Mary grinned, Ralpindi had come through, it was tricky but she was able to claim the small cave on the other side of the mountain from his Heaven’s Belt dungeon and she’d had to give him a fair amount of energy for him to stretch so far. She linked the cave to her mock dungeon with a portal and surprisingly it settled firmly with almost a hint of permanence. So... Next step even out the cave and turn into a mid sized square room with a pillared portico type entrance.

A couple of hours to recover and make sure nothing needed her attention then repeat with Andy and his as yet unnamed dungeon. Andy surprised her, he placed her cave across the valley from his entrance.

Another square room with a portal to her mock dungeon, the entrance this time had a classical Grecian look. On a whim Mary decorated it with the story of Leda and the Swan.

It would seem Sandrinna was not happy with her current location so Mary found herself with the entirety of her original first floor and responsible for maintaining the well in the first cave.

« Trish! Help! »

“What is it Mary?”

« Um... Sandrinna dumped her first level on me instead of just a cave... Now I have to do something first levelish with it as I seem to have been landed with her agreement with the local Adventurer’s Guild. »

“Mary, what are you up to now?”

« Creatin’ a network of portals to allow us to access the rest of the world, see... »

Trisha examined the mock dungeon. “Wow that’s going to be a wicked second level.” She studied the other levels with horrified fascination, “where did you get the idea for Tentacles, he’s wicked. Mary, that dungeon is vicious in the extreme, you’ll have to boost the treasure you give.”

Mary mused over the ideas Trish had offered, expanded the dungeon considerably, boosted the temperature of the caves somewhat, added a high level of humidity, created a mix of mangrove jungle growing out of knee deep salt water and dry thick forests liberally inhabited with poisonous sea snakes, anacondas in the trees, several of her barracuda and archer fish and even one of her electric barracuda. The dry forests sported more snakes and several leopards and a sabre tooth tiger guarding the portal.

When Trisha checked up on Mary’s work next day she felt like tearing her hair out in frustration. ‘Oh gods, if I don’t keep an eye on her at all times... This is a lovely level but it’s NOT suitable for a first level... At least the herbs will be very rare here but I’ll still have to up the rewards...’

Then Trish contacted Arlene DuChan of Folding Deep as she was the most advanced dungeon she personally knew. She explained and in fact showed her Mary’s attempt at a first level.

Arlene snorted with amusement, « That is a nice match for my seventh level, mind if I steal some ideas, and do you think your Mary would trade me those fish, the herbs and the mangroves? »

“Seventh!”

« Don’t worry Trisha, you did say the other levels were worse, so that should be fine, yes. »

“I think you should be able trade for them, Mary might balk at the ‘letric ‘cuda but the rest is nothing special and She does want something from you.”

« What? »

“A cave she can claim for a portal.”

* * *

Viscount Travanne was both flattered and intrigued when the delegation led by the Voice from the by now famous Blue Lagoon dungeon showed up on his doorstep. The arrival of the sea wyvern in his lake after he had granted permission was sobering.

Talks proceeded well and resulted in his son and heir being summoned. Both of them found the information the dungeon had obtained about their island home worrying, both for what it displayed of Blue Lagoon’s reach and abilities and for the ruin that stared them in the face if the short sighted idiots that had been backing the pirates should achieve their aims.

* * * INTERLUDE 1 * * *

Steffi had just popped into the ladies rest room to freshen up and found her friend and colleague Solde looking in the mirror with tears running down her face. She put an arm around her shoulder for comfort.

“What’s up Solde?”

“Nothing really Steffi, it... it’s just that I’m seeing the blue screens.”

“But... can I help in some way?”

Solde gave her a watery smile, “no Steffi, there’s nothing you can do, I’ve been following things on the gamer blogs, many of those that attended HawaiiCon have shared their experiences and I have been reading the information the... the System has on other races.” She waved a hand at the mirror, “I’m just saying goodbye.”

“Solde what are you saying? Goodbye... you can’t possibly mean...”

