Dungeon breaks. They are, bar none, the greatest threat to the Empire. Calling it a break is perhaps a misnomer, since the Dungeon does not change, but five hundred years of history compels me to adhere to the name.
It is a phenomenon that has yet to be fully explained, but the consequences are clear. A rapid tide of monsters floods upwards, climbing up and up until they break through to the surface. Hounds, Burrowers, Champions and Calamities, all see an uptick in appearance. All lands immediately around the Dungeon are evacuated, any soul caught inside is considered lost.
We don't know why they happen, we don't know why they started or how to stop them, but we do know this. Every instance risks our extinction, and the pause between breaks has grown smaller and smaller as time goes on.
I doubt the Empire will celebrate its sixth century of existence. I doubt humanity will survive on Ablios, even if Parna will continue on. Perhaps the sight of flying Hounds crossing the ocean will make them regret spurning every offer of cooperation.
I doubt the Empire will survive, but neither do I care. I am ninety three years old now, and I think I will explore the other realms of existence with my last years of life. This is my last entry to the Beasts of the Dungeon. Good luck, Archmage.
I am sorry.
Excerpt from The Beasts of the Dungeon.
REPLACE WITH LINE BREAK p^o^q REPLACE WITH LINE BREAK
The year six hundred and twenty, new Imperial calendar, marked the year Marcus first saw the Dungeon. It felt significant, somehow. Important. He'd seen drawings, heard recollections, and had even fought its Hounds.
Nothing compared. Fifty miles wide, easily big enough to fit an expansive city into, and deep. Unforgivably, impossibly, deep. There was a bottom, but only because light didn't reach that far down. A bottom of shadow and darkness.
It was a clear day, so he'd expected to see it in its entirety, but no. The horizon cut off large parts of the sides, the curvature of the earth great enough to hide most of its true size. And perhaps the worst part?
There was no magic. No spatial enlargement, no faint trace of something arcane, nothing. Just a hole that made anything and everything seem small, going down and down and down.
The sides weren't perfectly smooth, either. Huge outcroppings big enough to fit a Legion, caves practically everywhere—some as small as a man and others the size of castles—and ridges running up and down the entire thing.
Even now he could see Hounds racing to the top, saw his first Champion and then a hundred more, and even spotted what he was pretty sure was a Calamity.
Was… was that a river draining into the Dungeon? A river? From the ocean? No. No, it must be from the mountains. Yeah.
Vistus cleared his throat. "We can't stay for too long. Holding them back here is suicide, Burrowers create plenty of tunnels for monsters to travel through, so the fortifications are miles away. One good thing about the Hounds, they go for large population centers, and aren't smart enough to differentiate a Legion from a town. Cleaning up the scattered survivors is another problem."
"This happens every few years?" Marcus asked, mouth dry. A flock of flying monsters was shot down by a retreating group of Imperial mages, Marcus whisking them further away with a flex of will. "How is humanity still alive?"
The Archmage shrugged. "It used to happen once every generation. As little as once every fifty years, but that's as far as our records go back. But you're right, we can't. This level of attrition is unsustainable. We haven't fully recovered from the last Dungeon break, and hadn't fully recovered back then from the one before."
"The continent is dead unless we find a solution," Marcus finished, sighing deeply. "Well, any worries you might have had about my motivations can be laid to rest. Not to say I'm a huge humanitarian, but I live here, and frankly, I haven't found a good alternative."
Elly shrugged, glancing sideways as one of their guards shot a stray Hound before turning their way again. "Save your ammunition, soldier. But yeah, this feels familiar. At least I don't have to convince everyone about the danger of the situation, at least. That very nearly snapped the last of my patience, last time."
She came with ships and fire, two hundred thousand soldiers behind her in a fleet so large even the sea monstrosities hesitated. The Survivors of Parna, united under their Steel Queen.
Another him had said that, Marcus recalled, when he'd been in the Mirror Dimension. An Elly who'd either been quicker or more ruthless in taking command when her homeland fell, saving hundreds of thousands instead of tens, and had invaded because of it.
