Kelsey threw down the heavy ledger in disgust. “This is ridiculous!” she exclaimed.

  Anton looked up from his own book and made placating gestures at the archivists, who were sending disapproving glares their way. None of them dared to approach Kelsey, but they made their displeasure known.

  “The Archive Vault is supposed to be a quiet place, Kelsey,” he said in a low tone.

  “I can be as quiet as you like, but it won’t make this garbage make any sense,” Kelsey muttered. Her angry glare didn’t go away, but she grumbled more quietly, which was enough to placate the guardians. Anton relaxed a bit more.

  The next available opening for a delve in The Hungry Depths was in three days. Suliel had taken it upon herself to outfit the other party members, so Anton was researching the dungeon and its history. Kelsey had also expressed an interest.

  Anton was glad his old guild master had come to Bures to help Suliel. His rank opened many doors in the Bures guild, and Anton was not sure he’d have found the Archives on his own. In addition, it had taken all of Delir’s diplomacy and Anton’s noble rank to convince the Archivists that Kelsey should be allowed to browse the records.

  Access was not normally restricted, but a number of the caretakers had felt that an exception should be made for dungeons. Kelsey’s attitude hadn’t helped, as she ranged from pointlessly combative to muttering cryptic statements like, “Ain’t no rule that says a dungeon can’t play basketball.”

  They got there in the end, though. Confirming the King had delved The Hungry Depths after his coronation had been easy enough. Now, Anton was researching the types of monsters reported, while Kelsey was researching… something else.

  “What is it?” Anton asked in a low voice.

  “These numbers!” she whispered insistently, tapping at the page.

  Anton looked at the record. “Of monsters fought?”

  “No, of treasure earned!” Kelsey exclaimed, still keeping her voice low. “Silver for the first floor! That’s crazy!”

  “Uh, well, Kelsey,” Anton said evasively. He could sense that they were approaching a dangerous conversational zone. “You said yourself that every dungeon determines its own rewards according to how much it wants to encourage visitors.”

  “Well, yeah, but this is off the charts,” Kelsey insisted.

  “What is?” Delir said, approaching close enough that he could join in the quiet conversation.

  “I’ve been collating the amount of treasure awarded over different expeditions,” Kelsey explained. She pulled a sheet of paper out of nowhere and handed it to Anton. It had… a lot of numbers on it, written in a neat, spidery hand that Anton did not associate with Kelsey at all.

  “How is this… there’s just one number for each floor?” Anton asked. He passed the sheet over to Delir to see if the guild master could make more sense of it.

  “These are the mana costs,” Kelsey said. “I can get away with manufacturing a good amount of my rewards, but most dungeons have to magic them up. Here—” she handed Anton some more sheets of numbers—“Are the costs involved in respawning each floor, based on the numbers and Tiers of the monsters reported. And the maintenance costs are here.”

  Anton looked at the charts, his head swimming. “Um…” he started to say.

  Delir was studying his paper with intense interest, but his expression held more than a little confusion. “This is fascinating, Kelsey. We’ve never had a chance to see this side of the equation. How confident are you that these numbers are accurate?”

  “They can’t be accurate; that’s the thing,” Kelsey growled. “Hang on.”

  After a short pause, she produced another sheet.

  “This is the calculated mana expenditure for each of the expeditions I studied, next to the amount of mana I’d expect a dungeon to generate each day. You have daily expeditions going in, which makes things easier to calculate.”

  This sheet of paper was a little simpler. There were only three columns, one labeled ‘Generation’, one labeled ‘Costs’ and one labeled ‘Reserves’. The Reserves column started with a number that was quite high, but it dwindled quickly and soon ended up negative.

  “I see,” Delir said once he’d studied the paper. “So, where do you think the inaccuracy lies?”

  “How good are your numbers?” Kelsey asked, tapping the ledgers.

  “Quite good,” Delir answered. “Our officials pride themselves in their accuracy, and the records are used for tax purposes, so there is considerable incentive to get them correct. If adventurers are managing to fudge the numbers, I’d expect the inaccuracies to go the other way.”

  “That makes sense,” Kelsey agreed. “There are some traits that you can take that make spending mana more efficient. Cheaper summons, extra treasure and so on.”

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  She paused with a doubtful look on her face. “I’ve never taken them because they’re not great. Like, five percent bonuses… they do add up, though. I’ve got Charley running the numbers.”

  “Charley?” Anton asked.

  “All my accounting skeletons are called Charley,” Kelsey said matter-of-factly.

  Delir raised an eyebrow. “You have accounting skeletons?”

  “Oh, I’ve got all sorts,” Kelsey assured him. “Mostly, I use them for engineering calculations, but sometimes mana costs need to be calculated.”

  “I see,” Delir said. He held up the sheaf of papers that Kelsey had generated. “Can I—can we keep this information?”

  Kelsey narrowed her eyes. “Those numbers would be pretty valuable to you, wouldn’t they?”

  “Of course,” Delir agreed. “They’re everything I could have hoped for, back when you first decided to open communications with us. It might well win over the disbelievers in the guild.”

  “Disbelievers?” Kelsey asked.

  “There are some who say that you’re not what you say you are and others who don’t believe in your good intentions,” Delir said. “Fools, of course, but they do have influence.”

  “Hmph,” Kelsey snorted. “I guess I don’t mind. They’re not my secrets.”

