Now that the ritual was destroyed and the drow who had created it was dead, Alan was surprised he hadn't gotten a quest completed notice yet. Looking back at the original quest description, though, showed that he also needed to drive the kobolds out of the city. Kargan and his troop were already working on that, but Alan and his squadmates should probably get back to help out.

Speaking of Thadrick and Bodvar, they still had a few enemies to deal with, so Alan didn't want to linger on the dais long. The first step was putting the giant egg away. It was certainly good loot, but it was too big for him to carry around. However, when he tried to store it in his necklace he got a message.

Warning:

[You are attempting to store a living being inside a spatial device. Since the being is not yet born, you can continue, but it will result in the sterilization of the egg]

That was going to be a problem. Not only was the thought of killing babies not appealing, but the whole value of the egg seemed to be the little dragon inside. There was no way he could lug this thing around, though. Luckily, Tamee was a good ally and offered a suggestion.

"That drow must have brought the egg in with him, check his body for storage devices."

Alan lugged his treasure over to Griff's corpse. Fortunately, he had not been inside the ritual either, otherwise his body, and any loot, would have been sucked into the void as well. As he knelt by the corpse he stuffed the two pieces of the broken staff in his ring. He wasn't sure what good they would be, but it was his standard policy to loot anything that might have value.

Checking the fingers, he didn't find any rings, and the dead elf also didn't have a necklace. Continuing the search, he was coming up empty. Griff didn't have any pouches, and no bracelets or broaches either. Alan even looked for an ankle bracelet or toe ring, but couldn't find anything.

He was about to give up when a glint from inside the burned and holey robe caught his eye. Looking closer, he was appalled, Griff had a nipple ring! It looked like a barbell, but it was slightly curved. Each end also had a clear gem on it as a cap.

"Sorry about this," Alan mumbled towards the corpse.

Fiddling with the gems, he found the one that unscrewed and he was able to remove it from the nipple. Holding the small golden bar in his hand, Alan used identify on it.

Nipple Ring of Living Storage (Rare): This barbell has been enchanted to hold items. Capable of holding approximately 50 cubic meters of material, items stored in this piece of jewelry will be stored in the same state they were put in. While inside, the weight of items is reduced to zero. Living creatures can be stored in this pouch, but only if they are in a nascent stage and do not have a soul. Must be incorporated into an aura to provide the energy to sustain the living beings inside. Removal from an aura will cause any living beings inside to wither and die.

Alan was horrified. "You have got to be kidding me."

Tamee was the opposite of horrified, "Is that a nipple ring?" Her voice rose several octaves by the end of that short sentence.

"It says I have to incorporate it into my aura, does that mean what I think it does?"

"It means you have to physically incorporate it into your body. Put it in, put it in!"

"I bet you say that to all the boys." Alan wasn't sure where that snark came from, but Tamee's laughter suddenly choked off. He could not properly express how much he did not want a nipple ring, but it seemed like his only option to keep the egg. He also needed to hurry. There could be other things inside the ring that were now dying after losing access to Griff's aura.

Removing his chainmail and the padded shirt underneath, Alan ran into a problem. His nipple wasn't pierced, and he didn't have anything to pierce it with. His pugio was a weapon designed for stabbing, but it was very thick and would just end up taking off his nipple completely. A quick look through his inventory left him with only one reasonable choice.

Pulling a fork out of his inventory, he contemplated the semi-blunt prongs. They were approximately the right size, but the thought of trying to shove that through his nipple was making his skin crawl. Imagining the potential valuables that might, at this very moment, be lost, Alan screwed up his courage and gripped his right nipple in one hand, stretching it away from his body. Using his other hand he carefully placed one tine of the fork against his flesh and pushed.

Unfortunately, the tip didn't want to penetrate. In a ball shriveling act of will, he shoved even harder and it finally pushed through the flesh and out the other side until it got to the end of the fork's slot. Even before the arrival of the Network, Alan had been shot, stabbed, burned, blown up, and suffered a host of other injuries. Somehow, stabbing his own nipple with a now bloody fork was one of the worst.

Pulling the utensil out he left it on the ground. No amount of washing would get that thing clean enough to eat with. Next, he shoved the barbell in and capped it. Normally you had to smear your blood on an item like this to attune it to yourself, but blood was not an issue at the moment.

Alan cast his minor healing spell and directed the energy to healing the flesh around the ring. It initially tried to seal the wound, making the nipple whole, but the metallic storage ring kept the flesh from fully reforming. Instead the skin healed itself around the shaft. Alan was now the not-so-proud owner of a nipple piercing.

Tamee had apparently gotten over the embarrassment from her earlier comment, and was ready to make fun of him again. "I cannot believe you did it, and with a fork! Well, do not keep a girl waiting, is there anything good in it?"

