Chapter 162: Chapter 148: Snakes on a Plain

There was paperwork. Of course there would be paperwork involved in switching our primary guild branch. Why did I expect anything different? Why did the delvers guild turn out paper like a printing press when pretty much the entirety of the rest of society operated without it?

There were all sorts of rules about when a delver was allowed to change their home dungeon. How long had they worked their current dungeon? Was the desired new dungeon oversaturated? Did it produce resources that were in demand? Were they capable of dealing with the threats it would present?

Serpent Isle didn't have a proper town around it. All that was there was a delver outpost and its support staff. That meant it didn't have the supply of brash newbies that most other dungeons were suffering, nor was it overworked. It didn't have any features that hard-countered our abilities, so we passed that check too. Resources were no longer an issue, because demand for silver had gone through the roof and any dungeon over fifteen floors would produce it. The sticking point was the rule that you could only rotate your place of work once per year, and we had only recently started. Normal people didn't clear their first dungeon solo less than a season after turning fourteen.

Heck, in my case, I'd soloed the dungeon years before turning fourteen, long before I was officially allowed to join.

Thankfully, it wasn't much of a problem. That limitation existed mainly to avoid overuse of the portal network, so as long as I paid my own way, they'd be willing to waive it. Since watching the [Spatial Archmage] team recreating the portals of the Emerald Caverns, I'd learnt that while resources could be pushed through a portal indefinitely, living things passing through them sapped their strength. Each trip consumed a monster core with a minimum level of fifty. It was a pity I didn't already have a beacon in the Emerald Nest.

I knew its coordinates, though, and had a built in GPS.

"Do you want to walk to the Emerald Nest?" I asked Cluma. "The route takes us through the Emerald Sea."

"Huh? Sorry, what did you say?"

I turned to look at Cluma, who was peering distractedly at a plain wall.

"What's so interesting about that wall?"

"Not the wall—the mana. Does it do this often?"

I checked with [Mana Sight], but couldn't see anything particularly unusual. "Do what?"

"It's all kinda slowly drifting north."

Sensitive to the flows of mana indeed... If it was moving, it was beyond my ability to see. "I don't know. I can't see it moving with my skills."

"Weird. I've not seen it do this before, but it's not like I've had this ability for long. Anyway, what were you saying earlier?"

"I asked if you wanted to walk to the Emerald Nest."

She pondered for a minute. "It's a bit cold and wet for trekking through the forest. I'd have said yes if it was summer, but if we tried it now, we'd probably end up wading through mud."

"Good practice for the dungeon then," I said, not forgetting what Ella had said about the dungeon's internal weather. "But okay. I'll take the portal there and leave a beacon, and we can teleport whenever."

It wasn't as if we were only allowed to delve in our registered active dungeon; we could walk into any other we wanted. It was discouraged, given that the concept of a home dungeon was intended to manage how busy each one was, so if we left our registered base here but worked Serpent Isle every day, someone would eventually complain, but an occasional trip out there would be fine. It might be worth me finding other interesting dungeons and leaving teleport points outside, so we could switch things up a bit if we got bored.

"Okay. I'll wait for you in the bar," said Cluma.

"You're in that much of a hurry?" I asked, before it twigged why she needed to wait. "Right, you can't go back home, because our parents are... something."

"Yeah," she answered, staring down and blushing.

Perhaps there was something else we could do for today? She wasn't one for spending hours quietly in the library, which left house hunting. That was something I needed to make more preparations for, though, so I'd have to just let her wait. It wouldn't take me long to make two portal hops and get back here.

I handed over my money, accepted the goodbye hugs Cluma insisted on giving despite the way I'd likely be back in ten minutes, and made the journey to Serpent Isle. As I plucked the pair of gold coins out of [Item Box], I wondered where people without such a convenient skill kept their thousands of coins. Did they need to regularly find people with the skills to shift denominations to keep the count to a reasonable level? Was there such a thing as a magical debit card no-one had told me about?

The portal on Serpent Isle came out into a far smaller warehouse than any I'd seen before. There were no corpses on display, but I could see a half-filled container of steel ingots, and another of silver. [Mana Sight] showed that other closed containers contained lots of small spheres, which were presumably monster cores. If this dungeon produced any interesting, unique materials beyond the standard items that came from any dungeon, none were on display here.

Outside the warehouse, another structure was attached to it, which was presumably the drop off point for loot brought out from the dungeon. The dungeon itself wasn't far away, and was the first I'd seen that didn't have a wall around it, although there was still someone standing guard. The entrance was a pair of trees, branches intertwined, with the space between them showing a view far removed from that of outside. I didn't need to see the concentrated spatial affinity with [Mana Sight] to know it was a portal of some description.

There was a smaller whiff of spatial affinity coming from another four pairs of trees. Presumably they were the exit points of the floor five, ten, fifteen and twenty teleporters.

There were limited other structures around. Some long, low buildings. A boxier building with light spilling out of open windows, smoke rising from a chimney, and boisterous noises coming from within, was presumably a tavern. I could see a structure that was obviously a smithy, based on the tools left outside. Others of similar sizes were presumably other workshops. I couldn't see anything that looked like houses, and looking out through the gaps between what structures there were, I could see only a wide, grassy plain.

"You're looking a little lost there," commented a voice from beside me. "Need any help? Are you waiting for the rest of your party?"

