I don't know what happened, but the adventurers have gone from absent to omnipresent. Groups have stopped coming exclusively in the daylight, and now there are a sparse few parties of adventurers willingly diving into the Wildwood at night. The influx of new adventurers has been a boon to my mana reserves. I've acquired enough to finish the forest temple I was building!

  My focus moves to the sealed temple for a quick review of what I've made thus far.

  There's the entrance, a dilapidated room with a locked door. Past that is a trapped corridor, connected to a study and an antechamber. Stairs lead down into a second floor. Here another corridor branches between a bunk room and a worship hall. Past the worship hall a passage connects to both a lavatory and a set of unfinished stairs. Those stairs are where I pick things up again.

  I carve down, ensuring things look even cleaner and more maintained this deep into the temple. The stairwell lets out into a corridor with two paths. I place no traps, ensuring the adventurers don't always expect them.

  The rightmost branch leads into a kitchen. The chamber is about as big as the bunk room upstairs, but instead of beds it is filled with countertops, sinks, and stoves. Shelves stocked with dishes occupy sections of the walls.

  This room's treasure comes in the form of a treasure chest, made with highbark and emertal bindings. I fill it with silver coins and a new item--a spark stone, a shiny rock that sprays sparks when it is so much as tapped with a fingernail. Hopefully this item will please adventurers who come this deep.

  As any kitchen does, this one needs staff. I direct Mycelady to create some cooks for this kitchen. There are now two merul wearing aprons pretending to cook meals. Mycelady understands they're supposed to arm themselves with whatever is nearest at the first sign of danger. She is also quick to comply when I suggest creating a biglete chef. I make him a chef's hat and apron, as well as an especially large cleaver. He won't be putting down his weapon.

  Moving on from the kitchen, I follow the corridor down the other path. Here I make a chamber as big as the worship hall above. This one is for eating, not praying. Tables with long benches fill the mess hall. Mycelady is quick to understand that I want her to have merul visit this area and pretend to eat. She's got the mushroom minions moving through the whole temple, all the way from the bunk room to this mess hall. The effect is perfect.

  For this room's loot I add another treasure chest. This one is tucked beneath a table, and filled with gold coins. Atop those coins I want to place something valuable... but what exactly? I don't feel comfortable tossing another simple reward like a spark stone or dungeon lantern at them.

  I go to my laboratory, floating to the far side of it with the intention of making something unique. Well, I say unique, but really I've done this many times before. I push mana into the familiar shape of a seed. It's a fat oblong thing roughly the size of a football. There's no telling if my experiment was a success as it is, so I place it in soil and pump it full of mana to grow it.

  The seed rapidly sprouts into a large pink petaled flower. Observation confirms it does exactly what I wanted, a rejuvenating pollen wafting off the blossom. The effect is a subdued version of the regenerative power of a healing potion. A healing flower.

  I go ahead and place a few of the healing flower seeds throughout the Wildwood, ensuring some will grow and be witnessed by adventurers. There is one caveat to the healing flower--they do not reproduce. The only seeds that exist are ones I create. They live indefinitely, but it is quite likely someone or something will harvest and consume them when their effects are noticed. This should make for a unique reward.

  Moving back to the mess hall in the forest temple, I add a healing flower seed to the treasure chest. Finally, I have Mycelady create a pair of biglete to guard the mess hall. They're equipped with the same gear as the ones in the worship hall above.

  I move on from the mess hall to create a corridor in the far wall. This one branches into a dead end and stairs leading further down.

  At that dead end I create a storage room. It is small, about the same size as the study and lavatory. I fill it with standing shelves stocked with various items. Spare dishes, bedding, and equipment for the mushroom minions. I go so far as to add simple clothing in bulk. Mycelady only needs a little prodding to have her minions wear the clothes.

  I add a few standout items to the storage room. The first being a mace of the same shape as the ones the biglete use, except the head of the weapon is made of emertal. Intricate carvings into the mace give it an impressive look. It is largely mundane, though.

  The other items I add to the storage room are a hodge-podge of the loot I've given them so far. Mostly healing potions, dungeon lanterns, and spark stones.

  This room doesn't get any consistent guards. Mycelady will have merul occasionally visit the room as if to retrieve something, but that will not be the norm.

  The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

  Moving back through the hallway, I follow the other path. This one gets a staircase at the back. The stairs lead down to the very bottom of the temple. There's no more corridors or extra rooms here, just one chamber as large as the mess hall above.

  The room is lit by bright lantern stones which emit sunlight rather than an ordinary glow. The floor of the chamber is filled with rich soil seeded with moss and healing flowers. The walls are carved with vine-like patterns and silhouettes of trees. The center piece of the chamber is a modified highbark. It grows not up, but rather into a perfect wooden cradle. The roots of the tree form steps up to the cradle, wherein I plan to place the forest temple's core.

