Chapter 26
is
I knew I loved her for a reason. Wait. What did I just think?
Stolen novel; please report.
“Alright, then what''s your brilliant plan for the 15th</sup> floor?” asked Emelia.
“Hell,” said Dorn.
“Hehe, I like the sound of that. Could you elaborate on what will be hellish?”
This was when his two minds had become distracted by dealing with Anatole. When he was sure that his mind following the Seekers around was taking care of the situation, he turned back to Emelia.
“The previous floors were about water and earth. This next floor will be all about fire,” Dorn said.
Emelia said, “What, you going to have them trudge through a bunch of flames? They''ll all die, right?”
Dorn answered, “No, that would be ugly and boring. They will be crawling around and within an active volcano. The idea is, that the volcano will erupt every 24 hours, utterly destroying everything in the entire floor. There will be warning signs that lead up to the event, as well as a stele that explains this. It''s still too early to put something so dangerous in place without a warning.”
“But I''m confused; if you have them working through a volcano, where will you put the entrance and teleportation glyphs?”
Dorn answered, “Very simple; the entrance to the floor will be at the bottom of the volcano. Parties will have to climb up, avoiding rivers of lava, and make it all the way to the top. Along the way, there will be fire elementals, as well as fire ravens flying in the sky. Sometimes, they will have to take tunnels that head into the volcano itself to avoid powerful monsters. The exit teleportation glyph will be on the inside lip of the crater, near the throat''s vent.”
“I don''t know, Dorn, that sounds a little harsh for C-ranked adventurers,” said Emelia.
“Don''t worry, Emelia, I know what I''m doing.”
***
Dorn smiled at the memory of building his giant volcano. It had cost him the full five million points, but he now had an active volcano in his dungeon. Talk about an ultimate defense. If any people ever had malicious intentions in his dungeon again, like Friedrich had had, he could simply immolate them with an exploding volcano. Not much could survive that.
“What are you smiling about, big guy?” asked Kiera.
Dorn leaned against her and projected his thoughts into her head. “I''m just remembering building my 15th</sup> floor.”
Kiera thought back, what did you build?
He projected back, “It''s a surprise. You''ll probably hate it!”
Kiera scowled. She thought back, well, as long as it''s not a place where we''ll get all dirty.
He winced, and then said back, “Well, that''s what the baths are for.”
Kiera just scowled more.
Dorn chuckled a little nervously, then surreptitiously gave her a C-Advancement pill. She smiled prettily, thinking, okay, all is forgiven. Dorn breathed in relief, and then he went back to thinking about his newest floors.
***
Emelia said, “Well I''m impressed. You definitely built a functioning volcano floor, and it''s only a C5 level difficulty. Adventurers are going to hate it, you know.”
“They''re not going to hate the nice treasure chests I placed on the interior of the dungeon,” replied Dorn.
“They''ll hate getting to them, however,” replied Emelia.
“Meh, they''ll live… or hopefully not, actually,” said Dorn.
“I agree; I can''t wait to see people melt into the lava rivers,” said Emelia. She then continued, “Alright, how many points do you now have left?”
<table width="390" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="5">
<tbody>
<tr>
<td valign="top" bgcolor="#3333ff" width="378">
Status
Name: Dorn''axial
Dungeon Name: A Dragon''s Dungeon
Dungeon Level: 30
+1 for 31,000 DP''s
Floors: 16/17
Dungeon Points: 10,125,239
Dungeon Rating: C5 – Your dungeon
poses a significant danger, even to the
wary
</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
“Alright, I have five million saved for ranking up, which should happen some time within the next week, and that leaves five million for the floor.”
Dorn designed a nice and simple dungeon floor, that mimicked his fourth, introductory floor. It was refreshing to build such a cheap structure. The main difference between his 4th</sup> floor and his 16th</sup> floor was the quality of monsters and traps. Instead of simple tripwires and pitfalls, he now had pressure plates. He lined the ground in tiles of different colors and shapes. Since this floor was instanced, it allowed him to have random colors or shapes be the safe path through the floor. The majority of his DP''s went to buying new monsters for his rooms.
