"Maybe there's no future for Bast," Xalazuniox said after he heard the news of the royal palace from Amaryllis. "The crown prince's behavior borders on insanity and the King lost his edge. I wonder what we should do to protect our interests, but departing Bast is a card we already played."

Amaryllis' audience with the King ended without a decision from the monarch. He would 'consult his advisors' and 'consider the best plan of action for the kingdom'. Amaryllis employees were released and healed. They were being "interrogated" under prince Aslanbek's orders. It soured any wish for cooperation they had.

After hearing what happened to the guild employees, Nero fell into brooding contemplation. His rage was building up, bubbling from below. He felt responsible for what happened. The guilt as he imagined Alma being tortured was pressing on his chest.

"We can wait. They will only get deeper and deeper into trouble the more time they waste. The squad of knights from Coriander is coming, and they are torching everything in their path," Amaryllis revealed. "A suppression force from Aslanbek's own knight company was sent to intercept them."

That dashed Crystal's plans to talk to them, dissuade them from their raids, and either remove the knights from Bast back to Coriander or deal with them themselves.

"It's going to be a replay of what happened with the leveretians all over again," Xalazuniox said, shaking his head with concern.

Nero rose his head. "Sorry, who?"

Rhynne held his shoulder, a hand raised with the palm down to show him to keep his voice down. While the two leaders kept talking, she answered. "The leveretians were a race of long-eared beast-folk well known for their speed and jumping capacity. They were excellent messengers and scouts. They all vanished from Bast three centuries ago in less than a month. Without their support, the country's communication structure fell apart, and several border provinces declared independence. Bast was unable to recapture these provinces and eventually settled into a treaty adjusting the borders halfway. These fledgling nations withdrew some of their territorial claims in exchange for recognition. Later, we learned that they all departed to another continent."

"Only this time it will be these same nations forcing Bast to return their lands," Bezzias added.

"I still don't understand why it is going to be a replay," Nero said.

"Superstition," Tinkwezilsky explained. "They say that every hardship Bast suffers is linked to the disappearance of a race. When only the cat-kin and leonals are left, the kingdom will be no more."

"Yes, because nobody will work," Glom said in jest. "Bast will become the land of sunbathing."

"That's racist," Bezzias pointed out.

Nero heard but didn't pay attention to the adults' discussion. The stance the Guild and Lyceum would take was a passive one. Let the knights fight the invaders, let the King sort out the problems of his Kingdom, let the prince's anger simmer, this waiting game was grating at his nerves. If he could go with his wishes right then, he would go to the city's main square and drop the Dungeon portal right there for everyone to see.

He might be naive but wasn't stupid. Doing that would be as good as declaring war on the country as the leonals would never forgive such an offense. He might as well go and assassinate the King and the crown prince. He shook those delusions away. There were things he couldn't do but a lot of things he could. Maybe it was time to let the grownups play the grownup game and go do his own thing.

"Are the knights from Coriander coming here? Crystal wants to talk to them," He said.

"No," Rhynne shot the idea down right away. "She won't. It is too dangerous and they are a resourceful bunch. I know she grew up with them and trusts them but she can't get involved."

"Yes, that's for the best," Byron agreed. "Rhynne and I will talk to her."

Amaryllis broke from the conversation with Xalazuniox and flew next to Nero. "They are tracking her. Just as the prince's trackers are seeking you. Don't come to the capital again, it is too dangerous."

"I can hide," Nero said. "I snuck into Coriander's camp unchallenged, and that was before I gained the Accolades from the war and the stampede."

The pixie pinched her nose and frowned. "You had two infiltrators assisting you with their Skills AND the scouts from Coriander were looking for 'intruders', not for 'Nero'. Guess what? Now they narrowed the search to just you and you are alone. Worse yet, what do you think the trackers from Coriander sense when they try to find the direction to the princess? Why are they coming right here?"

Nero took a minute to think. "Because the dimensional space of the shelter is linked to me?"

"Correct!" Tinkwezilsky chimed.

"Full marks, indeed," Glom added.

"Yes. So if you linger around too much, both groups will converge on you," Xalazuniox explained. "And no, we don't want to make them fight each other."

Nero felt conflicted, but he had to admit, even though he was an adult, everyone in the room was either his parent or his mentor. He should trust his elders. Therefore he had other things to do.

"I'm going to take my team and delve then. Any recommendations for rank-III Dungeons around us?"

