The Runic Alchemist

"Yes, it is scary and quite risky to do—but that is the way forward.." Damian said. "The dungeons, the powerful families—some having more access to power and resources than others; our people have been stuck in this cycle for centuries. I truly have no idea how much control I can have over it, but once the importance of dungeons is reduced to mere places to get resources and training grounds instead of seats of power—only then can we truly take a step forward as a civilization.

Uncovering the truth of these dungeons requires people in power to give a safe space for researchers and creative minds to work freely. For warriors, it won't be an easy thing to understand, but to my fellow academics and scholars, this will be the single most important thing that will happen since mankind found these dungeons to begin with."

"Life where dungeons are not important enough to die for.. that would indeed be an interesting world to see," the Land-breaker commented with a smile.

Voidshaper shook his head and turned back towards the dungeon description again—not letting himself be distracted. Damian also realized he had started ranting again and looked back at the dungeon.

"A way to seal it that even the strongest of us won't be able to get through.." Damian muttered, thinking aloud. "Can cover it with sacrium.."

"It would have to be big enough that no one can enter the dungeon—around five hundred meters for a fifty-level one dungeon."

"That's a lot of sacrium wasted," Damian replied.

"I have it. You just need to shape it," the Land-breaker said.

"Oh! You have extra? It must be nice to be so rich."

The Land-breaker made a face at him, as if saying 'What bullshit is this now?'

They came out of the water, and the Land-breaker pulled out the sacrium from his spatial storage—which was also made out of sacrium. Part of the primordial era, perhaps.

It was indeed a lot of sacrium—Damian's little heart hurt using it all just for sealing a dungeon. He could do so much with it. There was a limited quantity of sacrium on the mainland, though—he could indeed get enough for his use through other means. The thing was, he had heard reports that the three kingdoms had started collecting the sacrium from their land, knowing full well he could use it to make things. With the collection of spells he had, making money was easy, and he could use that to get more sacrium. So the rulers of the three nations had started stocking up on sacrium to make deals with him—the only thing he might want from them.

For now, Damian just shaped it in a large cube, keeping the dungeon entrance in the middle. The dungeon entrance was a very weird phenomenon of nature—one could not touch it with their hands, but neither could anyone use things to push it in any direction. It was a fixed thing, affected by neither air nor water.

For some reason, it did not spawn under the land, but one could potentially bury it deep within. Not that Damian had sensed any underground dungeons, but there had to be some which were left untouched by the world and were buried under land over the years. It was hard to know.

Damian did not put any spells in yet; the sacrium alone was enough. He needed time to think of some spells that could render anything useless—even if someone used things that could damage sacrium. It wouldn't be so easy to do, though, by an average transcendent or lower, naked individual.

Finished with his job, Damian grabbed one monster, trapped it on the ocean floor, and took its ID—not explaining anything to the two companions of his. There were four more dungeons here—he had to check those out later. Plus, he had to come back to inscribe protective spells on the sacrium cube.

Finished with their job, Damian opened a waygate back to Mindseer, and they all flew in—once again scaring the crap out of the mundane civilians of Edgeheaven, busy in meeting with Mindseer.

"So what was the thing you wanted to talk about?" Voidshaper asked him once the three of them were back near the reconstruction effort of the Obsidian Bastion.

"The system you guys had for the badges of students—what was the source of that network? How did you make these custom status tools?" Damian asked.

He doubted they would refuse him to check the thing out if it still survived—they wouldn't make the relationship between him and Highswords troubled because of such a low-risk thing. But then again, they were the Highswords—afraid of any of their hidden technologies getting revealed to the people. Would they still believe in that ideal of theirs after everything that had happened? Their hidden treasury was looted by the cult and their accomplice Black Reaver and those gangs. So most of what they were hiding was already lost.

The faces of the two ancient beings had a hint of sadness to them, though.

"It doesn't work anymore. It's broken—they couldn't take it, so they did the only thing they could," Voidshaper answered.

"Can I.. see it?" Damian asked.

Voidshaper looked toward the Land-breaker, who nodded. Land-breaker remained behind, rejoining the reconstruction efforts, as Voidshaper showed Damian the way.

The whole bastion had been broken to pieces, but the basement floors had not been destroyed fully. The Faerunians had already tried to clear the rubble and go in—their goal was to just enter and check it out, though—unlike the Highswords, who had cleaned it as best as they could in the hopes of reusing it for the new building.

They went in from spiraling stairs. Damian remembered it from his time in the academy. They went deeper and deeper for many floors, until finally Voidshaper stopped outside a large stone door that resembled many of the similar stone doors they had passed by before. The walls had giant cracks and holes in them, some even scorched black by fire. It was clear the cult members had done their best to destroy it completely—but it had still survived, just like the Land-breaker and the Highswords.

Clearing so many floors must have taken a lot of time and effort.