Damien was filled with concern at the sight of my swollen face and hunched over posture when I called him over a few days later. However, his concern was quickly dispersed after I assured him I was fine, and that more importantly I had a working concept and even a basic plan for the dungeon. He immediately contacted Grainola to let them know we had an idea ready to pitch them, but upon looking at my swollen face he amended what he was going to say to that we’d be ready at the two week deadline. Afterwards he forcefully dragged me to a clinic nearby where a Cleric healed the worst of my bruises and my, as it turned out, cracked ribs. The relief from the pain was wonderful, but the size of the bill was depressing.

A few days later, Damien and I made our way down to their building and settled in to wait after checking in with their receptionist. However, we didn’t have to wait long before Jacques came striding out to meet us, a smile on his face.

“Gentlemen, it’s good to see you both. I must say we were very happy to hear that you had a definite design in place. That should make things easier.”

“What do you mean?” I asked, not following.

Jacques shook his head as he led us back to the conference room. “We ran into a few problems with getting the permit. Generally speaking it’s not hard to get a permit for a dungeon, especially for a large company like ours. However, there are certain rules in place. And since your company has a certain...reputation, thanks to the efforts of those fellows at Q&A Jelly, well let’s just say we’ve been stalled in our plans.”

He gestured for us to sit and waited until we had done so before continuing. “As a rule of thumb, we can usually get dungeons approved as soon as we request for a permit, but technically speaking there is a law that requires submission of our plans prior to their determination. In most cases, there’s a certain level of trust and understanding between us and the bureaucracy that forms the government of Asance. They know we want to get started quickly, so they’ll issue us a provisional permit, conditioned on the eventual approval of our plans.”

Damien nodded in understanding. Seeing my confusion he explained, “There’s a lot of competition for prime dungeon real estate, so a delay can prevent a successful acquisition of a property which in turn can set back the dungeon creation and thus the business endeavors of a company. That’s why the government created the provisional permit, which is enough for a company to show the zoning committee and gain approval to begin construction.”

I hadn’t realized the process was so segmented and complicated. When I had worked with Q&A Jelly before they had already built their factory and established their business, so I hadn’t been exposed to any of these bureaucratic processes.

“In this case, it seems the bureaucrats are intentionally delaying us from completing the project.” Jacques said wryly. “They’re refusing to issue us a provisional permit until they have seen the plans. The issuance of a provisional permit is entirely up to the Office of Dungeon Management’s discretion, so we don’t have any recourse. My guess is that Quimby used his little influence, or perhaps just his money, to poison the ODM against you. In any case, we just were refused earlier today, so you have good timing. Why don’t you go ahead and share what your plans are?”

I nodded, and went to pull out a holodevice to share my plans, but before I could Damien interrupted me. “Before that, we need to sign a contract. If you decide to go ahead with our plan you’ll have to compensate us appropriately on the terms we agreed to before.”

I felt myself break into a cold sweat. I hadn’t even thought about that. If I had presented my design without the contract, they could have just stolen the design for themselves and not given us a penny.

Jacques gave Damien a hurt look. “We wouldn’t have taken advantage of you. We have our reputation to think of!” He pushed a button on the table and spoke to someone listening on the other end. A short while later, the secretary from last time appeared, holding a stack of contracts in his hands. Damien took some time to read through them, but everything must have been the same as they agreed on because he went ahead and signed them on behalf of Living Dungeon Corporation. “I look forward to our business together,” He said, smiling as he tidied the papers.

What I found interesting was that, unlike when I had signed a contract as an individual with Q&A Jelly, I didn’t receive any notifications about this one. It seemed Janus didn’t get involved in contracts between companies. I felt a little uneasy at the lack of a system enforcement of the contract, but I calmed down when I remembered we did still live in a society with a legal system. In the worst case, we could always sue and take them to court. Plus, for a company like Grainola, public image mattered. If people found out that the company that made their precious children’s cereal had no morals when dealing with others it might make them question what else they might do, like skipping quality control checks and putting out products with toxins in them.

Once Damien gave me a nod to continue, I pulled out the holodevice from before and began projecting a 3-dimensional model of the dungeon onto the table. Jacques cleared his throat. “If you’ll permit me?” He asked, holding his hand out for the device. I handed it to him. He tapped away at it before handing it back. Then, tapping at the table, he quickly projected the model from there. Unlike my holodevice, the table was able to create a very large and high quality hologram of my design.

