The General's Highway lay behind them, a permanent scar of black, perfect asphalt cutting through the desolate landscape. It ended abruptly at the dungeon's edge, a stark line between order and chaos. The heavy-hauling truck's engine cut out, and in the sudden silence, the sheer scale of the devastation felt heavy. The dungeon itself was a gaping, one mile wound in the ground. From it's entrance far off in the center of the a faint, chilling mist that smelled of wet stone and ancient, sleeping things.
A shriek, high and sharp as splintering bone, tore through the air. From the mouth of the dungeon, a dozen insectoid creatures, all chittering mandibles and scythe-like claws, swarmed toward them. They moved with a twitching, unnatural speed, their chitinous bodies a smear of black and sickly green against the gray rock. The construction crew, a mix of dwarves, elves, and the Freed who had been nervously peering over the side of the trailer, let out a collective gasp.
Before the first wave of panic could set in, two figures moved. Movement cut the air. Siren's blade sang a single, silver note as he carved a path through the monster ranks. A whisper of metal. A splatter of green ichor. A scuttling thing fell, its legs still twitching.
Runes flared to life around Grifftin's fists, the stone of the very ground beneath him seeming to flow up his arms, encasing his knuckles and condensing over and over. "Runic Earth Magic: Concentrated Stone." He met the charge, and his fist, now a thousand-pound hammer of concentrated stone, turned the first creature to paste. Their rampage was a display of effortless, almost contemptuous, efficiency.
A glance passed between them, a silent tally of the fallen. Grifftin wiped a smear of green blood from his cheek, his eyes flicking to Siren's position. A subtle, competitive glint. Siren, in turn, finished another monster with a casual backhand slash and gave Grifftin a slow, almost lazy nod, as if to say, Your turn.
Shadows fell over the dungeon as something much larger shambled from the its maw. It stood thirty feet tall, a grotesque patchwork of muscle and fur, with too many joints in its long, swinging arms. As it roared, a second, even larger beast, this one more reptilian, its scales a dull, muddy brown, emerged behind it.
"You see that one, Grifftin?" Siren's voice was casual, laced with amusement as he pointed with his blade. "Ten silver says I can take it down before you take down yours. One slash."
"Pitiful," Grifftin growled, cracking his knuckles, the sound of his Concentrated Stone grinding together like tectonic plates. "You need a sword?"
"No," was Siren's reply.
The space between Siren and his target collapsed in an instant. Runes, bright and searing, flared to life on the back of his hand. He swung his open hand, a single, elegant chop. A line, straight and lethal, was carved from the air. The monster, its roar caught in its throat, simply fell apart in two clean, cauterized halves.
Grifftin just snarled. He grabbed the corpse of a smaller insectoid creature, his Runic Earth Magic flowing into his arms, and hurled it with a roar. The dead beast became a cannonball, smashing through his own thirty-foot monster and killing it in an explosion of gore. "Ha!" Grifftin bellowed, a triumphant grin on his face. "Didn't even have to touch it to kill it. I win!"
"Well done," Siren's voice cut through the dust. A wave of his hand, and a disintegrating spell turned the corpse of his own kill to fine ash. But behind where it had stood, a dozen more of the smaller monsters also lay in neat, bisected halves.
Roy let out a low whistle as he watched the drone feed. "Damn. Score that round for Siren."
"Siren is currently leading by three kills, Grifftin," Serenity's calm voice announced over Roy's private comm, a deadpan play-by-play he hadn't asked for but was now thoroughly enjoying.
A furious roar erupted from Grifftin as he abandoned all pretense of technique and simply charged through a remaining cluster of the monsters. His immense bulk turned them into little more than a green, pulpy smear on the ground.
Eisenhower, still perched with a dramatic flair on the truck's hood, shifted his weight, his optical sensors glowing with an eagerness that was almost palpable. "Captain, permission to—"
"No," Roy said, a grin playing on his face. "Let the old men have their fun."
The last of the insectoid creatures twitched, its legs curling inward as blood pooled beneath it. A heavy quiet fell over the crater, broken only by the hiss of cooling monster blood and the wind whispering over the desolate rock.
Roy let out a slow breath, his voice cutting through the stillness. "I'm calling that for Siren."
Grifftin snorted, a sharp, dismissive sound. The stone casing around his fists crumbled away, falling to the ground in a shower of dust and pebbles. He ran a hand over his face and gave Siren a curt, almost imperceptible nod.
A new energy rose from the silence, the low, focused thrum of creation. "Alright, people," Roy shouted, his voice echoing across the now-secured perimeter. "Let's get to work!"
