Dungeon Master (Karma System)

Lana held the first spell until the ice stopped cracking.

Six narrow pillars stood across the Academy casting yard. Each was no thicker than her wrist and nearly twice her height. Sunlight passed through them in cloudy blue bands. The exercise had begun with one pillar. The Elemental Mage instructor added another whenever Lana managed to keep the structure stable beneath a sustained current.

She had reached six three days ago.

The lightning gathered above her open hand without touching the ground. It wanted the shortest path. The pillars offered six.

Midnight watched from the top of the yard wall. Through Shared Senses, Lana could see the ice from above while still watching it with her own eyes. The two views no longer collided inside her head. She used the familiar’s angle to judge the spacing, then released the spell.

White-blue light struck the first pillar.

The current divided through the lines Lana had frozen inside it. Three branches moved across the yard, entered the next pillars, and divided again. Every training disk behind them illuminated.

The second pillar split from top to bottom.

Lana closed her hand before the crack reached its base. The lightning vanished. Five pillars remained standing.

Her instructor walked between them and examined the broken one. He did not need to tell her where the failure began. Lana had felt the current concentrate inside a cloudy seam.

"I rushed the second layer." She said.

"You rushed because the first layer looked complete."

Lana dismissed the surviving ice. Water spread across the drainage grooves built into the floor.

Storm Lattice was not an attack she could learn by throwing larger bolts. Ice gave her lightning prepared routes, turning one spell into a field she could shape before a fight reached it. A poorly formed route could also send that same lightning through an ally.

That possibility was why she practiced with empty pillars and training disks instead of people.

"You will try again tomorrow." The instructor said. "Five pillars."

"I can hold six."

"Five without a hidden fracture will be more useful."

Lana accepted the assignment. She had spent months learning that advanced magic often improved by becoming less impressive to watch.

Midnight jumped from the wall to her shoulder as she left the yard. The black cat’s weight forced Lana to lean until he settled across the top of her pack.

Rod’s lesson was ending in the martial compound below the Academy annex.

The compound had continued operating after Lord Titters returned home. His staff managed the buildings, schedules, equipment, and recruits who still trained under the instructors he had hired. The lord of a border city could not live inside a dungeon indefinitely. Cindy had accompanied her father, while Rod remained in the Sanctuary.

Today, three armored instructors surrounded him.

Rod carried a two-handed axe and no shield. That had once meant every defense required him to block with the haft or move out of the way. His Axe Master skills now gave him a third choice.

The first instructor struck his left side with a padded hammer. Rod turned enough to keep the impact from landing squarely, but he did not surrender his footing. The Skill ’Unbroken Advance’ converted the stagger into a heavy step.

That step carried him through the gap between the other two instructors.

Rod’s axe moved in a low circle. The blunted head caught one practice shield and drove it into the instructor beside it. Rod reversed the haft before the swing finished and stopped its metal-capped end against the third instructor’s chest.

All three padded weapons struck him a moment later.

Rod remained standing.

His health record showed the cost. Unbroken Advance prevented him from being thrown around; it did not make the force disappear. The instructors ended the exchange before repeated impacts turned useful practice into an expensive resurrection.

"You held the lane well." The oldest instructor said.

Rod rolled one shoulder. "I also took three hits."

"You chose them after reaching the objective. Next time, choose fewer."

The instructor marked the lesson complete and moved toward the waiting recruits. Rod drank water, checked the bruising beneath his armor, and joined Lana at the yard gate.

"Five pillars?" He asked.

"Six until one objected."

"Five pillars, then."

Lana gave him a look. Rod grinned and started toward the archery fields before she could decide whether to freeze his boots to the road.

Dirk trained farther from the occupied buildings than either of them.

The advanced range began where the Sanctuary’s outer hills rose beyond the public practice fields. Targets occupied ridges, gullies, tree lines, and moving rails. Some were visible only for a few seconds. Others were decoys designed to punish an archer who fired before understanding what he had seen.

Dirk lay beneath a camouflage sheet halfway up a stony slope.

Lana would not have found him without Midnight.

The familiar paused, stared toward a patch of ground that looked like every other patch, and flicked one ear. Lana followed his attention until she noticed the opening left for Dirk’s bow.

A target rose on the opposite ridge. It resembled an armored figure holding a red disk.

Dirk did not move.

The target sank. A second appeared lower on the hill, partially hidden behind a narrow tree. Dirk’s arrow crossed the distance before Lana heard the string. It passed between two branches and struck the gray disk hanging beneath the target’s arm.

The figure vanished into the ground.

Dirk folded the camouflage sheet and stood.

"The first one was red." Rod said.

"The assignment was to hit gray."

"I would have shot the red one."

"That is why they gave you an axe." Dirk said while rolling his eyes.