  “Very generous of you, my Lady,” Delir said, gathering up the rest of the papers.

  Kelsey frowned.

  “You don’t like the term?” Delir asked hastily. “It was meant as a sign of respect, I assure you.”

  “No, that’s not it,” Kelsey said. “Just Kelsey is fine. What’s not fine is this.”

  She pulled a final sheet of paper out of the air.

  “This is the first scenario we tried that made the numbers work,” she said grimly. She put the paper down on the table and tapped it.

  “They need to have taken Generous Rewards at least ten times for these numbers to work,” she said. “That’s over half their traits spent on giving more treasure to invaders!”

  “Well… at least it’s possible that they might have done that?” Delir said, looking at the sheet. “Could they have managed it with the cheaper monsters trait?”

  “Look at how much they’re spending.” Kelsey went back to the earlier pages. “So much more on treasure. They’d need to pick up two Bountiful Spawns for each Rewards they lost. So even if they spent all their traits on it, they’d still need two Generous Rewards.”

  “The first scenario is more likely,” Delir admitted.

  Kelsey stared at him suspiciously. “You said you established communications with this dungeon,” she said. “Has it said anything about this?”

  “We’ve only managed the most basic of interactions,” Delir said. “We try to establish our goodwill, convince the dungeon to lower the danger. We theorised that dungeons might have Traits, but we’ve never known what they could do or what Traits this dungeon might have.”

  “Well, someone does.” Kelsey stared at the ledger. “And I know someone who knows secrets about dungeons and doesn’t want others to know them. A whole group of someones. These accounts don’t mention any wizard guild delvers, why is that?”

  “The Wizards Guild doesn’t delve, though they sometimes send a member down with a group,” Delir said. “But they do regular inspections. Those aren’t for experience, so they follow a capable group down and let them kill the monsters and take the treasure.”

  “They never did that with me.”

  “You have a reputation,” Delir said carefully. “Amoung other habits of yours, you routinely re-spawn monsters on a floor the delvers have already cleared.”

  “That’s just good sense,” Kelsey said with a smug grin. “Get them when they’re at their weakest.”

  Delir coughed. “We try to discourage that in dungeons that we’ve established a rapport with. The point is, it wouldn’t be safe for a wizard team to follow behind a party delving you.”

  “I should think not,” Kelsey agreed. “The last thing I want is for a wizard to feel safe.”

  “Or anyone,” Anton pointed out.

  “True,” Kelsey admitted. “I am an equal opportunity death factory. So why do they do these delves if not for experience or treasure?”

  “They may get some,” Delir allowed. “While they choose strong parties, not everyone make a full clear. The wizards are supposed to make it to the very bottom to do their inspection.”

  “And just what are they inspecting?” Kelsey asked.

  “They are supposed to be checking for the conditions that lead to a dungeon break,” Delir explained.

  “That’s… probably not true,” Kelsey said thoughtfully. “The only condition that requires it is when you get too much mana.”

  “What other circumstances can lead to a break?” Delir asked.

  “Oh, we can do it whenever we like,” Kelsey said. “And the mana thing… There are ways to manage that. Even if you’re not getting delved, you can spend the mana on other things, you know?”

  “I don’t, but I can imagine,” Delir said eagerly. “So how does a dungeon get too much mana?”

  “Not being delved will do it if you’re dumb. But if that’s happening, you just need to check how many monsters are dropping cores.”

  “I thought cores generated randomly?”

  “They do, but they’re how monsters absorb extra mana. If you’ve got too much surplus, more monsters grow cores.”

  “We do keep track of how many cores are found,” Delir said. “It can be inaccurate as many parties don’t search properly. The Hungry Depths isn’t known for dropping many cores.”

  “I’d be surprised if it was, with the amount of mana it's spending on treasure,” Kelsey muttered. “Anyway, say your monsters are full, and you’re up against the floor cap, and you don’t want to make adjustments, and you don’t want to generate more treasure. If all of those are true, it can be easier just to let the monsters out. Another way—”

  “Getting back on topic, if the wizards aren’t checking for signs, what are they doing?” Anton said. Delir gave him a hurt look.

  “Dunno. That’s one more thing to ask about. How often do they do this?”

  “About once a month, depending on if they can find a decent team to follow,” Delir said. “There should be a note in the entries… there.”

  “Inspection team followed,” Kelsey read. “It doesn’t look like there’s anything different about the delve itself… or the one after.”

  She started flipping through the book, running her finger along the entries fairly quickly.

  “Are you reading that fast?” Anton asked.

  “Sorta,” Kelsey said. “I’ve got Charley copying the relevant details as I go along. I can do some statistics on the numbers once I’ve gathered them all. If we go back far enough, I could work out when this all started.”

  She paused and looked speculatively at the book she had open. Then, she looked at the other ledgers.

  “This would go faster if I could have my skellies each take a book and start copying,” she said.

  “Ah! Well… the books are supposed to remain here at all times,” Delir said hastily. “And there are archivists watching, you know. They would have objections if any books were to vanish.”

  Kelsey scowled. “What if I brought a bunch of Charleys here?” she asked.

  “That also would not be seen in a positive light,” Delir said, his voice pitched a little higher.

  “Ah, well, it’s not like we aren’t stuck waiting for a few days,” Kelsey said philosophically. “I just wish I’d invented data-entry skeletons already.”

  my fault that you need a whole dungeon work-up in the next few chapters.