There were a couple of groups of people outside, and my staring around had attracted the attention of one.

"I've only just arrived, if that wasn't obvious. Would you mind pointing out what's where?" I answered, looking at the person who had called out to me.

He was human, in a group of eight. Three others were human, two were dogkin, and two were bearkin, both rippling with muscle and towering twenty centimetres over the next tallest members of their party. Was it two groups of four who happened to meet up, or were parties here bigger than Dawnhold? All were staring at me with various expressions of humour, curiosity or confusion, while one of the dogkin was twitching oddly, looking very much like he wanted to say something.

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A couple of the humans wore plate armour, mana infused steel with mythril embellishments that [Mana Sight] showed as holding the enchantments. Four others wore leather armour, brown in colour, with a pattern of large, darker diamonds. The skin of one of the local snakes, presumably. The pair of bearkin wore nothing above their waists, and only fabric shorts below. It was the first time I'd ever seen unarmoured delvers. [Appraisal] showed that they both held [Barbarian Bruiser] classes. Perhaps it had skills that didn't work with armour?

My newfound guide pointed to each of the buildings in turn, my guesses all being correct. Of the unknown workshops, there was one each for a [Tailor], [Enchanter] and [Alchemist]. There was a general store I hadn't spotted that dealt in rations and camping supplies. The longer buildings were barracks, in which we were supposed to pick an empty bed and sleep whenever we needed one. Given that a normal delve in this dungeon spanned multiple days, they weren't allocated permanently, but there were some chests for storage that could be claimed on a longer term basis. Between [Item Box] and my ability to teleport back to Dawnhold from inside the dungeon, we needed neither storage nor camping supplies.

We hadn't even stepped inside yet, and I already felt like I was cheating this dungeon.

"Thanks for the help," I said. "I'd better go pick up my teammate before she thinks I've got lost."

"Pick her up?" he asked, confused. "She's not here already, and you're going to fetch her? But you wouldn't be allowed to use the portals for that."

"I can teleport," I said.

"At your age? Impressive, but you can't teleport other people."

"Says who?"

He blinked in surprise. "Wait, you can teleport people? How? That's supposed to be impossible."

"Really? I assumed something enchanted with spatial skill extension would work on [Teleport]. It certainly does on [Weft Walk]. But I use a different method, and I can't teleport arbitrary people. Only my teammate."

"Spatial skill extension? I've never heard of that."

Huh? Was my bracelet super rare, or unique? But I'd used it on a few people since I got it. I'd even travelled with Ella, and she hadn't batted an eyelid. Admittedly I hadn't used it on her directly, since she had a horse, but she must have noticed that Cluma wasn't walking normally.

"Enough!" interrupted the twitchy dogkin. "How are you having a perfectly normal conversation without mentioning that?"

"Mentioning what?" I asked, confused.

"Fine," said their human leader. "What everyone really wants to know is why you're wearing fake ears on your head?"

I felt my ears immediately droop. Of course; in Dawnhold, everyone was used to me being weird, and would chalk me suddenly developing catkin ears up to just another symptom of my normal eccentricity. On my recent visit to Synklisi, I'd been wearing my helmet the entire time, so no-one had noticed. I was in normal clothing today, though, my fake ears on full display in a place where no-one knew me.

Oh well. I was going to end up with a reputation whatever I did, so I might as well get it over with and start big.

"Oh, sorry, I forgot I was still wearing them," I answered, reaching up and using [Detach] to pluck off my human ears.

The group of eight stared in silence, needing a few seconds to process what had just happened. Actually, that was an interesting point. Could I use [Detach] on my fake ears? They had my mana running through them, as if they were a part of me. I'd need to try it later.

If that worked, wouldn't it also work on one of Grover's artificial limbs? In which case, couldn't I also use [Superimpose] to make myself super strong extra arms?

With my next mad idea coalescing in my brain, I almost missed the group successfully rebooting themselves. [Secrecy] pinged me a few times, alerting me of two attempts of [Appraisal] and one of [Analysis]. [Secrecy] wouldn't block [Inspection], though, so they'd know I was human.

"Sorry, I couldn't help myself," I said, putting my ears back on before they started complaining. "If you must know, they're punishment for an accident I had with my party member."

"But they move," pointed out the dogkin.

"They're enchanted," I said. "I think they're cool. Anyway, I need to run. Thanks again for the help."

I ran off behind the warehouse before anyone complained, where a quick experiment proved that I could indeed [Detach] my fake ears. And then [Item Box] them afterwards, too; not being flesh and blood meant that being inside my [Item Box] didn't even damage them. Perfect for when I wanted to walk around somewhere no-one knew me without attracting spectators.

Now I just needed to ask Grover for a couple of arms. Hopefully, that would count as a sufficiently novel idea for him to agree to experiment.

I lay back and activated [Redistribute], and it wasn't until the portal reached my torso that I learnt the name of this island, Serpent Isle, did not, in fact, come from the dungeon. Apparently, these plains had a healthy population of regular snakes, one of which was now hissing in my ear.

They couldn't be venomous, right? Someone would have warned me if the dungeon was surrounded by dangerous wildlife.

The rustling I could hear from the grass suddenly took on a whole new meaning, just as something brushed up against my cheek.

ding
Skill [Redistribute] advanced to level 9
Class [Eldritch Mage] advanced to level 15

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