After all was said and done, Alan had been gone from the campsite for just under two hours. It was about this time that Lyonel and the rest of his party should be entering the town. He was back in plenty of time to avoid detection. He was confronted by an oversight on his part, however.

Unlike tier two, where most of the area was empty of life, tier three contained wild animals and monsters. He had left his smoker going with a pile of bloody meat sitting next to it, waiting its turn to be cooked or smoked. There being actual creatures around, of course something caught wind of it and came to investigate.

Beast: Lant (common) level 6, threat: low. This medium-sized mammalian quadruped is a natural hunter, but is also a willing scavenger when prey is scarce. They are most well known for their tough hides, capable of withstanding their own sharp claws in a dominance fight.

It was the size of a great dane, but its legs were shorter than you would expect, with a larger barrel chest and slightly elongated neck. It was currently chowing down on the meat sitting next to the fire. There had been far too much to smoke all at once, and he had set it aside to use for meals in the next couple of days.

Sensing Alan's approach, the lant turned from its feast, blood and pieces of venison trickling out of its mouth as it continued to chew. It was not an intelligent creature, but it must have had a type of animal cunning. It seemed to sense that Alan was not a foe to be trifled with, and the short, dark brown fur on its back stood on end as it gave a low growl.

His spewn was already out along with his shield. If its hide was that tough to cut then he was going to rely on blunt force to deal with it. The creature's legs bent, like it was preparing to pounce. When it moved, though, it didn't go at him, it tried to go around. He could have let it escape, but it had already associated their camp with food and it was better to deal with it now than when it returned while he was sleeping.

Its first leap took it wide of Alan's current position, but it was a trivial matter to get between it and the exit. No doubt the animal could leap over the wall that Samson had placed over the entrance, but the gap in the cliff also wasn't that wide, so Alan could easily position himself to intercept.

Seeing the way out blocked, the lant's second jump took it straight at Alan. Since he was already prepared for the attack, it was no great feat to club the beast's head with his spewn. Its hide must be tough since the blow was hard enough to shatter its skull and kill it instantly, but it didn't even cause a small split in its skin.

Kneeling next to the dead animal, Alan tried to cut through its hide with his seax. When that was unable to penetrate he switched to his spewn. He could just barely manage to slice its skin, but it took a lot of force and would lead to a poor product if he continued. To do this properly would take a quality knife with a sharpness rune. Fortunately this was not a dungeon creature and he could store it to be harvested at another time.

Checking on the pilfered meat, he saw that the lant had managed to eat about a third of what was left. It probably wasn't that big of a loss since they could only eat so much before it went bad, but it still was a blow to his ego. Leaving fresh meat lying out was not his smartest decision. Thinking about the problem, he realized there was a simple solution.

The crack the camp was located in was between two stone cliffs. These were not perfectly vertical walls and there was a lot of texture to the surfaces. One section cut back sharply toward the bottom and left a small open area that was under the cliff itself. The rock was maybe forty centimeters above the ground here, and it extended back for a couple of meters. Crawling underneath he could instantly notice how much cooler it was than the open air. This would make for a nice larder.

Digging with his shovel was tricky since he couldn't stand up. He managed to scrape a large amount of the dirt out while lying on his side, before there was enough room to use it in a more traditional manner. After about fifteen minutes of work, he had a hole about a meter on each side and just over a meter deep. The dug out dirt made a pile off to the side.

Next he collected some large branches from the surrounding forest and, using some rope from his storage, he lashed together a makeshift cover. It wasn't airtight and things could still get in, but it was better than leaving it open to the world. The last step was to cut off some branches from fir and pine trees for their strong smelling needles. These were placed on top of the lid to both make the cover better, and to hopefully help mask the smell.

