The Runesmith

“This is the last one, let's see… some gems but no other items…”

Roland looked at a small sack filled with various precious gems. After letting his calculation-related skills do the work he was given a gold price of around two hundred gold coins. For a normal person, this was quite the amount of cold hard cash but for someone that could spend more in a week, this was nothing.

‘So that leaves me with a shield, one trapped chest, and these gems, other than that there is nothing left on this level besides the undead monsters.’

“Woof!’

“These aren’t mana stones Agni.”

Agni moved his big nose toward the bag filled with sparkly items. After a couple of sniffs, he gave out a resounding sneeze. Even though he liked to snack on mana stones, regular gems with no mana in them didn’t really interest him. Luckily nobles in this world were still vain, they would buy out precious gems and even pay an extra if they knew they were unearthed from a high-rank dungeon.

‘Some of these can be used by mages if prepared correctly.’

Even though these gems had no magic in them, they were created by the dungeon. To his knowledge, there were some techniques that could potentially turn these into something that could go onto a mage's staff. Some could also be used in various alchemical concoctions that he was not aware of. He’d need to go to an alchemist to have them analyzed as his specialty was more in line with metallurgy. Transforming crafting materials into something else, was in their field of expertise.

‘I wonder what happened to that old gnome?’

While packing up the stones into his own spatial backplate he started to reminisce about the past. His old boss was a crafty alchemist, if he had someone like that around then perhaps he wouldn’t have to spend so much money on side materials for crafting. Having a steady supply of stamina-boosting potions with no side effects would have been great too.

‘He probably lured in another unsuspecting youth with one of those contracts.’

After shaking his head Roland left the third hidden chamber on this level. Now that he had some time to explore this place he realized of its vastness. All the chambers were large and spread apart by long corridors that were patrolled by undead creatures. While the dungeon levels were bigger here than the ones in the lesser dungeon, the monster population was smaller.

‘The concentration of hidden room is greater though, I never found more than one hidden chamber on each level and here there are three… This might be a gold mine for treasure.’

The dungeon level he was in wasn’t the lowest or the highest. He could climb up and find weaker monsters and probably lesser rewards if he went up. If he went down, however, he would reach unexplored areas with harder mobs waiting for him. Going up might decrease the experience gain but it would allow him to grab some free treasure.

‘I need to figure out the time it takes for the chest to respawn. It shouldn’t take more than a week if this place is anything like other B-ranked dungeons and A-rank ones are similar too…”

“Awoo.”

“I’m coming, it’s been half a day already, we need to return to those three.”

His thought process was interrupted by a bump to his side. A paw made its way toward his thigh to make him finally leave the room. The wolf that this paw belonged to looked a bit saddened by the fact that they needed to return. Killing the skeletal beings here was clearly bringing him joy.

Mystical Dire Ruby Wolf

L 146

“The next time we get here, you’ll probably reach the limit of your levels… I wonder what you’ll turn into…”

“Worf?”

Agni tilted his head to the side as if he didn’t know the answer to the question. The choice would be up to Roland and he had already studied the evolutionary process of a Ruby Wolf. He was worried that Agni would get too large to fit into the house that he already had problems with. If this was the case then perhaps a large doggy house would need to be created.

Both of them made it back to the initially hidden chamber where Armand and the rest were waiting for him. At this moment there were no undead monsters in the area and the group was following his advice to stick to the hidden chamber. Throughout the journey here he had kept watch over their dots. Whenever another adventurer party wandered through they would wait inside and only came out when the coast was clear.

“Wayland!”

Lobelia called out to him after leaving the hidden chamber. His dot on the map device that he left them was colored purple so they could easily spot him approaching. Right as they entered his field of vision he decided to glance at their stats. To no surprise even only after half a day of grinding their levels had gone up. At this pace, within this month it would probably be possible for all of them to reach level hundred fifty.

Armand

L 125 [+4]

Lobelia

L 118 [+6]

Mary

L 139 [+4]

‘I wonder if rich nobles power level their kids in this way too… It’s probably harder to do without targeting the weakness of a monster.’

He knew that it was possible for the rich to use items like the ones he created to do the same. However, this didn’t mean that there weren’t other limitations like a good grinding spot for their offspring. Not many parents were fine with sending their young into a dark cavern filled with monsters. There was also always a chance of subterfuge, enemies were everywhere and constant battles for inheritances raged. Even if they had the means, it wasn’t that easy to get someone trusted to help them level.

