The City of Glass left Hans speechless, just as it had when he saw it in person for the first time. On this occasion, every adventurer in Gomi ranked higher than Apprentice shared the moment with him–except for Lee. Though she had committed to returning to adventuring, she wasn’t ready to resume dungeon crawls. Her training time, currently, focused on teaching the Apprentices.

  The adventurers trekked through a narrow mountain crag to access the valley. Sharp winds cut through the pass, the cold of tall mountains in the depths of winter seeming to pass right through their cloaks and their armor, feeling like frozen steel against their skin. That air whipped at them even now, but looking out over the otherworldly city made their discomfort a distant afterthought.

  “If you look at the north eastern side, you can see what I mean,” Hans said, pointing to the edge of the city where mountain jutted out over the ruins below. “That’s what’s left from the original cavern. This entire city was underground before the meteor hit, so anywhere you see open sky, imagine more city below it. What you’re seeing now is what didn’t get buried in the collapse.”

  “Damn…” Becky said.

  “Right?” Hans said. “Your people aren’t capable of building something boring. It’s either big and breathtaking or don’t bother at all.”

  “As it should be…” The dwarf Druid continued to marvel at the scene.

  Hans continued playing the part of tour guide. Though scholars agreed that the city was built by dwarves, when they built it was a matter of great debate, and its original name was wholly unknown. No surviving records from other dwarven cities mentioned a city this deep in the mountains, and the calamity that snuffed out the light of this place took its history with it.

  When the meteor landed, the City of Glass was not hit directly. The rock itself was about three wagons in diameter, and it fell just beyond the city limits. When it struck the surface, the resulting earthquake and shockwave collapsed the cavern that once sheltered the dwarven city. Though scholars believed key artifacts could be found in the buried sections of the city, none had been recovered successfully to date. A full mountain had fallen on the site, presenting a difficult excavation problem made more challenging by awful weather and the city’s remote location.

  The relatively sizable ruins that survived had been spared the destruction of the collapse, but the heat of the meteor melted the granite structures and burned away anything made of wood, cloth, or flesh. To Hans, the city looked as if a dwarven civilization had been recreated as an ice sculpture, every building and street a semi-opaque gray that sometimes faded to white and sometimes faded to black. That sculpture had partially melted and refroze, tilting structures in odd directions and locking sinking roofs in place like they were flowing water about to drip.

  The dungeon core lit this expansion in permanent dusk, which exaggerated the light reflecting off all of the glass. Hans found that effect to be odd. He could see no origin point for the light, yet it bounced off of reflective surfaces as if it had a source. All Hans could see overhead was the familiar dungeon ceiling.

  As time continued its work on the City of Glass, additional collapses shattered several of those buildings, leaving a scattering of huge shards of glass, their edges as sharp as razors. Many of those edges were hidden by snow. A harmless step could plunge an adventurer’s leg into a small hole, unseen glass carving the leg to tatters on the way down and again when panic pulled the limb back out.

  Beyond the danger of the terrain, Hans shared in their pre-run prep sessions that their most likely encounters would involve snow or ice elementals. Those would be relatively rare, but best to assume they could strike at any moment. In this environment, an adventurer could walk right on top of an ice elemental and not realize, creating an unfortunate surprise for both sides of the encounter.

  Polar bears, snow leopards, and bun manchi were even less likely to appear but still enough of a possibility that adventurers should be cautious. In the pre-run prep session, the Gomi Irons learned that a bun manchi was the tundra version of a meddybemps howler, a large humanoid with thick fur and rapid healing capabilities. While dangerous, that particularly family of monsters tended to live in isolation and preferred to avoid contact in most cases.

  Though all of the DCs were present, they were tasked with observing Becky, Bel, Izz, and Thuz in their encounter with a diamond elemental–the primary quarry for this new section of dungeon.

  “This was a search and rescue mission,” Hans explained. “We were Silvers at the time, and the City of Glass had only recently been discovered. The first organized expedition to explore and catalog the site didn’t check in, so we were sent to find out why. At that time, no one knew that diamond elementals were present, and the meteor itself had not been discovered either. The initial assumption was that polar bears or weather got the scholars and their Bronze escorts.”

  As they walked between the glass structures, Hans staked their route with flags–improvised from the dwarven sheets and blankets the dungeon grew in the mines. The bronze-colored flags represented the recommended path through the city, while the maroon flags marked potential dangers, most of which were obscured by snowfall.