All the while he kept his smoker going. He had left a decent amount of green wood on the fire when he left, but it had mostly died down by the time he returned. After getting the fire going again, he placed smaller branches in it, and these quickly emitted towers of smoke. A second project, now that the meat was properly stored, was to get a second fireplace going. He didn't have a lot of practice with smokers, especially something as primitive as what he had made, but he knew it could take a couple of days to properly preserve the meat. He couldn't tie up the only fire for that long.

Not wanting to deplete his personal store of good rocks, Alan made another run through the forest picking up proper sized rocks. While he was at it, he collected more of the bounty ingredients as well. They were becoming harder and harder to find, but not impossible. He had come upon some in places that he had already cleared, so there must be some kind of replacement going on. It reminded him that this universe was not entirely like his old one, no matter how much it seemed like it at times. After thinking about that for a moment he snorted in amusement. Of course things worked differently here, he could shoot disco balls out of his hand.

"Tamee, where do these bounty items come from?" Alan had been keeping a running dialogue going with her when he was alone. After having been surrounded by people again, it had been hard to go back to silence. Her voice was a soothing balm to his frantic mind.

"Some of them are naturally growing, but others are an interaction between the mana in the area and the Network's designation of what can grow in the zone. Generally the higher quality the ambient mana, the better items that will appear, but even with the same mana, no two places are exactly the same. Some areas seem blessed by the Network and spawn rare and valuable ingredients, while others produce much more common things."

Alan had to ask, "How would you rate the items here?"

"Sorry, this seems like one of the rare times when you have not been blessed. These bounty items are about as common as they come."

Tamee had been teasing him for a while about how he was spoiled, so it was almost nice to see his luck balancing out. Not that he wouldn't have taken some valuable items if they were offered. It also reinforced why so many were willing to volunteer for being incorporated into dungeons. If they could increase the mana of the area they lived in, everything could get better, for them and their family.

The second fire pit was placed farther back in the camp, well away from the new larder and the smoker. The sun was set and he figured the Corellians would be hungry when they got back. Taking out some of his precious vegetables, he made a bunch of skewers with venison, potatoes, and carrots. It was ironic that Alan had all the meat he wanted, but was limited in his other ingredients, while the village had the opposite issue.

It was a little early to put those on the grill, they would only take a short time to cook. Instead, he let the logs burn down some, and then put some of the deer's ribs over the coals. He was getting better at his butchering and hadn't simply cut the meat off the bone. It should be a nice treat for the evening. Too bad there wasn't any barbeque sauce.

Just as he was about to sit and start working on his spells, he remembered the dirty dishes. Gerry had gone to the effort of filling up the barrels with water, and 'Pebble' had indicated he would wash them, so he better get it done. He didn't have any soap and there was no easy way to launder a dish rag, so he used dried leaves as a scrub brush, scraping off the worst of the mess.

Then it was into the barrel with them, where he used more of the fir branches to get the dishes at least visually clean. He was missing the amenities he had back at the tavern for washing things. Back there he had needed to haul the water from the well himself, but the rest of the process had been so much easier with the proper tools.

Finally he was able to sit down and get to the serious issue of thinking. He now only had an hour before the earliest time that the group could be back, but hopefully it would be more like two or three. Thankfully, some of the heavy lifting, thinking-wise, had been done already. Alan had some thoughts on how he wanted to improve.

He had four spells he wanted to work with first, an offensive spell with more immediate killing power, a straight upgrade to his fire bolt, different types of walls, and some kind of shield. The shield was going to require some research on his part, so he put that on the back burner for the moment. That reminded him to flip the ribs. Life was full of interruptions.

Once again back in his meditative pose, he dismissed working on the walls as well. He already had one type, and figuring out how to make new ones included the possibility, more like a guarantee the way Alan worked, of messing up the campsite. Such experiments would be better done in a more open area. That left a choice between his fire bolt, or something with more stopping power.

Fire bolt had some of the same issues that the wall did. Throwing fire around camp was a good way of burning all his work down. Instead, he would focus on a new projectile. He had already come up with the idea of shooting something into someone that would explode, and before he could work on the boom part, he needed to figure out what could act as the missile.

