I had been thinking about floor designs and the overall layout of the Dungeon.

  I was watching the essence flow through the Dungeon. The stairwell was becoming a vortex of both air and essence. The essence was spinning down the stairwell, helping to hide my location. Anyone looking for me below a certain ability level would not see me because of this. That was my first layer of defense.

  I had been watching this flow over the years. As I have levelled and my ability to process essence has increased, so has the intensity of the essence flowing through my Dungeon. I began to notice other types of essence forming mana as it flowed through my Dungeon. Over the years, I had recognised the different types I possessed. As for void essence, I found it odd that the level never changed. I had expected an increase or a decrease, but it remained constant.

  "Weird."

  At different times of the day, I notice a shift in the essence flowing through the Dungeon. During winter, the amount of essence that formed ice mana increased. At night, the amount of light essence decreases. As they were elemental-based, all of that was easy to understand. So why did void essence never change?

  I was contemplating this because my limited resources severely restricted my ability to experiment. I made a small or large breakthrough with the bats, depending on how you looked at it. The larger bat couldn't fly due to their size and weight, but adding air mana to the wings allowed this to be bypassed. The amount of mana required increased exponentially with the size of the bat that is trying to enable it to fly. Most were just gliding at the moment, but I hoped that infusing enough would allow actual flight.

  Resolving this issue was a significant step forward in creating the long-planned monster for the tenth floor. This distant goal brought me back to thinking about my Dungeon layout.

  "Once I reach that floor, do I mix up?"

  After reviewing the attacks by void-corrupted creatures on my Dungeon, I had already made some changes. On the 4th and 5th floors, I enlarged the exits from the guardians' rooms to allow them to reach the stairwell. This would allow them to take part in the battles that I knew would come in the future. I had been foolish in restricting them. I would seek not to do that again.

  I knew these battles were coming not just because they were attracted to me but because the corrupted were gathering at Folly's End. I had to stop one of my open requests with Ranus to obtain a report on the predicted numbers and strength of what was being gathered there.

  The numbers were terrifying.

  I had expected a buildup of monsters, but not what they were reported as. Since then, I have been reevaluating my entire layout, wondering if it is time to implement a few changes. The first change I implemented was allowing the guardians on those floors access the stairwell. I decided to add the stairwell to Krag's floor when I moved down. He would only use this space when instructed.

  It was no game changer but would increase my capacity to defend myself. Krag was no longer my final line of defence, but I quickly realised he wouldn't be enough. I brought Puck to the core room and had him pick me up. He struggled due to my now increased size. He could find me away, but he wouldn't get far. Larry could carry me, but again, getting him away from the fighting was the most significant part of the problem.

  I had been leaning towards an evacuation tunnel of some type. But where could I go? I was tied to this Dungeon as it was tied to me. I could delay the inevitable by moving around, but it was only a delay.

  I needed some form of Hail Mary or a devastating trap that would kill everything within my core room. The problem was that I didn't have access to anything that could even closely resemble that right now. Thanks to the alchemist's visit, I had options but could not reproduce them right now.

  This left me to mull over the situation.

  The eighth floor was quiet, as it had been since the first team had gone through it several days ago. Since then, no one has visited there. Even Krag was not happy because no one came down to challenge him. The adventurers weren't going past the sixth floor right now. I had listened to many conversations trying to discern why, but for some reason, they were happy to stay on those floors.

  This meant my essence gathering had dropped off to nearly nothing. I was getting the passive amount that came with adventurers using their skills or spells as they came through the Dungeon. But deaths were few and far between as the upper floors were now well known, and those foolish youngbloods that disrespected them were all dead.

  In the conversations, though, I did learn that the eighth floor was rated just below gold in difficulty. The combination of minions and the final change in the floor guardian was considerable to be overcome.

  I spent several more hours thinking about my Dungeon layout and its defence of my Core. I realised there was nothing I could do right now, but when it came to the 10th floor, I would once again resolve to look at the issue and see if I could or should make a change.

  ## ## ## ## ##

  Ranus was having a bad day.

  He knew it. His staff knew it. By the Gods, he thought half the city knew it.

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  His particular problem with this bad day was that it was actually the consecutive one. For the last five days, he had been dealing with nothing but problems that seemed unending and multiplying without an end in sight.

  Five days ago, the Adventurers Guild reported the existence of the new floor and that its boss was an undead revenant. The political and moral storm released by this revelation was still swirling around the city and was spreading far to neighbouring nations and fiefdoms.

  Everyone seemed to have an opinion, and they gave him advice regardless of his wishes. Most had adopted a wait-and-see approach, but some of the more hard-core elements demanded a complete purge of the Dungeon.

  He was thankful, however, that the churches and temples, who would commonly support such a call, instead advised restraint from everyone. This meant he did not have to deal with the mob of worked-up people trying to storm the Dungeon. He knew that wouldn't stop independent priests or clerics, but the presence of every single deity within his city ensured they were few and far between.

  There had been a few incidents, but his Watch and the churches had come down hard on them, preventing anything from building to the point where it would engulf the city in a storm of fire and righteous zeal.

