Tyler looked back at the shore but couldn’t see any of the drow. He turned and headed north once again. First they had to finish helping Penguintopia out, then they could get down to the important stuff.

They passed Saarpolis without incident, and without being noticed. One day later they moved closer to the shore and started looking for a likely location. Another fifty kilometres or so north they found some sea caves at the foot of a cliff.

Further exploration revealed that there were three large interlinked partially submerged caves and one that seemed to contain the ruins of a small jetty with scraps of what may have once been a small rowing boat. All three walruses looked at the penguin that had been accompaying them.

The penguin, unnerved jumped out of the water onto the ledge that contained the ruined jetty and shook itself dry. It seemed to realize that the walruses considered this place suitable so it regurgitated the crystal marble its mistress had entrusted it with and managed to invoke it.

Duskbright flew through the new dungeon portal and quickly explored the caves and the long passage and semi-ruined stairs that headed up from the dock. At least he did so as far as he could as they were blocked by what looked like an extensive cave in.

He grinned at Tyler and his ladies. “Looks good, where are we and what’s at the top of the stairs?”

Madison slapped the surface of the water with her tail. « We’re about half way between Saarpolis and Viircamouth, closer to Viircamouth than Saarpolis I think. And we have no idea what is at the top of the bloody cliffs. »

Duskbright cast a wary eye in Madison’s direction and flitted through the portal.

Tyler felt Penguintopia’s domain sweep over him and sighed in relief. Maybe now they could get on with their primary job. Then Duskbright was back, and with him, a veritable sea of penguins, “Well thanks Madison, Ava, Tyler followed him, “This looks to be perfect. Just hope no one discovers us too soon.”

« Right we’ll be on our way then. You shouldn’t have too much trouble. Rach does have a couple of useful templates now doesn’t she? » asked Tyler.

“Yes,” smiled Duskbright, “and the ones mama and Trapper gave us as a bonding gift should work this far north.”

Duskbright watched the Walruses leave and couldn’t avoid feeling a certain degree of relief as the three powerful monsters left. However friendly they might be he couldn’t shake the knowledge that they belonged to another dungeon. A capricious and unknowable dungeon.

* * *

The three companions hauled themselves onto the ice sheet and relaxed feeling quite at home on the ice. They relaxed and rested.

* * * EARTH – ALLIGATOR HAVEN * * *

A state of the art flat screen TV safely ensconced in an airtight glass box was playing in a dank and decidedly rank damp cavern. A shiny black onyx seemed to be paying attention to the program as did a floating wisp. The two well armed gatormen seemed uninterested.

* * *

“We’re going to take a page from the Mythbusters. Let us introduce Mr Vincent Dalton and his assistant Mr John Azevedo to you. These hard working members of the New York maitenance department have been very vocal in demanding danger money for doing their jobs.”

“Damn right we need danger money. We also need guns. Parts of these sewers are crawling with gators.”

“Well we’ll see won’t we Tammy?”

“Certainly Harry, alligators in the sewers of New York is a well established urban myth.”

“Yes Tammy, we will be accompaining Mr Dalton and Mr Azevedo today.”

“Correct Harry, I’m looking forward to see these mythical beasts,” Tammy smirked.

“Please lead the way Mr Dalton,” grinned Harry.

* * *

« Hey Swampy, those creeps ain’t cool. They got no right to poke fun at Vinny and Johnny like that. Not cool. »

« Yeah boss, think it’s time to let Speedy have some fun? »

« Maybe. Lessee. »

* * *

Vinny was getting peeved and when Johnny took a right to pass the mess that they hadn’t got round to clearing yet he simply made sure of his mask before following. The cameraman and the two reporters gagged in disgust. Vinny and Johnnie smiled, being careful to keep their mouths closed as they breathed through the small nasal filters they had found on occasion in the sewers after they had chased off one of the gators.

Despite everything Tammy and Harry kept their banter going whenever conditions improved enough that they wern’t feeling sick. They grew ever more sarcastic and desparaging.

Vinny saw the ripples in the murky water of the storm sewer they were following. He shouted a warning and hugged the wall as did Johnny. Harry with a sarcastic laugh moved right to the edge of the footpath. Tammy stood just behind his shoulder while their camaraman took a position near the edge so as to catch the scene. The two municipal workers cowering, hugging the wall while the two reporters fearlessly inspected the sludge in the channel.

