Serenity hadn’t expected that at all. As far as he knew, there wasn’t a Dungeon Binder in Takinat; if there was, the guy at the Mercenaries’ Guild should have mentioned it. On top of that, this didn’t really seem like the Bound Dungeons Serenity remembered from his time as Vengeance; they were usually set up to maximize what could be pulled out of them and rarely had secrets.

You couldn’t even enter a Bound Dungeon without the Binder’s permission, so it wasn’t like they needed to hide things. They simply wouldn’t let you take things out that weren’t permitted.

On second thought, it was entirely likely that different types of Dungeon Binders existed and they all had different Skills. The fact that he “knew” things about Dungeon Bonders didn’t mean that what he knew was correct; it just meant that it was what they said. Knowing what you were taking out of the dungeon would certainly make things easier on the Dungeon Binder, which meant it was a useful Skill to say you had even if you didn’t.

Also, the fact that Vengeance was in a lot of Bound Dungeons over the years didn’t mean he always knew when he was in a Bound Dungeon. Serenity certainly hadn’t realized it previously and he had a lot more ability to find things out about dungeons than Vengeance ever had. Making a dungeon grow differently made sense if you were going to try to hide the fact that you’d Bound it. Serenity didn’t yet know of a reason to hide it, but there had to be one.

Guildmaster Zany must have Bound this dungeon decades ago. It made sense out of the stories he’d been told; more than that, Zany was the one who’d taught all three of the Silver Blades about the dungeon. Serenity had no idea what people who ran it without Zany knew. It was entirely possible that Zany had revealed some of the secrets, like the way to get the fire-heart, only to his Guild.

Serenity decided it would be better to keep Guildmaster Zany’s secret for now. Without knowing the reason he’d hidden his control of the dungeon, revealing it could lead to consequences Serenity had no way to be aware of. Even so, he was going to try to free the dungeon. He didn’t like the idea of Binding dungeons at all, though he’d killed enough feral dungeons to know that something was sometimes necessary.

It was too bad there wasn’t a Dungeon Tamer Path. Perhaps a Dungeon Teacher Path would be better? It might depend on the dungeon; some of the newer ones really didn’t seem to think past one or two things directly tied to their chosen theme, while others seemed to be unrelentingly aggressive. The majority he’d met on Earth were essentially animalistic, which sounded pretty common from what Aki had said. Perhaps taming them or teaching them how to behave in society (which in this case meant how to behave towards delvers) might help avoid the necessity of killing.

Still, whether or not some dungeons needed training, this one didn’t seem to. It was set up fairly well, with approachable challenges that at least partly scaled based on the method used and mostly allowed people to back out if they felt they’d gotten too far in. The dungeon itself seemed to be friendly, as well; Serenity didn’t think he’d have been half so friendly if he’d been bound the way this dungeon was.

Admittedly, Serenity knew that he had a bit of a temper. It wasn’t that much of a temper and he usually kept it under control, but it existed and wasn’t always helpful. He’d gotten himself into trouble because of his temper more than once.

Serenity shook off his introspection and asked the dungeon, :Can you open the way for me?:

:Happily,: the dungeon replied, more like a person than any dungeon Serenity had met other than Aki. :Should I adjust the Guardian the same way the Dungeon Binder did as well?:

Serenity hadn’t realized Guildmaster Zany had adjusted the final encounter as well, but he supposed it made sense; he’d want to limit it to something the group with him could do. :Was it always the same change?:

:No,: the dungeon seemed to pause, as if it were uncertain. :It changed in a bunch of different ways, adding or removing commands or phases. The most common change when he was here was to tell it not to summon all nearby monsters; he gave that command almost every time he opened the hedge.:

Serenity blinked. That command reminded Serenity of the merging magma monster on the fifth level; the fact that the group overpowered it had meant that it didn’t matter if it called all the other monsters, but on the ninth level with the group he was with, that might be deadly. It also meant that the Guardian was designed to be approached from a different direction, probably one where you could kill at least some of those monsters ahead of time. :Yes, please do that. Were there any others he changed when he used the shortcut?:

:He often made the Guardian vulnerable to Death-based attacks. He did that for the fights where he stood back and watched while the others fought, then came in once they were in trouble.:

Serenity snorted to himself. That was a clear attempt by the Guildmaster to make himself look good. It might also be an attempt to make people not attempt the Guardian without Zany’s presence.

:Other than that, I can’t think of anything he did more than once or twice.: The dungeon sounded confident this time. :I’ll do that. Will you free me? Can you free me? I remember being free.:

Serenity sighed. He should have expected the request once he knew the dungeon was bound. :I’ll try. I’ve never done it before. I’ll probably need to touch your core.: He hoped that was all it would take. He didn’t really want to explain to the Silver Blades that he was talking to the dungeon and he emphatically didn’t want to mention that he was planning to break a Skill used by their Guildmaster.

Serenity opened his eyes at the sound of movement and saw the yellowed portion of the hedge unwinding itself, then the vines pulled away to either side and left a six-foot-wide opening.