No one wanted that many refugees, not even the Empire, and Elly had taken the only available choice. War.
Marcus shook his head, weaving Vess' summoning matrix together. The demon appeared, one eyebrow arched. Marcus spoke before she could. "Tell me what you see, please. We don't have long."
"The Dungeon," Vess supplied after a moment, looking around. Her expression tightened when she spotted what he had. "A Calamity. Hordes of Hounds and more. I'd be more poetic, waxing and waning about the beauty of nature's design, brutal as it may be, but I dislike being torn limb from limb. It's bad for my complexion."
Elly snorted. "You don't have a complexion because you don't have a body. But she does make a point, I'm pained to admit. I've seen what I needed to see."
"Your growing fondness for me is a delight," Vess replied dryly, turning to Marcus himself. "Kindly don't die because you were bewitched by the nature of the Dungeon."
Marcus hummed. "I wonder if anyone ever threw themselves over the edge. Just falling and falling and seeing how deep they would go."
"Plenty of people," Vistus supplied, waving a hand and evaporating a party of sneaking Champions. "Some even thought it through and brought oxygen. We need to leave. If the Calamity comes, we'll be pinned down for a long, long while."
"You can't just make it go poof?"
Vistus glanced at Elly, rolling his eyes. "I destabilize the structural bonds holding together their existence. I do not 'poof'. And no, I can't. Calamities that aren't magically resistant don't make it to the surface, not usually. They're too steeped in magic for me to alter with anything resembling ease."
Marcus witnessed a flock of bird-like Hounds rise into view, thousands of the things, and decided enough was enough. He grasped the party and spun his fifth tier spatial spell together, skipping backwards almost two and a half thousand feet. Then another, and another, and he wasn't planning to stop until he was back with the army.
It was rather tiring, chaining jumps like this, so any plans Vistus had about him acting as a baggage train would have to become disappointments. Not like he could do this for days on end, either. The journey back would push him, any further would be risking true fatigue.
The journey didn't take long, though, and Vistus left with a hasty goodbye. Had ground to cover, Legions to meet up with, doing all the things he usually did during a Dungeon break. And the man was pretty fast, using very expertly controlled wind to aid his movements, but his apprentice seemed more strained.
Marcus shrugged, turning back towards his own army. It had been busy while he'd been gone, settling in an old fort and repairing it as best they were able. Which, as it turned out, was very able. Mostly because of the several thousand sets of tools they kept around in spatially enlarged boxes.
Vess was re-summoned, and just for a moment, it was the four of them. Him, Xathar, Elly and Vess, the fort spreading in the distance but no monsters close by. Well, his guards were there, but with a muttered word they gave him some privacy.
Marcus cleared his throat. "So, I've been speaking with alternate versions of myself in a place I call the Mirror Dimension, which I'm pretty sure I have access to because it's a place of not-space between realities. I've only had one meeting, technically two but I'm not counting the first, but he—the other me— has already helped me with the sixth-tier portal spell."
"That's nice," Elly replied, favoring him with a brief smile before turning back towards the fort. "I hope it works out. We need better aerial cover for the soldiers, by the way, or the flying Hounds will just pluck away at their leisure. And the forges need to start on making more crossbow bolts. Dammit, I should have asked Vistus to make bars of steel before he left. We'll have to make do."
Huh. Well, Elly seemed fine with him breaching the sanctity of reality. Cool. Xathar didn't seem to care much either, munching on some bloodied grass, and only Vess had the appropriate reaction.
A widening of the eyes, the spark of ideas, a notion of how insane having that much knowledge could be. Imagining a thousand, a million, Marcusus working together for their common interest. Of an Evil Marcus trying to invade other realities, a Good Marcus rallying to stop him, a war between existence and space and time forever and ever and ever and ever-
"So how long until you get reliable contact with them?" Vess asked, her tiny expressions of surprise already gone. "I'm assuming you haven't, or you would have mentioned it."
