I check around town… the Bordello is basically empty, they're not in the barracks… ah, the mess hall. Of course: It's the closest this town comes to a tavern, after all. The pce is a big wooden building, recently built like everything else here, with several rows of tables and benches (poorly made, but serviceable), a big counter running the length of the building (and yes, it has stools), with a big kitchen behind. Roger, Bearcw, and Wesley are sitting with steins of beer as I walk up.

  Bearcw sees me first, “Don't tell me… you had the genius idea of killing the dungeon heart?”

  I chuckle, “I did, yes.”

  Wesley growls, “Leaving ME high and dry.”

  Roger rolls his eyes, “look, we were all outcssed by Chard Wuodrazed…”

  Seeing the confusion on my face, Bearcw ughs, “The stupid gnome. You're supposed to take names when you kick…”

  “You're interrupting,” Roger continues, “anyway… Wesley, my brother in arms, you were already beaten. All of us were. Marty here CHANGED that. Yeah, it was a drastic move, and has some nasty consequences for you especially, but tell me which is better: Having magic as a sve, or doing without magic for a month or so as a free man?”

  Wesley growls and takes a swig of his beer.

  Roger keeps going, “Less than that, even. Now that Marty's back, we can do that shadow walk thing again…”

  My turn to interrupt, “About that… Wuodrazed has a diabolic contract. His magic managed to strip away the gift from my mother. We're going to need to walk… or ride; I can still get us horses, at least.” And I don't have my pets anymore, so I can do Phantom Steeds… although those aren't much faster than horses yet. At the look from Wesley, I add, “but we may not be leaving… the townsfolk are forming a council, and I let them know that we know how to seed and care for a dungeon. They may be hiring us and setting this pce up as the mining town they were sold on.”

  “Why'd you lie to…” Wesley begins.

  I cut him off, “I didn't lie. I know how to seed a dungeon. It's BORING, but it's not hard. So as long as you're not all kicking me out… no lie there.”

  Wesley looks at me over his cup, “You can turn the magic back ON?”

  I smile, “Yes. I'm not cruel, I was just a bit desperate.”

  Wesley considers, “All right… that's… I can deal. I do want a favor, though.”

  Hmm… “I'm not all powerful… but what do you want?”

  “I've been getting fshes of that night when you first infected me when I trance, and….” his face turns red, “it felt… I want…”

  I shrug, “I have a spell that can trigger the transformation safely, if that's what you're asking… it only triggers your blessing, though, which means we'll need to do it in my house for now.”

  “I won't want to do that in public anyway,” Wesley nods, “at least not until I have full control. But umm…” Wesley's cheeks turn a brighter shade of red, “Bearcw, can you be the one who….”

  The half-orc barbarian shrugs, “yeah, no problem. But something is bugging me…” Bearcw looks at me, “You said ‘has’ rather than ‘had’ earlier about the stupid gnome’s contract.”

  “I did.” I consider, “My uncle let me know, in a roundabout way, that old Chard had some kind of a backup pn for getting killed, so while we do have his corpse… his death didn't stick.”

  “Lead with that kind of thing next time,” the halfling shakes his head, “I expect he's going to want revenge.” Roger pauses, “although few mages want to venture where there's no magic, so we have time… no harm done there. We'll need to think about countermeasures… for now, though: When and where for the contract negotiations?”

  “In ‘a few hours’ at the barracks,” I answer easily, “The primary talker was a taller human, well muscled with bck hair and a mustache; went by Frederick. He fingered me as belonging to the party, didn't have an issue with it.”

  “Thanks…” Roger considers, “Okay, so… we should all be there for the negotiations, and better to be early than te… finish your beers, everyone, and we'll be off.”

  They all drink up, downing their drinks quickly, and get up. We head across the street to the barracks… also a wooden building and recent construction. Roger stops at the front door and knocks.

  A moment ter a dwarf with a mining pick in hand opens it, “What?”

  “Hi, I'm Roger of the Gatecrashers,” the halfling waves, “I understand you might need a dungeon seeded and maintained, or possibly an escort back to civilization?”

  “Yeah… we're just picked a half-dozen guys for the council…” the dwarf shrugs, “Come on in, I'm Stan.”

  I follow Roger along with Wesley and Bearcw as the halfling follows the dwarf the few steps into the barracks… which deserves the name. It's just a big wooden building with a couple of firepces that's full of rows and rows of cots with a footlocker at the end of each cot. All have bnkets, a few have people sleeping in them… room for around a hundred people, all told.

  One of the pregnant women… looks about six months along… that I liberated is in a group with six men (one of which is Mr. Mustache), all of them sitting on cots that have been arranged in a half-circle. I wonder why they didn't use the mess hall? No matter.

  Interestingly, it's the woman who starts talking, “Okay, so… I'm Richard Swiftbde, and first, thanks for getting rid of the tyrants and freeing us from their rather brutal rule.” She pauses a bit, and continues, “that said, raiding the treasury, while understandable, puts us in a tight spot regarding payment.”

  The other three look at me, “What? I was raiding the castle of an evil overlord who attacked us all.”

  The Barbarian speaks up first, “Yes, and that makes it legal enough, not that any jurisdiction applies this far out.”

  The wizard wonders, “Yes, but if they don't have any money….”

  “About that,” Richard speaks up, “as we'll also need operating funds to pay guards and others, we were thinking we could sell you some of the nd within the town walls.”

  “It's a risk,” the party rogue rubs his chin, “the town can't get support or more people very easily.”

  “We're aware it's a risky investment,” Richard was clearly prepared for that question, “which is why we're going to offer a discounted rate….”

  I tune out most of the negotiations… that's the halfling's job, after all. But in the end, we return fifty thousand crowns of the town treasury to the town council… and own the incomplete castle and all the nd within a hundred yards of it. I'm not entirely sure it was worth it… but that's okay. Because we ALSO have the job of reseeding the dungeon, and will get a decent chunk of it back when the magic is confirmed running.

  When we're done, we cim our partial pace… and I give Wesley and Bearcw their time together in one of my guest rooms. After that's done?

  The dungeon seeding.

  Now, I can seed a dungeon at any time in any location that's at least a hundred feet underground… but there's a catch, and I want some help with the math, as getting it wrong could wreck the town.

  So I check with Wesley, “Hey, mind getting out of those books and into this one for me for a while?” I hold out the dungeon seeding tome.

  He sets down the spell index he's reading, and looks up, “Why such a thick book?”

  I take a breath, “this one has the secrets of seeding a dungeon… including how to know in advance what kinds of creatures the dungeon will spawn and what it will do to the terrain. It has the equation, the charts, and a mathematical primer for everything the equation uses.”

  The elf's jaw drops, “That can be controlled?”

  I consider, “Yes and no. This won't let us make this dungeon spawn nothing but normal dairy cows or anything like that: All we control is when and where we seed the dungeon, and the retionship between that and the form of the dungeon is specified by a very annoying equation that's a mess of pnar alignment… so for practical purposes we will have maybe two or three options we can select from by deying seeding a few weeks or picking which side of the town to use when digging the shaft.”

  “But it's not random like everyone believes.”

  “Correct.”

  “And the book you're holding is a practical guide to it?”

  “Yes, complete with a full expnation of what all of the math symbols it uses actually mean. If you can follow instructions well and do basic math, this tome will let you figure out what dungeon you'll get before you get it, the window of opportunity to get THAT dungeon, and what you'll get in the next window or if you seed it a few miles away… eventually. And I'd like you to check my work, because this could make or break the mining town.”

  The elf practically rips the tome out of my hands: Yeah, he's hooked.