Dungeon Farming is adventurer jargon. When high-level adventurers or delvers kill the same low-level boss or monster over and over for resources or item drops, they are said to be farming it. Risk is eliminated by signifitly out-leveling the threat, and the only thing that matters is time effi exploiting the dungeon respawn for profit. Even the opportunity for earning experience is eliminated by this strategy due to the rapidly diminishiurns.

  On the plus side, this behavior creates a steady supply of whatever resource is being farmed. But there are many downsides. If the resource is able, there is an ey, but if it is ahen the value of said item will rapidly drop until the value in farming it vanishes.

  For valuable drops or resources, petition naturally arises, with various groups vying for access to restricted spawns. This often leads to infighting, and in the most extreme cases, wars have been fought over access to important dungeons.

  The Adventurers Guild was formed primarily to prevent this problem, and various adventurer groups cim spawn instances via the guild, along with access to non-bat flict resolutions. However, the guild ot trol meraries, indepe groups, or towns or kingdoms that do not subscribe to their rules.

  Furthermore, maerprisirepreneurs will try to restrict access to valuable dungeoher through rules and policy, polig, or secrecy, in the hopes of h the resource or ering the market. This practice is fraught with peril. By their very nature, dungeons grow from bat and ption. Anythi in a dungeon will bee food for its growth, and thus log down a dungeon properly is far from easy. Access must be rigidly trolled, all entrances found and guarded, not just against petition, but dungeon mana attracts all kinds of moo their halls. There must be absolutely no ce of failure during farming. If a dungeon grows, the surprise will kill the farmers and suddenly it bees a dao the entire area. While it is not proven, there are too many examples of dungeons that throw off the s of their exploiters and immediately unch devastating dungeon-breaks upon the region.

  It is official policy that Silver Cog Trading Co. does not work a dungeon without an official guild presence – it is simply too risky of an iment when rules are ignored. Exceptions require executive approval.

  - Internal Manual on Dungeon Eics by Bixi Bargainhunter, Silver Cog Trading Co.

  Aliandra

  The Novaspark Academy of Magic certainly looked impressive from the outside. It had expensive-lookial window frames and built-in stone relief sculptures that must have required an exceptionally taleone mage to create. It was the first time Ali was really notig the building from the outside – every other time she had been here, she had ehrough the teleportation locus using the magic of a recall potion while esg some immi disaster.

  It was clear that the architect had envisiohis as the most important building in Myrin’s Keep, if one disted the city defe well above the surrounding structures. There were even several spires s to greater heights out of the roof – Ali chalked it up to the stereotypical schorly mage obsession with towers colliding with the elegant structure and design favored by the architects and stonemasons.

  It stood as an isoted and fortified bastion against the storms of crime and corruption that prevailed in Myrin’s Keep, dedicated to magical study and education. In a way that was on in many simir towns, even ba her time, it also served as the hub of information and travel – a nexus eg the eown to the outside world. Here it was that one would find the telepath csses eg to the kingdom’s information and news works; the teleporters, both csses, and artifacts, that powered the most urgent of couriered letters, packages, and everansport of people and mert stock, provided one had enough gold.

  “What are you guys going to do while I’m gone?” Ali asked, suddenly realizing that everyone had been helpio prepare, but she had no idea what they were all pnning.

  “Captain strategy professor here was retained by the Guildmaster herself to deliver a lecture to the newbies this week. So, he will be anxious and studying,” Mato said, nudging with a good-natured smile on his face.

  Mato was clearly proud of , and was just as clearly embarrassed and unfortable by being uedly thrust into the spotlight.

  “Um… I fot to ask if there’s anything you don’t wao share about your skills? I have to talk about our two raid fights,” he said, fighting a little against a blush.

  “I trust your judgment, ,” Ali said with a smile.

  “Be safe, ok?” Malika said, giving her a quick hug before pushing the door open for her.

  Goodness, a hug? Is she worried about me?

