One will not find the kingdom of Alypia on a map today. The last vestiges of the ancient land of the hobbledehoy was claimed by the Aether Sea over a century ago, and even before that, the kingdom had been reduced to little more than a few villages. Alypia was once considered blessed by the goddess Sunxa. Ancient writers speak of rolling hills and meadows of flowers, rivers as clear as crystal and filled with every manner of fish, a land where every crop could grow and grow bountifully. Its people were small, barely larger than human children, but sturdier than an orke, and they dwelt in cities shaped from the earth. The jewel of their land was the great temple to Sunxa, whose dome has never yet been eclipsed by another construction of mortal hands.  - Histories of These Lands by Philomon the Sage.


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    Ario woke early, and I followed him, suspicious of his destination. I didn’t trust the mortal, even if Cixilo claimed he couldn’t betray me while marked. I expected he would seek out the fairy egg again to try and contact his employers.


    Instead, he climbed down the zigzag staircase and wandered past the hearth of Tamyris, and simply found a boulder at the edge of the jungle and sat cross legged on top of it. Sat alone and silent in the rising dawn. The ground was still wet with dew and the air had the remnants of a night chill. It didn’t seem to bother him.


    I waited and watched him until the sun rose above the horizon and long rays of light started to reach my island. He didn’t move for over an hour.


    What are you waiting for? I said.


    Ario gave a yelp. He looked around wildly until he seemed to remember me, and slowly, he relaxed again. “Gods above, Mizar, you’re scary.” He rubbed his face. “I was meditating. What are you doing?”


    Talking to you, I suppose. I haven’t forgotten that you owe me answers.


    “Alright, I’ll give you answers if it means you won’t try to give me a heart attack. What do you want to know?”


    What does Naya want with me?


    Ario frowned. “I suppose what anyone wants a dungeon for. Power, riches. You’re a mechanism of creation. Control a dungeon and you control what it creates. Soul power, gold, magic items. She already has one, but so does Siculus, and being equal isn’t enough for Naya. She has to be the best.”Help support creative writers by finding and reading their stories on the original site.


    Which dungeons do Naya and Siculus control?


    “I’ve never been to Hyracid.” Ario shrugged. “They say the capital is built on the dungeon’s back, but you’d have to be mighty arrogant to live on a dungeon. Naya controls the Golden Dungeon Ereleuva.”


    I know her. She fell just before the gods left. She had been a young star, younger than me. Poor creature.


    “It’s true then? That you’re a star?” Ario said.


    Dungeons all were once, I think.


    “Amazing, when I think of the things you’ve seen.” Ario shook his head, a hint of a smile on his lips. “To answer the other questions you haven’t yet asked, once I fail to report in, they’ll scry for my location and send a party to investigate. Naya herself is impulsive, but I doubt she’ll even hear about it until there is information to share. No one wants to be the person who delivers nothing when she’s in a bad mood.”


    I need to level up before then. Where can we find adventurers to run my zones?


    Ario tapped his finger against his jaw. “You need the Dungeoneer’s Guild. They run the free dungeons. They don’t operate in Marin, Naya wouldn’t allow it, but if we could somehow get word to them before Naya gets here….” He trailed off in thought.


    Think of a way, I said. I withdrew without waiting for his answer. Cixilo might have better ideas. It was time to rouse the old man from bed.


    ***


    “I’ve heard of the Dungeoneer’s Guild, of course,” Cixilo said. He rubbed his sleepy eyes and glared in the wrong direction. “Couldn’t this have waited until breakfast? It’s barely dawn.”


    It is an hour past dawn. Ario has been awake for hours.


    Cixilo rolled his eyes and shuffled off his bed.


    So how do we contact them?


    “I don’t know. They didn’t operate in my kingdom. They’re protected by the queen of Kethenia. The Dread Lords have never been able to conquer Kethenia, and so the Dungeoneer’s operate outside their rules.” Cixilo spoke to his mirror while he was poking and prodding at his face like it would rearrange the wrinkles. “I suppose you need to get word to Kethenia somehow.”


    I’m a dungeon, Cixilo. I can’t exactly just fly there.


    “Well it would take weeks for either me or Ario to make a round trip. Wyverns and griffins aren’t built for speed. If we had a portal stone… maybe.”


    How do we get one?


    “You have to make them but I’m a mage, not an enchanter.”


    You’re forgetting something, I said, already zooming out of his bedroom.


    “Forgetting what?” Cixilo called after me.