Chapter 2 - Part 3 of 5 (Patreon)

They arrived at the barracks, word had made it ahead of them. Half the gate was open for them to squeeze through. Soldiers wearing their complete body armor sealed helmets and with their rifles at the ready watched over Alva. Their presence was ominous, though Erik couldn’t help but look at them with pride, feeling reassured.

Erik and Rugrat dismounted before George and Gilly came to a complete stop in one of the parade squares. The barracks had been expanded constantly to its current state.Now a second barracks was being created adjacent to the teleportation pads.

The barracks were arranged like a nine figure numberpad. The outside squares were training areas, ringed by walls, sleeping quarters, cafeterias and all the things the troops might need day to day. The interior square was its own world. Walls separated it from the rest of the camp. Classrooms, advanced training areas, medical facilities, as well as the home of the Alva Military. It was the beating heart of Alva’s military.

Erik and Rugrat’s path was cleared as soldiers opened doors and sealed them as they passed.

The special team members pulled on their helmets and drew their weapons, making sure they were loaded.

Erik and Rugrat were wearing their regular clothes, boots, hiking pants, long sleeve insulated sweaters, t-shirts and an expression that told one that they would get their way or go through whatever stood in their way.

Glosil guided them through the stairwells, and corridors as if the confusing maze underneath the barracks was his second home.

Doors of metal beeped, recognizing their identification medallions, allowing them access.

Another scan and the special team members fanned outside of a doorway.

Erik opened the door.

“Wh-“ Jia Feng’s words died in her throat as the room looked over.

Glosil, Yui and their aides rose up, Glosil snapped off a salute.

“At ease,” Erik snapped off a replying salute as Rugrat closed the door.

Glosil indicated two empty seats on either side of Delilah.

The young woman looked like she had aged overnight, grim as she nodded at Erik then Rugrat.

Erik noticed Egbert’s body behind Delilah on a table with formations carved into it. Roska and her people were watching his bones with rifles drawn.

Erik nodded to them and took the rolling chair and pulled himself forward.

“So, what the hell is going on? The dungeon was functioning perfectly fine before we left,” Erik said, trying to inject some levity into the tense situation.

Their lips shifted slightly in the attempt but there was little more.

Erik looked along the right side of the table, Jia Feng, head of Alva’s Academies, the new Consortium in Beast Mountain Range, Kanesh Academy in Alva, Vuzgal Academy that Erik and Rugrat had rode through. Elise led the Trader’s Guild, a powerhouse of a woman with the ability to move the lower realms with just a few orders. Thousands were under her direct command, it wasn’t wrong to say that she was the reason that the Beast Mountain Range and Vuzgal had grown to their current power and remained stable. Blaze, the old leader of Alva and the Adventurer’s Guild leader, a guild he had grown to hundreds of thousands of members across six realms.

Erik’s eyes moved to the left side where Glosil the leader of all of Alva’s forces, Alva’s old guard captain and subordinate to Blaze, Major Yui Silaz, who led one of the two regiments of Alvan Soldiers and Elan Silaz, Yui’s father and Director of the Alva Intelligence Department, the spook and spy leader of Alva.

Erik’s eyes tracked to Delilah beside him who cleared her throat. Council Leader of Alva, and an expert alchemist, she was the true manager and ruler of all Alva; as well as his student, even though she had beat him into the expert level of Alchemy.

“Something that we weren’t anticipating, the real purpose of the entire dungeon,” Delilah said, taking charge. “Formation masters have been looking at everything. The formations that have been activated were buried in the old formations running through the dungeon. Simply put we thought that all the power was going in one direction-up. Though it was all supposed to be going down.”

“How did we not see this?” Rugrat asked sitting down on her other side.

“When repairing the dungeon, we reverted everything back to the plans made by the gnomes and built on top of it. It’s easier to take someone else’s plans and modify them instead of starting from scratch. It would have taken us years to come up with all our own formations and implement them,” Jia Feng said.

“So this was the Gnome’s real goal?” Erik asked.

Jia Feng shrugged.

“It must have been. They built the entire dungeon with this formation at the core.” Delilah said.

“So what the hell is happening to Egbert?” Rugrat asked, pointing his thumb over his shoulder at Egbert and Roska’s Special Team Two watching him.

Mana drifted towards the skull, lines and patterns appeared as parts looked like polished jade.

Glosil cleared his throat.

“I didn’t kill him, he’s—at least we think--asleep. New runes that were not previously activated have now been activated and repaired. Davin grabbed him from the Water floor. I have stored him to make sure that the runes don’t continue to progress.”

“I was the last person to talk to Egbert, he seemed as surprised as I was,” Delilah said.

Erik raised an eyebrow at Glosil.

“He was a big driving force behind recovering the dungeon. Now a blast of mana has shot out, putting a target on the Beast Mountain Range. He’s also, conveniently, asleep. I trust Egbert, but with these new runes and changes, I am not sure that we can trust whatever wakes up. He controls all of the power in the dungeon and can use it in his spell casting.”

Erik nodded, he would’ve done the same with limited information.

“It probably has something to do with the First Realm quest,” Erik sat back resting his head on his hand.

“I saw that somewhere.” Rugrat opened up his screens and went through the recent delige of screens.

“Quest?” Elan asked.

“Tap into the ley lines and make a mana well. Shit, those Gnomes had cojones.” Rugrat hissed, interrupting Erik. His eyes raced through the description and started again.

“So what are we dealing with?” Elan asked.

“Mana, shit tons of it.” Rugrat was reading it for a third time, slower now. “Ley lines come in two categories. Pure and Attribute. Usually they’re not that far down, they get too pressured and they release their stored mana back into the Ten Realms, or create gems, mana stones, dungeon cores and so on. ”

“In the First Realm, there have been very few instances of Ley Lines. They’re rare as hell down here. Well, it looks like we found one, though it is buried down deep as hell. I guess it makes sense though. Mana isn’t that dense. But as it goes down, the density will increase and the pressure of the world would increase, so then, shit. It’s possible that it is stronger than any amount of mana we’ve seen before. More dense, more pure. Depends on how long it has been down there, over time could have made massive mines, could have dungeon cores all over the damn place.”

“What happens when we tap into this ley line?” Glosil asked.

Rugrat opened his fist. “Bang? I’m not sure. There is no knowing how pressurized it is, how much mana we’re dealing with. Anything like that. We should get Tanya and some of her people looking at it. Easy way to think of it, ley lines are to the realms, what mana channels are to humans.”

Silence fell on the room, it was a lot to take in.

“We have closed off mana storing formation where we could. We have teams that are removing the cornerstones, that is slowing it down, but any excess mana is being funnelled through all of the floors into the drill,” Delilah said. “Before you ask, we have no idea how long until it reaches these ley lines. Without knowing the current depth of the ley lines we have no accurate way to guess. That is up to the experts to figure out. We have our own worries. When the mana changed direction, the massive influx of mana and the mana smashing into the ground created two ripples, one that was dense and small. Another that wasn’t as dense but went much further.”

“Just how exposed are we in the First Realm?” Erik asked.