  “You too,” Ali said, wishing her friends goodbye before she headed out on Eliyen’s quest, hopefully to return with the reagent they o recover. It was awkward to have to travel everywhere in town as a group, but Ali appreciated the priority her friends had pced on each of them being safe, particurly with unknown assassins prowling around looking to score a quick bounty.

  Ali flew into the opulently styled lobby and joined one of the many lio see the busy receptionists. She hovered about waist high to a human, mostly to ensure she didn’t get stepped on or tripped over in the busy throng, rather than ao be taller. A few people g her in surprise, but most seemed to be i upon their destinations.

  S above her were high vaulted ceilings, buttressed by dark gray marble pilrs. The polished stone floor was inid with delicate tracery, and artistic designs, and adorned with expensive-looking carpets, and even the reception desks seemed to be made of dark, mana-imbued, polished wood. It was as clear a statement of established wealth as any Ali had ever seen, and served to trast just how new and basic the Adventurers Guild was – simply by the parison with their respective lobbies. But it was the abundanagical entment that really caught Ali’s attention. Everything leaked, oozed, effused, and shone magic – as if the entire lobby had been the subject of geions of magical projects by graduating students. The walls had prote entments, ing entments, light entments, and hundreds of things Ali couldn’t even guess at, f a riot of color and motion in her mana sight.

  She presented her paperwork and was immediately and effitly escorted by an io a private offiewhere deep in the bowels of the academy. Suddenly, her hurried guide vanished, and Ali found herself alone in an unfamiliar corridor, before a nondescript wooden door with a simple sign beside it.

  6301: Prof. Addlestoeleportation.

  Ali reached up to knock, but before she even touched the door a soft chime sounded amid a burst of unusual mana that briefly bent and distorted the air around it.

  “Please e in.” The voice sounded raspy and crackly, like the auditory equivalent of the texture of a part.

  Ali pushed the door open and flew in, finding herself in a small, extremely cluttered office lined with bookshelves and bizarre pieces of apparatus. H above a desk covered with dog-eared books, unfinished scrolls, discarded pens, and dried-up ink was a wizened man with a shock of crazy untamed gray hair, wearing a rumpled rune-covered robe. All around him floated a cluster of books and scrolls like a flock of attending birds just waiting on his attention, or perhaps h over the desk uo find space to nd.

  Mage – Human – level ?? (Space)

  “Mmm…” the old mage responded, squinting at the dot she hao him. “Teleportation service, of course.” He looked at Ali with a smile that looked equal parts good-natured and manic.

  “If you’re ready, we have this done snip snap!”

  He seems a little etric, Ali thought, nodding her ao his question. But she couldn’t deny she was excited to see his unusual space magic affinity in a. She just hoped he would be using his own skills, rather than some artifact to send her.

  “Why don’t we have you stand in this ring here,” he said, indig a spot on the cluttered floor. They both looked at the ground, and the mess down there, and then Ali met his eyes again raising an eyebrow iion.

  “Oh, hmm…” he waved a hand and Ali was treated to the glorious pulse of his reality-bending mana radiating out from the ter of the messy floor, pushing the discarded books and papers to the edge of the room and revealing a beautifully etched teleportation circle.

  “Sorry about that.”

  “No problem,” Ali answered with a happy smile, alighting in the ter of the runic circle, quickly pulsing her Sage of Learning and Runic Script skills to memorize the unfamiliar runic structure.

  “Right, maybe dismiss the sparkly golden disk? Just in case it interferes.”

  Ali obliged. Her barrier probably wouldn’t interfere with his space magic, but it didn’t hurt to be careful, especially sidering the delicate nature of long-distaeleportation.

  “Let’s see, where were you going again?” He sulted the paperwork, reinf Ali’s association with etric absent-mindedness. “Aah yes, Volle. Miserable town, that one. I don’t reend staying lohan you must.”

  Because Myrin’s Keep is so delightful? Not quite able to suppress a smile, Ali followed the pulse of his unusual mana as it surged within him, erupting outward to pour energy into the runes inscribed around her feet.

