Monster Mansion 2 by Dante King (most interesting books to read TXT) 📕

dungeon that’s contained but also somehow portable, and isn’t tied to your summoning power and your avatar’s presence,” I said to Kyrine. “How was it done before? Back on Eosor?”

“I can’t remember,” Kyrine said, looking miserable. “My memories of that time are so jumbled since coming through the Gateway. I remember what we did, but I don’t remember how we did it.”

“You said ‘we’ just now,” I said thoughtfully. “What do you mean by that?”

“Well, me and my Keeper, of course.” She looked at me strangely.

Then Selena broke in. “What are you thinking, Jeremy?”

I frowned, and shrugged, then began to pace around the room.

Selena, Kyrine, and I were all in my workroom. Astrid, frustrated by the lack of progress, had gone down to the main training area for some target practice. She said shooting guns cleared her head. At this point, I was tempted to abandon my effort and go join her.

A couple of days had passed since our battle in the snow garden with the shadow elves. After some discussion, we’d agreed to try to create a dungeon along the lines of the snow garden. Belinda had not yet returned from her mission to the EDI. I was not too worried - it was better to have everyone here but I hoped that she would be able to get the EDI on side with the moving of high-level magical goods out soon. We’d agreed that when she did return, we would try to get Amanda Fallon’s blessing to start selling some of Kyrine’s magical potions on the open market. We needed money to bring new, more modern equipment into the mansion, and I was keen to establish a contact network for trading magical goods in the outside world.

After all, if the ultimate goal was to have more powerful cultivators out there in the world, ready to fight the Fateweaver, they would need powerful potions too. I hoped there would not be trouble with this—powerful potions were as illegal as higher-level cultivation, and a solution would have to be found for that.

Right now, however, we couldn’t even find a solution to our initial problem of creating usable dungeon experiences for adventurers to run.

I walked over to the desk. The wrecked drone had been cleared away, but the little green crystal that had contained the ghost was still there, sitting on the edge of the table. Without thinking about it, I picked up the little crystal and began to turn it idly between my fingers.

“Hey,” said Selena suddenly, “what about that?”

“What?” I turned to her, holding out the crystal. “This? What about this?”

Selena was looking excited. “Yeah, the ghost crystal. Why can’t you create a dungeon within that?”

“Uh, I don’t know…” I said, looking at the little blob of shining ghost jade in my palm. Since we had freed the trapped spirit from inside it, the crystal was a clean, clear green, transparent and without any sign of a flaw.

I held it up to the light. “What do you think, Kyrine?”

Kyrine had stalked over to the window and was looking out at today’s scene; a dark, gothic fantasy cityscape that I figured she had pulled from her jumbled memories of old Eosor. Like the tower chamber where I’d first met her, Kyrine created these views from the window from her memories.

I was beginning to realize that the scene matched her mood. Today had begun with a view over a sunny valley, but at some point, it had changed to this gloomy-looking, industrial fantasy city.

“What do I think of what?” she asked irritably, turning from the gloomy view. It was not like her not to be listening. She must be even more upset than she was letting on, since she nearly always had total awareness of everything that was going on.

Her eyes lit up when they fell on the little nugget of ghost jade. Her eyes became wide as she stared at me in rising excitement. “The crystal! Of course! Oh, why didn’t I think of that? Ghost jade will contain a created space the same way it will contain a spirit. When we create a dungeon, it’s like we’re creating a ghost. Oh, Jeremy, what a great idea!”

Selena cleared her throat.

I chuckled. “Actually, it was Selena’s idea.”

Kyrine turned to the cat-girl, skipped over toward her and embraced her quickly. “Well done!” Kyrine congratulated Selena. “This is the key we were looking for. Ah, Jeremy, it’s all coming back to me now! Yes, yes, of course…”

She took the crystal from my hands and strode over to the enchanting table. The table was a big, heavy construction of black iron inlaid with red and blue crystals and incised with brightly colored runes. It was custom-designed for the creation of magically enhanced artifacts. The iron it was made of would be able to keep volatile magical forces contained when they were unleashed during the enchanting process.

When Kyrine placed the crystal on the table, a pulse of blue magical energy flickered across the table’s surface, and all the runes lit up for a moment. The table started to hum gently, as if it were powered by electricity.

“Jeremy, Selena, come over here,” said Kyrine. “I’m going to need your help. Where’s Astrid?”

“She’s downstairs, in the main training area, remember?” I said gently. I was finding this lack of awareness of the mansion a bit worrying.

Kyrine waved away the concern in my voice. “Of course, of course. Well, if we need her, I’ll shout, but we should be ok with just the three of us.”

“You remember how to do this now?” Selena asked.

“I remember the form,” Kyrine said distractedly. “It’s coming back to me in bits and pieces, fragments of memory, of feeling. Once we begin, Jeremy, you’ll need to guide the process. I can begin it, but it’s going to be up to you to shape the