The Elder God’s summons reached Kincaid without warning.
His room vanished around him. The star-filled assembly hall replaced it, and the remaining apprentices appeared across their separated terraces. Fewer than four hundred places had remained occupied after the first challenge. No additional seats had gone dark since Kincaid last stood there.
The conversations that began around him ended as the center of the hall filled.
The Elder God wore the same plain shape. His presence turned every apprentice’s attention toward him before he spoke.
"The next Champion Challenge will begin in fourteen days."
A record opened above the central floor.
[Challenge preparation period: 14 days.]
[Each surviving champion will designate ten dungeon monsters.]
[Designated monsters will enter a dungeon constructed for the challenge.]
[Further conditions will be issued when the challenge begins.]
Kincaid read the four lines twice.
The countdown beside them continued falling, confirming that the preparation period had already begun while the apprentices gathered.
Every occupied terrace received the same deadline. No champion name, ranking, or opponent appeared beside it, and no apprentice could open another patron’s selection record.
The last challenge had been designed around every individual dungeon. This announcement described one destination and ten selected monsters without explaining what they would encounter there.
Questions rose from the terraces.
"Will the champions enter with them?" An apprentice asked.
"No."
"Will the selected monsters fight other champions’ forces?"
"Further conditions will be issued when the challenge begins."
"May patrons assist with selection?"
"You may advise. The champion will designate the participants."
The silver-winged apprentice stood. "Does a creature assigned to a fixed dungeon role remain eligible?"
"If the champion can designate it as one of the dungeon’s monsters, it is eligible. The consequences of removing it from another duty belong to the champion."
That answer mattered to Max.
Kincaid stored it separately.
Another apprentice asked whether creatures killed inside the challenge would return. The Elder God gave the same answer about conditions arriving later. Questions about the dungeon’s environment, objective, duration, rewards, and limits received no additional information.
The apprentices were being allowed to choose a force without knowing what the force needed to do.
"Why ten?" Someone asked.
"Because ten are required."
The Elder God did not expand upon it.
He allowed questions until the apprentices stopped producing new ones. Then the center became empty. The preparation record remained.
Kincaid returned to his room.
He did not contact Max immediately.
The announcement contained too little information, and repeating the visible lines would leave Max asking questions Kincaid had not tried to answer. Patron rules permitted investigation so long as Kincaid did not use divine methods to interfere with another champion or uncover sealed challenge content.
He began with the full eligibility record.
Dungeon monster was broader than one species. It included creatures bound to the dungeon and recognized within its defensive or encounter structures. Ordinary residents did not become monsters merely because they lived inside a dungeon. Temporary visitors did not qualify. A creature with an eternal soul remained eligible if it was registered as part of the dungeon.
The champion had to submit all ten designations before the preparation period ended.
The record did not require the selected monsters to come from one level, one species, or one existing party.
It did not reveal what happened after designation.
Kincaid searched the apprentice archive for earlier challenges using the same phrasing. He found none available to his rank. References to trial dungeons existed, but their rules differed too widely to support a useful prediction. Some tested endurance. Some tested command. Others evaluated a group against environmental, tactical, or moral problems.
None proved what the Elder God had built now.
Kincaid separated his findings into three sections.
Confirmed.
Unconfirmed.
Unknown.
He placed the fourteen-day deadline, ten-monster requirement, eligibility definition, and Elder-designed destination in the first. He placed nothing in the second because he had no evidence strong enough to call a likely condition. The third section held almost every question Max would care about.
Kincaid sent a communication request.
[Declared purpose: Report the next Champion Challenge and verified selection rules.]
[Requested access: Voice and visual communication only.]
Max accepted eleven minutes later.
A vertical communication window opened in Max’s office. Kincaid appeared seated at his own desk in a different divine room. Max sat behind a table covered with recovered core-hunter maps. Anna occupied the chair beside him.
No part of Kincaid entered the dungeon. They could see and hear one another through the accepted connection, and nothing more crossed it.
"The Elder God summoned the surviving apprentices." Kincaid said. "The next challenge begins in two weeks."
Max’s attention sharpened. "What do we know?"
Kincaid shared the three-section record. Sovereign Consent identified it as information only. Max accepted the display above his desk.
"Ten dungeon monsters." Max read. "They enter a dungeon the Elder God designed. I do not go with them." He mumbled, summing up the situation.
"Those facts are confirmed." Kincaid said. "The selected creatures must be recognized as monsters bound to your dungeon. Eternal souls remain eligible."
Anna read the unknown section. "Nothing says whether the ten remain together, what happens if one dies, or what they are expected to accomplish."
