Chapter 276: Visitors From Another Dungeon

The first continuing exchange opened for four hours.

No crowd waited.

Merrit sent two crafters, his contract keeper, and three sealed crates containing approved tools. Dagar sent his quartermaster with a shipment request for metal fittings, medicine, and replacement ventilation equipment. Sanctuary admitted only the people and objects listed in advance.

Hizon considered the opening too cautious.

Veyrath considered six visitors sufficient.

Both attended.

So did residents who had no contract to negotiate.

A Sanctuary carpenter examined the alignment frame because she repaired airship cradles and wanted straighter joints. A young smith from the Undercity came to see whether Thousand Works tools demanded materials he could not afford. Two hospital attendants watched Dagar’s medical shipment because imported equipment would eventually become their responsibility to store and use.

The exchange mattered differently to each of them. Dungeon Masters saw agreements between territories. Workers saw an object that might change tomorrow’s task, price, or obligation.

Max kept the receiving floor open to observation for that reason. The visitors could demonstrate approved goods, but they could not negotiate only with leaders behind closed doors and announce the results afterward.

The Thousand Works demonstrated a precision alignment frame useful for airship components. The tool did not enchant metal or replace a skilled worker. It held several pieces in exact relation while the craftsperson joined them.

Skyyard mechanics recognized the value immediately.

Merrit’s crafters offered a production-share agreement. Hizon offered a fixed lease. The mechanics asked for a third option allowing them to purchase one frame outright after a trial period.

The contract keeper began drafting.

Merrit had feared his designs would be copied without payment. Hizon had feared ongoing shares would drain the Undercity’s profits. The mechanics feared paying heavily for a tool that might not survive daily use.

The final agreement addressed all three concerns. Sanctuary leased one frame for a month. If it met the recorded performance standard, the mechanics could purchase it. Merrit retained ownership of the design but gained no claim over unrelated work produced with the tool.

No Dungeon Master decided whether the frame succeeded. The people using it would produce the evidence.

Dagar’s quartermaster negotiated more quickly.

The Redoubt wanted supplies, not ownership rights. Sanctuary merchants wanted guaranteed payment before shipping through a gate Dagar could close without notice. The quartermaster offered partial payment when an order was accepted and the rest before the scheduled opening.

If Dagar canceled after full payment, the goods remained in Sanctuary for the next opening or received a refund minus documented preparation costs.

Hizon approved of the structure because no merchant had to cross nine days of road before learning whether the Redoubt would admit a shipment.

The first four hours ended without a safety incident.

Veyrath still reviewed every response time. Hizon reviewed sales. Kildra reviewed what the visitors had asked and which public facts they could combine. Quin reviewed the differences between the written procedure and what staff actually did.

The exchange opened again three days later.

Traffic grew slowly over the following weeks. Merrit’s crafters sold tools and purchased materials. Dagar accepted invited shipments without reducing the Redoubt’s existing reserves. Sanctuary merchants learned that access to another dungeon represented a market, not a guarantee of profit.

The first request to enter Max’s levels came from five Redoubt veterans calling themselves the Stone Brace.

Dagar did not order them to apply.

They wanted to examine a training dungeon where failure did not automatically become permanent death. Their captain believed experience against unfamiliar rules would improve their ability to defend the Redoubt. Their healer wanted to study how groups behaved when resurrection changed the accepted cost of a mistake.

The other three offered less official reasons.

One had guarded the same gate for nine years and wanted to know whether discipline still mattered when the battlefield moved. Another had lost a brother beyond the Redoubt’s walls and distrusted every promise that death could be reversed. The fifth admitted that she was tired of being prepared only for enemies Dagar already understood.

"I do not want the first strange creature I meet to be the one attacking our homes." she said.

Dagar heard every answer. He could have selected soldiers whose motives matched his own more closely. Refusing to choose was part of the test.

"You represent the Redoubt while you are there." he told them. "You do not belong to me while making the attempt."

The words came slowly. Dagar understood duty more easily when it produced command. Allowing his veterans to accept another dungeon’s rules required him to trust the habits he had taught without controlling every use of them.

Max explained the unresolved authority question to them personally.

"If you die inside Sanctuary’s dungeon, we expect the hospital system to respond." he said. "Your bindings to the Redoubt may affect the result. We do not know how."

"Dagar’s core confirms our service oaths do not include resurrection." the Stone Brace captain said.

"No known claim is not proof that none exists." Quin replied.

The captain understood the distinction. He still wanted to proceed.

