Tying up loose ends.

There was no time to rest for now; it was unlikely that the creature could find a way out of this labyrinth in the next few hours, but John still needed to make sure that his kingdom was secure.

John climbed the stairs back to the dining room. The confusing vault guardian was sleeping on his back on the table, his belly distended by the table full of food he had devoured. He focused on him for the first time; he had never paid him too much attention before, given how preoccupied he had been with his new vault and everything that had happened since.

Dargon
Lvl derp: Guardian creature

'Wait? What?'

This was the first time he saw something like that; levels were always either displayed or hidden behind question marks, what the hell could this mean?

John approached the puzzle box and noticed that the twelve sided crystal was missing from it.

"The crystal vanished in front of me while you were running after this thing, John. What was it?" asked June.

"I have absolutely no idea what it was. I thought that the box contained something precious, that someone didn't want to be taken out. But I was wrong, it was designed to stop what was inside from getting out. For the next few days or until we figure this out, it will be safer if you only come here when I'm here and don't go exploring alone. I wouldn't want..."

"I understand, you don't want me to get hurt. I'm sure that you will figure something out. What will you do now?"

"I'll have to ride around and seal the other entrances to the Maze. It's not solving the problem in the long term, but if we can at least limit it to the tunnels, it will reduce the risk for everyone. Until we learn what was in this thing, we should assume that it could be dangerous," he explained. While talking, he turned over the unfolded box to see what the solution to the last block was. He couldn't make sense of it; most of the previous locks were complex but had a logic behind them, yet he could find no pattern in this one. In fact, it was as if it was specifically illogical, the symbols arranged in an order that didn't seem to make sense either as a suite or a sorting of them along the rings. He took a picture of it with his phone and sent it to Tricia with a description of what had happened, she might have an idea about this.

He climbed the stairs to the entrance room and straddled his quad, revving it up in the direction of the ratfolk village. On the road he called Sylvia on the phone he had given to her, so that she was ready for him when he arrived.

"How is it going here?" he asked her.

"Algernon had already made his people secure their tunnels to keep the beetles at bay. We used lumber and earth to fill the main entrance, and I made a dense root network grow in the barricade to hold it together. It is not indestructible, but it would require a lot of effort to get through. Besides, from the inside it just looks like a dead end, same for the passages Algernon's people use; the panels are covered in dirt and mushroom to look like there is no access when they close them," explained the smiling dryad as she climbed behind him on the quad. She exuded a marvelous scent, with accents of sap, mint, flowers and cut grass. Having her hug him like this reminded John of his first days in this kingdom, when the both of them were the only people here. He felt a bit of guilt; with everything that had happened and the arrival of the new girls, he had slowly been neglecting her. Before she could hold him, he turned and kissed her. Without blood, she couldn't blush, but her pale green skin darkened around her cheeks when he did this.

"Thank you for everything. I am sorry for not having spent a lot of time with you this past week."

"You are a king now, a real king. There are many things that you need to do. I knew that you would have less time for me with each new arrival. You do not have to apologize, but I like to see that thought about doing it. I have planted spy flowers in front of each of the maze entrances, nothing went in or out except for a few bugs since you raised the alarm. The maze is really big, with your vehicle we should be able to block them before whatever escaped in it finds an exit." Hearing this John accelerate in direction of the next entrance, he had filled his inventory with all the lumber he had in stock at the castle, some metal, stone and tools. He chose to go clockwise and go around the castle in a large circle through the empty plains, finishing with the entrance near the mountains, it would allow him to accompany Sylvia back to the glade more easily. His kingdom lacked a lot in the way of balance or symmetry so far, with mountains, forest, river, lake and the two places of power in a same arc of a third of a circle from his castle. He was hoping to get other things soon to fill the empty grasslands covering the other two thirds of it.

"I don't know what I would do without you. How are your... daughters? Sisters? Doing? It's still a bit confusing to me," he asked on the way.

"Their bodies are almost fully grown; I’ll soon need to help them fully enter them. I'll have to retreat to my tree for maybe a day, a bit before they will get out. The trees of my forest are linked, and it will help them get used to having physical bodies. As for your confusion... We don't really have family trees... Well not in your sense of the word, obviously. Hehe. As spirits we are all sisters, but bringing another into the physical world is creating a link beyond that, a link that is both familial and hierarchical. A dryad is always the servant of the one who brings her to the physical world. It is why I called the spirit tree father in the forest you found me in. It was he who brought me there."

"Is... Is your tree sapient? I mean, are the trees of our forest intelligent beings?"

"Not in that way. It takes a very long time for a tree to develop in that way. But they are a... I don't know a word for it. They are linked and a lot of power flows through them, and through them I can feel the whole forest at once. I can help it grow and choose how it should develop."

"We're there!"

John and Sylvia started digging some earth and creating a thick barricade blocking the entrance, mixing earth, rocks, and wood with densely packed roots and tendrils grown by Sylvia.