The two options he had come up with were wood and stone. A wooden bullet would probably be easier to ignite, but he thought that the rock would be more likely to explode. He had thrown his share of pebbles into campfires as a kid, watching as they burst apart. His dad had yelled his ear off once after a piece of exploded rock had hit a friend of his who had joined them on a trip. It had torn a gash across his arm, nothing a little bacitracin and a big bandaid couldn't fix, but he had seen how powerful such a little rock could be. If he could make that happen while it was inside someone, the results should be suitably impressive.

First up was using stone mana to create a bullet. That part ended up being relatively simple, but expensive mana wise. A quick check of the magic primer told him that the issue was creating such a dense material. Most of his original spells created intangible effects, like a bolt of light or dark, or even simply the heat to create flames. This was relatively inexpensive. His stone spear spell caused a lot of dense material to form, but it wasn't really creating it, the rock was drawn up from the earth. That saved a lot of energy.

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What Alan was trying to do now was form rock from nothing. Because of how heavy the material was, there was a significant cost. It meant that while he could make a giant blob of fire for the low price of fifty mana, a rock the size of his fist cost around sixty. It made him question how his meteor spell was so relatively cheap, but that would have to wait for another day.

Luckily he didn't need a fist sized rock, he was looking for something closer to the size of his thumbnail. If the rock was too big it wouldn't penetrate as well, and it would be much harder to cause it to explode. A smaller stone would cost less to accelerate and should punch much deeper into the target. This would hopefully result in the subsequent detonation occurring in the middle of its vital organs rather than near the surface.

A little tweaking and he was able to summon a small stone in his hand. He wasn't worried about propelling it yet, that would come later. Next he tried to use heat and combustion mana to cause the rock to explode. He did place it at a distance before attempting this. It would be unfortunate if he succeeded in blowing it up, only to kill himself. Even if he was only a little maimed, Tamee would have roasted him for it.

The next twenty minutes of testing led to a series of negative results. The small summoned stone didn't even twitch, let alone go boom. He tried his most recent spell attempt out on a piece of firewood and was rewarded with a nice burst of flaming splinters. His spell was working, just not on the stone. Maybe the idea that stones exploded was a just combination of urban legend and faulty memories? Tossing the stone in the center of his camp fire, he waited to see the results.

After ten minutes, nothing had happened, even when he stoked the coals up a bit. Shaking his head, he reabsorbed the stone. It had been a perpetual summon, similar to his rock walls. It was so small, however, that the upkeep didn't even register. Then, as a control test, he tried throwing a random pebble off the ground into the fire.

Five minutes later he was doubting his sanity. Nothing had happened. The ribs needed tending to anyway, so he spent some time seeing to the meat and the fire. While flipping one of the ribs, there was a loud pop and a sharp pain in his arm. Looking down he saw a small shard of rock embedded in his flesh. The pebble had exploded!

After digging it out, he decided to let the wound heal normally. It wasn't deep and he would need his mana if he was going to keep testing. Now that he knew he wasn't crazy, he needed to figure out the issue. What was it about the pebble he had thrown in the fire that was different from his summoned one? He couldn't think of what the problem was, so he approached it from a different angle.

Why did stones explode? Alan had thought it was simply heat that caused the stone to expand and at some point it couldn't hold itself together. After pondering expansion for a while he figured out the problem. As a northern boy he should have realized the issue earlier. Anyone who has driven in both the northern and southern United States might have noticed a vast difference in the road surfaces. Part of this was due to freezing temperatures.

In the areas where it got cold enough for water to freeze regularly, potholes were a constant issue. Moisture would trickle into the microscopic cracks in the material and then as it froze the water would expand. This expansion would cause larger cracks to form, which would allow more moisture in and cause more cracking until giant fissures forced someone to repair the road. In the south where freezing temperatures were the exception, they could use more permanent construction materials.