  Eventually, Gomi harvesters would need to make this journey. Before they did, Hans intended to run several parties through this section to thoroughly search the recommended route for hazards. In the original job, Hans found one of the Bronze adventurers, frozen in one of the hidden holes he warned of. He had bled out. Hans spared his students that visual, but he was highly vocal about the risks and was hellbent on verifying the path was safe before risking anyone else.

  Eventually, the Gomi adventurers reached the edge of a cliff. The meteor impact sank a large chunk of the city thirty yards or so deeper than the rest, like a cavern beneath the city had collapsed as well. The cliff looked down into what was effectively a sinkhole. The original expedition made basecamp where they now stood, as evidenced by the seven tents half-buried in snow and the various crates and boxes stacked under tarps. A small hand-cranked crane reached out over the edge, presumably to lower supplies down the steep cliffface.

  Hans pointed to the far side, and said the meteor was there. Right now, however, it was covered in snow and dirt, so it looked no different than anything around it. When his party was here, they missed the meteor as well. A later expedition into the City of Glass discovered the meteor and eventually concluded that its arrival brought the end to the dwarves living here.

  In the rubble below, much closer to their elevated vantage point, Hans pointed to another wholly unremarkable hunk of rock.

  “That’s a diamond elemental,” he said. “Boden about shit himself when it popped out of the snow.”

  The only way in or out of the sinkhole was a wooden ladder the expedition had left behind. The earth family of elementals–earth elementals, iron elementals, root elementals, diamond elementals, and so on–were somewhat capable of climbing, but not a surface as sheer as this.

  For that reason, a party could observe from the top with minimal danger. Like Bunri’s golem, Hans hoped that the diamond elemental could go unculled without presenting an immediate threat to the rest of the dungeon. Fighting more than one would be problematic, however, so his motivation to keep the culling consistent was high.

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  Hans stood with the Irons while the rest of the adventurers descended the ladder.

  “Remember,” Hans said to the Irons, “diamond elementals reflect attack spells. They all know that, but I asked Izz to demonstrate that ability early in the fight. Be ready to duck when he does.”

  To wake the diamond elemental, Becky cast Root, which summoned growth from the ground to ensnare the elemental and hold it in place. As expected, the roots did little to contain the monster, but they had done their intended job. The diamond elemental stood to its full height, comparable to that of an ogre.

  “That thing is huge,” Terry whispered in awe.

  “An elemental that size is classified as a ‘greater elemental.’ What you’ve all fought so far have been the upper end of lesser to what we just call ‘elemental,’ the halfway point between lesser and greater.”

  Izz cast Mana Arrow to send a green projectile at the elemental. When the magic arrow hit, it ricocheted off its shoulder and exploded against the side of the pit.

  “I don’t see any diamonds,” Chisel said. “I know we’re far and all, but.”

  “According to Mazo, how diamonds are formed affects their color. This diamond elemental is made from black diamonds, and like the iron elementals you all are familiar with, its body isn’t solid diamond. It’s a mix of diamond and rock in this case. Not as much dirt to be had up here.”

  Thuz rapidly dumped debuffs onto the elemental. The already lumbering monster slowed, and its body began emitting a soft blue glow.

  Continuing his commentary, Hans said that the lizardman had likely cast Slow, Weaken, and Beacon on the elemental. The Beacon spell was responsible for the glow, adding more contrast to the monster that otherwise blended with the grays and whites of the landscape. Debuffs that affected a monster’s mental state, like Charm or Fear, didn’t work on enemies without brains.

  A Force Wall appeared in front and behind of the elemental, courtesy of a coordinated effort between Bel and Izz. When it attempted to push forward, the Force Wall crackled like it was electrified, spraying purple sparks in all directions.

  In place of her axe, Becky carried a warhammer. With the Force Walls briefly containing the elemental, she reached into a pouch on her belt. Her gloved hands emerged covered in white powder. She slapped the chalk on the end of her hammer and closed the distance. She swung at the monster’s leg.

  The sound of the hammer pinging against diamond echoed out of the sinkhole.

  She swung again as the Force Walls blinked out. This strike sounded like a hammer breaking stone.

  “Marked!” Becky yelled, quickly retreating from the very slow but very dangerous hammer fists falling her direction.

  Ignoring the first chalk imprint, Bel and Izz targeted the second with Force Bolts, concentrating their attack on a part of the elemental that was more rock than diamond. The attack wasn’t perfectly clean, however. Becky dodged two Force Bolts that found enough diamond to be reflected away.