It seemed that Griff hadn't been lying when he said that Oshae had been the money. Other than the ring itself, there wasn't too much inside. There was a very modest stack of gold and a few potions that he would have to inspect more later. There was also a scroll and some blood crystals in addition to a few odds and ends.

The blood crystals were actually in two piles. The first was where the drow had been storing the results of the ritual of sacrifice. These were low quality and not something he wanted to keep. The other pile looked more like the ones he had received from the succubus Irene. They weren't quite as good, but they didn't have any of the corrupted feeling he got from the ones made of gnomes.

The scroll was interesting. It contained instructions for creating a diagram of attunement. He would have to check that out more later, but it seemed like it was meant for the dragon egg. Now it was time to see if his new piercing was worth it.

Gripping the large egg again, he willed it into the ring. This time there was no warning and the egg disappeared. He quickly took it out of the ring again and was relieved to see that it was still listed as viable. He stored it one more time, and after, he felt a slight drain on his aura. It seemed the nipple ring didn't drain his energy until there was a living creature inside.

Griff's body didn't have any other items to loot, other than his robe which was doing a good impression of swiss cheese. Alan chose to leave it and instead turned to the last matter left on the dais.

Two rituals had been running, and the one that involved sacrifice had almost been completed. However, there was one gnome who the drow hadn't had time to kill. Alan made his way over to the cage and was initially surprised to see that he recognized him.

After thinking for a moment, he realized that this was simply the dungeon taking shortcuts. The last remaining gnome was the same one that Alan had freed in his last trip to the city. It seemed that his escape hadn't been as successful as Alan's. The gnome was currently sitting listlessly, his head bent down and staring at the floor of his cage. Alan spoke to get his attention.

"We've gotta stop meeting like this."

The still trapped gnome raised his head and gave him a look before responding. "You are the human who set me free before. I beg you to do so again."

Alan felt bad about his previous joke, the fact that it was a dungeon had him playing relatively carefree with his emotions, but to the gnome this was his real life. He'd had to watch more than thirty of his fellows sacrificed and turned into blood gems, which probably was an eight or nine on a trauma scale. Now Alan felt like an ass.

He moved quickly to release him from the prison. Then he cast regeneration on him to allow his body to heal up, and gave him one of his stored omelets, since the kobolds tended not to feed their prisoners. While this was happening, Alan was also keeping an eye on his friends who had still been fighting a few kobolds. As he watched, they finished off the last one and started to make their way over to the ritual site.

After finishing his food, the gnome turned to Alan. "Thank you again for freeing me. I am in your debt. I only wish you could have gotten here sooner."

"I am sorry for your loss, but I am wondering how you ended up back here. There seem to be more of your brethren than they had before."

The gnome lowered his eyes in shame. "We thought we had escaped before, but it turned out that we were simply being followed. We led them right back to one of our outposts and the kobolds came a few days later and attacked. Many were killed, but they captured the rest of us. That drow you killed said they needed replacement sacrifices. What will I tell my people, and there is no way for me to bring their remains back either. There will be no closure for their families."

Either his ring or necklace probably had enough room to store all of the bodies, but he wasn't about to give either of those up. Instead he tried to offer what comfort he could.

"This wasn't your fault. Never lay the blame for the actions of evil men at the feet of their victims."

This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

"I thank you for that, but it is hard to accept when I am the only one left."

Survivor's guilt was a real thing, and it could be brutal. Alan's unit had once had to deal with the loss of a member, but he had no real experience with the concept himself. Instead, as a doctor he had seen it in a few of his patients. Unfortunately, there wasn't time to try and deal with the problem now, they had to get back to Kargan and see how things were progressing.

He had healed the gnome already, but he didn't know what condition he was in. In fact, Alan realized that he had never gotten his name.

"I'm not sure if you heard my name before, but I'm Alan. What can I call you?"

The gnome hesitated a moment before sharing, "You may call me Zontun."

"Well, Zontun, you may be out of the cage, but I can't just let you run off yet, there are still plenty of enemies around. We came here with a small army of dwarves. Can you come with me to meet up with them? If all goes well, we'll be driving these dragonkin off and then you can return to your people." As he was talking, Thadrick and Bodvar finally joined them, huffing and puffing a little.

Zontun didn't have to think long before agreeing to go with them. Alan introduced him to his two squadmates and then they were off. Having eliminated what seemed to be the only true elite in the city, Alan didn't think they needed to go through the streets looking for more. Instead, they made their way over to the wall and followed it back in the direction they had left the dwarven patrol.

It didn't take too long to approach the area. The sounds of battle were easy to detect, and the stream of kobolds still heading for the fight were also hard to miss. Alan, the two dwarves, and the gnome, climbed up one of the nearby buildings to check out the situation before getting caught up in it.

