Ash continued pouring over the documents until Ailan was done doing his updates. A few of the dungeons on the map had disappeared. The Blazewing idly muttered that they'd have to keep a sharp eye out to see where new ones ended up because the influx of Godsborn had somewhat changed the magic flow so it wasn't currently predictable.
Seeing her concern and mistaking it for what most would be concerned about, he waved in a slightly dismissive manner, "We've all kinds of tools to keep a watch for new dungeons and the Starlight Unicorn herd, of course. Considering the uninhabited areas near here, they've quite a lot of ground to run but they always seem to know where disturbances are happening."
"They have spells," Ash said as she looked over each updated dungeon. The enchantment on the ink allowed it to change to any range of colors without the dark tint that came with purifying emotion from magic. Since that gave him a wide range of colors to work with, he'd gone with what looked like two colors to designate each dungeon.
There were eleven dungeons near the city, three in each of the ordinal directions. It was obvious enough that the southeast was where the meadow had once been considering only two dungeons remained in the direct vicinity of Redwood Stars.
It was easy enough to figure out half of the system, considering she knew which color designated which emotion. The other half seemed to start with black at one end of the spectrum, changing until it was pink.
Hovering a finger well over one of the dungeons, she asked about it curiously and he took the chance to explain. Black was for dungeons in imminent danger, of which there were thankfully few, at least from the perspective of someone that had eight temples worth of various types of combatants to work alongside. The temples of Artificia, Lady of Creativity, and Prudentia, Lady of Wisdom, were generally not filled with fighters. Those would have to be dealt with quite soon, likely within a few days the temples would send out parties to do so.
It seemed that, with the interference of the gods, the dungeons followed some sort of rhyme or reason most of the time. Those nearer cities were generally easier dungeons. Farther from civilization, their difficulty usually ramped up though there were some exceptions like the one near her glade. Given its distance from another city, it should have been one of the tougher dungeons and thus truly high priority, but it was close to the Elder Star Ash and that seemed to have curbed its power somewhat.
Her eyes roving over the map, she picked out the detail that likely determined the cap to how strong a dungeon could grow, "All of the weaker dungeons are within a certain distance of a Star Ash. The distance seems to vary, likely by the age of the tree though there's a limit to how far a single Star Ash can or, perhaps because of this development, will spread its influence."
He nodded slightly, "I'd thought as much, but was yet uncertain considering the gods have not entirely informed us how all of this works."
Confident that the gods wouldn't mind Ailanthus having the knowledge considering he might even soon have to destroy a dungeon, Ash decided to tell him what she knew, "The dungeon cores have been replaced with a structure woven of several of their influence," she started, pausing to wait for someone to interrupt her, when nothing happened, she continued, "The key part you'll be looking for is a golden coin that will be returned to the divine that crafted it," she got around the contentious point of whether or not to address Lucrum as Lord, "I believe that the small Star Ash down there, which Lord Sidus will take and replant in a suitable location, is what draws the magic to the dungeon. The coin connects the tree to the dungeon so that magic is used for it instead of being used by the tree. I am relatively certain Lord Virtus is involved as well as Lord Venatio though I have not seen signs relating to either of them in the dungeon core room."
He nodded slightly and started writing a list of all of the dungeons around Redwood Stars. Those that were black or closest to it were at the top and included a good twenty dungeons at least. Of those twenty, sixteen were at a difficulty level far too high for Ash to go anywhere near, which meant that most Godsborn would also be barred from them. Two parties from each temple would have to go to those, Ailanthus explained, not seeming nearly as bothered by the idea as Ash felt he should be.
While most temples had somewhere around four parties of powerful people, most were incomplete and so worked with other temples to fill out what they were missing. With so many dungeons in need of immediate investigation, it would leave Redwood Stars vulnerable.
Ash brought that up and Ailan responded with a light chuckle, "Yesterday was the Starlight Festival, Ash. The city's protections against essentially all danger are as strong as they will ever be for a little bit. We will have ample time to take care of this before worrying about the creature that will eventually make its way here," his gaze moved again to Ash and he frowned a bit, "Your own grove, though, is in a fair bit of danger and we won't be able to get to it soon at all."
Ash smiled, a bit of mischief in it, "I have a few friends from Terra that are here in Fantastoria. I'll see if I can call in a few favors and find someone strong enough to help me out. If not, I'll find a way. Don't worry about me, Ailan, Luri can tell you that I'm quite resourceful."
"I still wish that I was able to make the offer to join you," he said a little wistfully, "I enjoy being able to talk to you and, as I said before, I rarely get the chance to do so with others of the bound races," seeming to remember something, he moved a few papers to reveal a few copies of some grimoires, "Father wanted me to give you these as part of the reward for your new title. They are nothing particularly special, of course, just all of the base spells that the acolytes in the temples are taught. I fear you could even find them at the library now and did inform him of such but he insisted."
Having completely forgotten about going to the library to search for new spells, Ash's eyes lit up at the sight of the books, "I'll definitely enjoy this and it was a well-thought gift, even if it does not seem so," she said with a small smile, "This will give me more to work with for my spells…and more spells to cast," she seemed thrilled and Ailan seemed to appreciate that.