“No Steffi, goodbye to being human, I can live so much longer as an elf.” Then she started to lift her hand only to have her friend Steffi grab it.

“Don’t worry Steffi, I’ll be fine and I don’t need to touch the screen, several of the guys from the con mention that all you have to do is focus on the choice you want and think or say the word. Apparently some girl was the first to figure that out,” Sold smiled a bit tremulously, “girl power yes?”

Steffi hugged her friend impetuously, “Solde don’t do this, its just hallucinations. Please come with me and we can see Dr Eynatten.”

Solde focused on her choice and mentally said ‘Yes!’ then she focused on the classes on offer and though tempted by Healer chose Mage hoping the reports she had read had been true. There, there was the option for a healing spell as reported. So Healing Spell and for her second – Sleep!

“It doesn’t matter Steffi, I’ve chosen,” (sniff), “basic common o garden elf, not high or sea, and certainly not the vegetarian variety that seems to have been added under protest for our world,” (sniff), “Mage with two spells for now, minor heal and sleep.”

And Solde hugged her friend back with just a hint of desperation.

* * * INTERLUDE 2 * * *

Mary entertained herself with enchanting a small fridge magnet with the spell of protection against lightning attacks as she gazed out of the front window of her house at the TV truck parked under the tree on the other side of the road. The spell worked by disrupting the flow of electricity, she grinned as she polished the magnet clean of potential fingerprints. She left the house by the back door and handed it to her new friend Silversword as she passed the bushes at the side of her property. Silversword departed with a giggle.

Mary headed for her jeep and paused as one of the bored cops that was keeping watch over her house approached.

“Hi Mary, if you still want to visit Meier you can. He said he’d like to see you too.”

“’K, I’ll be on my way then... Hey what’s up with those idiots?”

The police officer looked round and stared at the antics of the TV crew as their electrical equipment died. He started to walk over to see if he could help.

Mary hopped in her jeep and headed for school. She didn’t get there as there seemed to be a riot ongoing. So she phoned in and was advised to take the day off.

* * *

Mary walked down the corridor and looked into the private room containing officer Meier. A much larger and unscarred officer Meier with two functional eyes. Mary ended up by meeting his wife and son and several other relatives and friends.

It was nearly two hours later that she said her farewells and prepared to leave when Frank Meier said. “Thanks girl, glad I didn’t become an ogre or some kind of lizard, hope to see you again.”

Mary stopped in the door and looked over her shoulder, “Yeah, sorry I wasn’t able to do more.”

“Don’t be a stranger girl, you’ve got our number now, please come to the party on Saturday.”

Mary just looked at him for a long moment, gave a jerky nod and left.

Her favourite beach was crowded with a bunch of agitated morons in inappropriate attire so she left frustrated and ended up parked on a windswept cliff top beauty spot.

So back to the park and the bench overlooking the duck pond. It took time and effort but she was able to open up and mould the first two levels to Trisha’s satisfaction. Mary added muted illumination giving the caves, chambers and passages a twilight look. Then she added vegetation stealing the templates from the park around her and modifying them to flourish in constant twilight. She fingered the pineapple in the shopping bag sitting on the bench by her side and added those.

‘Now if I could only make ‘em explode like the ones on Piers Anthony’s Xanth.’

Mary walked down to the top of her road and looked down. There was another crowd in front of her house. So Mary took her jeep round to Liz’s and knocked on her door. One coffee and a few cookies later her Jeep was sitting next to Liz’s Ford in her garage and she had hopped over the backyard fence and was home.

She entered through the kitchen and found her mother preparing a pot roast.

“Hi mama how was your day, need any help? School was out ‘cause of rioters so I went to see Mr Meier and wanderin’ round. Liz offered me a space in her garage for the time bein’.”

“No fishing, please peel the spuds dear.”

“Nope, beach is full of lunatics.”

Mary grabbed a knife and started peeling. “So what’s goin’ on out front?”

Mary’s mother laughed, “That lot’s well behaved, they want to save the frogs. Greg’s kind of upset.”