A quick count showed that all of the dwarves were still alive. However, that didn't mean the fighting had been easy. It looked like the larger dwarven block had at some point been forced to retreat back to the wall, where they joined up with those holding the gate. It was a good position, because here they were able to prevent the enemy from fully encircling them.

Watching the battle, Alan had to admit that Kargan had been right. The dwarves had formed into three or four shifts. The frontmost group would swing their weapons at the kobolds, cutting them down with little effort. It was a disorienting sight as there was an assortment of weapons, axes, hammers, swords, and clubs, and each was wielded in a different manner. It was a controlled chaos, however, and they would continue to cull the enemy numbers for about ten minutes before they rotated back and the second group would take over. The rearmost group was sitting and recovering their stamina while another was behind the front line ready to step in, just in case.

The mountain of dead was unbelievable. If he had to guess, Alan put the number of casualties for the enemy at somewhere over a thousand. It was the kobolds themselves who moved their fallen from the front line and threw them in one of several piles. If they weren't doing that, the dwarves would have been safe behind a solid wall of the dead.

The dwarves showed no signs of tiring, but the kobold numbers seemed endless. The lines of fresh fighters were streaming in from every street. The group watched, trying to decide their next move. As the man in charge, Alan felt like it was up to him to speak up.

"Thadrick, what were those exploding bags you had before?"

The dwarf's eyes lit up thinking about them, "It was a gift from that girl, Cassidy. She didn't stick around long after you left, but before she went, she made me a few of those. Said it was thanks for helping her help you."

Alan still didn't know what was going on between Cassidy and himself, but it was nice to hear good things about her. "Do you have any more of those?"

"Sorry, lad. I only had two left after testing them out in the mines. I used both of them in the previous fight."

Bodvar had a question, and bless him, he even raised his hand. "Why not bring down another one of those flying rocks like before?"

It seemed that he had noticed Alan casting the spell before. It wasn't a surprise, since it was part of what had managed to let him hold out against the overwhelming numbers. Also, a large rock flying down from above and exploding was hard to miss. Alan had already considered using his spell again, but he wasn't sure it would be much help. It was a mana hog and, while it was devastating, the numbers they were seeing would laugh off the casualties he could cause.

Still, it did seem to be their best bet at doing anything. Going down and joining in the melee wouldn't do much, three or even four more fighters would make no difference down there. The good news with his meteor spell was that the kobolds wouldn't be able to trace the attack back to them. So even though each casting would use up more than half of his mana pool, they didn't need to worry about retaliation. With nothing else to try, Alan cast it for the first time, aiming well away from the front line. He didn't want to panic the dwarves with his initial attack.

No one had much hope of the attack doing anything significant, so you can imagine their surprise when the kobolds ended up scattering. Nobody had reacted to the appearance of the rock at first, and it wasn't until it hit the ground that there was a reaction. As they thought it, it ended up killing about forty kobolds, a not insignificant amount, but nothing compared to the larger swarm.

However, the response from the kobolds was far out of proportion to the damage done. The kobolds who had been streaming in, eager to join the fight, were now running in the opposite direction. The ones already engaged with Kargan's unit broke off and scattered, many taking fatal wounds in the process. It could have turned into a rout, but the dwarves were too disciplined to break their formation chasing down their fleeing enemy. If they had, the kobolds might have been able to briefly reform and then cut them down individually.

Kargan wasn't going to let this advantage go, though. Staying in a square, they marched through the town, killing anyone they caught, but for the most part, they were simply driving the dragonkin before them, preventing them from regrouping. It took three more hours, but at the end, it seemed that all of them had retreated from the city.

Alan was bemused by the whole thing. The kobolds were thinking creatures, but they had no soul. That meant they were most likely spawned by the dungeon, and their current actions could only be the result of interference by the dungeon. Alan had completed the real challenge in the quest, stopping the ritual, so as soon as he got involved in the larger fight, the dungeon sent them running, their part in the quest was now done.

Quest Update: Corrupted Ritual

[By your actions, the ritual has been stopped and the kobolds are fleeing the area. Make sure the patrol returns safely to the mining camp.]

It seemed his job wasn't quite over, but it looked like the hard work was done. All that was left now was the trip home. Well, almost. He still had to deal with Zontun. With that in mind, the four of them made their way over to the dwarven square.

Rather than taking part in the final effort to drive the kobolds out, Alan and his group had shadowed the formation, making sure there were no ambushes waiting for them. Now that the last of the kobolds had left the area, it was time to check in again. Kargan called a halt when he caught sight of his missing scout group.

The lieutenant had actually known that Alan was around, as he had checked in over the Army chat. As a squad leader, Alan was able to speak directly to the officer in charge, in this case Kargan. The dwarf leader had agreed that it was best for the scouts to stay at a distance and watch their back. Now that the kobolds were gone, it was time to bring them back.

