Listening to them describe their retreat from the city was quite interesting. It certainly demonstrated just how carefully they had planned, for things to go off as smoothly as this, especially for a retreat in the middle of the night. I certainly wouldn’t have been able to coordinate a group of that size but then, my skills weren’t suited to that kind of stuff. Far too many people involved, even Silva would likely be better at that. Was better at that, as her army of dog showed, she had even ventured out and guarded the people as they left the city.

“Well, it sounds like you had an interesting night,” I nodded, “My group ventured into town last night, just to see how things developed. I’d warn against trying to go there just yet, there are some dangers you’d have to be prepared to deal with.”

For the next few minutes, I explained to them how Lia, Silva and I had prepared the location for our battle and how we, with those preparations in place, had been able to fight off an ever-growing horde of undead. The problem here was that it turned into a catch-22. You either had to prepare a defensible location and simply killed the Undead as they came or you fought a running battle, constantly retreating as you killed more and more undead in brief skirmishes. Problem was, both tactics could easily see you exhausted, leaving you easy prey for the undead. A running battle would cause that state faster, and it would attract far more undead but at least you had the chance to retreat if you had a well-planned route. Either way, the city was intensely dangerous, at least if you were unable to be stealthy. Lia, Silva and I were able to simply hide from the undead but I doubted many people could.

The entire time we spoke, I tried to get a read on Cassie, to figure out where she stood. Sadly, the only thing I could see was that she seemed to be concerned about her people, whether or not she saw me as a threat to them was impossible to determine. Maybe even she wasn’t sure, I certainly noticed her looking at me a few times, but I simply didn’t know.

“Another thing,” I spoke up, as the discussion of the undead’s physical abilities and strengths between Lia, Chehai and Arlan wound down. “Have you begun to teach your people about magic? Other than what you can draw from your divine patron, I mean. They will need every advantage that they get and having people with an affinity for arcane magic around but not developing their abilities would be foolish. Maybe even suicidal.”

“Some of the people under my care have received a bit of teaching, a man named Kenji came over and spoke to them. Sadly, my own magical abilities all stem from Frigg and while I managed to induct a few people into the service, there are limits,” Cassie replied, looking both concerned and relieved at the same time. It was an interesting dichotomy, one that a part of me would love to prod at, trying to figure out the details but sadly, this wasn’t the time for that.

“Kenji, Wind affine, but without knowledge of runes, if I recall correctly,” I nodded, dredging up what I had taught him, “He’s quite enthusiastic, but maybe not the most competent teacher. Maybe you should suggest that all those who have an interest in the Arcane visit me here, I believe I can help them a lot better than an apprentice still trying to find his own path. As Cassie can tell you, I walked quite far on one path, though I have decided to widen the path I tread now,” I suggested, the smile on my face widening into a grin when Cassie paled at the mention of my path on Mundus. She had been there, at the end, or at the very least she knew about it.

“We can offer, but there are a few people who are a bit…” Mrs Wu paused, clearly looking for the right words to use, “They are scared of you. They see a petite woman and they feel as if they are staring at a vicious monster able to tear them limb from limb. Some have heard vague stories about you and your power, some distorted, some maybe even true, and they worry. It’s all quite interesting, how people relate and talk about you,” she explained, looking somewhat amused at that. Maybe she simply was, there had been parts of her teaching that had focused on social manipulation, especially through rumours, and how to guide such efforts. She might even guide how people saw me, though I wasn’t sure if she’d try, nor did I have any idea in what direction she might want to guide their perception.

“Understandable, I’ll admit that my interest in people is limited, always has been. I offer because it will help your groups survive, which will ultimately benefit me. As for any potential worries that I might go down a path that ends with me, atop a Frozen Spire, trying to bring about the end of another world, I doubt that it will be a concern,” I grinned, staring at Cassie as I spoke. It was quite amusing watching her go pale, and I didn’t even need to lie or obfuscate. I didn’t plan to walk down that route, I wanted Sigmir back. For that, I needed something other than destruction, I needed raw power to reach into the afterlife, or wherever she was now, to pull her back into my embrace. A frozen world wouldn’t give me that, though maybe the sacrifice of an entire world would. Something to consider later.

“Even if we say nothing, you’ll probably get a few more visitors. The people at the farm have seen what your students can do already and they want that for themselves. Not even to fight, but because they have seen how your students have bettered the lives of us all. With the influx of people, most can see that the few you trained before won’t be enough. Social pressure will have people visit you, simply because having more magic users will benefit us all,” Mark explained, getting nods all around. Hopefully, teaching a few more people would bring some decent EXP, otherwise, I’d have to get creative. If there even was a way to be creative about this, I wasn’t confident there were any monsters around that I could kill for useful amounts of EXP.

“Another thing,” Mark spoke up, after the conversation about training more spellcasters had ended, “You told some of the guys at the farm about a dungeon filled with Undead in the Old Slaughterhouse. They decided to have a group check it out, but what they found didn’t match what you described.”

“Curious, could you tell me what they found?” I asked, wondering if they had tried to enter but had been unable to, because the dungeon could only sustain so many runs over a period of time and we had used them all up. I had thought the number of runs was limited per group, with a higher overall limit, but I wasn’t sure.

“They found no undead around the place and when they entered, they described a message telling them that they had entered a dungeon for the first time. Only, the dungeon they described sounded like something out of an old platformer, with conveyer belts, spike-traps, swinging obstacles, the works. They didn’t dare to go far, even with the buff increasing their rewards,” he shrugged as if that was the obvious thing to do.

“That should be impossible…” I muttered, trying to understand how they could have entered a different dungeon than we had, “Wait, at what time did they go there? Daytime, right?” I asked, latching onto the most obvious difference. Maybe the ‘Dark Slaughterhouse’ wasn’t named such because of the gloomy atmosphere but because it was the version you entered when it was, well, dark. Night.

“Yeah, of course, they went during the day. No need to take additional risks by travelling at night,” Mark replied, only for his eyes to widen, “And you went during the night, right? That’s most likely the difference, I agree,” he nodded again.

“If that group is interested, we can escort them to the dungeon sometime soon. I’d personally love to get a good look at another group entering, I have no idea how that magically works. The only thing I can come up with is that each group enters their own space, independent from the world around them. It sounds utterly fascinating,” I grinned, not even trying to hide my interest. I doubted it was possible, but I really wanted to be able to manipulate space that way, the possibilities were near infinite.

“I’ll talk to them, but I doubt it’s going to be soon. There’s too much chaos going on at the farm right now, with the number of people going up by almost ten times,” he shook his head, causing me to nod in understanding and make a mental note to stay away from the place.

With the topic of the dungeon dealt with, the conversation switched to different topics, one of which was the quality of their guards. It didn’t directly concern me, but they needed to be told that the system they had in place right now was an open invitation for any stealth-focused enemy to go on a rampage. While I had my doubts that they fully believed what I told them, they accepted my words and promised to mitigate the dangers I saw.

As our talk progressed, I noticed that I gave less and less input, making me wonder why they decided to hold their leadership meeting at my table. Maybe they considered me a neutral party, or maybe they wanted to include me in the leadership of their group, whether I wanted it or not. I wasn’t sure how much input, and therefore responsibility I actually wanted, so I simply continued to prepare tea and listened. As long as they didn’t ask me to make a decision, I would happily remain on the outskirts of their group.