* * *

« Kay, thass enough. Sic ’em Speedy. Teach those fancy pants assholes not to make fun of us discards. »

Swampy jiggled up and down with glee and beamed his wholhearted love and support for his partner.

* * *

Harry barely had time to see something come surging out of the viscous liquid that passsed for water before screaming in agony as something with lots of teeth clamped itself to his leg and pulled him off the walkway and under the surface.

Tammy screamed and shoved herself back against the damp wall of the sewer. Their camaraman kept filming on autopilot and caugth Vinny jumping into the stream wielding what looked like a cattleprod. Johnnie followed him with a large nasty looking knife.

Finally when Vinny and Johnnie returned to the walkway dragging a badly injured Harry with them they discovered Tammy slumped unconsious against the wall and a camera lying on the floor of the walkway next to a large pool of blood.

* * * EARTH – WINTER WOLF * * *

If Linny had teeth she would be showing them in a snarl. They had repulsed the police swat teams and the initial follow up by the National Guard thanks to her new monsters. Those wolverinemen were viscious and tenacious. They did tend to go berserk when cornered. MacLeod’s suggestion of enhancing them with her madness affinity at that point had been inspired.

She had gained so much energy it was unbelievable. She had raised her dungeon’s ranking. Winter Wolf was now ranked Vetran and that little whiner Blackstone was crying big crocodile tears on the exchange. They were massing tanks out there now, but the stupid idiots had established their forward elements in the former prison yard. Their secure comms meant nothing when they were discussing their plans in her domain.

« Hey MacLeod, how is it going? Is that idea of Blue Lagoon’s panning out. We don’t have anything that can take out those big damn ugly tanks. »

« It looks guid. Th’ closest ay th’ underhill realms is mair than half deid an’ mostly thaur ur only monsters left behin’. It IS gonnae tak’ a lot ay energy. An’ we will hae tae conquer it. »

« Well I’m listening to their plans and we have two days available. I think I’ll see if Blue Lagoon has anything we can use against those tanks. Meanwhile we can pull out many of our guards and use them. Will you see to it MacLeod. »

« Och aye lass. We hae lots ay energy. We micht e’en be able tae hauld Winter Wolf if we convert it tae a true dungeon wi’ techt passages an’ caves. »

« Oh, I intend to. But I just love the thought of us being the King and Queen of an unseelie realm. »

MacLeod grinned fiercely to himself at the thought. Revenge would be sweet, then he turned and headed back home.

Linny watched as MacLeod stepped back into their dungeon through the portal they had established to the faerie realm they were planning to take over. She watched as he gathered up most of their defenders and led them through the portal. She felt her energy reserves drain away steadyly. The first rush as they claimed the realm was exauhsting and left her reserves lower than they had hoped but still at an acceptable level. Then the drain was occasionally reversed as their forces killed the former inhabitants. Her stocks of potential monsters grew, and some of the new possibilities were trully bizarre.

After the first day she felt happier. There were still a few holdouts in their new realm but the drain of energy had ceased. So she called her most experienced wolverineman to her core room. When he arrived she started spending energy from the stocks she had set aside. Linny used her dungeon interface to enhance him with Ice and Darkness. Then she fed in some Death and finally a touch of Madness. She examined the now visibly taller and bulkier dungeon boss before her and added more Ice. Everything seemed to click this time. Her previous two experiments hadn’t been a total waste.

Things seemed to be going well, her Tourmaline core flickered with glee.

« I hereby name you Bruce. »

Bruce seemed to become shorter and stockier and the furr on his head thinned slightly as his face shifted to look like a extreemly bad tempered version of the actor Linny had been thinking about.

* * * EARTH – DUNGEON EXCHANGE * * *

Alligator Haven: Hey Monster Mama those Gator folk are ace. Made my first kill on Earth today. Wrong guy but think t’other will loose a leg. Got snakes that would work at mine? You notice we get more xp for killing here on Earth.

Unamed #10 (PrD): Hey was that you in NY. Cool man. That was ace.

Blackrock (PrD): Oh man did you have to? I know they were assholes but they were still human beings.