Like the fourth floor, he only had nine rooms of monsters. The first four rooms had the four elemental types, respectively. After placing air, water, earth, and fire elementals, he turned to his remaining five rooms. He placed a dozen common kobolds with three kobold shamans and one kobold chief in the fifth room. He purchased golems and placed three enormous golems made from stone in the sixth room. The seventh and eighth room were devoted to beholders and orcs, respectively. And in his final, boss room, he placed his most exciting monster yet: a single, weakened, illithid.
The illithid monster had cost him a full half of the points he had spent on this floor, or 2,500,000 DP''s. The reason the illithid were so expensive, and the reason why Dorn was so excited, was because of the nature of the monster. Unlike all the monsters currently residing in his dungeon, the illithid were unique in not using physical or magical attacks at all. Their danger lied in their race-specific psionic powers. They would attack at one''s mind, and the only defense was to have strong mental shields.
Emelia asked, “Are you sure you want an illithid this early in your dungeon? I think you''re making things way too difficult in your C ranks.”
“Hey, I weakened it quite a bit; it''s no longer capable of doing their trademark brain drain ability,” said Dorn.
Dorn was referring to their desire to physically consume adventurer''s brains by implanting parasites through the ear canal.
Emelia shivered, saying, “Illithid give me the creeps.”
Dorn snorted, saying, “That''s the whole point. I''m a dungeon; I''m supposed to be scary, not cuddly and fun.”
“Anyways,” Dorn continued, “I think that should be about it for the floor.”
Emelia said, “Well if you''re putting in illithid, you might as well go the whole distance and put in some mimics.”
Dorn''s face brightened, saying, “Ah, yes, what dungeon would be complete without some fake, attacking treasure chests.”
Dorn quickly purchased and placed the mimics on his 16th</sup> floor.
“There,” he said, “now I''m done. Status.”
<table width="390" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="5">
<tbody>
<tr>
<td valign="top" bgcolor="#3333ff" width="378">
Status
Name: Dorn''axial
Dungeon Name: A Dragon''s Dungeon
Dungeon Level: 30
+1 for 31,000 DP''s
Floors: 17/17
Dungeon Points: 5,237,937
Dungeon Rating: C6 – Your dungeon is
scary
</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
“And look, I still have a quarter million points to spare,” said Dorn. He sighed, before saying, “I remember the days when that was a lot of points. It seems like just yesterday.”
Emelia got all into the act, saying, “They grow up so fast nowadays.”
***
When the three new C-rank adventurers showed up back in the D-Housing floor along with the Seekers, Kiera pretended to look at the sign, saying, “Hey look, new floors have opened up.”
“Finally,” said Jeromy. “I was about to go crazy doing that underwater maze floor over and over again.”
Thornley said, “We should quickly get another damage dealer and a scout, so we can get through the boss floor.”
“Actually,” said Kiera, “you should be able to make it through the D boss floor by yourselves; it''s definitely something each of you can complete.”
“Can''t you come with us to help, then?” asked Brook.
“Unfortunately, it can only be completed one time by each adventurer,” said Vossan. “I would love to give it another go, but we''re already banned from returning. The rewards are amazing.”
“Yeah, go through tomorrow,” said Kiera. “We''ll wait to explore the new floors with you guys, since it looks like floors 14 and 15 are both open and non-instanced floors. We can be the pioneers exploring. We''ll take you to floor 13 the day after tomorrow.”
“I''m a bit nervous,” said Kinnard. “We have only just upgraded to C1; are you sure we''ll be fine on the boss floor?”
Dorn said, “Yes, you should make it through easily.”
Coming from Dorn, this was a huge relief to the Voices. When they found out that Dorn used to be a high A-ranked adventurer (according to Dorn), they had become almost enamored with him. They trusted every word he said.
Thornley said, “Alright, we''ll join you in C-Housing tomorrow, and we''ll go with you to the new floors the day after. We''ll just select our new teammates from the people who make it through to C-Housing. What are you guys going to do in the mean time?”
The Seekers looked at each other, to see if everyone was thinking the same thing. Then they laughed, before Vossan said, “We''re going to go earn some more Devil Points.”