I put my holodevice away and took a breath before launching into my explanation.

“My design is actually fairly simple. But in it lies a certain genius, if you’ll pardon my ego for describing it as such. I believe we can create a sustainable dungeon ecology that will also meet your needs.” I paused here, hesitating for a moment.

Jacques gestured for me to continue with impatience. “What’s the hold up?”

I shrugged, looking at Damien who nodded encouragingly. I took a deep breath. “Well, before we begin, I should explain that there might be a problem with this design for you.”

Jacques frowned, waiting for me to explain.

“In terms of design, the Dungeon should work just fine. It will be sustainable, and should produce the mana rich water you want. However, it involves the city’s taboo.”

He looked confused for a moment before taking a deep breath and exclaiming. “You can’t be serious!”

I nodded. “I’m afraid so. This particular dungeon will involve fire.”

Jacques was shaking his head, but before he could object, Damien cut in. “Hang on a minute and let him finish. You should know I’m no stranger to how the inner workings of this city operate. I think there is a workaround here that should be easy enough for you to achieve.”

Damien waited for Jacques to nod before gesturing for me to continue.

“Right,” I began nervously. “Well, the dungeon does involve fire, but at the end of the day the dungeon is primarily a water dungeon. It produces water after all. In this case, the fire element of the dungeon will consist of lava fields and Hell Hounds. We will set it up so that Hell Hounds and Water Sprites will exist in two separate spheres with a small overlap in their territories. Hell Hounds, as you may be aware, are extremely territorial. When faced with Water Sprites encroaching on their territory, they’ll attack them.”

I reached out and manipulated the hologram to zoom in on the lake region I had just described. “I don’t know how familiar you are with Water Sprites. They’re curious little things, made up entirely of water and mana. They’re Monsters not Beasts, but they’re really harmless. In large numbers they can group together and drown unsuspecting adventurers, but mostly they’re just one of the many creatures that exist to be food for those higher up on the food chain.”

I took a breath to continue explaining more about them, but Damien cleared his throat and eyed me meaningfully. I resisted the urge to continue lecturing on Water Sprites and jumped straight to the point.

“The reason they matter to us is two fold: first, they only require water in order to reproduce. Thus, in a lake environment, they’ll continue to reproduce at an immense rate. Second, when they die, most of the mana that animates them undergoes a sudden conversion into water, thus producing a much greater amount of water than what is initially contained in their bodies.”

Jacques’ eyes widened as he realized where I was going with this. “You said most of the mana is converted into water. Meaning that some of the mana remains?”

I nodded. “Exactly. The remaining mana enters into some of the water molecules, producing a mana charged water. Now, the amount isn’t too significant, maybe 1 in 10 molecules receiving the charge, meaning when mixed with the rest of the water, for most people it wouldn’t even be noticeable. Only normal people would be able to detect any change in the water when consuming it, and even then it would be minimal. Thus, unprocessed, the water wouldn’t meet your needs. However, if you use something like a Sky Filter to specifically absorb those molecules you would end up with a concentrated amount of mana rich water.”

Jacques was enthusiastic at first, but when I explained the Sky Filter he seemed discouraged. “I get the idea, but the issue is the Sky Filter only filters air particulates. It wouldn’t be capable of filtering the lake water. To my knowledge, no product like that exists. Of course, we could put in a request to an R&D company to develop that product, but it would slow down the launch of the product immensely. Who knows what the market trends will be by then, maybe the local dungeon products fad will have faded.”

Rather than being upset at him disagreeing with my idea, I just grinned. “I wasn’t done. I know that the Sky Filter can’t absorb the lake water, but what if the mana rich water molecules were in gaseous form? Once they’ve mixed into the lake it’ll be tough, but what if, at the moment of death, the Water Sprites were exposed to extreme heat that would cause the water to evaporate into water vapor?”

Understanding dawned in Jacques and Damien’s eyes as they said at the same time, “The Hell Hounds!”

I nodded. “Exactly. When they attack and kill the Water Sprites, it will be a clash between fire and water. The heat produced by their bodies when they do will cause the water produced by the death of the Sprites to evaporate. At that point, the Sky Filter will be able to filter the mana rich water molecules from the normal water molecules. You can then take the collected molecules, which after the death of many Sprites should constitute enough water to fill a cistern, and bottle it. Moreover, it’s likely that some of the ash from the lava fields will fill the air as well. You could pull trace minerals from that with the Sky Filter as well, to give the water a more unique flavor.”

