched too. “I see my lord has finally decided to bring his others loyal servants. That is good, very good. We have many things to discuss. Especially with you, Travis the CEO, we must discuss contingencies and safeguard. I am told you like them, just as I, and I cannot wait to compare ideas.”

“I see you’re already making friends,” Michael said with a laugh, “that’s good. Now, before we go, are you ready to meet the other member of my delving party?”

With a flourish, a huge step shook the ground and something enormous emerged from the forest. A gigantic statue of stone slowly walked out of the tree line that now looked entirely too small to hide it.

The golem did not speak. It did not move once it got to where it wanted. It did not even acknowledge them.

Michael seemed to take pleasure in their unease at seeing the construct.

“Yeah, he’s shy like that,” he said. “There’s many others where we are going. And, just so you know, they are called Fae and not monsters. Don’t make the mistake of calling them monsters unless you want to fight to the death.”

He winked, and David was unsure whether he was joking or not. One thing was becoming increasingly clear to him, however. Michael was a different person in here than he was out in the real world. The two personalities were blurring, mixing, but here it was clear that he felt in control. He felt powerful. Confident. With time he would become like this in the real world too. Already he was taking huge steps forward.

David was happy he got to finally see the kind of place that had forged Michael into who he was now.

“Did you fight them too?” Travis asked.

“Oh yes. Drullkrin was the first one I fought, actually.”

“Second one, my lord,” said the goblin. “You fought a flying fox first.”

“Right. Then you clobbered me over the head,” he turned to the other humans. “Did you know that he slapped me so hard I almost died on the spot?”

“I’m glad you didn’t, my lord. I wouldn’t have learned the wonders of contingencies otherwise, remaining ignorant of their beauty.”

“Was that… a joke?” Michael asked, taken aback. The goblin said nothing.

“Who’s to say?” said Johanne with exasperation. “He’s strange like that. Come on, let us pick up the pace. It will be dark soon and the village is still quite some distance away.”

The sights seemed to never end. The village, the feast the Fae had prepared for them, the huge bioluminescent trees. Michael and Johanne were narrating their time in the Valley, with Drullkrin adding his own input here and there as they walked. Then they talked about magic. David overheard Travis interrogating Johanne about random things, much to her exasperation. He learned that yes, she did in fact follow the Fae to try and learn where they got their food from, for it made no sense that they threw so many feasts every day with so few actual animals in the forest.

It turned out that there were no animals at all, in fact, just more Fae. She had followed one of them around, one she knew was usually tasked with gathering food. Instead, she found the Fae wandering around as if aimless, and when she returned to the village the feast was already underway.

Other attempts at finding the source of the food were equally unsuccessful. The only thing she knew the Fae actually did was train. Everything else sort of happened, and she wasn’t shy about expressing her frustration with the fact. Magic did not work like that, she claimed, although she was forced to concede that perhaps it did work like that sometimes.

The party ended up at Michael’s treehouse exhausted from all the novelty, not even questioning the fact that Michael had commandeered the former Forest King’s residence and remodeled it into a quaint little house on a tree.

Some things, however, were too much to ignore.

“How is there a laptop here?”