Marigold was dreaming, she was dreaming that she was approaching an elegant becolumed palace deep under the ocean. She was swept into the liberally decorated palace past hordes of beings, mostly mermen and tritons but there were members of all the sapient races she knew and even a few she didn’t.

She was carried into a throne room by the current she found herself in and deposited in front a fish tailed merman, no a fish tailed God. Ocidon!

Ocidon gave her a crooked smile and chuckled at her confusion.

“It would seem I owe you an explanation and even a very small apology as my ally Mary Silvestre has marked one and a half hundred assorted pirates and mercenaries of diverse races as dungeon foes and vowed to attack them should she ever get a chance to so do.”

Marigold felt shock straighten her back, “What!”

“As for how they escaped her clutches when she had them dead to rights, the fault lies with my priests and temple guards who followed established procedures and granted them their lives in return for their surrender. Unfortunately the magistrates they handed them over to released most of them in exchange for gold.”

Marigold blinked confused.

“Oh yes, Mary Silvestre also marked twelve adventurers for the crime of accompanying the pirates into her domain.” Ocidon smiled broadly, “and when she discovers all those who released the ones she marked, and she will sooner than you might think, she will kill them too.”

“But she can’t, dungeons don’t act like that! They just don’t it’s just too dangerous,” protested Marigold in a bit of a panic. “Anyway how can she discover something like that?”

“Well that’s my fault. I really liked one of her creations and changed them to become normal creatures and spread them over many of my seas. Mary Silvestre found them and learned how to reclaim a measure of influence over them without remaking them dungeon creatures.”

“But fish can’t...” murmured Marigold in shock.

“True, but if everything goes well Parthia will soon have another intelligent race, especially designed to be sneaky and ideal spies. And with what she now knows they will not be restricted to her dungeon. And they will be Mine.” Ocidon beamed with pride and faded from Marigold’s dream.

Marigold woke cursing her luck and cast an exasperated prayer to whatever deities had the wellbeing of dungeons in mind and cursed again when the System informed her that the two deities handling the affairs of dungeons had received her prayer. Right to work, first warn all the companions that belonged to the league then to get in touch with Trisha.

* * *

Drina petted Joy and Pounce enjoying their purrs and soft fur before gingerly picking the deceased rat up by its tail and heading for the compost heap. On her way she passed her mother who grinned at her daughter’s disgusted expression. “Another one honey? Your two little babies are efficient and making themselves popular.”

“Yes Mom, I think it was Joy this time, Pounce usually eats their heads,” replied Drina. “Um, don’t you think they are rather large, I don’t remember other kittens being as big.”

Rhondaa gave her daughter a thoughtful look, “Yesss, but they were a gift from the... Mary weren’t they?” then she smiled widely, “your father and I have had lots of people asking for kittens already, maybe you should speak with Mary or your two are going to overwhelmed by the demand.”

Drina rolled her eyes, wrinkled her nose at the dead rat and continued on her way to the compost pile followed by her mother’s laughter.

Mary was taking a break from her Wyvern project, and working on her spies, rats she reckoned were found everywhere and would arouse little suspicion, also those stories of Lankmar’s rats were giving her lots to think about, DNA was truly fascinating for an ambitious dungeon, she would have been humming if she could still hum.

Trisha was irritated, but this time it was with Marigold. She’d just had a talk with that pixie, what did she expect, Mary disliked pirates, she disliked slavers and that bunch were both. And how did Marigold expect her from preventing Mary from going after that scum! As for leaving the adventurers alone, Ha! They were worse than the pirates!

Mary was unsurprised when Trisha told her how just about the whole bunch had already been turned loose, « Yeah that was inevitable, the only way beep scum like tha’ can prosper in an area like this is if powerful beep scumbags are protecting ‘em for their own beep profits. »

Mary decided to plant a barb in Danilus and co so she gave her voice some instructions and when queried regarding the kittens she sent back some images she remembered seeing on the web about savannah cats together with the thought, they’re Savannahs, big and friendly.

« Hey Trish, you know of any shapeshifters we could get our hands on? »

Drina was just washing her hands when Mary contacted her. She looked at her sleeping kittens and shook her head ruefully then she went directly to uncle Danilus’ office. She could see her message didn’t go down well. She waited a second then waved and left, it was time for lessons. At least she now had two friends to ask for help when she didn’t understand things.