“I will never get used to that,” Daryl stated heavily. “Plant monsters are the worst, and I’m pretty sure this entire maze is a monster.”

“Maybe more than one, but at least we know they’re stationary, like plants should be.” Gabriel visibly shivered. “This level is just wrong in so many ways.”

Serenity smiled and shook his head slightly. “It’s no worse than the fire-mountain, and the beach was definitely worse. I like beaches, but I definitely didn’t like that one.”

“Yeah, but you’re a death mage,” Gabriel countered. “Of course this level doesn’t seem that bad.”

Serenity shrugged. “If that were the problem, I’d be complaining about the blizzard or the lightning storm. The lightning was pretty, since it didn’t really hurt us.” He knew that wasn’t entirely a fair comparison; many people did have a gut reaction to the feeling of death nearby. A better comparison would probably be the windy level where they had to jump from floating island to floating island; that level was definitely not for someone with even a mild fear of heights. Serenity didn’t feel like making a fair comparison right now.

“Plus, I’m not a plant mage and these are definitely plants. They don’t bother me half as much as spiders would. Shall we get going?” Come to think of it, this was a dungeon without any spiders that didn’t have a theme that prohibited them. Serenity hadn’t seen that in a while; it seemed like dungeons that could have spiders always had spiders. He hoped the Guardian wouldn’t be a spider now that he’d thought of it; that would be just his luck.

“Spiders?” Naomi infused that single word with enough confusion that even Serenity could hear it.

He ignored the implied question and headed through the hedge. It was a short passageway, a bit under ten feet of green tunnel, before it opened up into a circular open space larger than any of the ones Serenity had seen before; it reminded him more of a football field than a large room. Serenity stopped just before he left the tunnel. “I assume the fight with the Guardian starts as soon as I step outside?”

“It’s usually when the last person steps out, as long as you don’t attack the Guardian or get more than about ten feet from the exit,” Gabriel informed Serenity. “If you do either of those, the tunnel will close and the fight will begin. I’ve never been in a group that did that, but I’ve heard stories, enough to tell me not to try.”

Serenity nodded. “I won’t.” He could guess what the stories said; dungeons that set things up in a “fair” manner by having their monsters wait for the delvers to be ready often really didn’t like having the delvers try to cheat the fight. There were all sorts of things a dungeon could do with a moving hedge, especially if most of the delvers were close to it when they decided to kick things off early. If the dungeon were nice, it might only stop the ones inside the hedge, but many dungeons weren’t that nice.

Serenity moved forward, then stopped about five feet from the tunnel’s exit. He didn’t want to push the distance limit; the dungeon probably wasn’t too strict about it, but it was better to be cautious. This was close enough anyway; he could see the Guardian. Seeing fine details required a little help from Aide, but they’d already worked out how to manage “zooming in” so it was simple enough.

The Guardian was, strangely enough, not a spider. Instead, Serenity saw a headless horseman waiting in the center of the large area. More specifically, he was a headless centaur; he didn’t even have the neck that would normally support a head, but he otherwise looked like a well-armed and armored horse-man. It gave Serenity a definite Halloween vibe, even though the headless horseman of Earth myth was a man riding a horse instead of a man whose legs were replaced with a horse’s body.

While he watched, the headless horseman turned towards Serenity and showed off the second difference between the headless horseman of Earth myth and the one in front of him: the mythical headless horseman had lost his head; the monster in front of him could see just fine. His eyes and mouth were located at the “belly” of the man part of the monster. It looked like he’d probably never had a head, rather than having lost it.

Serenity wasn’t certain where the brain was, if the monster even had one; his first guess was that it might well be right behind the eyes. If so, that was a good place; there was a lot of protection around the area, especially if there was a “skull” hidden inside the monster’s abdomen.

“We’re all out,” Gabriel reported from right behind Serenity. “This is a very straightforward fight, if I remember correctly. Zany used it as a way to teach Tier Nines how to handle a stronger foe; there aren’t many options for that. We’ll have to be careful here; Naomi will lose any shoving matches, so our usual strategy won’t work. We’ll have to be agile. The good news is that the armor he’s wearing isn’t really Tier Nine; it’s about Tier Six or so. I’m not sure why the dungeon is using lower-Tier armor here, but if it were really Tier Nine armor, only magic would work on him. None of us have Tier Nine weapons. Or even Tier Eight.”

That surprised Serenity; he’d thought Daryl’s weapons were Tier Nine, the same way the man was, and at their worst they ought to be Tier Eight. You had enough time at higher Tiers to at least keep your weapons and armor up to date; if you didn’t, you might well run into a case where you couldn’t hurt something simply because your gear wasn’t good enough. “Why not?”

Gabriel chuckled, but somehow the chuckle didn’t sound amused. “Where would we find a good enough weaponsmith or armorsmith on a planet like Asihanya?”

Serenity frowned and turned to look at Gabriel. “It’s not that hard to go to another planet and buy a weapon. Etherium’s good everywhere, and you should have a good bit if you’re the only people running the top end of this dungeon.”

Lillene

Not everyone is as widely traveled as you are, Serenity...