Alligator Haven: Hey go peddle your bleeding heart fantasies elsewhere. Bet other you’s been killing folk left right and centre to earn a name.

Blackrock (PrD): What do you mean other me?

Blue Lagoon (cmp): Monster Mama’s busy, (giggle) and we have snakes and Mother can fix ’em. And yes we’ve noticed. Bluey has to allow for the authorities reaction to deaths when awardin’ xp.

Dinosaur Caves: You just have to have the right treasure. Something unique.

Winter Wolf: Blue Lagoon I’ve got some big fucking tanks out front. The missile launchers are great but can’t seem to touch the big tanks.

Blackrock (PrD): Good!

Blue Lagoon: Abrams M1? Well yeah, they’re tough. Got three possible man portable answers to them, Milan, TOW and Javelin, but all have drawbacks. Namely they have minimum ranges. They can’t engage anything within seventy meters or so.

Weasel-hame (PrD): WTF! What does a dungeon want with that kind of firepower?

Blue Lagoon: Hey it’s only small stuff. Nothin’ major.

Winter Wolf: In that case will you swap all three with appropriate skillsets for the template of an each-uisge?

Blue Lagoon: Yes. They’re on the exchange now.

Winter Wolf: Thanks. And done.

Blue Lagoon: Congrats on makin’ Vetran Linny.

* * * EARTH – MARY * * *

Mary knocked and strolled into Cass Merrow’s office with a covered cat carrier. “Hiya Cas, what do you think?” she asked as she placed a glass jar containing several miniature planks of a strange blue tinged wood apparently stuck against the lid. She turned the jar over and the slivers of wood floated up to the bottom of the jar.

“Anti-gravity wood. Good eh, I’m gonna call it liftwood, think anyone will thank me for creating it? Sorry about the size but the trees will need a couple of years before they’re big enough to be really useful.”

“What! That’s impossible, you can’t have, and it doesn’t make sense for a tree to fly.” Cass picked up the jar and spent some time turning it and examining the contents. Then she carefully opened the jar and fished out one of the slivers of wood before sealing the jar again. She examined it minutely and confirmed that it did in fact float in the air.

“It just contains hydrogen or helium, right Mary.”

“Nope, you’ll find the lift differs depending how great the surface area that faces down is.” Mary reached into her storage device and produced a small model. She showed Cass that it had four of the tiny planks mounted on the bottom face. All were vertical and when she placed it on the desk it stayed put. Then she used two small knobs to turn two of them flat and once again placed it on the desk. This time the model slowly rose into the air. Some more fiddling left the model hovering in mid air.

Mary grinned happily. “Ain’t DNA manipulation an’ genetic engineerin’ great?”

Cass closed her eyes and sighed. She replaced the plank she was holding back in the jar and looked flatly at Mary.

“Think I should write a paper? Not a new race of brainy octopi so got to be better? Right?”

“And how are you going to get anyone to repeat your experiment?” asked an exasperated Cass.

Mary very theatrically widened her eyes, and then she grinned again. “Not gonna happen Cass. The procedure is mine an’ I’m keepin’ it confidential. Oh, you can keep those, guess you will want to show ’em round. Goin’ to show ’em to the military next so figure havin’ some loose in academia would be a good insurance.”

Cass hid her face in her hands. “Oh god. Why me?”

“’Cause we both like octopi? Oh and here you probably could use these.” Then Mary set three of her enchanted rings on the table, “DNA scanner, Manipulator and the most dangerous one, the one that allows the change to be diffused through the body.”

Cass glared, “You!” she pointed at the chair in front of her desk. “Sit!”

Mary smirked and did so after depositing the pet carrier next to her chair.

“And what have you got there?”

“Birthday present. Goin’ to the party after this.”

Cass resumed glaring. “What. Have. You. Got. There?”

“Two sorta ponies. They’re for a little girl who’s five today.” Mary picked up the pet carrier and placed it on her knees. Then she raised the cloth covering the carrier.

Cass relaxed when she saw the contents. The little pony toys were bigger than all the others she had seen for sale before... Then she realized that they were moving and regarding her with curiosity. The pink one spoke! It had a high clear little girl’s voice. “Hewo lady,” it said.