Dirk retrieved the shot record from the range marker. ’Far Mark’ had allowed him to fix the second target’s position during the instant it appeared. ’Threading Shot’ then showed him a viable line through the branches. Neither ability moved the arrow for him. A poor release would still miss.

The shot record displayed a clean strike at four hundred and twelve yards.

Dirk looked more pleased by the wind correction than the distance.

The three walked back toward the compound together. They had followed the same routine throughout the month before the challenge and resumed it after the combat portals reopened. Lana studied at the Academy annex and with the class trainers. Rod divided his time between martial instructors and the compound his father had established. Dirk trained anywhere the Sanctuary could provide distance, concealment, or a difficult angle.

They still met for meals, reviewed one another’s lessons, and made plans for the future.

At lunch, the empty places at their table were harder to ignore.

Lord Titters had returned to his city months earlier. He still visited the Sanctuary when his duties permitted and continued funding the compound, but an occasional visit could not support a permanent adventuring schedule. Cindy had gone with him. She intended to help train the city’s saber fighters and had not promised when she might join another dungeon attempt.

Rod, Lana, and Dirk had responded by training.

That had been sensible while the challenge approached and every public level eventually closed. It was no longer an answer to what they intended to do next.

Rod set three possible destinations on the table. Dread Fort remained available if they wanted another attempt. Corathen contained contracts, monster territories, and roads none of them had traveled. Deepvein offered a five-person renewable instance tied to a real dwarven settlement.

Every serious choice raised the same question.

"We could hire two people for each trip." Rod said.

Dirk shook his head. "Then every trip begins with learning whether they listen."

"And whether we can get along with them." Lana added.

Rod did not object. His failures in the Orc Highlands and Dwarven Airship had removed most of his interest in parties that treated one person’s voice as the complete plan.

"Permanent members." He said. "Not guards we pay for a week. If we want real progress in the dungeon, it is better to find permanent members."

They began with the role their party could not safely operate without.

None of the three possessed meaningful healing magic. Potions could close injuries and restore health, but drinking one while an enemy stood over them was rarely practical. A dedicated healer could keep someone alive through the time required to retreat or finish a fight.

The fifth position required more discussion.

Rod could hold a narrow front and survive damage, but committing him to that task removed much of the party’s strongest close-range offense. Lana could control space and strike groups. Dirk could scout, identify threats, and attack from distances most enemies could not even see.

Another frontline fighter would let Rod move when an opportunity appeared. The new member did not need to match his damage. Holding a doorway, intercepting an enemy, or protecting the healer would be enough if the person understood when to change jobs.

"Someone who does not need every fight to be about them." Dirk said.

Rod looked at him.

"That was not aimed only at you."

"Only mostly?"

Dirk drank from his cup rather than answer.

Lana wrote the requirements. She refused to add a minimum level until they decided what experience actually mattered. A high-level fighter who had never worked with the same people twice could be less useful than someone weaker who understood formation fighting.

They settled on records showing difficult group content, references from previous companions, and willingness to remain near the Sanctuary between expeditions. They did not require a noble title, guild membership, or enough money to purchase every lesson at once.

"They need to accept Midnight." Lana said.

The cat occupied the fourth chair with his paws tucked beneath him.

"Does Midnight need to accept them?" Rod asked.

"Obviously."

Dirk added it to the private version of the list.

The public notice went to the board beside the Sanctuary Arena. Parties used it to request replacements, arrange shared training, sell maps, and advertise scheduled attempts. The gnome responsible for the board read their message before approving it.

[Established party seeking two permanent members.]

[Current members: Axe Master, Elemental Mage, Archer.]

[Open positions: dedicated healer; frontline or close-range support.]

[Applicants must provide class record, relevant completion history, and two references.]

[Initial membership provisional.]

[Meeting location: Titters Training Compound.]

The gnome examined the names again. Rod’s first clears, Lana’s Academy connections, Dirk’s known training record, and Lord Titters’s compound made the position more visible than an ordinary request.

"I recommend limiting the first group." The gnome said. "Otherwise this notice will bury you in people who want access to the compound."

"How many would you send?" Rod asked.

"Twenty. Then I can release another group if none fit."

They accepted the limit.

The notice had been public for less than a minute when the first application appeared.

A second followed before Lana finished reading it. Then five arrived together from people who had apparently prepared their records while standing close enough to watch the gnome write.

Rod opened the first profile.

It belonged to a level forty-one Berserker whose previous party listed its reason for separation as mutual disagreement regarding survivable risk.

Dirk selected the attached reference.

The former party leader had written only four words.

He thinks healers are armor.

Lana rejected the application.

The next belonged to a combat priest with twelve successful dungeon clears and no intention of remaining in the Sanctuary for more than three days each month.

They rejected that one as well.

The third was worth reading.

By the time they left the board, fourteen applications waited.

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