  And that was not the most pressing of his problems.

  "What do you mean we're running out of silver?" he asked his treasurer, sitting across from him. Amya looked like she wanted to squirm in her seat, but her professionalism prevented her from doing so.

  "The amount of silver in the city in coinage and other forms has dropped remarkably over the last few weeks." She continued with her report. "The situation is becoming increasingly critical, as we are now short of the staple currency metal required to keep the economy functioning."

  "Where is it all going?" Ranus was unable to understand this, as silver was the backbone of most daily transactions. A shortage is often perceived as one of two things: a serious problem or a market manipulation. His first thought was that his family was making a power play, but it seemed like they were also being affected by it. Many merchants were now out and complaining about the shortage, and many were trying to figure out why.

  "I've asked my friends and colleagues across this continent to find out what's happening, but we're not the only affected people." Amya continues speaking and reading from a report in front of her.

  There was a knock at the door, and Naru entered the room, handing Amya a small piece of fool scrap parchment. Amya read it over as she withdrew and closed the door behind her.

  "Something important?" Ranus asked, knowing that his meeting would not be interrupted unless it was.

  "Yes, it seems to know why we are running out of silver." Amya looked up from the note. "It turns out that there is an outbreak of Were-plague in one part of the Skaald lands."

  Ranus hissed, both concerned and frustrated at this news. Such plagues were notoriously bad and ranked almost as bad as an undead outbreak. What united them was that silver was one of the most effective means of controlling or destroying those infected. The downside was that the metal used was normally ruined or destroyed in the process. "How bad is it?" He asked.

  "In the Skaald lands, it is nearly always the wolf variant. One of the kingdoms located further up the river network appears to have experienced an outbreak. They're controlling it, but it is sucking in all the silver from the surrounding realms and nations."

  "And because of the river link, we are also being affected." Ranus reasoned.

  "Yes, Ranus. Even if the plague is under control, this will profoundly impact every economy within several hundred miles of the outbreak." Amya continued.

  "Even with the silver vein in the Dungeon, we can expect a shortage for the next few months before things return to normal. I remember the last plague outbreak in the extreme southern part of the Riverlands fifteen years ago. It was nearly a year before silver was seen even close to the former amount it was."

  "We need to start stockpiling a reserve immediately. I also recommend you talk with the Guild and have the vein assigned to you exclusively for the next few weeks to help build up that reserve." Amya counselled.

  "That will not be a popular move, but we should do it, I agree." Ranus stood and walked over to the door leading to the main reception hall. He opened it and called over Naru. He gave her the instructions, and she quickly fulfilled his will. After closing the door, Ranus returned to his seat.

  "Anything else, Amya, that I need to know about?" He asked.

  "Yes. Here are the predictions for the rest of the year, including the estimated tax yield at the solstice."

  Ranus took the sheets of vellum with another sigh.

  ## ## ## ## ##

  Elian, I've received a message from Ranus regarding his plans for the silver vein. She, too, had just learned of the plague outbreak in the north. She could see why he was making the moves to ensure the needed stockpile of silver now.

  She drafted the orders restricting vein mining for the next sixty days. Every third time the vein was regenerated, it was mined exclusively by his order. The other two were open to anyone who would risk the floor. Cutting them off from the vein would be harsh, and they would complain, but it needed to be done.

  Albrot and Averance were not here right now, and she was glad of the quiet so she could get on and finish her paperwork. She discovered that her productivity dropped dramatically when one or both were present. She had been dropping subtle hints at the pair, and it seemed they had finally heard her. Or so she hoped.

  Her great fear was that they were off causing mischief that would ultimately lead to her having more work to do.

  Sighing, she went back to work.

  ## ## ## ## ##

  The mountains around Shadow Vale were once free of people and civilisation.

  Even during the height of the old empire, this area was sparsely populated at best. The deep valleys within the mountains might have seen a single traveller or adventurer in a few centuries, but now they were coming by the hundreds.

  Shadow Vale was well situated and in the perfect location to serve as a starting point for exploration teams entering these mountains, and many were now taking advantage of this.

  Some small places and values were isolated due to the local lord's order or because a powerful monster resided there. Void corruption once spread through these mountains almost unchecked, but over the last few years, it had slowed to a crawl at best. The corrupted essence in the air was being douth to the city, where the Dungeon dealt with it.

  That did not mean it was totallyany thought that the corrupted mountain ogre that attacked a dungeon was the most powerfupotented monster in the mountains, but they were wrong. Deep in the mountains, there was another. This one was sleeping and only emerging to feed and fight.

  It, too, felt the pull to go South. It was older and stronger than the ochre and could resist the pull. But as the years passed, the pull grew more vigorous, more substantial; the beast could no longer ignore it.

  The valley it lived in was empty of everything that once lived there. Even the trees and plants in the valley were becoming twisted and warped by his presence. One morning, it emerged from its cave. Around the entrance were the bones of many who had been hunted down and killed. It looked to the South and today made a choice.

  It set off across its territory and soon came to the edge of it. The beast typically goes hunting, but today, it left to go on a journey to hunt different prey.