Dorados Thunderfist removed his spectacles and polished them, something he was doing far more often than usual as the Queen of the Seas seemed to travel in a perpetual haze of flying spray. The night crew seemed to consist exclusively of cat folk. He took detailed noted for himself and his temple. Not that he really understood how this ship worked but it was new to him, thus important.

The noon bell was sounding when the Queen of the Seas nosed her way cautiously into Viircamouth’s busy harbour. Doradus was absurdly happy to be able to walk on a flat surface once more. After being assured by the first mate that they were staying overnight Dorados followed captain Stormchaser and five of her crew off the ship and noted that they were all heading for the Featherbright Seabaths run by the Featherbright family of sea elves. The thing was that Stormchased was a human as were four of her crew. There was only one blue haired elf in the group.

Doradus Thunderfist came to a shocked halt when after a brief conversation all of them were admitted into the baths via the elven gate. ‘Green hair, the captain has blue-green hair and those humans have green or blue! And her insistence on having to swim... A new race...’

Doradus felt light headed with excitement, he headed for his god’s temple in a hurry. He had much to impart and some questions to ask.

Doradus’s arrival at the temple didn’t cause much of a stir, the deputy high priest of the temple dispatched Lantina Featherbright to visit her family’s baths. Her return with confirmation of the existence of sea humans did. Scribes and priests scrambled to record everything Doradus and Lantina could tell them and Zoratus the sage was consulted.

The following morning Lantina accompanied Doradus aboard the Queen of the Seas and was granted passage by captain Gail Stormchaser. They left with the tide after loading cargo and taking on passengers.

* * *

Tyler led his little party back towards town so as to get rid of Xaar. “Honestly Ava I can’t see what you have against me growing a walrus moustache.”

“You’d look ridiculous with something like that on your upper lip. I’ll make you regret it if you try.”

“What’s a walrus moustache?” asked Xaar.

Madison grinned, “Imagine a venerable dwarf with a really bushy beard, then imagine some enemy of his caught him and shaved his face clean except for his upper lip. That’s a walrus moustache.”

Xaar looked horrified as he clasped his hands to his face as if to protect the scraggly beginnings of his beard.

Ava broke out into laughter, “don’t worry, we have no designs on your beard Xaar.”

Tyler slowed, “Hey look, we have company coming.”

The others looked in the indicated direction and Xaar squealed, “Father! Uncle Bloodaxe!” before dashing towards his irate looking relatives.

Tyler looked at Ava, Madison looked at them both. Then they eyed the irate looking dwarves. “Bloodaxe,” murmured Ava.

“Let’s leave the seven dwarves to it and scarper,” suggested Madison.

“There are more than seven,” stated Tyler. “But I agree, time to go.”

“Seven sounds better somehow,” asserted Madison as she joined her friends in their withdrawal.

* * *

“Father, Uncle, they have Mithril! Mithril pants, mithril shirts and helmets and swords and knives,” Xaar shouted excitedly as he came running up and threw himself at his father. “They drink water! And eat Fish jerky! But they have Mithril.”

“Xaar, what did those strangers want with you? Are you all right? Just wait here and we’ll go and slaughter those dwarfnappers.”

The other dwarves forged past father and son with brief grunts of encouragement and agreement, greed shining in their eyes.

“But father.”

“Don’t worry son we’ll give you a finders fee. Maybe one of those daggers,” Raax Foefinder shook off his son and pounded after his friends and family.

Xaar stood looking after his father and his friends looking lost. “But, but...”

* * *

“Damn it they’re still coming, they left the kid behind and the way they’re brandishing their weapons they mean us no good,” said Tyler. “And sorry Madison, but there are definitely nine of them and not seven.”

The three continued to head for the coast slowly opening the gap between themselves and the dwarven warband.

= = O = =

Mary looked around, she seemed to be surrounded by clear, somehow luminous water. She concentrated on the thread connecting herself to herself and watched as it grew stronger. Beside it, entwined with it there was another thread linking her domain with her domain.

She studied the link, the bridge – tunnel – gate or whatever it was that was striving to link – join – merge her domain. She could feel herself study this phenomena from both sides and they – she felt the moment of establishment.

Then Jerica’s mother and the sea sprites who sought adventure in another world touched the dome – gate in the deeps and slid through. The gate – dome shrank to almost nonexistence but it didn’t disappear. The link remained.

* * * INTERLUDE 1 * * *

Tod was studying. The system had loads of information relating to dungeons, but a fair amount was downright contradictory. The ‘general knowledge’ available to all was downright treacherous, nothing it was actually false as far as he could see but... But someone who accepted it at face value would be in deep shit.

Then there was the vast collection of data and functions restricted to dungeons. As far as he could see that abomination in the park fit right in. caverns, monsters, treasure all paid for by the death of sentients. As far as he could see Mary’s dungeon did not fit in any way shape or form.

Then there was the apparently as yet unused dungeon blog, the Dungeon Exchange channel that seemed to allow for messaging, with separate channels for advertising and exchanges. It also had a list of all the dungeons present on Earth. There were currently five dungeons and fourteen proto-dungeons of which he was one.

Mary’s entry was mostly question marks – as in fact they all were – but it was in own category. Godlike and that made his hair stand on end. Blue Lagoon (dual) – Mary Silvestre and Jerica (sea sprite) – ???, ???, USA and ocean.

The Veteran and Elite slots were empty them there was one ranked Master. Winter Wolf (dual) – Linny Thomas and MacLeod (redcap) – Bismark, North Dakota, USA.

Two dungeons were ranked Journeyman and one Apprentice.

The Journeyman dungeons were: Dinosaur Caves – Dr Charles Macquarie and unnamed (huaka‘i po) – Maalea, Maui, USA. And: Drop Bear Springs – Elizabeth Dreyfus and Riley (leprechaun) – near Barcaldine, Queensland, Australia.

The Apprentice ranked dungeon was: Alligator Haven (dual) – Roy Santos and Swampy (wisp) – New York, New York, USA.

The unranked category held all the proto-dungeons like himself. After a bit of thought he sent a brief message to Roy Santos introducing himself and asking about the (dual) tag in his entry.

* * *

“Hey dreamer, wake up and stop gazing into space, we’ve got decisions to make, that clusterfuck tonight has Meadows, lt. Partlow and me seeing blue screens and if we involve Art chances are he’ll be hit too.” Interrupted Joanne.

The world snapped into focus for Tod. “Right, so where are we meeting, also hadn’t we already decided on what we were going to choose?”

“Yes, but this evening has called those decisions into question.”

* * * INTERLUDE 2 * * *

Saturday was another nice day. At breakfast Mary was surprised when her mother asked her if she had any preferences regarding her seventeenth birthday.

“Tell you what dear, I’ll arrange for catering and we’ll have a party in the back garden. All you will have to do is send out the invitations.”

Mary looked dubious, then she smiled and hugged her mother in thanks.