Marcus blinked. "I haven't. I didn't take this nearly as well as any of you did."
"I'd imagine not, no." Vess turned, smoothing out a non-existent wrinkle in her dress. "But then you were actually there. Experienced it. We just hear words that don't carry too much meaning, pardon the implication. They can't. Elly is just thinking-"
"I can hear you."
Vess huffed, glaring at the woman. "Can you? You seemed awfully busy salivating over a crumbling ruin. Anyway, Elly put this in the 'magic nonsense' category, Xathar literally doesn't care, and I'm older than I look."
"You've heard of it before?" Marcus asked, perking up. Vess hesitated, making him deflate. "Oh. Well, nevermind. Guess I'll figure it out on my own."
The demon shook her head with a smile on her face. "The curse of an Archmage. You tread ground no one ever has, not in recorded history. The curse comes with power, though. Great, great amounts of power. And anyone that says power is bad doesn't have any. Power means control, and I haven't met a single soul who likes being truly powerless. Not outside of, well-"
"Yes, thank you," Marcus interrupted. "I can feel when you're about to be horrifically unladylike. And you know as well as I do that surrendering control is a kind of control."
Vess grinned, glancing at Elly's retreating form. "She doesn't seem the type, too in-charge and commanding, but it's a common thing where people prefer the opposite in the-"
"Alright, alright. Gods, she'll kill us both. You're lucky she walked off."
"Luck had nothing to do with it," Vess sniffed, turning away. "I might be immortal here, but in the Hells I'm as killable as anyone. Considering I'm several centuries old, my survival instincts are very well honed."
Silence fell, Vess was no doubt crafting some suitably subtle comments about either him or Elly, but the silence continued. Elly left for the fort, abandoning them entirely, and was already directing her people and summoning messengers.
Xathar was silent, Vess was silent, Marcus was happy to continue being silent. And it endured until one of Elly's Life Enhanced soldiers came to fetch them, Marcus looking at her with a perception tuned to magic.
Whatever the woman saw in his eyes made her flinch, lowering her gaze. "The scouts have sighted a horde of Hounds approaching our location, your Grace. The Queen requests that you enter the fort."
Mitzi, that was it. The adopted daughter of Hargraf. Loaned to Elly, who was molding her into a loyal servant of the Crown. Still spying for her father, keeping an eye on things while the man governed his territory, but wavering in her duty. Or so was the plan, anyway. Not his project.
Mirrania was far too unstable to leave without its Dukes and Duchess, not that Marcus minded. There was something to be said for keeping one's rivals close, but now he had the Empire. An Empire that was very interested in keeping him in power.
"I suppose it is that time," Marcus allowed, turning away. Vess was smiling at the woman, for some reason, but Marcus didn't really care. "Xathar?"
The demon horse grunted, starting to move. "We should be riding towards the enemy. Riding into glorious combat until our teeth are red and our hooves stand on a mountain of bones. It is disgraceful to hide behind walls."
"Sure," Marcus agreed easily. "It's also smart, and we humans don't have the luxury of endless numbers. Demons just… appear in the Hells. Humans take two decades to grow, assuming they don't die before then, and only live for a hundred years at most. Many live far, far shorter lives. Tools are how we conquered our world—though admittedly we're losing it again—, and walls are just another form of tools."
Xathar jerked his head to the side, tone mocking. "Many words. Argument weak. Me win."
"I could just send you home. Then there'll be no monsters for you to fight at all."
The demon increased his speed, suddenly focused. "We must get you to the castle, bush mage. The Queen demands it."
She asked, which Marcus felt was a somewhat important distinction, but he'd take the win. The fort approached, growing larger and larger, and soon enough they passed a number of companies patrolling its outskirts.
Mostly accompanying mages, he saw, and likely there to detect Burrowers. The Beasts of the Dungeon had said they didn't tend to undermine structures on purpose, they lacked the large-scale coordination needed for that, but they did make holes underneath masses of people.