  “Hold onto your hat!” he announced with a gleeful grin, as his long wispy white hair began to float and wave in the currents of his magic.

  “I’m not wearing a…”

  There was a siing lurch as the entire office bent i, and Ali was suddenly elsewhere.

  “…hat.”

  “That will be one silver for entering the town of Volle.” The voice sounded as scratchy as an irate cat and quite bored. “And I’ll o know what business you have in town.”

  Ali shook off the lingering sense of disorientation arieved the silver and her permit papers while examining her memory of the shape and structure of Prof. Addlestone’s impressive teleportation spell.

  “Oh, you’re here for the dungeon. It’s a mile out of town on the northern road. You rent a cart for a reasonable price, or you make your own way there.” The man took her silver aurned her permit along with a receipt for the entrance fee. “Keep that receipt, the guards will want to see it. Destructive magic is strictly prohibited withiown.”

  Hmm, does that include Destru? I’d best be careful. Ali stored the papers in her spacious and mostly empty guild ring ste entment. Knowing that she would have to empty it for iion, she had made sure t only the ies for her mission, leaving everything else with Malika for safekeeping.

  As soon as she stepped outside the building, she was assaulted by the stend sight of squalor.

  What’s this? All the discussion with Eliyen, and her own – admittedly ie – research had led her to believe this toealthier than most. By all ats, it was a town that had grown rich by exploiting the local dungeon and its rare reagent for decades. But everything around her was shabby, smelly, and run-down. While the building she had arrived in seemed to be in good repair, with tall imposing fences and guards, everything else was a borderline slum. The houses were run down, with boarded-over windows, some of them even structed from mismatched and discarded pieces of wood. Potholes dotted the main road, having in unrepaired long enough for weeds to be growing out of them.

  Every sed building along the way was a vendor or shop with someone desperately trying to attract her attention to sell her cart rides, maps to the dungeon, or other equipment that she knew she didn’t need. People were literally following her in a growing mob as she flew dowreet, yelling for her to e bad buy their wares, g that the dungeon would surely eat her if she didn’t have whatever worthless gimmick they were peddling.

  Ali felt awfully vulnerable and exposed, alone in an unfortable and unknown town, uo rely on the prote of her minions. Given how paranoid those trolling the dungeon access seemed to be, with many obscure rules as, she had immediately decided she would o pose as a regur mage to aly their fears that a summht be to aroy their golden goose. This meant she had to make do without any of her minions until she was alone, and knowing she had a smart reason of course did nothing to calm her ay and fears for her safety.

  She hurried along toward the northern gate, grimag as she waved off yet another overzealous mert galloping after her dowreet with shouted offers of an ‘almost free’ cart ride to the dungeon for the ‘bargain price’ of twenty silver.

  As she finally approached the nate, the town ged dramatically. Well-structed multi-story extravagant houses with well-tended gardens repced the slums. Tall fences were patrolled by guards, and the annoying vendors vanished.

  I see. Volle was wealthy. But the wealth was fio the few elites, leaving the rest of the town to scratch around in the dirt for crumbs and scraps. If any firmation was his backed up Eliyen’s story clearer than words alone.

  It was with a great sense of relief that she left the town behind after showing the guards her paperwork. Out in the mountainous tryside, she could breathe a little easier, and the etric old wizard’s ents about the town now made a whole lot more sense.

  She tio follow the winding road in silence for a while, until she finally came upon an open opy teed to the side with several people sitting at a table, clearly bored. There were several vendor tents further along and a couple of burly warrior-types that looked to be guarding the whole affair.

  This must be the pce.

  Ali flew up to the table and presented her permit to the most official-looking fellow out of the trio, who yawned right in her face. He had at least three gold teeth and breath that would have staggered a Troll. Ali tried not to gag as he made a show of pawing through the paperwork and even cheg the back of the permit, which was bnk.

  “This all seems to be in order,” the official finally admitted, as if pained in every bone of his body. “Please empty your ste entments onto the table here. Remember, ynature on this permit is binding, you agree to not leave without iion when you are dohere is a severe penalty for avoiding the iion.”

