“I forge our contract, the terms are as follows. I will aid you, and your soldiers, as well as the people of summer creek, to leave through the underground passageway. I will do my best to ensure that they are unharmed by me, or any of my subordinates. In reciprocation, neither you nor your subordinates will harm me, or any of my subordinates. You also agree that you will not expose that we are a, or related to dungeons. Do you accept this contract?” I said. Hoping I’d gotten everything just as we had laid out. It had probably taken longer than necessary to get it hashed out, especially with Naan’s input on my side. I wasn’t sure if the half hour or so we spent on it was worthwhile, but I felt better with it than not. I suspected that Dragon Smith probably did so as well.

“I agree to these terms.” Dragon Smith having listened carefully to the whole thing answered.

“From this moment forward, you and I are bound in contract. Both parties are to uphold these terms as best possible.” I finished as I felt mana flow outwards, then I could feel some sort of invisible something lock into place within me. It felt less personal than the contracts I'd formed with Gerl and Devin. That didn't surprise me, but on another level, it drew my attention because of that.

“Well, that is an unnerving sensation.” Dragon Smith noted.

“You think so?” I asked feeling less skeptical about it overall.

“It is a dungeon's magic… Why wouldn’t it be?” He asked.

“If I understand right, it's magic of order, which would be under Jerome’s influence.” I said.

Dragon Smith considered that for several moments, “Come to think of it, nobility use similar magic as well. If less often.” the big man mused.

He sighed, “Very well. We can at least trust each other for the moment.”

Charlene who had been packing various things glanced up touching her husband on the arm, “Omar, I’ll be just a moment.” He nodded and Charlene walked over to us, “You’ve sorted it all out then?”

Dragon Smith glanced over at her, “Did you know what she was?”

Charlene nodded.

Devin blinked at that, “She did?”

Charlene replied, “She is my friend, and she told me when she came by for her dress’s final adjustments.”

Dragon Smith sighed, “You… have a strange gift for making friends.” He said glancing at me.

I cleared my throat, “By the way… You might notice I have a letter carrier with me too…”

Dragon Smith’s eyes narrowed on me, “What's that supposed to mean?”

“It means he's working with me. Gerl I mean. I just didn’t want you to be surprised when we go down there.” I pointed out.

“Anyone else that you’ve made friends with when I wasn't looking? The cook? Perhaps the king?” He mocked.

“No… just the letter carrier.” I replied ignoring his jab while feeling a little small.

“Fine. Then I’ll start making my preparations and meet you down there. You better keep up your end of this bargain.” He growled.

“I honestly don’t see how I could dodge it.” I pointed out.

Even as Naan chuckled to itself internally.

I wasn’t sinister with my intentions but either way, I thought it had worked out quite well.

Devin and I returned down into the cavern to find that soldiers obviously standing around, where they used to be resting.

We reached the underground river to find that the pathway was already prepared. Naan had already prepared things.

“Are these going to hold for people's cargo and such?” I asked as I glanced back over the water.

“They should be solid. But I’ll reinforce them some. We should take no chances with the contract." Naan agreed with my sentiment.

We climbed up the far side mushroom light leading the way. Then we had to briefly explain things to the goblins, and Gerl. The latter who looked a bit like his worst fear had come true.

“Calm down Gerl. I already told him you were down here.” I explained.

“I’m a deserter…” He groaned out.

I grimaced at that, “It should be fine…” I hoped.

I looked over at the goblins, “No problems from you, right?”

“Anna say, we do.” Scout pronounced.

“You’re sure?” I asked him.

He nodded, “We tribe.”

I gave him a smile, and gently padded him on the head, to which he blushed curiously.

“Alright. Well, I guess all that's left is to wait until they all show up.” I said walking down the passageway to sit next to the river.

Devin walked with me saying, “So much for all our plans.”

“Why do we even bother making them…” I sighed.

“Right?”

I smiled back at him continuing, “You know these past few days have been crazy.”

He glanced at me before asking, “Yeah?”

“Seems like there's never enough seconds to get things done.” I voiced my recent thoughts.

That was true for a number of things. I still had yet to find time, or confidence to bring Kay out and have a real conversation. Though all the same I might have been avoiding it. Our dream chat had gone well enough, but I’d be lying if I expected everything to be easy with her. It wasn’t that I was actively avoiding that, but we’d always had reasons to not waste the mana.

Speaking of which, “Naan, should we reclaim this dungeon body?”

“As long as we hold it we can watch for pursuit. But I suppose we could also simply seal the passage behind us.” Naan mused.

“Will we have to reclaim it before we can make a new one?” I asked.

“No. But that isn’t to say we’ll have much use for this space.”

“Can you explain how that works? We have a bit of time to burn as it is.” I continued.

Naan explained it. It wasn’t too hard to understand, while each body was distinct we could only contribute mana to a body we were within. This simply meant claiming new space next to this body would use up the mana there, eventually draining the available mana in the body until it would simply un-claim itself unless replenished. Each function of the dungeon body worked this way. We could manifest souls here, but only within the body, we were connected to. However, they would be able to stay here and do things maintained by the mana here. At least until it was all used up.