"Correct," Kincaid said. "The Elder God has not disclosed the layout, objective, duration, opponents, or reward. Several apprentices asked about death and return. Those conditions will not be issued until the challenge begins, and I found no prior trial close enough to justify an inference."
Max studied the empty unconfirmed section.
"You did not fill this with guesses."
"Guessing would make the record longer without making it more useful."
"Thank you for checking."
Kincaid continued with the only selection detail the Elder God had clarified directly.
"Fixed-role monsters are eligible, but taking them has whatever consequence their absence creates. If you select a commander from one level, the level loses that commander while the challenge uses him. The Elder God described that as your decision."
Max looked toward the recovered maps.
The timing connected two projects he had not expected to join.
His strongest monsters belonged to existing places. Sigmund understood Fey Nights. The Orc Chief commanded the Highlands. Kildra held Dread Fort. Hizon’s best subordinates had obligations within the Undercity and his own dungeons. Selecting ten individually powerful defenders from those groups would weaken several levels and create a collection of strangers.
"Ten strong creatures are not automatically a unit." Max said.
"No." Kincaid agreed. "I do not know whether the challenge rewards coordination, but no available fact suggests coordination would be harmful."
That was advice bounded by what Kincaid could support.
Max opened the mobile-force proposal he had begun after the core hunters were captured. The roster remained empty. Its requirements already called for creatures with different abilities, independent judgment, and no permanent assignment tying them to one level.
"I was planning a response unit." he said. "Personal protection, core defense, and emergencies anywhere in the dungeon."
"That sounds useful beyond this challenge," Kincaid said.
"It needs to become real sooner."
Anna moved the fourteen-day countdown beside the project schedule. "We cannot build a complete elite force from nothing in two weeks. We can choose initial members, begin training them together, and learn which roles remain missing."
Max agreed.
The challenge selection and permanent unit did not have to be identical. A newly assembled guard might not be ready to fill all ten places. Existing monsters could complete the challenge roster while the dedicated force developed. Max would decide that after seeing who could work together, not before.
He wrote the first immediate tasks.
Identify eligible eternal souls without fixed command duties.
Find varied abilities instead of ten versions of the same fighter.
Establish a training ground with movable terrain and restricted-route drills.
Place Quin in charge of evaluating response time, judgment, and cooperation.
The immediate tasks filled the page while both rosters remained empty.
Kincaid had delivered everything he could confirm. The rest belonged to the dungeon’s preparation.
"If the Elder God releases another condition, I will contact you immediately." Kincaid said.
"Please do. Thank you for the heads up."
Max ended the communication after they agreed on the next report. Kincaid’s image disappeared, leaving the office wall visible behind the empty window. The fourteen-day challenge record remained above Max’s desk.
Quin arrived through the office door twenty minutes later.
Max gave him Kincaid’s confirmed record and left the unknown section attached. Quin read the missing conditions before examining the proposed response unit.
"We cannot train for the Elder God’s dungeon." Quin said. "We can train ten creatures to receive incomplete information without becoming ten separate problems."
That became the first two-week objective.
The initial evaluations would not rank candidates by who killed a target fastest. Quin wanted to see whether they noticed allies moving, changed positions when a plan failed, protected a shared objective, and continued when direct instructions stopped. A powerful monster that attacked anything in front of it might remain valuable on a level designed around that behavior. It did not belong in an elite unit expected to operate beside different species throughout the dungeon.
Max opened the subordinate catalog and current eternal-soul records.
He did not begin purchasing creatures to fill ten empty lines. Existing records deserved review first. Some monsters had advanced far beyond the roles assigned when their levels opened. Others possessed useful movement, senses, magic, or control abilities but had never trained outside one environment. New purchases could fill genuine gaps after those abilities were understood.
"The guard needs more than this challenge." Max said.
"Then do not let the deadline choose every member." Quin replied. "Select people who belong in the permanent force. Complete the challenge team separately if the force is not ready."
Anna placed two rosters beside each other.
[Mobile guard candidates.]
[Champion Challenge candidates.]
The lists could overlap without being identical.
The dungeon would continue operating during the preparation period. Max refused to empty public levels or cancel ordinary responsibilities for two weeks of frantic training. The first challenge had already shown what happened when every reserve belonged to one emergency. Evaluations would rotate around existing duties until the permanent candidates could be released from them cleanly.
Anna separated the deadline into selection, training, and contingency dates. The final days remained open in case the Elder God released another condition. If none arrived, the time would still allow Max to replace a candidate injured, unavailable, or clearly unsuited to the developing group.
Anna cleared one side of the core-defense maps. Max moved the response-unit proposal into the open space, and they began arranging the next two weeks around recruitment, training, and the selection deadline.
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