"We had way too much to drink."

 

 

 

 

Andrew and Reginald were a wee bit tipsy, having moved on to the act of celebrating their newly formed party. As Andrew explained the details of the new classes that Reginald was going to take, they ordered drinks. What started as a toast turned into a few drinks, which turned into several. They were getting looks as they started to stagger toward the orphanage, as it was quite early in the afternoon to be drunk, but not an unexpected sight in this neighborhood.

 

Andrew had told Reginald that he could stay with him for now. Reginald had been staying at one of the rooms offered by the guild, both because it was cheap, and because the rooms were close to the dungeon.

 

The guild hall was understandably built close to the town dungeon. Long ago wizards and scholars had determined the nature of mana and how it flowed. Ordinary mana and demonic mana had an ebb and flow to it. Human misery made demonic mana. Small amounts, but it built up over time. Alas, the larger a city, the more suffering, and the more demonic mana accumulates. One of the first sages to ever achieve the title on the planet studied magic and determined the existence of ley lines, and dragon lines.

 

These lines could be redirected.

 

Rather than allow the demonic mana to just flow away from the city to randomly pool somewhere, the original designers of the city created The Tower. Just like a city needs a proper sewer system and access to fresh water to grow large and healthy, so too did the dragon lines need to be carved into the city itself. The streets were laid out in an arcane fashion to allow the proper flow of mana throughout the city. All dragon lines lead to THE TOWER.

 

The tower was a vertical dungeon. The demonic mana pools in the tower twisting it and warping its insides. The tower itself is a windowless structure a mere six stories tall, but on the inside, it was a twisting non-euclidian structure that contained vast space. These spaces became segmented into various floors. The first five floors were fairly well-known and consistent, with things getting slightly more unstable the higher you went. Past the tenth floor, things started to get weird. Currently, there are twenty known levels. The thirteenth floor, for example, was a vast outdoor graveyard of nearly endless tombstones and mausoleums always shrouded in eternal night. The tenth was a vast forest with the only unchanging landmark being a two-story white house. To get to the next level, you had to go into the basement.

 

The eleventh was a maze of twisty little passages, all alike.

 

The tower was full of various quirks like this because the demonic mana was constantly pooling and crystalizing inside it. This was key, for this process transformed the demonic mana into more useful forms. Unfortunately, those more useful forms usually were the form of monsters. Now monsters carry with them many, many, MANY useful parts for crafting magic items, and in the dungeon, ordinary items tended to slowly become enchanted. You see, a dungeon wasn't just a pool for demonic mana. It was more like a treatment plant. The demonic mana would pool, and be consumed by the monsters that spontaneously generated within, then this process would release ordinary mana that would work its way out, often crystalizing on its own within its warped depths.

 

These naturally occurring magic items were often rather random in the effects they had but were usually far stronger than anything a normal enchanter could create. Thus if you were down on your luck, there was always a job waiting for you to go inside the tower and kill some monsters and find some loot.

 

This was very important.

 

When dungeons do NOT get cleared out of monsters, you can have monster waves or worse. Sometimes one particular monster grows too powerful and you develop what is known as a Dungeon Master. This is a VERY dangerous state for a dungeon to be in. When it happens, usually the monsters get very organized and the tower gets very dangerous. The Capital Tower, unknown to most, had a Dungeon Master. The most dangerous of Dungeon Masters.

 

A SMART one.

 

He spent DECADES consolidating his position on the highest level of the dungeon. He was careful to not get TOO organized because the steady supply of adventurers was required to maintain the facade that the tower didn't have a Dungeon Master. This dungeon master was content to remain in the shadows of the currently unknown twenty-first level, making sure to utterly destroy any adventurers who discovered his hidden level. Instead he just slowly accumulated power and knowledge, content in his situation.

 

He should have paid more attention to his tower.

 

Someone else wanted the title of Dungeon Master. He was a very VIOLENT sort who wanted very much to overrun the surrounding city and claim it for himself. Alas, the original dungeon master had done too good a job organizing the tower and husbanding his strength. The tower had far more monsters than anyone outside the tower imagined, and the new arrival had a bit of a golden tongue. He knew how to make friends.