And Hounds surging to attack soldiers from within their own ranks would kill morale faster than almost anything else.
The gate loomed, wooden and big and covered in runes, and he hummed. Reached out to correct some flaws, replacing the center wholesale with a runic formation he'd copied from the School of Life.
It thrummed with power, the guards stationed on the gatehouse too busy opening the thing to notice. The four mages did, though, and shot him surprised looks. Marcus shrugged in return, not sure how to explain it.
The gate was attached to an outer wall, he saw, running along the length of a rather steep hill. It was a good position, forcing Hounds to run up or fly without cover, and the plateau was large enough to house their twenty thousand soldiers. A massive complex of engineering, though the fact it was made of wood lessened the achievement somewhat.
Vistus had apparently aided in its construction. One of the Imperial initiatives when the man had first come into his powers, building dozens and dozens of cheap wooden forts and having the Archmage turn it into hickory.
Building the initial structure with balsa wood, which was extremely light and easy to work with, then having Vistus come along to change the material once construction had completed. Turning wood into different wood was far easier than turning it into stone, and building with the weak material first ensured over-engineering by design.
It was the kind of project only an Empire could finance, and even half a century later some still stood. Druids could maintain the structure easily, banishing rot and decay, and even anchored the walls into the ground by encouraging roots to grow from dead wood.
Four towers ringed the fort, massive things fully enclosed except for small holes to shoot through, with a central structure he'd call a keep if it wasn't made from wood. Smaller barracks lined the walls, dozens and dozens of the things, and there was enough storage for years of provisions.
The Eastfort. Vistus had admitted they'd run out of good names by the time they got to building this one.
It wasn't even properly east, at that, more north-east, but Marcus wasn't going to argue over the name of a sixty year old military complex. He'd argued over the fact it was made out of wood, which burned, but apparently druids could keep the wood fire resistant rather easily.
That and throwing lots and lots of water over it. That apparently also worked.
It was inelegant, massive and shockingly effective for its cost. He was starting to see a trend with the Empire's military doctrine, he was.
Hells, they even put runic enchantments on everything. Not as much as the gate, but basic, repeating patterns of strengthening and hardening runes were everywhere, something which even now his mages were hastily inspecting.
Marcus almost paused as he entered into Eastfort proper, a hive of activity all but smacking him in the face. The place had been built for three Legions, meaning they were overcrowded by just shy of half, but while storage didn't matter it sure felt crowded.
Company after company was marching towards the walls, which were as enclosed as the towers to protect against flying Hounds, and further in a hundred fires burned. Cooks feeding twenty thousand men, smiths forging more crossbow bolts, even druids slowly growing a roof over the inner courtyard.
He could see Kleph leading the latter effort, nodding in approval. Any monster risking entry from the sky would find no easy targets and be made an easy target in turn. Not the entire complex, of course, but domed areas to protect those resting or eating.
Marcus spotted Elly inside the main structure, easily big enough on its own to house a few thousand men, and spun up one of his sixth-tier exercises as he made his way inside. It seemed only fair to keep practicing with everyone else preparing for the end of the world.
This was an interesting one, actually. Spatial in origin, folding an infinitely thin arc of space but bending it into form, which was a strain he wasn't familiar with. A line, at first, which came naturally. Then a curve, which was harder but manageable, then a ninety degree bend. Then a loop, which was what he was working on now.
Not particularly useful, but hard. Hard enough he was improving ways to shape and guide the magic manually, practice turning into skill turning into reflex. Something his mind just did, leaving room for him to focus on other things.
The first hordes would be here soon, he still needed to test both his improved defensive suite and enchanted mace in a proper fight, and overall things were heating up. No more peace, no more serene lunches on top of castle roofs. The Dungeon was coming to kill them all, and for the first time in recorded history Mirrania was contributing to the fight.
Marcus rolled his shoulder.
I'm almost looking forward to this.