The pebble in the fire popped because of water, or possibly simply gas, trapped inside of it expanding. Once it created more pressure than the stone could contain, there was a violent separation of stone pieces that he called an explosion. Pretty much all naturally occurring stones had some moisture or gasses trapped inside them, but his summoned stone had been pure rock. It was most likely possible to heat it enough to cause it to explode from its own expansion, but it would be at a much higher temperature, thus requiring a lot more mana.

This meant he needed to go back to the drawing board. Could he make stones that were infused with water, if not that could be a problem. This meant a trip through his primer, again, and he soon found a better solution. He had already seen how some spells required a somatic component, special movements to form the mana properly. It was also possible to have spells with material components.

Rather than trying to create a stone, expensive mana wise, with the proper combination of gasses and moisture, very complicated and also adding to the mana cost, he could simply provide his own. His spell wouldn't work without his own supply of rocks, but it would be a far more efficient use of resources. It wasn't like small rocks were particularly scarce. He also happened to have a magic bag on his waist where he could store an insane pile of them.

With the bullet part of the process figured out, he was back to the combustion and heating portion. Testing what he had already come up with, he realized that what he had would work, but it was a little slow. The rock was heating up, and it eventually exploded, but it took about three seconds. This was far better than the seven or eight minutes it had taken the stone in the fire, but not what he was looking for. He wanted it to be as instantaneous as possible.

Through trial and error he managed to get the pebbles to shatter in less than half a second. It required a massive amount of heat initially, then followed by the combustion mana to get a rapid expansion, followed by more heat. He could get it to happen even faster, but the mana cost was getting prohibitive. Satisfied with what he had, he moved on to the final component of the spell, getting the stone to its target.

This could be accomplished simply with stone mana. The connection between the stone bullet and the mana would allow him to manipulate its position, letting it fly through the air, but there were better ways to accomplish the same result. By incorporating wind and air mana, he could create both a frictionless tunnel for the stone to travel through, and a force to push it along the path. Just using those types of mana would also be wildly expensive, however, but by also using stone mana to assist with moving the mass it became reasonable again.

This meant his spell would use five different types of mana, stone, air, wind, heat, and combustion. He already knew a spell form that would cause the bullet to explode, but now he needed another to propel it. Then would come the task of trying to bind the two together. That would be a far more difficult challenge than creating the separate pieces.

By the time he heard the Corellians coming through the forest he had managed to perfect the delivery spell. He had even begun incorporating the two components, but it was turning out to be as difficult as he imagined. Fortunately none of his failures had resulted in major explosions, yet. Lyonel and his group were fairly loud, so his sensitive ears had managed to pick them up in time for him to take a break before he was discovered.

The ribs had finished a while ago, and he had transferred them over to the smoker to keep them warm. The strips at the top that he was smoking for preservation's sake were far enough away to not get much heat, but he placed the ribs directly on the stones surrounding the fire which should hopefully keep them warm. It was time to up the heat on the other fire and get the skewers cooking. He sprinkled each one with a hint of salt and some other spices. His seasonings were a limited resource, but it did a lot for the flavor. 'Pebble' and the Corellians were still in the honeymoon phase of their pairing and it was important to keep them happy.

When Lyonel walked in, he was greeted by a vastly different looking camp. The two campfires, one with the deer skins over it, were the first changes he noticed. He also took in the pile of needled branches in a small space under the rocks. He was pleased to see that their camp follower had been busy. He didn't want the poor man to get bored.

Alan noticed that they now had an empty, but still bloody, backpack. He greeted them with a wave and pointed to the filthy bag with a shrug. He was trying to ask how the sale went, but they misinterpreted his meaning.

Samson, the one carrying the bag, was also the person who answered. "Yeah, if you could clean the bag that would be great."

Well, if it would keep them dumb and happy, Alan was willing to get his hands dirty. He would put it to the side for now, it needed a full scrubbing in a stream or river, and if he tried to use the barrel it would quickly color the water red. The next time he had some freedom he could see about getting it taken care of. Maybe he could even pay someone in the village to get it done. They had things like soap and a small river running right next door.