  “Hold!” Becky called, signalling that the rock in that area was gone. However, too much diamond remained for the leg’s integrity to be compromised.

  They repeated the cycle of Force Walls and hammer chalk, this time lower on the leg, closer to what would be the monster’s ankle if it were human.

  This time, the adventurers succeeded in hobbling the diamond elemental, tipping it to the side, though it remained mostly upright.

  After three more rounds of Force Walls and hammers–as well as a refresh of the debuffs–the entire leg crumbled to pieces. Becky jumped on its back and repeatedly slammed her hammer into the mass, riding the rocking and bucking of the monster beneath her.

  Hans held up his finger for the group around him to quiet and listen.

  Tink.

  Tink.

  Tink.

  On the next hammer strike, the singular sound of metal on diamond held a high pitch. Hans likened it to the sound of someone tracing their finger around a crystal cup, the movement somehow making the object sing.

  Becky jumped away as soon as the tone began. Bel and Izz began to shower the elemental with Force Bolts and Meteors. Thuz watched for ricochets. Thankfully, their timing was on point. The elemental returned to inert rock a short time later.

  “When a larger monster is as durable as an elemental, the fight will usually require cycling through the same tactic again and again like you saw here,” Hans said. “That battle wasn’t complicated, but the danger was high. Maintaining discipline, communication, and consistency over time like that can be tough.”

  When the adventurers reached the bottom of the pit, Yotuli approached the remains of the elemental and sifted through the dark rock. “Where’s all the diamond?” she asked.

  Seeing Hans crossing the battlefield to investigate the meteor, Izz offered an answer. “It is believed that when jewel elementals die, they release far more mana than other elementals. Material that matches the heart of the elemental is often greatly damaged in this process. Presumably, this results from the increased mana conductivity of crystalline structures as well as the violent return of the elemental’s spirit to its home plane.”

  Hans brushed dirt and snow away to look at the meteor itself.

  He frowned.

  He repeated the same process in several spots and returned to lead the party out of the City of Glass when they finished searching the elemental for salvageable diamonds.

  “What’s up, boss?” Becky asked.

  “We didn’t know that was a meteor our first time through,” Hans said. “Supposedly meteors contain a special kind of iron. Super valuable stuff. Doesn’t look like the dungeon grew it, though.”

  The sour expression on the faces of the lizardmen suggested what Hans feared: While they might recover a few gems that were large by diamond standards, none of them came close to the size of diamond they needed to complete the Takarabune.

  Active Quest: Complete construction of the Takarabune (still need diamond, scarlet steel, celestial steel, and mimic blood).

  New Quest: Find a method for preserving larger diamonds from the diamond elemental.

  Quest Complete: Use a cold weather job to preserve the dungeon’s food for longer.

  Since it took place in the mountains during winter, the City of Glass job doubled as the solution for Tandis’ food storage conundrum. Hans suggested to the core that the new expansion be added across the hall from the entrance to the Forgeborne Mines. Instead, the core appended the extension partway into the mines, beyond the first security gate.

  That was inconvenient, but thankfully it wasn’t as deep into the dungeon as Luther Land.

  The core recreated the wide, snow-covered plateau that preceded the entrance crag, but the core truncated it to roughly the size of the dungeon dorm building. Where Hans remembered open air, there was now dungeon wall. Instead of feeling like he stood on top of a mountain, it was more as if he stood in a room where it somehow snowed.

  Securing access to this section with a new gate enchanted with Magic Lock was on the to-do list, as was doing the same across the crag itself. The diamond elemental would never make it this far, hopefully, but a polar bear might. Were there actually polar bears in the dungeon? No one knew.

  To that end, Hans scattered several camahueto steaks in the snow. If wild predators were part of the glass expansion, he wanted to know before they packed this area full of food.

  Open Quests (Ordered from Old to New):

  Progress from Gold-ranked to Diamond-ranked.

  Mend the rift with Devon.

  Complete the next volume (Iron to Bronze) for "The Next Generation: A Teaching Methodology for Training Adventurers."

  Explore the idea of training “dungeon lifeguards” to accompany adventurers in training.

  Await the arrival of a safe for the Gomi chapter.

  Complete construction of the Takarabune (still need diamond, scarlet steel, celestial steel, and mimic blood).

  Fix the two broken drawbridges.

  Find a method for preserving larger diamonds from the diamond elemental.