Dungeons make magic

“Okay, so,” the buxom blonde that is Brian begins, “Dungeons are the source of magic… at least according to the spell I just cast. Every village has one, unless they're close enough to a big city to be covered by that city's dungeon. I get the impression it's basically broadcast power: The dungeon is something of a siphon that uses the energy potential difference between the material plane and other planes to create… well, magic power… and broadcast it out to the surrounding area. So all those spells wizards cast, all those prayers clerics cast, all the magical items, even the fire dragons breathe, it all depends on the dungeon.”

“Sounds too good to be true,” Charles chuckles, “I'm guessing there's a big old but there.”

“A big, fat, stinky, hairy one…two, really… yes,” the Summoner agrees. “First, dungeons also produce monsters, depending on how much magic people use. When the dungeon gets too populated, the stronger, older monsters start pushing the younger, weaker monsters out… and after they leave the dungeon, they get hungry, and try to kill people; the monsters in the world at large are those that escaped dungeons and managed to survive and sometimes reproduce. Worse, the dungeon denizens themselves use the magic the dungeon produces, so the more monsters there are, the more monsters are made. To keep the dungeon from killing everyone, they send delvers in to kill the monsters regularly. As a bonus, the dungeons make magic items, gems, and precious metals the same way they do monsters, so there's a lot of loot to be had.”

The party's magical meatshield takes a deep breath, “Second, the ritual needed to ‘seed’ a dungeon requires killing somebody. They dig a deep hole in the ground, send a ritualist down with a condemned prisoner… or a ****, if nobody is pending execution… and an hour later, the ritualist drags the dead body out. A few weeks later, magic starts to flow. And no, the ritualist doesn't decide anything about the dungeon, nor does it have anything to do with the hole they dig. The dungeon builds a slowly shifting maze of tunnels and rooms itself… which messes up teleportation out of or into the place, as the maze doesn't exist on the material plane.”

“So dungeons are basically nuclear reactors, and monsters are basically radioactive waste?” Alice raises an eyebrow.

Brian shrugs, his chest bouncing for a little while from the motion, “Best as I can figure from the spell, yeah. It's all common knowledge here… I couldn't dig into what the actual ritual itself entails, nobody seems to know.”

“Kind of reasonable to keep the exact method of how to kill someone to create a monster making power plant out of the hands of your average Joe,” Charles rolls his eyes, “I'm honestly glad it's a secret.”

Alice pauses, “Okay, yes, you got me there.”

“Regardless… it ticks all the boxes, doesn't it?” Brian considers, “Killing monsters that will escape and kill people if they're not killed isn't particularly morally ambiguous, it gets us experience, and it'll absolutely have the approval of the local lords.”

“Local lady,” I correct, “The area is ruled by a duchess, and the Queen outranks the King. It's a matriarchy.” I pause, “But yes, yes it does.”

“Alice, Dan,” Brian begins, “any issues with us getting you all signed up now?”

“I'm good,” Alice nods.

“Just the obvious,” I wave my hand in front of Brian, not that he notices, “so I'll have a proxy summon sign up for me.” I focus a bit, and make a suitable stand-in: A Biped from the Conjuration Sphere with the talents to make a convincing puppet of a human male. I also switch to mind speech from my Limited Telepathy Graft, ‘...and if I talk this way, it won't be too odd that “I” am not moving my lips.’

“Slight problem…” Alice chuckles, “Your mind speech sounds as feminine as your verbal voice.”

“Umm. How…” I begin verbally.

“I don't know,” Brian shrugs, “but she's right.”

“Okay…” I switch back to telepathy, store my minion in my Extradimensional Torpor space, and create a female formed one. ‘Is this better?’

“Much,” Charles smiles, “let's go…”

We head back to town on our mounts, Alice leading the way to a crude stone structure south of the palace. ‘Wall of Stone spells’ a voice whispers in my head when I lay eyes on it. We walk in, the same voice whispering ‘Stone Shape made this’ as we open the door, and walk into an area lit by Continual Flame spells… with actual torches next to them, not lit. There's a short hallway from the main door to another double door, both with a place for a heavy bar from inside the hallway. We go from there to a large chamber, which has a desk made of the same magically created Stone as everything else. There's a few doors leading to other rooms, which have bars on the far side; for the most part, this room could become a prison very easily. There's a single exception, where the bar is in this room… and that double door is extra thick, and currently barred from this side.

In contrast, the woman behind the lone desk seems tiny. She calmly sets her book down and stands up as we enter, her small chest covered in a silvery metal chain shirt: ‘Mithril,’ the voice in my head informs me. I realize I'm staring, and look up to her face: She's human, with green eyes, red hair, freckles, and a great big scar that goes through her left eye… the eye itself is intact, although a slightly different shade of green than the right.

“So you two are in the same party, then?” The woman nods, “let's get all of you registered….” We pay a small fee, fill out a parchment form, and she prints some copper plates for us right there. I have my proxy wordlessly take mine, and wear the mundane metal as a necklace.

When we're done, Alice speaks up, “So how do we sign up for a delve?”

“There's a mild wrinkle there…” she begins.