  So paranoid, Ali thought, w how often people tried to skip their taxes and fees while she emptied her ring, pg her potions, papers, and the s ay vials she had brought for the mission onto the table for him to i. He carefully noted every item down in a journal, and if he noticed that she was traveling light, he made no ent. Instead, he pulled out a devid sed her with it. It was disappointingly b, and she guessed he was simply sing her body for hidden ste entments.

  “Good,” he announced when the device dinged, and Ali wondered if there was a tral academy that trained officials in the important arts of being bored and disied. But then she decided she was being unkind – she wasn’t the ouck doing a job eternally waiting at a tent to ihe occasional dungeon delver – and it was easy to tell that this guy was not one of the people actually profiting from the dungeon.

  “You seem to be well equipped,” he said, indig the uer breathing potions and the map. “If you need anything else, you see one of the vendors on the way in. Folloath till you ehe cave. There’s nobody ahead of you, so you ght on in. Remember, you only take ten vials with you when you leave, any more will be fiscated and you will be heavily fined. Have a nice day.”

  The official spoke the st part without any pauses as if reg something in a nguage he did not uand.

  He must say that so many times he ’t even hear it anymore.

  “Thank you.” Ali re-stored her items in her ring and made her way along the path toward the cave entrance.

  “Slime repelnt. Only twenty-five silver.” Ali ighe vendor who didn’t even look up as she passed by.

  Is slime repelnt even a thing?

  Finally, Ali found herself h in front of the two guards sloug beside a hole in the cliff face at the end of the pathway.

  “Are you sure you hahis? Don’t get slimed in there, girlie,” one of the guards taunted. His panion gnced up snickering and fixing her with a look of caricaturish lewdness.

  Rude. Ali frow them, feeling gross all over, but all she got was a round of ughter.

  She set her shoulders, lifted her head, and simply flew past them and into the cave without looking back.

  How is it that aire region be so unpleasant? The indifferent official had been the person to her so far, and that was not a particurly high bar.

  She flew for several mihrough the long tunnel, following the vely pced lit torches, until she finally emerged into a spacious cavern. S high above her head, the rocky ceiling was covered with stactites that dripped water into the blue glowing pools that covered the ground. At the far end of the cavern, she could hear the r thunder of a waterfall as it cascaded down inter pool that, if the map was accurate, would be the entrao the dungeon proper.

  Ali took a deep breath, listening to the sound of water. Nothing else permeated into this space, as if she were cut off from the world outside. She had imagined maions upon finally fag the dungeon by herself, but relief and calm had not been on her list. She wondered for a moment what it said about her that she felt more rexed and at home ohreshold of an unknown duhan up in the human world above.

  The pool of water ahead of her glowed with a deep suffusion of deer affinity mana, but all around the pool, she spied tendrils and trails of thick mana, as if id down by slithering creatures that might emerge from the water. It was shot through with straraces of other affinities and colors as it all shifted and twisted under her iion.

  Time to get to work. The official of Volle had told her she had several hours before they sent someone in to kick her out. In that time, she had to explore the dungeon, find the source of the water, and hunt down the mushrooms for Eliyen. All before her potions expired.

  She maed her Grimoire of Summoning and began to create her minions.

  Acolyte of Azryet – Kobold – level 23 (Holy)Bone Mage – Kobold – level 21 (Boorm Shaman – Goblin – level 19 (Lightning)Luminous Slime – Ooze – level 20-33 (Light) x10.

  Your reserved mana has increased by +1715.

  She used her Unsummon to ehat the Kobold and Goblin minions were high-level variants, wanting to optimize her potion usage. But when it came to the slimes, she just kept summoning more till she used up her mana budget, g more about quantity than level. The ten Luminous Slimes she summoned made for an impressive sight, an army ht wobbly spherical shapes that simply sat there lighting up a rge k of the cave. It remaio be seen how useful they would actually be.

