Cold and chaotic

The dungeon geon is very brightly lit, with seemingly mundane fires every forty feet… but not keeping things warm. The place is literally freezing cold, the chill of the stones biting at us… but unable to get past the simple Resist Energy spells we all have up. The walls are stone and mortar masonry, the floor nothing but smooth stone. We go through the place, mapping it out, and yes, killing everything… and noting what we kill.

When we're done, the tally is six yeth hounds (hairless, evil flying dogs that cause fear), four Babaus (a demon that looks like a horned human skeleton, has a layer of acidic slime that burns anything that touches it), eleven Fire Mephits (small humanoid shaped elementals of flame… what they're doing in a freezing dungeon I have NO idea), one Salamander (a snake-bodied humanoid shaped fire elemental… again, really shouldn't be in a freezing dungeon), six half-fiend Minotaurs (bull-headed creatures of legend crossed with a demon, granting the thing wings, more claws, and some magic spells), five ogres (the least of the giants, stupid, ugly things that mostly just get in the way), five shadows (a type of incorporaeal undead that drains strength from people and kills them to make more of themselves, good riddance), one Basilisk (an eight-legged reptilian monster with a gaze that turns people to stone… an actual threat, theoretically, but we deal with it easily), one Hill Giant (stronger and smarter than the ogres, but not by much), nine dretch (the weakest, most pathetic demons in existence, we put them out of their misery), and three different traps: It is enough experience to level up, twice, with plenty of room to spare…okay, yes, we're horribly overpowered for the level: The monsters can almost never hit us, we always hit them, and if something offers a save we're functionally immune (rolling twice and taking the better roll when it's only a one in twenty chance of a failure means we pretty much don't fail saves).

We also pick up a lot of treasure. Like, thirty five grand worth of it… and about half of that in coin, gems, and trade goods, so I can turn that into about fifty or so grand in useful gear… split between the four of us. I also grab the chests themselves, and the various iron doors we encounter. No, it's not worth particularly much per pound, but the metal is still a trade good, and a ten foot wide door that's two inches thick, made of solid iron, weighs a LOT, there were twenty two of them, and I have effectively unlimited carrying capacity.

We encounter some strange things too: An enchanted pool that would summon a water elemental to serve the first person to drink from it (we don't bother after identifying it), a magical statue that speaks riddles (they're nonsense, solving them doesn't actually do anything), a shrine that has a one-time enchantment to heal anyone who prays at it, and a mosaic on a wall that can be used to teleport anywhere in the dungeon. The pool and the mosaic we leave (they're built in), but the shrine and the statue? Those we separate and take with us.

The dungeon heart, when we encounter it, is obvious. She didn't mention the veins of power running from it, but the glowing, pulsing red gemstone in the ceiling just like the guildmatron described is hard to miss. And yes, it was guarded by two of the half-fiend Minotaurs. Still not a tough fight for us, but harsher than anything else down here.

When we finish mapping the place out, taking everything that isn't nailed down (and some things that were), we head back up the stairwell, knock four times, pause, then three more… and hear the bolt slide out of place. The guildmatron handing us the bag of coins is an almost comically small payment considering the treasure reaped from doing the deed that earned it. We also give counts and IDs of all the creatures and traps we killed, which the woman dutifully records.

I'm curious, so I ask, ‘Why the tally?’

“Because we need to keep track of the beast,” she answers simply, “Dungeons get more deadly with time, and eventually need to be killed and re-seeded. With regular cleaning they can last for centuries, but at some point they all need to be taken down permanently. Also… Dungeons have a type, which can only be inferred by what's encountered down there: Knowing roughly what you're in for really helps.”

“How long until the next cleaning?” Alice asks another pertinent question.

On our way out, Alice asks, “By the way… how long until it's ready for another cleaning?”

“Two weeks is the ideal,” the guildmatron shrugs, “if it goes more than six I'm going to need to do it myself, and the paperwork on that is annoying: I have to send a messenger with the log books to the next nearest guildhall before I go in, and again when I come out.”

“Why…” Brian begins.

Charles answers, “In case she dies down there, someone's gotta know.”

“That's it,” the woman nods, “if they get the first message, but not the second, then we have a feral dungeon, and they'll contact HQ… who'll send a kill squad to end the dungeon, a ritualist to re-seed it, and a replacement for me. Nasty business because that means the city is going to be without magic for about a month.” She smiles, "It's not going to happen, though. I have a couple items that make me… not entirely unbeatable, but unbeatable by a bronze dungeon.”

“Oh? Do tell.” Alice is all smiles.

“I have a Ring of Invisibility, a Bowl of Commanding Water Elementals, and a Decanter of Endless Water… all with the command words in sign language,” she smiles like that answers how.

Which it kind of does, as Brian nods, “So you stand by, constantly invisible, using the Decanter to fill the bowl, and the bowl to summon decently strong water elementals to do the actual fighting: An infinite stream of disposable minions to handle the dungeon for you. Traps? Set them off by walking water elementals into them, and just go around if they reset themselves too quickly. Beasts? Anything will be worn down eventually. You're **** to things that can bypass your invisibility… but you have your own spells for that, and will have the elemental already out, so you still have fair odds.”

“And Bronze dungeons don't get many such creatures, yes,” the Matron agrees. “Anyway, it's a bother, and always a risk, so thank you.”

‘Happy to help,’ I send, as we leave to go level up….