This reminded him of the goblins his family kept down in their own dungeon. Perhaps instead of sending their kids away to adventure, they brought monsters back to their estate to be farmed for their experience. This method would be safer but also a lot slower than just waiting for a mob to respawn

“Do we have to go back? Can’t we just get a few more levels, I’m so close to getting another one!”

“Yeah, how about we stay here for the night!”

Armand along with Lobelia started chattering up his ear. He could understand how they were feeling, being able to gain multiple levels in just a few hours must have felt wonderful. For people like them that had to push themselves out of the dirt, this was a once-in-a-lifetime chance.

“I know how you feel but you shouldn’t push your luck, this was supposed to be a test run, you probably don’t have that many scrolls left either.”

“Sir Wayland is right, if we happen to run out of the magical scrolls we won’t be able to leave this place without his help.”

“If Mary is on your side then I guess we should go back…”

“Hm?”

Roland noticed that Mary was acting a bit more docile than before. She instantly agreed with his plan, even Armand for some reason was agreeing with her.

‘Did they grow a new bond during this time? They were stuck in that cramped room for a while between monster respawns.’

He wasn’t sure what happened there but at least they weren’t at each other's throats. For a time he expected the two parties to not work well with each other. On one side there was a maid with a lord complex and on the other, there was a perverted muscle-bound idiot with his thief little sister. He could only attribute it to the fast leveling progress, with this kind of carrot dangling on a stick before them, they could do nothing more than work together to progress even faster.

“Good, we will leave now and get back here in a few days, prepare for a longer trip we will try to stay here for a few more days.”

“Woo!”

Lobelia jumped up and cheered while Armand did a fist bump. The two looked ecstatic about the thought of them leveling up and even Mary was the same. Soon the small group of four and a wolf returned to the mine area. There they encountered more scavengers plundering the site and fighting with each other. Just like before he made sure to capture their faces for later use.

‘The guardsmen need a holographic device too, I need to talk about this with Arthur and start the recruitment, I can’t do this alone.’

While it would be easy for him to take care of this, his position was too high to worry about some mining materials being lost. Arthur needed to put his foot down and hire more people. This entire place needed official protection from the Valerian household. Stationing guards and recording tools would be the first step. If potential thieves became aware of their acts being recorded, they would certainly try to avoid areas with runic cameras.

‘A lot has to change around here…’

Soon the group headed up through the dungeon without getting into any kind of trouble. Platinum adventurers appeared here and there but thanks to his map he was able to avoid any conflict by just taking another route. Their concentration within the dungeon was rather low but more were on the way. A new space within a dungeon would entice many treasure hunters and before they arrived he needed to clean the place out.

‘Leveling Agni and the others comes first, getting all the treasures is just secondary, I can always make more money later. I should look at the bigger picture.’

He was not a simple adventurer that ran down into the dungeon to grab spawned items from within. Even the shield he received was not that great, it was possible for him to create something better just if he got his hands on the raw materials. His main profession was still that of a craftsman and he needed to continue to push it to the next level. Gaining experience through monsters would not be as fast as in the past nor would they help him advance his current main skills related to runesmithing.

‘Installing elevators should not be impossible, it will just take some time…’

With more work on his mind, Roland headed back to his home. There he needed to prepare the paperwork for the next stage of the rune city plan. After he was done leveling Mary she would be able to take care of the other two knights. When the two reached tier 3 and became Knight Commanders his role would lessen. In the end, he still just wanted to continue running his shop and live an easy life. If that would be possible remained to be seen as while he was about to reach his home another scene was playing out elsewhere.

…….

A pitch-black room, devoid of any life, produced a blue spark of light. This bluish flame illuminated the dark area and the large round table within it. Around it, ten large chairs made of stone could be vaguely seen. The wisp of light that appeared was above one of these seats and soon another one appeared opposite to it.

“Seat of Azure, you are early as always.”

“One can never be too early, Seat of Crimson.”

A red flame took shape and produced words. The sound was somewhat distorted, switching through tones, pitches, and intonations which made it hard to pinpoint the gender or age of the person speaking. Soon other flames started to appear, the range of colors seemed to be limited to variants of blue and red with one being pitch black.