  She hopped onto her barrier and flew closer to the entrance, with her mass of wobbly yellow jelly following along on the ground just below her. As she he waterfall, the mana became clearer.

  It’s definitely a domain, she thought, studying it for a few minutes. It reminded her a little of the bone ah domain of the Ruins of Dal’mohra dungeon, but it seemed much more fluid – almost an amorphous structure of water mana, shot through with the trace elements she had seen before.

  She sulted the map and therieved her potions, drinking one herself, and then handed one each to her two Kobolds and Goblin and instructed them to drink also.

  Uer Breathing – level 15 (Water)e: You breathe uer. Duration: 2 hours.Created by Morwynne Fizzlebang – “Seems fishy.”Potion – able

  The water in the pool was so clear that she could see all the way to the bottom, where a darker blue tunrance led further into the dungeon itself. As she studied the mana, she suddenly saw a flicker of azure light – a barely visible ripple ier mahe tunnel before it vanished.

  I o be on guard, she thought, but she stepped forward into the pool, surprised to find the water was only slightly cool, almost refreshing as she submerged herself. There were a few unfortable moments where she struggled to breathe before the primitive parts of her brain insisting that she was insane and about to drown finally caught up with the fact that she was not actually dying.

  “e,” she instructed, and all her minions joined her ier, sending bright light c out through the pool, illuminating all the edges and cracks in the rock.

  It took a feard moments for her to realize that sitting on her barrier was simply not going to work. She kept getting washed off by the weight and pressure of the water as she tried to ‘fly’. Instead, she created a smaller disk, and hung on to the edges with her hands, using her magic t herself through the water.

  That’s better, she thought, diving down toward the tu the bottom. She sent the slimes crawling through the passage ahead of her, and then she followed. It was a strange sensatiohing uer, but the potion seemed to be w well. By happy ce, her choiinions made the problem of seeing where she was going a rather definite non-issue.

  She followed the tunnel diagonally downward for a long way, the walls smoothed by the flow of water, until they finally emerged into an expansive uer cavern, rge enough that her slimes were uo light the far wall.

  Nothing is growing here, Ali he walls were bare rock, smooth and devoid of any kind of life. Just rod water.

  Suddenly, she was blinded by an intense fsh of blue light, causio jolt backward reflexively, releasing her barrier and casting herself adrift. A sharp, debilitating pain stabbed through her as something unseen pierced through her leg. In her panic she summoned a new barrier, instinctively trying to it around herself in an attempt to bloseen attacks from any dire. The result sided, misshapen egg of magic that surrounded her but ed her full capacity for barrier magic.

  She sensed a fre of mana from the side and atack struck, this time silently boung off her hastily erected barrier. It was answered immediately by intes of light magic that lingered indest in her mana sight.

  “No dazzle,” she instructed, sending the simplistic thought to her slimes using her e while struggling to suppress the throbbing pain and the sensation of rising panic at being attacked by unknown monsters. The fres of intense light ceased as her slimes plied with her wishes.

  The soft glow of holy magic settled into her body as her Kobold Acolyte healed her wound. The magic pulsed through her slowly rest her vision to normal.

  Right. Time to see what we’re fighting.

  Brine Ooze – level 18-21 (Water) x4

  Ali could barely make out the transparent bluish monsters ier. But the flickers and fshes of water affinity magic tearing through her Luminous Slimes and leaving tiny trails of yellow glowing liquid to drift along behind them from the impact of the high-speed bolts were clear in her mana sight.

  It was a discertingly furious but silent and almost invisible assault.

  “Wall,” she sent her ihrough her e to her Bone Mage. While her potion enabled her to breathe uer, it did little else, and speaking was entirely impossible unless she wao have a mouthful of water. Her mage reacted with admirable speed, ereg a magical wall of boween her beleaguered slimes and the ranged onsught of water magic bolts from the Brine Oozes.