  It takes an impressive amount of mana to create the new core, but it is worth it. The perfectly spherical green gem rests within the heart of the modified highbark. It is designed to automatically replenish loot, rearm traps, and seal the entrance of the forest temple when there are no adventurers within it. It makes the forest temple a hands off area I won't have to micro-manage in the future.

  As for this room's defenses, I direct Mycelady to create a type of minion she hasn't thus far: Wizwort. The lithe fungal minion is perfect for this final fight. It will be wielding the best piece of loot in the entire temple, a mana channeling staff. Alongside the wizwort an entourage of biglete and merul are heavily equipped for battle. The wizwort gets green robes embroidered with golden threads. All it lacks is its weapon.

  My design for the staff of life is inspired by Silva's own wooden staff. The wood that makes up the body of the weapon is alive, feeding directly off the weapon's channeled mana. The potent part of the staff is a sizable green gemstone at its tip. The gem glows softly, detecting intent from whatever is wielding it and channeling mana into life. With its design whoever uses the staff will not be able to throw fire or conjure gold, but they will be able to heal and manipulate plants like molding clay.

  Considering humans can't detect mana on their own, this should really shake things up.

  The wizwort is finally bestowed the finished staff of life. It should pose a significant threat to whoever delves this deep into the forest temple. Should they defeat it, they will be able to manipulate mana just like Silva and I.

  With the forest temple finished I unseal its entrance, and add the keys fit to its locked door throughout the ruins in the Wildwood. The forest temple is in play. It is only a matter of time before an adventurer stumbles across a key and puts two and two together.

  ~

  The bottom of my bottle greets me like an old friend. I sigh, staring down at the empty vessel for several long moments. I've run out of alcohol and goodwill with anyone in town. I need a job, but how can I expect to find work when I've done nothing but drink myself stupid ever since I got released from prison?

  Footsteps approach the alley I'm in. They don't sound like the boots of a guard, but rather the softer footfalls of a civilian.

  "I ain't got nothing to steal, so you best be off!" I warn.

  The footsteps stop for a brief moment before continuing. The person turns the corner, staring down at my hunched form with an icy look in their eyes. It is a woman--a vaguely familiar lady with crimson red hair and clothes only good coin can buy.

  "You're Billy, the former guard, correct?"

  "I haven't been a guard for over a month, lady. I'm just a drunk now."

  The woman isn't deterred by my words. She crouches down to be at roughly my eye level, and glances form the empty bottle I clutch to my haggard appearance. I can tell she is judging me. Probably pitying how far I have fallen. Used to do honorable work, and now I'm rotting in some backstreet like a filthy criminal.

  "You may not be a soldier anymore, but you spent quite a lot of time in the dungeon. You survived what many others didn't."

  My face hardens as I scowl at the red haired woman. The audacity to talk of things she doesn't understand. She's probably been doing nothing and getting rich off the dungeon, or something of the like.

  "Don't spout shit you don't know about, lady."

  "I do know about it. I'm the guild mistress of the Adventurer's Guild, Billy."

  Brows furrowed, I question her "You're in charge of that nonsense I hear about? The shit show where people dive into the dungeon head first, to never return?"

  I spit on the ground at her feet. She is part of the problem. That dungeon isn't some mine to dig treasures out of, it is a damn death trap filled with monsters that will rip you apart at the first sign of weakness. What she and her guild are doing is perpetuating a cycle of sacrifice and death. She's just as awful as I am.

  "I don't want it to be that way, Billy."

  "Then what are you bothering me for? Scram! I want peace, damn it!"

  The woman pauses, those lips of hers pursed into a thin line. I can tell she's angry with me. Let her be angry, I don't give a damn what this bitch feels. If she wants to talk to me about something she had better give me a good reason to listen!

  "Billy, I need your help."

  My scowl falls away to leave a blank look on my face. Is she fucking with me? How can I possibly help her as I am now? I'm missing an eye, for fuck's sake. I let out a bitter laugh as I reply.

  "You think it's funny to taunt a man down on his luck, eh?"

  "I'm not taunting you, Billy. I need you to teach the adventurers how to safely travel through the dungeon. Every day we have more missing people. We don't have qualified people to guide those who seek fortune in the dungeon's depths."

  My laughter dies in my throat. She's proposing I be a mentor to people?

  How can I possibly prepare anyone for that place?

  "I'll only do it if there's drink."

  "You can have all the alcohol you could ever want, Billy."

  Maybe I spoke too soon. She's not a bitch at all, no, she is an angel!