Each member agreed individually. Dagar provided the Redoubt’s relevant binding information. No contract allowed him to command them to enter or claim the result.

Max permitted the attempt.

The Stone Brace began with Fey Nights like every other party. Their experience with formation defense did not automatically prepare them for misleading sounds, hidden paths, and fey negotiation. They failed twice without dying, withdrawing before the party became trapped.

On the third attempt, they cleared the level.

The Hall of Achievements recorded the result normally. No separate announcement treated foreign adventurers as a special category.

Orc Highlands challenged them differently. The arena suited their discipline. The hunting party punished their tendency to maintain formation when the terrain demanded separation. They completed the standard route after several attempts and showed no interest in the hidden escape route they had not discovered.

The Dwarven Airship level tested everything the Redoubt did not.

The Stone Brace understood walls, controlled ground, and mutual protection. An airship moved beneath them while enemies attacked from several directions. Dwarves required rescue and coordination. The eventual crash removed the platform they had learned to defend.

Their first attempt ended before the dragon.

Their second reached the valley and failed when the party committed too many people to protecting the damaged airship instead of preparing for movement after it could no longer fly.

They entered the third attempt knowing death remained possible.

Max did not watch every fight. The level was an instance, and the party deserved to confront its challenges without the Dungeon Master hovering over individual choices. He monitored only the core records relevant to the resurrection question.

The Stone Brace reached the dragon.

Their defensive discipline kept the dwarves alive longer than expected. The same discipline made retreat difficult when the dragon divided the field. The party lost movement, then lost the healer, and the remaining members died while attempting to recover a position that no longer existed.

Five restored bodies appeared in Sanctuary’s hospital.

The result came without delay or conflict.

The Stone Brace entered Max’s afterlife system. Their physical bodies remained asleep under hospital supervision. Dagar’s core reported that their service oaths remained intact but held no active claim over the resurrection.

Host authority had governed the death because the party voluntarily entered Max’s instanced level under Sanctuary’s rules.

The result did not prove what would happen under every possible foreign binding. It answered the conditions actually tested.

Dagar crossed to Sanctuary as soon as the gate opened.

He stood beside the five sleeping bodies and read the confirmation himself.

"They return within twelve hours?" he asked.

"They can leave the afterlife earlier." Max replied. "The automatic limit is twelve."

"Can I speak to them there?"

"Not from the hospital."

Dagar disliked being unable to issue orders or confirm their condition. The same independence mattered to Max. The Stone Brace had entered as adventurers, not extensions of Dagar’s command.

"Their choice continues until they return." Max said.

"They are my soldiers."

"They are also five people who accepted the attempt individually."

Dagar looked at their captain’s sleeping body.

"If one chooses to remain for twelve hours, I cannot order him back."

"Correct."

The healer returned first.

He awakened disoriented, accepted water, and asked whether the others had arrived. Hospital staff told him all five were present. They did not heal him because resurrection had already restored his body. They allowed him time to understand where he was.

Dagar waited until the healer recognized him.

The hospital attendant raised one hand when Dagar stepped closer.

"He reports when he chooses." she said. "He has just awakened after experiencing his own death."

Dagar’s jaw tightened. The Redoubt trained soldiers to report before comfort, but the hospital was not his fortress and the healer was not yet steady enough to stand.

"When you are ready." Dagar corrected.

The healer took another drink before answering. Max watched Dagar make room for a rule he would not have written himself.

"Report." he said.

The healer looked toward Max before answering.

"The afterlife is real enough to train in. I left because the others wanted to examine it and someone needed to confirm the hospital."

"Were you ordered to remain?" Max asked.

"No."

The remaining Stone Brace members returned over the next several hours. Their captain stayed longest because he wanted to examine how the afterlife recorded skills gained during the delay.

None attempted to die again. They believed the next death before the protection refreshed would be permanent.

When the captain awakened, he accepted responsibility for the Level Three failure.

"We defended the airship after the objective had become reaching the valley exit." he told Dagar. "We treated losing ground as defeat even after the ground stopped mattering."

Dagar heard the criticism of the Redoubt inside the report.

"You believe our training caused the failure."

"Our training produced the strength that reached the dragon. It also produced the habit the dragon used against us."

Dagar did not defend the habit merely because it belonged to him.

He authorized the Stone Brace to return after the resurrection protection reset and after they revised their movement plan.

The exchange had answered one question.

Foreign adventurers who voluntarily entered Max’s instanced levels received Sanctuary’s hospital and afterlife resurrection under the tested conditions.

Merrit sent a new contract proposal within an hour of receiving the result.