Jenna and Dignity inspected the black dungeon seed with the care of a bomb disposal expert examining a live charge.

  Jenna had teleported to Babylon that very morning with Bob's help and had requested a private audience with Dignity.

  “So this is what these famous dungeon seeds look like?” Dignity asked.

  “You can refer to it in the singular, Dignity. This is the last remaining seed. I destroyed the others and kept this one only for testing purposes,” Jenna replied, holding the core in her right hand.

  “As you explained, their primary purpose was to provide an exclusive source of experience for the Imperials, eventually allowing them to create their own Postulants, which would serve as their main attack force against Babylon,” Dignity mused as she gazed at the black orb.

  “Yes, that is what the Progression tag is about. The seed also has a second one called Surprise! We don't know its final purpose, but it also makes the seed resistant to scanning. Billy has no idea what that tag entails. And I don't think the Imperials know,” Jenna said, fiddling with the core.

  “Well, if that’s true, we can assume they are built like some sort of bomb. All bombs have a trigger. We can rule out upgrading as the trigger since all the dungeons they transformed were already at seventh rank,” Dignity responded.

  “It has to be a time trigger,” Jenna agreed. “We need to determine not only its effects but also how long it takes for it to be activated. The fate of the entire war depends on it.”

  “How many dungeons have been reshaped using these cores?” Dignity inquired.

  “Nineteen of them, all at seventh rank. If they are indeed a trap, the consequences could be catastrophic,” Jenna replied.

  “Okay, I’m sold,” Dignity said. “How do you want to proceed?”

  "We need to test it in a remote dungeon, as far from any human settlement as possible," Jenna explained. "It should also be a low-ranked dungeon. The more powerful the dungeon, the greater the potential effect."

  "And that's only part of the problem," she continued. "We need a way to speed up its activation. The first dungeons created using these methods are now almost forty days old. We need to catch up to them and eventually surpass them. Bob and Billy could probably come up with something, but they're currently busy creating alchemical tools for the war."

  "But I have no idea how to speed them up," Jenna admitted.

  "Well, aren’t you a lucky girl?" Dignity smiled. "Since I became the Omega, my Blood powers have increased significantly. Allies can lend me their abilities through the Blood Link, even over long distances."

  "But how does that help us?" Jenna asked.

  "I know one Avatar with time-related powers," Dignity explained.

  For the next ten minutes, Jenna utilized Spirit Expansion to search for the right dungeon. Eventually, she discovered one with only one rank, set well away from the nearest human settlement.

  An hour later, with Captain Beaky’s invaluable assistance and Dignity's ability to siphon teleporting powers through the Blood Link, they stood in front of the dungeon.

  Jenna recognized it immediately. It was the cozy inn they had encountered during their walk from Chicago to Brotonville. Friendly patrons still stood at the windows, gesturing invitingly.

  “That one is only rank one and quite remote,” Jenna pointed out. “It’s also obviously a trap.”

  “As our lovely and talkative new sheriff would say, let's go spring it,” Dignity replied. Bringing Podachek would have been a good idea—he had a knack for dungeons.

  However, Dignity was Rank 100, and she had a knack for everything.

  Joanna opened the door and stood in the doorway, not entering the inn. She had strengthened the Blood Link so Jenna could share her senses.

  Through this connection, Jenna could see that the friendly patrons were all part of the inn itself. Their torsos rose directly from the benches.

  With a roar, the door to the kitchen swung open, and a serpentine tongue the size of an arm shot out, wrapping around Dignity’s waist. It suddenly yanked, trying to drag her into the kitchen, which was revealed to be an open mouth lined with hundreds of protruding teeth.

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  Dignity just placed one hand on the right side of the doorway and exerted her own strength. No matter how strongly the tongue pulled, it could not make her budge in the slightest.

  She must have a Might Stat near seventy—without even being combat-specced.

  The black dungeon seed glowed in her right hand.

  “The magic has been cast,” Dignity announced. “For the next 24 hours, this core and anything coming out of it will age at one thousand times the normal speed. Jenna, be a dearie and use those freaky mental powers of yours to chronometer the process. Time to go, now.”

  “Time to go where?” Jenna asked.

  “To the kitchen, of course,” Dignity replied. “It’s time for a sanitation check. I have a feeling they won’t pass it.”

  Blood Link 3 (Blood Magic): Touch another person and imprint your seal upon them. For the next hour, both your bodies will share any damage and healing they take. No Cooldown, but you can maintain a maximum of three Blood Links at the same time.

  Jenna could feel Dignity’s magic linking her body to the inn. Then she used a second power.