Jacques sat back, somewhat stunned by the plan. “It’s so simple, but so ingenious.”

Damien nodded. “Of course, that’s what we promised you after all.”

I shook my head wryly at how he took this opportunity to brag to the client.

Jacques seemed to grow more enthusiastic about the dungeon the more he thought about it. “How will we maintain the dungeon? The renewable nature of the dungeon is one of the ways we’ll stand out from the competition when they start imitating us.”

“That’s simple. As I said, only about 1/10 of the water molecules will be mana charged. The other 9 molecules will form steam, which, when it encounters the cooler water of the lake, or the cooler air above the lake, will condense and add water back into the lake, thus fueling the Sprites reproductive process. As for the Hell Hounds, they’re Beasts not Monsters, so as long as you feed them periodically they’ll be just fine. The lava fields are their preferred environment, and they’ll naturally breed and form their own ecology. I expect the Water Sprites will group up to defend themselves and might kill some of the Hounds, but the Hounds far outpower the Sprites, so only the old, sick, or very young would die to them. It should mimic a natural mortality rate for them and shouldn’t affect their overall population.”

I finished without any fanfare or grand statement, trusting that the brilliance of the dungeon design would speak for itself. And indeed, Jacques didn’t let me down, actually clapping his hands before exclaiming, “Wonderful! This is simply wonderful gentlemen. The design is, obviously, ingenious. I was skeptical initially about the fire aspect of the dungeon, but as you predicted, Damien, I think there is an easy workaround. If it was a pure fire dungeon I expect we’d still get strong resistance, but since the fire dungeon is such a small part of the dungeon it shouldn’t be an issue. At most we’ll have to exert some of our influence. We’ve held back from it until now as technically ODM was within their rights to demand we produce plans before giving us a permit. I’ll have someone send the plans over to them as soon as possible so we can begin work immediately.”

Damien smiled and stood up. I realized that, somehow, the meeting had just ended and I had missed the cue for it. Jacques shook hands with Damien and with a somewhat dazed me.

“You all have performed exceptionally well. I do believe we will reach out to you in the future for any similar needs. As for your payment, as agreed upon, we will transfer a portion to you upfront with the remainder being paid upon your completion of the dungeon. Additionally, I would like to take this chance to extend an invitation to you. There will be a fundraiser for President Seaworth’s re-election campaign later this month. Naturally, I will be in attendance representing my company. However, we purchase extra tickets to these things which we give out as benefits to employees who have performed well. While you are not our employees, you have performed exceptionally well. I’d like to offer you two tickets.”

Damien accepted before I could say anything. I hid a grin as it seemed like he was afraid I would reject the ticket. President Seaworth was the president of the city state of Asance. His fundraiser would be full of elites from every industry. Though Damien correctly guessed that the idea of mingling with the rich and powerful of Asance didn’t really appeal to me as I knew I’d only be met with disdain, to refuse would be rude to Jacques. Of course I would accept the tickets, if only to show that I appreciated his gesture. Whether I would actually attend was a different matter entirely.

After exchanging some polite conversation and extracting a promise from Jacques to call us when the permit was approved, Damien and I took our leave.

Standing in front of the building, we stared at each other.

“I guess...that went well?” I said.

Damien snorted. “That was about as well as it could have gone. We solved a problem for them and delivered on what we promised. You know Jacques was impressed with you, right?” Damien waved the tickets he’d accepted earlier. “He may have said they give these out to well performing employees, but what that really means is they go to well-performing executives. These tickets were probably slated for some director of something.”

I hadn’t realized that, but it made sense. Why would a company send lower level employees to a big event like that after all? It would be better to send executives that could take advantage of the event to schmooze some politicians for favorable legislation.

I wanted to tell Damien that I didn’t want to go, but before I could, his holophone rang with an alert. Eyes wide as he read it, he projected it so I could see. It was the bank transfer from Grainola. My mouth dropped open. I hadn’t been involved in the negotiations, so I didn’t realize how much we would earn from this deal. I hadn’t seen so many zeroes in my life.

Looking up from the phone, we exchanged looks before breaking into cheers. With my arm over Damien’s shoulder as we danced and shouted, making fools of ourselves in the street, I decided that letting him know about the fundraiser could wait. For now, I would celebrate.

“We’re rich! We’re rich!” We sang as we danced down the street looking for a bar where we could celebrate. Tonight, we’d order top shelf.