When I finally got around to asking about the obvious question, what purpose would leaving this body here serve it was going to just die eventually, Naan explained something I’d not realized. This had once been a dungeon, and that dungeon had created apparatus to pull mana from the surroundings and funnel it into the dungeon body. So while the body itself wasn’t much use to us at the moment, it would be able to collect and sustain itself. Probably.

The real unfortunate truth to it all was how little we get back for un-claiming dungeon space. So far we’d never had a real surplus of mana, and each step along the way we’d always reclaimed what was there because without us it would dry up and die eventually anyway.

While we didn’t really know if, or when this place might be useful, it didn’t really hurt to leave it to collect a tiny trickle of mana over time. Besides if what Naan explained to me was true, given enough time we’d probably starve the mana-hungry plant life. Though Naan had no real idea of how long such would take, or if it would actually happen. It was after all possible that the plants would eat the dungeon body's collected mana as well.

In the end, we just didn’t know enough about the plants to know how that would turn out.

We wrapped up our discussion as we noticed people starting to climb down with sacks in hand. They gathered on the far side of the river one by one.

“Curious…” Naan said seemingly at random. I glanced at what it was looking at to find it was looking at a soldier with a torch lighting the city walls on fire.

“You're not wrong…” I noted. I pulled my attention back to my body hoping I didn’t cause any issues. I was definitely doing better today. But, I didn’t want to take any chances of getting sick, so best to avoid that.

That did beg the question why were they burning the town down? I guess I’d get my answers at some point.

Minute by minute the townsfolk piled down. Only a handful had candles, but the far side was almost entirely visible. Perhaps the only time it had been brighter was when I’d created a particularly luminous orb of light by accident.

Finally, soldiers started collecting behind the town folk. Everyone looked uneasy. Whether it was because of the dark, leaving their homes behind, or the elves I didn’t know. Come to think of it, everyone probably had their ideas or thoughts on the situation.

Finally, Dragon Smith made his way through the collected crowd and stood on the edge of the water, “Where is the way over?” He called across the water.

I decided to be a bit theatrical and stood up reaching my arm up, I spoke, “Ful, loc, ri, ril, lum, ah, nel” An instant later my mana-infused voice removed the darkness from the room. At least I hadn’t shouted it, though Naan grumbled a bit internally at my usage.

Dragon Smith could now see the obvious stone pathway over, and he followed it his massive hammer slung over his shoulder all the while. I honestly waited with held breath hoping he didn’t fall in. But whether because Naan had reinforced it, or otherwise, there was no incident and he reached my side unharmed.

Dragon Smith glanced at the glowing orb of light above my head for a brief moment and walked over, and stood next to me. “You’ve explained things to your… people?”

“I have. What about you?” I asked back.

“I am about to...” He stated as he cleared his throat, “Everyone! Before you follow me over and we work our way into this passageway I must explain a few details."

He explained that the way forward wasn’t without its own danger. He also informed them that the goblins were not to be harmed, or antagonized. Though that got mostly mixed stares.

“Go ahead and make your way over, and follow us.” He finished.

As the people did as requested, I gestured towards the passageway up and the three of us climbed up towards where my group was waiting.

Dragon Smith wasn’t surprised to find my group, but he did take note of Gerl. “Gerl.” He said stepping roughly up to the center of the small area before the massive door.

“Captain… sir.” Gerl said, as though he was trying to appear like a small rodent.

“How did you end up in this position?” Dragon Smith asked.

“I was captured… by the goblins sir.” He admitted.

Dragon Smith glanced at the goblins weighing them.

Scout and the rest of them put on their best shit-eating grins as if quite proud of that fact.

Giving his head a slight shake Dragon Smith sighed, “So you were coerced into joining her… and her creatures?”

“Oh… She's been quite nice about the whole thing. She was just worried I’d out them, I ended up agreeing to help them instead.”

“So you abandoned your kingdom willingly?” Dragon Smith asked.

“I suppose… sir. But she's very convincing.” He admitted scratching behind his ear, his blush likely not going unnoticed.

Dragon Smith glanced over at me, of course, he spotted my smug smile immediately. “So it would seem.” he growled. “Do avoid from, convincing any more of my men would you?”

“I’ll try.” I shrugged.

Devin chuckled to himself in the corner.

“Something funny?” Dragon Smith asked.

“Just thinking about how this all got started is all.” Devin said waving him off.

“Right…” Dragon Smith grunted, looking at the door. “Alright, enough wasting time. Are you planning on opening the door? Or should I?” He asked.

“It pushes open, so if you want…” I began, but I trailed off as he moved.

Dragon Smith stepped forward in front of the door. He held his hammer to the side, turned it ninety degrees so that the head was down, then as though it was a totally reasonable thing to do, he dropped it. The massive hammer struck the stone floor with a force that caused the stone under it to crack slightly, the entire cave seemed to rumble.

Holy shit! This is a cave! You want to kill us with that!?

Uncaring for my inner terror he reached forward, and with a palm on each door, he stepped in. The grinding was deafening. It only took him some ten seconds to push the doors in, only stopping when he was standing between them, each at roughly a forty-five-degree angle. With practically no warning, in a motion that seemed effortless, he shoved each side simultaneously. The stone slab doors slammed into either wall cracking down the length of themselves.

I couldn’t help but gulp at the sight. What even was this man? How could he even be human?