“I see that not all of us have made it here…”

“Seat of Vermillion has been having trouble with the church lackeys in their region, perhaps he has fallen?”

“No, his soul still remains bound to this world.”

“If the Seat of Obsidian says so, then it must be the truth but why have we gathered here today?”

One of the stone chairs in this dark chamber was somewhat larger than the rest. On top of it, a pitch-dark flame was dancing around. All the other flames seemed to be pointed toward this seat of obsidian. Even though their voices were masked by magic, their tones remained subservient to this one individual.

“We must discuss the issue of Dragis Island again.”

“Seat of Violet’s area?”

The flames even without having any bodies seemed to turn in the direction of a purplish flame. The moment it was called out by their leader it seemed to lessen in size before speaking and expanding back.

“Is it finally time?”

“Yes, the presence of Solaria’s minions has lessened, we must reclaim those lands but more importantly, find how the mistake happened. Are you up for it?"

“Of course, just allow me to send in some high priests from the main temple…”

“Our numbers have been depleted since the last battle, I fear that we can’t send more than two with some executioners, this will have to suffice.”

“Two?”

“You want more, Seat of Violet? Have you not managed your temple well? Do you require more help?

“Maybe Seat of Violet isn’t feeling confident enough? How about you leave it up to me? My troops are ready and willing, I have enough High Priests to complete this mission.”

“Be silent Seat of Indigo, My temple will take care of this issue, I don’t need your help.”

The violet flame started to intensify when Indigo spoke out. Their intonations were hard to make out but the rage was quite strong.

“Very well, we shall leave this issue to the Seat of Violet. You must identify the reason for the breach, how could one of the monoliths be broken, discover the issue, and dispose of it…

Now let us move on to the other issue concerning the Royal Family…”

…….

“Indigo… that damn bastard!”

“My Lady, is everything alright?”

A loud bang that was followed by wood and crystals shattering alerted the people waiting outside of the room. Three women clad in maid uniforms in to discover a smashed tea table along with a crystal ball that was on top of it. Before it, they could see a beautiful woman, the leader of their temple and also the mistress of this place.

“What are you staring at, clean this up.”

“Certainly My Lady.”

The woman looked with disdain at the maids as they cleaned. The only thoughts that were going through her head were about her new mission. She had to complete this task and regain her prestige within the cult. After the strange occurrence that involved one of the grand obelisks, she lost a lot of power within this region. The island was given to her to be her territory and she worked tirelessly to gain a foothold here.

“Call Kovak to me.”

One of the maids instantly stopped cleaning and bowed before this woman. She was quick to open the large metallic door that was covered by strange occult-looking symbols. Instead of red paint, they seemed to have been drawn in by blood to retain a strange mystical power. Within a few minutes, the maid was back with the person her mistress requested.

“I am here to obey, what does the Cult Arch Priestess wish of her servant.”

The man had an odd pale complexion that was similar to that of a corpse. Purple veins adorned his motionless face. He looked quite frail and his stature was average at best. Nevertheless, the few maidservants that were here seemed terrified, their gazes avoided his as much as possible without being rude.

“I have a mission for you. Use the whispers of the dead to find the truth of what transpired at the Village. The main temple will send us some aid but take as many of our devotees as we can spare, this mission is of the utmost importance and can not fail! Gather them now, I will inform you about the details later.”

“As you wish, Arch Priestess!”

The man was quick to bow and leave the area, his steps were slow but for some reason, he was still moving at a rapid pace. Soon the woman was left alone in the chamber surrounded by nothing by stone walls with occult symbols.

“I need to go back or that idiot will start asking questions again…”

She gave out a sigh while waving her hand. One of the marks on the wall started glowing to reveal a circular staircase going up. Her form disappeared within and she quickly traversed the long path up. It was quite the steep climb that would take a normal person over fifteen minutes but she made it up in five.

After passing through another magical entrance she arrived in a room filled with costly items. To one side was a closet with rows upon rows of costly gowns that would shatter the coffers of most merchants. To the other furniture lined with costly gems and limited edition tea sets worth more than what a peasant could earn in a year.

None of these items brought joy to her face as she just wanted to toss it all to the side and set it ablaze. Yet now was not the time to rebel, the time that the god she worshiped would descend was close and she needed to make sure that it happened. Her recent blunder could not be repeated, without spending any resources she needed to find the one responsible and offer him to the abyss.