"There are the Glorious Battlefields of Yrkandia, rank-V," Amaryllis suggested. Two hundred miles from here. It was where the goblin empire did their last stand and fell. They have a high drop rate of equipment and modifiers, I think you'll like it."

"Yrkandia," Byron mused. "I cleared it once before I met your mother. Fun place and good for a large group. The boss is the Goblin General."

"The Guild might need to survey the Dungeon, so if you can get that request, it pays well. Seventy-five thousand is the standard but I think that's pocket change for you now," Amaryllis smirked and winked.

"Yeah, pocket change," Nero allowed himself a wry smile. "Speaking of pocket change, how much for a card press?"

Tinkwezilsky choked on his tea but didn't spit.

Xalazuniox chuckled. "A card press is built to order by a friend's company. Thirty-three million and a two months' wait. You need to deposit about thirty percent of that value, ten million in advance before they start making it."

Maybe that's why the Lyceum only has four of them. Worse yet, the machines take a humongous amount of time to cool down.

"Can't we build it here?"

"We don't have the environment to work with orange-grade materials," Tinkwezilsky shook his head. "The lab is too expensive."

"Three hundred million," Xalazuniox said bitterly. "We can't spend that much on a single department."

"Professor," Nero asked Tinkwezilsky, "if we were to build the presses here, how much would we save?"

"The workmanship is the most expensive part. We could obtain the materials for about seven to eight million. But it would take longer to build them as we wouldn't have a dedicated team of high-level [Gadgeteers] with the experience of building them. We would take more than a year to make a single unit. With time that should improve, but we are talking about a decade of work and training."

Nero nodded. "Five hundred million..." He mumbled as he thought and did some calculations. He could get it by killing twenty thousand monsters in his Dungeon. Yeah, right. It was too much for a single person. Well, that was a long-term goal as good as any. While he was absorbed in his own daydreaming, the people around him kept talking about some subjects. Rhynne brought him back by gently shaking his shoulder. "Yes, mom?"

"What's the matter?" She asked with motherly concern.

"I was wondering how to farm the Essence I need."

Bezzias chuckled. "It really makes you think twice when you factor our absorption rates."

"Maybe that was Kherghak's opinion too," Glom conjectured.

Before the eggheads could devolve it into a discussion about a crazy dead guy's intentions, Nero broke the flow. "So, can I borrow your press? I have almost all the Essence I need but I have eight people to equip if I want to delve."

"Why not shop for the equipment you need?" Amaryllis asked.

Nero stared at her. "Because someone forbade me from visiting the city. Are you up to shopping for me?"

"We can go," Byron said. "Just tell us what you need."

Nero listed what he wanted, with options. He wanted to gear the eanlings as ranged fighters, Rodther was a skirmisher, Moira the defender. Hefalina would be a melee frontline fighter, a mix of offense and defense, while Crystal and Altia would play support. He gave his parents two million Essence and handed Xalazuniox five hundred thousand to help pay for the suggestion contest he was putting up. With everything set, they departed. Nero gave Bezzias the keyphrase for the portal he left in his lab before he left.

Nero returned to the shelter, and he had one thing he had to do before anything else. Obtaining the quartermaster's hidden stash. Rodther's shelter had outlived its usefulness and he wanted to recycle it before any... quirks appeared. His solution to the dilemma was easy. Any permanent object left in a shelter that was terminated would fall in a ring around him. The memory of the ring of excrement summoned around him when he shrunk the shelter to detach Tyre's savanna from his own home shelter made him gag.

He had no delusions that there wasn't a small pocket of refuse from the dwarf in the shelter. Therefore, it was paramount to keep such dross away from him. His answer was a pillar of stone no wide than him, with two metal crutches attached to the sides to work as support for him. The materials would fall around him and find only air, falling down away from him. To complete the setup, a large and fluffy sandpit around the pillar would soften the fall enough so nothing would break.

All of that except the metal handholds he added later came prepackaged in a brand new persistent shelter that was created without upkeep. It would vanish at midnight. Nero tasked the badgers with the job of staying in the sand and retrieving the package. He could always wash them later - from a distance.

He enacted his plan and dismissed Rodther's shelter. All the portals were already linked to other transition boxes, and he had other plans for moving those to a more permanent solution anyway. The materials left behind by the dwarf appeared and fell on the sand just as planned. Empty kegs of booze, clothes, some odds and bits like cutlery, dishes, wooden tankards, and a very conspicuous wooden chest that jiggled with the sound of Essence crystals hitting one another as it fell on the sand.