* * *

Danilus Oakborn consulted with Viriaathos and Rhondaa and then convened a meeting of the leaders and other influential beings living in the Blue Lagoon. So Drina found herself being collected from her classroom to the envy of her peers by her father and joined her parents and Danilus in the fort’s new conference room, also present were Altor, Blacksand and Silverstreek in the pool and the mayor Jaasoon Sunhigh and the captain of the temple guards Rafael Twiceborn.

The news that Mary had learned what had happened in far off Drakoton within a day or at the most two after it had happened sobered the assembled company and brought the ghost of a smile to Drina’s lips. Blacksand and Jaasoon Sunhigh were firmly in Mary’s camp; Silverstreek didn’t really care but sided with them out of a sense of comradeship. The others just wanted to soothe matters down.

The Voice spoke; “Mary Silvestre has marked them all as dungeon foes and will deal with them as soon as she can. As far as she is concerned the matter is closed, or will be soon.”

Rafael shook his head and muttered something under his breath.

The Voice looked at him and said, “Do Hawaii and borderline psychopath mean anything to you?”

Rafael winced, “Yes, unfortunately.”

* * * INTERLUDE 1 * * *

Hell’s Mouth watched the adventurers return and realized he had made another mistake when their priest detected his spy and banished it.

Hurriedly Hell’s Mouth drove a new tunnel to the North and West seeking to breach a new opening to the surface world so that he could collapse his original dungeon behind him. He fervently prayed for time.

That’s when Arbogar received Marigold’s message about the pirates, mercenaries and adventurers that had been marked as dungeon enemies. Arbogar and Hell’s Mouth were in agreement, if a dungeon designated someone an enemy then they were an enemy and would be treated as such.

* * * INTERLUDE 1.1 * * *

Creevar’s Killers returned to Arsouk via a gate in Creevar’s shrine ten days after they left. They quickly located their guides as the news of a pair of desert born urchins staying in Arsouk’s second best inn was all over town.

No sooner had Warminor spotted them than he embraced them with copious thanks. He offered to become their blood brother and offered them a purse. Avor and Essa looked at each other and nodded slightly followed by a slight shake of the head. The then looked at Warminor and Essa said “brothers don’t need...” and Evor finished “... or want material rewards.”

Warminor was touched and after another attempt put his purse away. The ceremony was quickly enacted and witnessed.

Next day at dawn the party and their drovers cum guides left heading for the dungeon that had so frustrated them. They took the long route as they all decided to avoid the neck after having met that torpid sand worm previously.

They arrived at an obviously deserted series of caverns but by the grace of Creevar, Sreecator detected and dispelled a skeletal bird that had been spying on them. With proof that a dungeon that used undead was near they set up camp, this time taking the advice of their native guides and began the search for the dungeon’s new entrance.

* * * INTERLUDE 2 * * *

When Sandrinna happily carved out her new first level, not forgetting to put in some crawl ways for her Kobold defenders. After a few days rest she created her second level including an intricate maze of small tight passages, then found that she had to enlarge the passages slightly to allow for a proper flow of manna.

She settled herself at the end of the maze and created a small apartment for Darkmoon. She still had the capacity to create a third level but decided to partially fulfil her promise to her Kobolds first so she named Erekosë’s lieutenant Arjavh and the clan’s shamaness Ermizhad. This triggered their evolution and she had two more winged Kobolds.

Next at Darkmoon’s insistence she added a pool deep in the first level and led a small stream through her floor and out of the entrance not caring where it went after that.

They planned the planting of a few shrubs and herbs to act as treasure and scattered assorted creatures to serve as guardians.

The second floor received a similar treatment but Erekosë was placed in charge of its defence with the understanding that Arjavh would take over when the third level was created.

Darkmoon was dissatisfied with the available rewards and determined to scout around to see if he could find something better, or at least add to the diversity of potential rewards.

Then he received Marigold’s message about the pirates, mercenaries and adventurers that had been marked as dungeon enemies. He consulted with Sandrinna and after some fruitless tail chasing they dragged in Erekosë. They finally decided to disregard Marigold’s suggestion; if someone marked as an enemy entered their dungeon then they would treat them as such.

* * * INTERLUDE 3 * * *

Mary spent the remaining days of her suspension at the university’s library where her research answered some questions she had and raised some others. It was frustrating; it was keeping her from her fishing.

On Friday she picked up her new necklace and a check for more money than she had expected. When she first saw her necklace and Henry warned to be careful not to get it stolen something clicked. She stared at the necklace and felt a stirring in that energy she seemed to have in her mind, it linked with the necklace that seemed to shimmer and shift. She grinned, thanked Henry and put it round her neck.