They repeated this for the next two entrances of the plains, discussing the recent events and developments during the trips and planning ahead for the next improvements to the kingdom. The larger distillery that John had in mind would find all of its sense once the seven dryads wake up. His little, almost empty kingdom would soon have an immense source of income, allowing him to buy magic books, artefacts, essences and hire a few specialists to help him on various matters.

It took some time to get to the last entrance, sitting at the foot of the mountains. Here, John used a lot of rocks, piled in the entrance; there was little in the way of usable earth, as the ground was too dry and rocky. He wished that he had kept some of the wet earth from the plains in his inventory for this. Nonetheless, after a lot of effort, the last entrance was finally sealed. Whatever escaped the cube was now trapped in the dark tunnels with a bunch of rather aggressive insects.

In the dying light of the day, John noticed something strange, and he had to check what it was. There was really no use going back to work on the mine right now; besides, he had a few ideas on how to do it faster already.

The Lightning stones were no longer crackling with their usual blue arcs of electricity but illuminated by a yellow light. Parking away from them to avoid risking damage to the quad, John could feel the grip of Sylvia on his forearm.

"John, are you sure? This place is dangerous!" she warned him.

"Don't worry, last time was because of something I had done. Here, if it can reassure you." After stripping naked he got the large roll of drider silk rope from his inventory and tied one end around his waist, leaving the roll with her to act as a lifeline.

The place wasn't like he had left it. There were still a few spark butterflies flying around the place, but the big, raised stones of rough dark stone in various sizes, shapes and spacing had been replaced with twelve perfectly aligned slabs of white marble. The rocky dirt patch in the middle of them was now tiled with the same stone.

John carefully advanced and entered the circle, but there were no longer any arcs of energy licking his skin and raising his hair as he walked between the stones. The shards of the hyperium crystal that had been stuck in the the stones were now inserted into each pillar and perfectly circular. Just under each sliver of crystal was a circle of stone, slightly protruding from the pillar. It was exactly like in what he had seen before getting his more incredible visions. It was the basic setting for his Arcane Sanctum. Each circle should receive a rune, and then a pedestal would be set at the center, with the very valuable crystal upon it and a throne facing it. In time, all the openings between the stones, bar one, would get filled with bookcases, walls, and other magical devices. The entire place would be transformed, built upon. That this aspect of his vision turned so right already kept him wondering about exactly how much of the rest he could trust. What did Lorelei say? Vision of possible futures?

John came back unharmed, to the relief of Sylvia. He drove her back to the forest. Here, too, things had slightly changed: the pool around the fountain was made of the same smooth marble, and the steps and seats inside of it looked more comfortable. Even the stones in the carp basin, allowing to reach the fountain without getting wet, were now nice octagonal blocks and no longer rough irregular stones.

Sylvia was tired of the work it took them to seal all the entrances, both physically and magically. After a quick dip to refresh himself, John left her to bathe in the fountain before going to spend the night in her tree to recharge. He promised her to try to find more time for both of them to spend together soon. It was hard to say if her smile was more about the kindness of his intentions or the unrealistic outcome.

When he got back to the castle, he found it nearly empty. June had gone home, Dargon had disappeared (probably back to his vault), and Anna had been convinced by Cali that she would be safer at home until they were sure that John had secured the entrances. After this, Cali had borrowed John's bike to drive Daphne to the fountain to recharge herself. John must have passed them without seeing them in the dark. Only Vesta was left in the castle; she was in the library, reading some pretty naughty comics from John's collection.

"Hi, Vesta. Oh, I like this one a lot. Did you already read the previous ones?" he asked, seeing which book she had in hand and the pile of others on the small stand next to the armchair.

"It is really good, and I was a bit bored being alone here. I guess you managed to finish securing the place. Are we safe?"

"I will only consider us safe when I find what it was and we deal with it, but for now it is trapped in the tunnels," he explained.

"That is a good thing. Everyone was really worried. Well, except for Dargon, he was sleeping, and then he disappeared when we weren't looking. Do you need my help with something?"

"Actually yes, my anvil is not good enough for it yet, but we can start working on your sister's new armor. We can at least melt the big block of metal and divide it into smaller pieces to be forged and engraved with runes."

"That seems like a good idea. Let's do that."

The two of them worked for hours heating the huge piece of broken dwarven machine until it was soft enough to be broken into multiple pieces; he ended up with dozens of rough strips of the golden metal formed by pouring some of it on the floor and picking it up once cooled down. It took them almost all of the night to get through it. Cali and Daphne had returned during the process.

After having finished, John wasn't really in the mood for anything naughty and had just enough time to catch a few hours of sleep before the next day. He crashed alone in his own bed while the two sisters and the slime girl shared the bed in the other room.

He couldn't have foreseen what had happened tonight, but it was haunting him. He might have made a mistake, but what if the thing in this box had been even more dangerous, what if it had killed June and Anna before he could get down? He couldn't afford to be careless anymore, not with his responsibilities, not with the powers he was handling, not with what was at stake.