Alan gave his report as he stood before the tall dwarf. "Lieutenant Kargan, reporting in. We eliminated the only elites we found and the city seems clear. We've also got someone with us you should meet."

While shadowing the patrol, there was plenty of time for him to get to know the gnome better. It turned out that he wasn't just a random guy. He was actually the chieftain of a small tribe. It was even smaller now, since many of those killed in the raid and the ritual were also from Zontun's tribe. However, there was still a decent number of them living safe, back in a larger shadow gnome settlement.

The race of shadow gnomes had been unknown to Alan, but then again, pretty much everything about this universe was new to him, however they weren't news to Thadrick. He had recognized the difference in the appearance of the gnomes, compared to normal, when they had rescued them the first time, but the dwarf hadn't made the connection then to shadow gnomes.

Once he and Bodvar had realized who they were, they actually became excited about an opportunity. Shadow gnomes were a mountain dwelling species, like dwarves, but they usually lived far deeper. Dwarves preferred to live in mountains or hills, but they were also comfortable on the surface. The shadow gnomes, however, were not only uncomfortable on the surface, but sunlight could actually harm them.

The reason this was exciting to the dwarves, was that by living even deeper than the dwarven cities, they might have access to some rarer metals and other resources that could only be found at extreme depths. Since the gnomes were incapable of coming to the surface, that also meant that they couldn't trade with any of the people living there. Thadrick and Bodvar's kingdom could become the link between the gnomes, who were known for their ingenious crafts in addition to their rare resources, and the surface races.

Not only would this bring in a ton of money for the dwarven kingdom, but it could also allow their own crafters access to those same raw materials. Zontun was also excited about the possibilities, and for similar reasons. They would be able to expand the market for their goods, and at the same time they would gain access to the weapons and armor that the dwarves were famous for. Hopefully it would also help prevent predation by other races.

After introducing Kargan to Zontun, Alan sat back and watched. The patrol officer was just as excited as everyone else, but apparently he did not have the authority to enter into any official agreement with the gnomish people. Zontun's status, even though his tribe had been partially massacred, was high enough to at least begin talks, but the closest dwarf of a similar station was back in the mining camp.

And so it was that the dwarven forces, plus Alan and Zontun, made the long trip back to the camp. That didn't include the almost half a day that they spent looting what they could from the city. If Alan had needed any further evidence that this was a dungeon, the variety of items, or lack thereof, that they found would have been enough. Almost every kobold had one of several identical sets of gear, and the houses around them contained little of worth. Most of the furniture, if you could call it that, was poorly made and filthy. It didn't really matter to Alan, as in the end, everything ended up stuffed into the dwarves' spatial storage.

It seemed they had a similar looting policy to what Alan had experienced with the Protian army. He might have felt bad about keeping the loot he had gotten from killing Griff, but he was starting to become desensitized to taking advantage of dungeon dwellers. He still wasn't going to go the path of a loot or murder hobo, but he wasn't really taking advantage of them by keeping back what he'd found.

Tamee had explained how this worked to him previously. Usually, dungeon dwellers couldn't keep anything from a dungeon. They usually entered with some of their own stuff, but the dungeon supplied anything else they required. At the completion of their time in the dungeon, they would get to bring their own things back in addition to whatever their reward was for participating, but nothing that they had picked up while inside could go with them.

There was sometimes an issue when a person brought an item into a dungeon which was heavily modified while inside. Tamee had explained this to him after Thadrick had refused the offer of enchanting his weapon. He had assumed that the dwarf just didn't want to risk Alan failing and thus harming his valuable weapon. She told him that if he had enchanted the axe, then there was a pretty good chance that the dungeon wouldn't allow it to be taken out. It was most likely the dungeon that had influenced Thadrick to refuse the offer to prevent such a thing from happening.

This issue helped explain one of the items he had found in Griff's barbell. It looked like a glass case, but he didn't really know what it was made of. After studying it, he discovered that this was a special item that somehow blocked the dungeon's perception. This was what the drow had been talking about when he mentioned not being able to take both the egg and the dungeon core.

Griff had brought the egg in with him, so he should have been able to leave with it as well. However, the ritual to corrupt the egg would most likely have counted as a significant change, and so the dungeon would have prevented him from leaving with it. By placing the egg in the container, it would have blocked the dungeon from 'seeing' the item and allowed the drow to leave with it. Apparently such things were rare since they were hard to make, and useless if you were under the dungeon's control.

Alan didn't have to worry about that though, he wasn't a dungeon dweller. That meant he could take almost anything he wanted from the dungeon as loot. That was a good thing, because after almost two days of marching, they were once again approaching the mining camp, and it was about time to be earning his quest reward. He was anticipating something really good.

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