  Disharmonic Link 3 (Blood Magic): Choose a target affected by your Blood Link. For the next five minutes, any harm or healing done to you is transferred to him, without affecting you. Any harm or healing done to him is transferred to you, without affecting him. Five minutes cooldown. If the target dies while under the effects of the Link, there is no cooldown.

  “See you in a minute,” Dignity told her as she released her hold on the entryway and let the tongue pull her into the terrifying, kitchen-like maw.

  Suddenly, bleeding gashes appeared all over the walls and floor as the inn chewed itself to death. The entire structure trembled as if under an earthquake, and a horrifying scream echoed from the kitchen.

  Dignity reappeared, unharmed, at the door of the kitchen and calmly walked back to the entryway. “I have left the seed inside; it won’t be long now,” she said as she and Jenna moved a few feet away from the inn.

  The entire inn shuddered once more, vanishing into a tear in the air like a sugar lump being sucked down a drain. A rift appeared in mid-air.

  “Ok, there we have our Progression dungeon. Seen from the outside, it looks much like the one we were in during our stay at Belona,” Jenna explained.

  Then they sat down and waited.

  Jenna had an informal chat with Dignity, trying to avoid any sensitive subjects. The woman had just buried Stomparella a few weeks ago.

  Dignity was incredibly strong, even before she was an Avatar, but Jenna could feel her grief just under the surface of her emotions, like a shark swimming under a frozen lake.

  “Babylon is a nightmare now,” she confided to Jenna. “We have long passed the stage of scarcity. With everyone now having powers, a lack of food and sanitation has become a thing of the past.”

  “That doesn’t sound too bad,” Jenna replied.

  “It was the only thing keeping us together,” Dignity responded. “We needed to rely on each other to survive. Now that people have more free time, they are using it to find reasons to distrust one another.”

  “Yes, Bob told me about that inn refusing to serve Essential customers,” Jenna said.

  “It goes the other way as well. There are plenty of bigots among the Citizens, too. They even have a cult-like sect now: the Church of Billy. They believe that Billy raised them from the dead and made them immortal. They think they are in heaven, while the Experientials are souls who just didn’t make it and are still in Purgatory,” Dignity explained.

  “Well, if they saw Billy now, many would likely have a crisis of faith,” Jenna said, recalling how her boyfriend would sneak outside at night to graze on grass while she pretended to be asleep.

  “Or perhaps not; faith is a powerful thing,” she corrected herself, remembering the Master of Potions, who had taken to dropping to all fours and neighing every time he saw Billy.

  God, she thought, it was all so surreal. She hoped those equine tendencies in her boyfriend would disappear the next time he respawned.

  Then, something happened. The rift trembled and then exploded with a sound like a glass chandelier falling to the ground. In its place stood a thirty-foot-tall, tentacled monstrosity, covered in maws and standing dozens of feet tall.

  “A Tribulation!” Dignity exclaimed. “A pretty small one. No wonder, considering they are supposed to be born out of seventh-rank dungeons. Jenna, be a dearie and kill it, will you?”

  “Hmm, you know it is still much larger than me, don't you?” Jenna said, growing in size. The Tribulation still towered over her, like an adult threatening a child.

  “Ah, yes, sorry about that,” Dignity replied while channeling to Jenna a great chunk of her stats through the Blood Link. Suddenly, Jenna became a titan. The Tribulation only reached up to her knees. She stomped on it, leaving a greasy pool on the ground.

  “How long did the process take?” Dignity asked Jenna.

  “The equivalent of 100 days. The first dungeons were created over forty days ago, which gives us at most fifty days to destroy them all,” said a crestfallen Jenna.

  “Do you think they will trigger sequentially, in the order their dungeons were created?” asked Dignity.

  “No. I’m fairly certain they are rigged to trigger all at once. Necessity wants to punish Discovery. Releasing multiple Tribulations simultaneously would deliver a much more devastating blow to Belona,” Jenna explained. “We need to assume that the triggers are set on a synchronized countdown across all the seeds.”

  “We have to destroy nineteen seventh-rank dungeons in less than two months. Damn it, I thought we had more time,” she added.

  “Welcome to war, Jenna,” Dignity replied. “It never goes the way you want.”

  This marks the end of Volume One of The Belona Invasion. Tomorrow, we begin Volume Two: War.

  I’m currently reviewing the final draft of the book. It will end up slightly shorter than Nerf Them!, but only marginally so.

  I’ll continue publishing daily until January 12th, after which I’ll switch to a Monday / Wednesday / Saturday schedule to complete a final editing pass before release.

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  Thank you all for reading. I genuinely appreciate it.