  “Attack,” she instructed her mage and her shaman. A high-speed projectile of white bone shot forth, puncturing one of the Brine Ooze creatures and leaving a trail of cavitation bubbles in its wake. Theorm Shaman broke the eerie sileh a thunderous bolt of lightning, vastly louder and more painful uer than usual. Good thing I tested that. Two of the Brine Oozes colpsed unresponsive, aeam of slimes overwhelmed the remaining injured ones quickly, tearing them apart with glowing pseudopods of light.

  Being surprised is bad, Ali realized. Once she could uand what she was fag, the battle hadn’t been particurly difficult. She resummoned her barrier-sled and flew herself past the slowly crumbling bone wall to the remnants of the battlefield. It was still, now, even in her mana-sight, only the slow pulse of holy magic remained, w to restore her injured slimes.

  She destructed the remains of the four Brine Ooze monsters, and for a brief moment, she felt a surge of panic as her Grimoire maed uer. But her book was made of magid she had worried needlessly. It was entirely ued by the water.

  Variant: Brine Ooze added to Imprint: Ooze.

  It was time to begin implementing ’s suggested strategy for overing this dungeon. His insight had beeively simple, a she was certain it would prove to be a remarkably effective strategy.

  I will turn this dungeon’s monsters ba itself. With that, she summohe ooze she had just itted trimoire.

  Brine Ooze – level 19 (Water).

  Your reserved mana has increased by +83.

  Her new Brine Ooze floated in pearly invisible ier, even though she could sense where it was, and her Luminous Slimes were still emitti amounts of light. Without the stress of battle, she studied the monster for a few minutes, noting how perfectly it ted to this enviro, barely needing to move its body just to float there with the perfect camoufge. If she hadn’t been able to see its water affinity mana, she was certain it would be invisible to her eyes.

  “Shoot that wall,” Ali instructed, direg her acquisition to the bone wall, and fog her attention on the sight of the mana gathering within it. Water mana seemed to flow, its structure fluid and malleable. It collected rapidly within the body of the Brine Ooze, and then somehow it squeezed tight before shooting out with enormous speed, seen as barely more than a flicker or ripple through the water before it punched a hole in the bone wall.

  It looks a little like a firebolt spell, she thought, reizing some simirities. She was certain that if the Brine Ooze fired it through the air, the high-pressure bolt would probably appear much like the firebolts her mages used, only transparent, blue, and substantially faster. While it didn’t have the destructive power of fire and burning, it seemed more optimized for stealth and high-speed pierg damage.

  She would o tio study how the monster fought, but the simirity pced the Brine Ooze in the ‘ranged magic spell’ strategy spot in her mind. She would begin by using it like a mage with a simple ratack.

  She turned her gaze to the brilliant Luminous Slimes. With their dazzle attacks disabled, they were relegated to physical attacks. Unarmed fighters, I guess, she thought. Many-armed? Tentacles? Ali gave up trying to categorize the fighting style of her slimes in terms of humanoid descriptions. Likening the slime-style to a fighting octopus would probably be more accurate, but not by much. Mentally, she beled them as taking the tank or melee fighter slots irategy.

  Ali got moving again, remembering she was on a tight schedule with the duration of her potions and the Volle guards willing to kick her out if she took too long. The map had indicated a at the bottom of this cave, he far wall, and she directed her slimes to search for it, following them as they explored downward, experimenting a bit with trying to duplicate and refihe spherical barrier shape she had actally created during the fight.

  About halfway through her dest, a flicker of water mana suddenly drew her attention to the rocky wall, and something vanished, sucked into a tiny crack, disappearing from her view before she even had a ce to truly see it. It was the same flicker of bluish light and barely visible ripple ier that she had seen at the entrao the dungeon, and it left her with the unfortable feeling that she was being watched, stalked by an unknown mohat lurked down here.

  But it didn’t e back, and soon Ali was swimming down through the exit tunnel among all her slimes, easily overp the occasional Brine Oozes that came at them o a time.

  So far so good, she thought. But the crudely dra had indicated some unspecified danger in some of the uping chambers. I wish there were more details. She would just have to remain vigint.

  timewalk