Nero looked down and frowned. The sand thankfully would absorb and dry the organic matter. He commanded Maria and Bruce to move the crate away from the rest of the debris and used a portal to step into a transition box and another to exit next to the badgers.

The chest was two feet wide by a foot deep and nine inches tall. It had no features, only polished wood panels on the sides and riveted steel braces on the corners joined by steel girders. It looked and felt sturdy and heavy. Whatever was inside would survive any fall from the top of Nero's pillar, even if the ground was solid stone. He wanted to open the chest and look inside. What else had the dwarf secreted away with? What was in this hoard?

He knew there was little chance this chest would make it back to the Kingdom's coffers. And given the previous engagements, he had little desire to do so. There was the odd chance it could be tracked but they were after him anyway. Winning over temptation, Nero stored the chest in his pouch, amazed at how the item just vanished inside the small opening.

Six days later, they were at the portal to the "Glorious Battlefields of Yrkandia", on the border to Honeywitch but on the end of a triangle formed by Hom and the valley where Tyre's castle became a monster's den. The battle that created the Dungeon happened millennia ago and the landscape changed a lot. Nero looked at the Dungeon with Essence analysis.

Name: Glorious Battlefields of Yrkandia

Rank: IV

Grade: Blue

Condition: Entrenched, stable.

Occupants: many

Nero looked up and checked the sun's position to confirm what his timepiece was telling him. The team decided to enter one minute past midnight, to make sure nobody was inside.

The pyramid device the princess gifted him was something unique or very rare. The eggheads at the gadgeteering department wanted to tear it apart so he gave them an olive branch in the form of Mayleefa's communication and tracking devices. He still had no infuser for his troubles, though. With the renewed refusal to grant the minnid such a device, Nero withdrew his plans of showing them his schematics for a Skill slot before he even hinted at its existence.

He needed to test it. With that in mind, he looked at the mechanical-legged nereid. "Moira, it is time to test your device's Skill slot. Here, you'll use this Skill," He said as he handed over a purple card to her.

[Intervene] - purple Skill. Requires level 21. Strength +20. Agility +30.

+16 Vigor

Effect: Spend 2 points of Stamina when an ally is targeted by an attack. You move up to square.root(Agility) yards to interpose yourself against the attack and your ally is moved up to square.root(Strength) feet away from harm. You can still use your defenses against the attack.

Moira looked at the card and her eyes went wide. "Are you sure?"

"Yes, I'm sure," Nero said. I'm tasking you with my family and friends' safety, the least I can do is to make sure you can survive."

Nero saw Rodther mouth "I told you" to Moira and she smiled candidly at him. Nero creased one eyebrow and withdrew, putting himself next to Crystal. "Rodther and Moira, sitting under a tree..." He whispered to her.

Crystal punched her brother's shoulder. "Shut up. Let them live their lives, slave driver!" She protested.

"Sure. They can rub bits as much as they like," Nero quipped, amused. On the corner of his eye, he saw Hefalina glance sheepishly at Knazer. He elbowed Crystal.

"Don't," She hissed between clenched teeth. "They're just testing the waters."

Fotia overheard them and sighed, looking supportively at her brother. Altia came and grabbed Nero's arm. "Shall we go inside?"

Moira finished talking to Rodther, removed her boots, and lifted her trousers, exposing the mechanical leg's bronze plating. She lifted the cover of the Skill slot and Crystal raised a hand.

"Wait! Just wait!" She pointed at Moira's leg. "What is that card slot doing there?"

Nero smirked. "Waiting for a card," he stated matter-of-factly.

"Have you tested it? I never heard of it!" She insisted.

"I would've tested if you didn't stop Moira," Nero protested. "Worst case it does nothing. It is safe."

"I trust him," Moira said and slid the card into the slot. She closed her eyes and frowned. Her display lit up immediately. "I'm Okay!"

"Quickly, get the item Status on your device. What does it say?"

Moira twisted the dials. "The item changed. Its Vigor bonus rose by eight, and the Intervene active ability is there.

"Good. Moira, look at me," Nero cheered. He walked a bit further and picked a stone from the ground. "Hey, Rodther! Look lively!"

Nero tossed the rock at Rodther. Moira flicked and blurred toward Rodther's position, taking the stone on her shield. Rodther was a few feet behind Moira, puzzled.

Half the Attribute bonus but the full Skill effect. That was within acceptable parameters. Nero smiled victorious before his sister. "See? It works!"

"Congratulations, brother. You are amazing," Crystal cooed.

Rodther whistled and ran to hold Nero's hand. "Hey boss, could you please cut both my legs too?"