Hector was more interested in what his nose was telling him. "What is that delightful aroma?"

Hurrying over to the smoker, Alan took out some plates and served up the ribs. He had already sampled one earlier and knew that while the meat was tender, it was also slightly bland. There was some flavor from the wood he'd slow roasted it over and the meat itself, but without any seasoning it suffered somewhat. The party didn't seem to care. They happily chowed down, grease covering the furry chins. Alan wondered how they would clean that, a napkin wouldn't suffice.

About the time they were finishing the ribs, the skewers were ready. Every person got two, including himself, and each skewer contained several tasty bites. The small amount of spices he had used had made a world of difference and Hector actually moaned as he ate the venison cubes.

It made Alan feel good about his efforts, and hopefully it would encourage their brains to ignore any little inconsistencies they noticed about 'Pebble'. After dinner he showed them the new storage area for their food. The row of tiny sticks on the dirt floor forming a relatively clean bottom had been one of his better ideas. They all made appreciative noises, but then started thinking about sleep. Their day had been much more active than recently, and they wanted to rest.

Before they turned in, Lyonel gathered them all to discuss their plan for the next day. Alan was interested in that part as well. When he heard that they were going to take a run at the mystery dungeon, he was elated. This dungeon was much farther away than the town one, so they would be gone for most of the day, and that was without the time they spent completing it. He also hoped to hear about what it was like.

He had heard them discuss the town dungeon a little when they returned earlier. Tamee had already told him what most low level town dungeons were like. They weren't necessarily carbon copies of each other, but they usually came in one of several themes, so he was able to get a good picture of what it consisted of by their limited comments. This second dungeon sounded like a natural or 'wild' dungeon.

These were much rarer, although not at all unheard of, than the more common town and Network dungeons. A wild dungeon was the result of a dungeon core not directly attached to the Network creating its own lair. Non-affiliated cores could be the result of a random mana condensing event, it was very rare for these to make a core, or something like the offspring of what Alan had back at his house.

The dungeon core he had bought used to be under the control of the Network. When Alan purchased it, he gained 'control' of it. It wasn't like a master and slave kind of relationship, more like a boss and employee one. He could guide and direct it, but in the end its choices were its own. A Network dungeon was more of the master/slave dynamic and any offspring of the dungeon would also be under the control of the Network.

If the core that Alan was currently empowering had an offspring (he wasn't sure how that part worked yet) it would not automatically be beholden to the Network. Such a thing could break off from the 'parent' and form its own lair. That was the most likely origin of the wild dungeon nearby.

It would be interesting to learn about what kind of theme the dungeon had, and it would help Alan if he ever wanted to try and run it himself, which he did. He had confidence in his skills, but he also knew that a wild dungeon wasn't bound by the same restrictions as the others in the tutorial. The Network wanted the recruits to be able to complete the dungeons, this core could be a sociopath instead.

That's not to say there weren't any limits on it, however. Dungeons could gain energy from the souls inside of them, but a large part of their needs were met by the ambient mana. Due to the levels in the area, the dungeon couldn't contain a horde of red grade monsters. However, the specific design, or the number of creatures inside, could make it very difficult, even as a white grade core.

If he didn't have to be the first to check it out, that would be fine with him. The time they were going to be gone should also allow him to make a run to the village. Not only did he need to get his reward for the salamander bounty, but he had a lot of others to turn in as well. It would also give him a chance to see what things looked like there.

It was hard to mime abstract questions like 'how do the villagers feel about me?', but he managed to convey 'are the villagers looking to kill me?'. The answer to that one had seemed like a no, but Lyonel cautioned that Chrisly had not yet returned, so he wasn't sure if things would change. It would be good if Alan could get in there before that happened. He laid down on his bedroll, eagerly looking forward to the morning.

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