Even more low chants started among the dwarven earthmancers, a deep, resonant chorus of guttural syllables. The ground answered them, groaning as their hands, now glowing with a steady, golden light, sank into the earth. They commanded stone to flow like water at their touch, drawn from the dungeon's sides and shaped into massive, perfectly cut foundational blocks, leaving the it's roof undisturbed.
"A prudent man builds his house on rock, Captain." The voice, low and gravelly, cut through the noise of the construction. Roy turned to find the lead dwarf at his elbow, a stout figure with a beard braided in copper wire, wiping stone dust from his brow. "A wise one accounts for what happens when it's gone. I want to propose an idea."
Roy's gaze lifted from the humming earth to the dwarf's serious, unblinking eyes. "What does that even mean, dude? You think this whole thing might just… disappear?"
"If it is ever truly cleared, as the legends say, yes," the dwarf rumbled, his expression grim. "The resulting chasm would swallow this entire facility." He knelt, scratching a rough, intricate design in the dirt with a hardened fingertip. It was a web of interlocking beams. "We propose a support lattice. A web of runically enhanced supports that will stretch a quarter-mile in every direction from the dungeon's maw." He tapped the center of the crude diagram. "A central mana crystal, linked to seals on the dungeon's entrance. If the dungeon's roof breaks, the crystal activates the dormant runes." He looked up at Roy, his meaning clear. "It will hold the entire structure aloft long enough to get everyone out."
Roy nodded, impressed by the foresight. "Do it. But… make it look nice, too. I'll call Nozomi over."
A massive blueprint dominated the display screen, its stark, functional lines detailing the support web. Roy gestured toward it, a frown creasing his brow. "Functional. Strong. But… ugly as hell."
Half an hour later, Nozomi stepped off a cart pulled by a Presidroid. "It lacks a soul, Captain. This is not just a cage for a dungeon; it is the entryway to a new city. It should be inspiring, not merely intimidating."
"Alright, Miss Architect," Roy said, leaning back with a flicker of interest. "You've got the floor. What's your pitch?"
Her fingers danced across the interface, deftly manipulating the digital schematic. The utilitarian lines of the support web began to shift, to soften under her guidance.
"We keep the web," she began, a quiet confidence in her voice. "But we transform it. At each of the major intersecting lines, we will erect spires of polished, white marble. Carved to resemble ancient, serene guardians, their faces turned outward, ever watchful."
On the display, the spires rose, elegant and beautiful.
"That's… actually pretty cool," Roy admitted, a slow grin spreading across his face. "But it seems like a lot of work just for some pretty statues."
"Hold on." A triumphant smile touched Nozomi's lips as her fingers moved again. "Atop each spire, we will mount one of your big drones as sentries. The contrast, the functional machinery atop the classical form, it will be a statement. A symbol of what this place is. Power. Beauty."
On the display, drone sentries materialized atop each spire. Their twin gatling guns and missile pods were a stark, brutalist contrast to the elegant marble. Roy's gut tightened; he couldn't decide if the design was horrifying or if Nozomi suddenly became insanely attractive.
"And on the lines between the spires," Nozomi continued, her voice now a low, passionate hum, "we will plant gardens. Vibrant strips of flower beds, following the lines of the support web. A touch of defiant life in this desolate landscape."
Color flooded the display, a living tapestry of deadly force and fragile beauty now filling the screen.
The lead dwarf, who had been listening with a skeptical frown, finally broke the silence. His voice was a low rumble. "It is unconventional. But the structural integrity remains sound. And the cost is not as exorbitant as I feared."
"It will be a garden of guardians," Nozomi said, her voice a soft, final pronouncement. "A place of both beauty and strength. A fitting entrance to your… Mall of Tomorrow."
Serenity's voice crackled from the display. "If this 'Mall of Tomorrow' proves as popular as I project, Captain, we could expand this into a full-fledged city. We would simply need to lay down an additional support lattice within each 'web cell' and fill it with a stable foundation."
"A city built on a dungeon… I like how crazy that sounds," Roy mused. "But what about the weight for something of that scale?"
"That," the lead dwarf interjected, "would require constant runic enforcement. This would only be possible with a mana crystal of an absurd size, perhaps house sized. Only one nation in this world produces. The Kaigun Dominion. It would cost no less than a thousand gold coins."
Roy, with a nonchalant wave of his hand, turned to Serenity. "Set the money aside. Send a few of our dwarven friends with a drone security detail to the Dominion and make the purchase." The dwarves behind the lead dwarf, who had been listening in, exchanged looks of pure, slack-jawed disbelief.