“Let me get this straight, dungeons are not what I and everyone else thinks or is it thought they are. What they are is zoological gardens created to help preserve animals and beast or monster as we call them that were dying out or had died out in our original home planet. They allowed those who first visited them after the fall to think of them as dungeons and maintain this charade because they fear what might happen otherwise and probably rightly so.”
“Yes, Rachana that is what I have computed every time I have done so.”
“Right, now to continue because of the fall and what caused it your construction was never completed and you supply of mana is starting to run out even considering the low amounts of it you need the way you are currently. You need our help to fix this and to do so requires the use of my pendant and ring. Since the ring or at least the gem or whatever set in it will be consumed and it might not even work Amondo would not proceed without my consent. Hence he brought me here to inform me of all this and he or is it you will soon ask me for that consent.”
“That is more or less the situation as it currently stands, so are you willing to allow me to make use of your ring or not?”
“Before I do so I would first like to ask you a few questions and I have one for my guardian also.”
“That seems fair, what do you think Amondo?”
“I cannot guarantee I will answer any question she might ask of me but in principle, I agree also.”
“Well, then I will proceed, by the way, how would you like to be addressed.”
“I am programmed to respond to various identifiers and have no particular preference but before the fall the one I most commonly had to respond to was Mutnep which of course is the name that was given to the zoological garden I am in charge of.”
“That is not a name I am familiar with what about you Amondo?”
“It doesn’t ring any bells, Nepmut, however, is the name of a legendary spear that is said to have belonged to one of the founders of the Urban Union who’s name escapes me for the moment.”
“Mutnep was a mountainous region of the Homeworld.”
“Are the other dun sorry zoological gardens also named after regions of the homeworld?”
“All but the two elven ones which were named after individual Elf’s.”
“What was the name of the one on Kver?”
“Sorry I am not aware of any place by that name please provide me with further data as to its location or I will be unable to answer your question.”
“Kver is a small island a few miles off the south coast of the mainland.”
“The site of a zoological garden that corresponds to that location was called Milos.”
“And what can you tell me about the Milos zoological garden?”
“The Milos Zoological garden was designed much as this one was with an above-ground entrance mound and four levels below ground. However, it was located on an island for a reason and that was because it was built to mainly contain aquatic or semi-aquatic animals and beasts. This meant that the two lowest floors were partially flooded and connected at various point to the sea via different sizes of tunnels.”
“Thanks, Mutnep I only have two further questions for you, is Milos completely destroyed or just playing dead and if I allow you to make use of my ring to try and fix yourself how likely is it to succeed.”
“Both of those questions are hard even for me to answer with any kind of certainty but I will try my best to answer them for you. When it comes to the first one, I must admit that I haven’t nearly enough information to go on. I would say that the likelihood that it is playing dead is low. While I am unable to communicate with any of the others, I do on occasion manage to overhear many of them communicating with each other. The last such communication I picked up from Milos indicated that it was about to be destroyed. Now as to you second question there are too many unknowns so my calculation may be off by a large degree but using the information I do have I would say that there is not much better than a fifty-fifty chance of success.”
“Thanks for your honesty Mutnep, now before I can come to a decision it is your turn Amondo to answer a question.”
“If you must.”
“Don’t worry guardian I do not intend to ask you anything too difficult so here goes, in your opinion is this a worthwhile endeavour or would we just be wasting our time?”
“Yes if this succeeds it could prove the difference between the Barony of Membe falling to Eugene and it’s continued existence. And even not taking that into account it is in my opinion the right and honourable thing to do.”
“In that case, you may proceed but if possible I would rather you wait until I return before you give it a try.”
“There is no need to worry girl it will be at least a week or so before I can make use of the ring.”
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