Dungeon Master (Karma System)

The woman in white-and-green robes waited while Golden Axe stared through the church doors.

The city Matthew thought he had seen was a village.

From the hilltop, rooftops spread far enough to appear impressive after the empty battlefield, but there were fewer than two hundred buildings. Most stood along one main road or around a square containing a stone well. Fields surrounded the village in irregular patches. Sheep moved across a distant slope while a pair of farmers argued beside a wagon.

Nothing looked like the fifth level of a dungeon.

The healer stepped into the sunlight first. ”Are we still inside?”

The robed woman smiled. ”You are in Corathen.”

Matthew opened his dungeon menu again.

[Level Five]

There was still no objective beneath it. No recommended level, maximum party size, timer, or enemy list appeared. When he selected additional information, the menu offered pages about local laws, resurrection, travel, and the Kingdom of Corathen.

He stared at the last page.

”There is an information section.” The mage said over his shoulder.

”There was one on every level.”

No one mentioned how rarely they had opened it.

Golden Axe returned to the church long enough to examine the room from which they had emerged. The five resurrection alcoves had already returned to empty stone beds. Dozens of others curved around the central altar, but none showed signs of recent use.

An older priest tended candles beneath a painted mural.

The image showed five travelers standing before a crowned man. A second section placed the same travelers beneath trees filled with colored lights. In the next, orcs surrounded them. Dwarven ships crossed the sky above another section, and a black fort occupied the final panel.

The painting ended with an army of living creatures facing a gray horizon.

Matthew walked closer.

The travelers did not resemble Golden Axe. One carried two axes, another a bow, and the robed figure in the center held a staff topped by a glass sphere. Their equipment changed between panels, growing more elaborate as the journey continued.

Their number never changed.

”The Five Who Found the Tide.” The priest said.

”Who were they?” Matthew asked.

”Adventurers sent by the old king to learn why the dead were gathering beyond the northern marches. They found the answer and carried warnings to every people willing to listen.”

The priest spoke as though recounting a history taught to children rather than explaining a dungeon. He pointed toward the last section.

”Their stand did not destroy the tide, but it bought Corathen time. The armies that followed drove most of the dead beyond the old border. Most, but not all.”

The shield-bearer studied the black fort in the painting. ”Was that Kildra’s fort?”

”The Dread Fort.”

Matthew looked toward the open doors. ”How long ago?”

”Long enough that historians disagree.”

That answer made the history feel more real than a date would have. Before leaving, each member of Golden Axe received the same notice.

[Default resurrection point registered.]

[Starter Village Churchyard.]

[Estimated resurrection cost available through the dungeon menu.]

[Insufficient dungeon coins will result in transfer to the Sanctuary hospital.]

The tracker opened his estimate and frowned. ”Mine costs more than I expected.”

”Because you have more ability points than you did when we began Fey Nights.” The healer said.

”That sounds like punishment for improving.”

”It sounds like an incentive not to die.”

They crossed the churchyard and followed the hill road toward the village. The cemetery beside the church contained hundreds of stones. Some carried flowers. Others had been weathered until their names were difficult to read.

Matthew resisted the urge to ask whether those people had returned. The warning in his information menu already provided the answer.

Corathen’s residents did not revive as themselves.

The village square contained a smithy, bakery, general store, public house, and a two-story inn with a painted bed hanging above its door. People stopped to look at Golden Axe, but they did not crowd around or behave as though five armed strangers were legendary heroes.

A woman carrying baskets asked them to move away from the well so she could reach it.

The shield-bearer apologized and moved.

The innkeeper charged them for rooms. Matthew found the ordinary exchange strangely reassuring.

She entered the payment in a paper ledger rather than trusting the system to remember for her. Corathen’s residents could use the dungeon menus connected to their work, but they did not treat those menus as replacements for ordinary records.

The mage tested the ambient mana while the others arranged rooms. It was denser than the Sanctuary’s in some directions and thinner in others. Lines moved beneath the ground instead of spreading evenly through the air.

”Natural mana currents.” She said. ”A city built over one would have stronger enchantments. A swamp where two cross could produce monsters without the Dungeon Master placing anything there.”

”Did the Dungeon Master place the currents?” The tracker asked.

The mage considered that. ”Probably. They are still natural to this place.”

That contradiction would take time to understand.

The common room had a large map pinned to one wall. It showed only the southern district instead of the entire country. The starter village sat near the bottom, connected by road to three smaller settlements and a market town two days north by wagon. The royal road began beyond that town.

The capital occupied the top edge of the map with an arrow indicating it continued far beyond the page.

”That is where everyone will go.” The mage said.

The innkeeper followed her gaze. ”Everyone with weeks to spare and enough money for the road.”

”How many weeks?” Matthew asked.

”Four in a good wagon. Longer if you stop every time someone claims to have found treasure in a ditch.”

”Does that happen often?”

”Often enough that I no longer invest in ditch treasure.” The innkeeper said with a role of her eyes.

The tracker moved to the village notice board. It did not contain a single main quest. A farmer needed three field hands for harvest. A family offered payment for someone to repair a leaking roof. The miller wanted guards for a grain wagon. A local herbalist was willing to purchase specific plants from the southern woods but warned that one of them looked similar to a poisonous variety.

The most dangerous notice concerned large clawed tracks near a goat pasture.

Golden Axe had crossed four dungeon levels and died in a war containing more than a hundred thousand undead. Now it looked like their first available assignment in Level Five might be protecting goats.

They visited the general store before accepting anything. The shelves contained rope, lamps, preserved food, blankets, farm tools, and several local maps of varying quality. There were no complete guides to every monster in Corathen.

The tracker purchased a thin booklet identifying dangerous tracks common to the southern district. Its author admitted that juvenile tracks were often confused with those of smaller species and recommended hiring a local guide rather than relying entirely on sketches.

The healer purchased a list of regional plants that interfered with common medicines. The mage found three pages concerning places where fire spells were forbidden during the dry season. The shield-bearer bought repair nails after learning that the metal used in their equipment was uncommon outside larger cities.

The shopkeeper offered to buy updated copies of anything they confirmed during their travels. He did not promise to accept every correction. Local hunters would review monster information, and road changes needed confirmation from more than one traveler.

The tracker agreed to bring notes. For the first time, information gathered by Golden Axe could become useful to people outside its own guild without being placed in the Hall of Achievements.

”We should take it.” The tracker said. Referring to the quest involving goats from earlier.

Matthew looked at him. ”Not tonight. But tracks tell us what lives near the village, and the farmer will know the land.”

It was sensible. That made it more tempting than marching toward the capital with no supplies or local knowledge.

The church bells rang while they ate.

Golden Axe turned toward the windows. A standing arch of pale stone had appeared in the open field beyond the village’s southern fence. Light filled the space beneath it. A gnome stepped through, placed a sign beside the road, and returned the way he came.

The first visitor emerged less than a minute later.

He was a broad man carrying a notebook and wearing an apron dusted with flour. He stopped outside the gate, read the system warning, and stared at the village.

More people followed him.

Not copies. Not another party entering its own version of the level. Golden Axe watched each person step into the same field beneath the same afternoon sun.

The mage closed her menu. ”It really isn’t an instance.”

Within ten minutes, twenty newcomers had gathered around the arrival gate. Some wore armor. Others carried toolboxes, travel bags, or children.

Matthew looked back at the map on the wall. Four weeks to the capital no longer seemed like the most important detail.

”We stay tonight.” He decided. ”Tomorrow we learn what is nearby. After that, we find a caravan heading north.”

No one objected.

For the first time since entering Max’s dungeon, Golden Axe had reached a level with no clear objective waiting for them.