Kobto called on stray dogs. About eleven ca trotting in, ribs showing under mangy fur, eyes bright with hope.
He fed them bread and scraps of at first, then brought out the sausages Joji had bought and let the sll do the rest.
The dogs’ tails started to thump. Their ears perked. They understood paynt.
The rats ca too, a gray river of them slipping out from cracks and shadows.
Dogs and rats moved together, not friends, not enemies either, just workers promised a al.
They spilled out into the night to sniff, listen, and search.
Joji watched from the side, curiosity chewing at him.
"So is a druid similar to a tar? Because you can control animals."
Kobto did not look offended. He looked patient.
"I do not control them. Tars subjugate beasts. Druids call them and offer respite. In the end I do not own them."
"So that’s how it is," Joji said, and ant it. It was too convenient in a way that felt unfair.
"Do you take notes on your enlightennt?" Joji asked. Wanting to know.
Kobto did not see a problem as he knew Joji was a warrior. Joji on the side read through how druids operated.
To most people, being a druid ant being one with nature, but Joji had learned fast that even nature had ranks and rules.
The first step was Seed Caller. It sounded grand until you saw it used.
You could feel which seeds still had life in them and which were dead husks. You beca the sort of person who could keep a garden alive through spite alone.
Kobto was the second step, an Animal Whisperer. He did not command beasts like a tar did.
He called. He offered. He paid in food and quiet safety, and the animals chose to answer.
The third rank was Druid. That was the threshold where it stopped being favors and beca senses.
A true druid could borrow the eyes and ears of plants and animals, not just bargain with them.
Joji had skimd Kobto’s training manual, Kobold’s Harmony with the Wilds, while they idled. The last page ended. It only went up to Druid.
Joji knew there had to be more ranks beyond that, because the world never stopped at convenient ceilings.
{New Job Acquired!!!}
{Equip Now?}
{Yes} {No}
Joji declined for now. He did not trust the system to behave. Not after the lightning he suffered from.
Better to save sothing that important for later, when he could afford whatever weirdness ca with it.
An hour later, a dog ca barreling back into the barn, barking like it had won a war.
The other strays followed, so whimpering with jealousy, so pacing like they wanted to argue with teeth.
Kobto crouched, listened to the winner’s insistence, then looked at the rest. Their begrudging noises confird it.
Kobto paid them on the spot. A bite for each. A full al for the winner.
The lead dog trotted out with a fat sausage clenched in its mouth like a trophy. They followed.
It took them close to the river. Lacrosse sat raised on cobblestone foundations so the town could survive swollen waters when rains ca.
It made the streets higher than the surrounding land. Along the riverbank, stone stairs descended into the dark.
Kobto handed the rats a small sack of oats as they gathered, chittering, still eager.
They had earned it. They had found the route and also checked for anyone shadowing the group, saving ti and avoiding attention.
Then they went down the stairs and into the water.
It rose to their knees. Joji lifted Lilina up and set her on his shoulders like a child. She gripped his hair lightly, trying not to look frightened.
The lead dog swam ahead, still chewing its sausage like a fool.
Kobluk stayed alert and shooed away lingering alligators with sharp gestures and a low growl that carried promise of pain.
After a dozen minutes, the dog stopped at a mossy pillar half subrged near the stonework.
"This is it?" Joji asked, incredulous.
"I don’t see any entrance," Alaric said, scratching his head.
Kobto crouched and pointed, trying to show what the dog ant. Kobluk leaned in too.
Both of them sniffed at the air and at the booklet they had taken, dog kobold’s instincts mixed with a hunter’s sense.
Then they both nodded.
"It ends on this pillar," Kobto said.
Joji stared at the moss and stone and felt an old mory tug at him, the kind from gas and hidden rooms.
’Secret doors don’t look like doors,’ he thought.
"Call the rats here," Joji said. "Let them crawl all over it."
A quarter hour later, the rats arrived in a swarming horde, swimming and climbing, claws scratching stone.
They poured up the pillar, and then, one after another, they vanished the mont they touched a certain patch of surface.
"There," Alaric breathed. "A dungeon."
"It might be covered by an illusion," Kobluk said.
They all agreed without needing more.
"I’ll go first," Joji said. "Best we don’t disturb whatever magic circle is holding it."
He surged out of the water, grabbed the pillar, and pushed himself into the place where the rats disappeared. The world swallowed him.
For a breath, there was only water and rats and the dark river around them.
Then Joji’s voice ca from nowhere and sowhere at once, muffled but steady.
"It’s clear. Co."
They followed.
On the other side, the air changed. It slled older, damp stone and cold earth.
A wall of marble stood there, cracked with age, moss growing in the seams like green stitching.
In Priria, dungeons were not built like houses. They appeared like growths, the way mushrooms rose in the woods after rain.
So towns grew rich from them. So towns got eaten when they did not keep up.
If a dungeon was left alone too long, it birthed monsters until the spill beca an outbreak.
Joji ran his hand along the marble and felt the chill sink into his palm.
"Walter, bag anything important. And I need you to write up a report on what we’re seeing here."
"Alaric, take the rear. Watch our back."
"Kobluk, Kobto, stay on Lilina and Walter. If anything gets too close, you protect first, you hear ? and Alaric will clear the way."
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