 

You see, the new wanna-be dungeon master had not formed in the dungeon. He was, in fact, not from anywhere on the planet. He wasn't from the outer planes or the inner ones. He wasn't from anywhere inside the local multiverse at all.

 

He came from a different system entirely. The system he had come from had been overrun long ago. He was from a place where the heroes had lost, the monsters had won, and the world had fallen into ruin. At the end of days, those monsters who now festered on the corpse of their dead world had found a way to travel elsewhere. At first, it was a trickle. The first voyagers started to frolic and play in the new world, but quickly found it well-defended. A few went back for old allies, knowing of strength in numbers. Some, like this fellow, weren't exactly of the long-term strategic mindset.

 

 

He wanted to start some shit.

 

---

 

Andrew blinked at Reginald.

 

 

 

Reginald was frowning, with his head tilted back. He was staring up into the sky and had a rather ominous frown. Andrew rubbed his eyes and looked up as well. There were four squares of light in a diamond pattern hovering over the city skyline in the distance. Andrew glanced around and saw several others starting to pop up as well. They all had the same configuration.

 

The top one was purple. The one on the left was orange. The one on the right was red, and finally, the one on the bottom was red as well.

 

"Crap." Reginald cursed, "We got to get sober and back to the adventuring hall. NOW."

 

Andrew narrowed his eyes, shrugged, then snapped his fingers as he grabbed hold of Reginald, "{Cure Poison}" The spell washed over both of them, removing the effects of the alcohol and sobering them both.

 

Reginald's eyes became brighter as he could now focus, "That's handy." He motioned as he started running for the guild.

 

Andrew moved to keep up, "What's going on?"

 

Reginald gestured to the sky, "You don't know your codes? That was an alert to mobilize the town guard and adventurers. The orange indicates internal threat, but it's a purple rating, so I'm guessing the problem is-"

 

As they rounded a corner, they could see the main access road to The Tower.

 

The tower itself sat to the far side of a massive courtyard. A good four hundred feet across, it was an area normally set up for vendors to set up shop and hawk their wares and sell their services. There was one massive pair of double doors into the tower itself. The courtyard was covered in a massive force dome, set up by the original creator of the tower, just to make sure that if there was a dungeon break, it could be contained.

 

However, there needed to be a way in and out. Thus there was a hundred-foot long, thirty-foot wide road that extended from the courtyard to the rest of the city. At both ends, there were defenses set up for containment, just in case. The city would have preferred to have the choke point be more narrow, but sometimes you had rather large monsters you needed to get out of the tower, and the extra room was handy to have.

 

The first set of defenses had already been overrun.

 

Reginald's eyes popped out of his head as he gazed upon a virtual sea of monsters that was trying to flood its way out of the tower. The courtyard itself had fallen and was now a staging ground as the various types of creatures were massing for an assault. Goblins, kobolds, skeletons, and all the typical low-level mooks were being thrown down the road to break the defenders. The mid to higher-level monsters were hanging back and conserving their strength. Currently, at the other end of the access road, directing the assault, was a large sphere floating in the air. It had ten eyestalks coming out of the top of its head, and one central eye that was wide open and gazing down the road at the defenders.

 

The beholder was making full use of its anti-magic eye to stop any area of effect magical attacks. Yes, this field prevented his allies from using magic, but it also prevented anyone at the barrier from using magic as well, thus reducing the defenders to swinging swords.

 

At the mouth of the road were guardsmen and adventurers alike, forming ranks to buy more time. They were switching people in and out as they could because no healing magic worked under the gaze of the abomination's baleful gaze. As it stood, they didn't look like they'd last for more than a minute at this point, much less long enough for help to arrive.

 

 

Reginald finished his sentence with no small amount of dread, "...That."

 

 

Ever the expert on understatement, Andrew softly commented on the situation.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

"Oh, that's not good."