《That Cursed Bunker》
Waking Up In a New World
There is a remote woodland miles away from civilization, poorly charted and mostly left alone. In the middle of that forest mix of old and new growth trees lies a small, lone, barren mountain. At the base of that mountain, there lies an old, crumbling, forgotten bunker, a relic from an age past. In the darkest, lowest, and stillest corner of that bunker still accessible by the surface, something new to the world has begun to happen. Unseen, unfelt, and unknown energies begin to swirl together, an unfelt wind kicking up dust and disturbing previously still wires and debris as the energies coalesce for several hours until with an audible POP! a relatively small gem appears a foot off the ground. It hovers in place for a moment, glowing softly before dropping to the ground, clinking on a piece of rusted sheet metal before settling in place.
There, the gem rests, slowly collecting dust at first. However, as hours tick by into days, the pitch black darkness slowly fades as a dim glow begins to emanate from the room¡¯s newest resident in an unknown number of years. The colors slowly shift, never quite staying consistent for more than a minute but gradually growing in intensity and its hues shift throughout every shade on the color wheel once before the cycle repeats.
Eventually, the lights of the gemstone reach through to all the corners of the small room, illuminating it fully for the first time in recent memory. At this first milestone of the little gem, it begins to rattle on the floor, growing in energy until it begins to levitate. There the gem rises halfway up the height of the room, shaking violently until finally letting out a blindingly bright pulse of light. If any creature was unlucky enough to be present at the time of the pulse, they undoubtedly would be seeing stars for at least the several seconds the room was bathed in the ethereal glow before it finally subsided.
Now much more lazily, the rainbow gem floats in place, bobbing gently as its glow paints the room. Groggily, the consciousness inside begins to wake up, taking in its immediate surroundings, aware for the first time.
¡®Wuh¡ where¡ where am I?... Who¡ am I?...¡¯ It thought to itself, attempting to metaphorically shake off lingering sluggishness. As it does so, a little chime went off in its mind. Focusing on it, it heard a voice for the first time, one that spoke directly to it.
¡°Welcome new dungeon core!¡±
It was shocked at the crystal clear clarity that the voice spoke with, the voice ambiguous but not threatening, but still not quite able to determine any specific qualities of it aside from it just being there. However, the words sank in a moment later and then it remembered, pulling from the small trove of knowledge it was born with. It was a dungeon core, a magical crystal creature who exists to create and regulate mana as well as to create gauntlets and defenses to protect itself, strengthen the successful, and cull those it deems fit.
Pulling out of its brief internal rediscovery, it nods in satisfaction, content with this job its existence entails. The voice continues.
¡°Due to the exceptionally low/nonexistant density of mana in this world, you have been created to prelude the mass integration of The System to this planet. In order to prevent catastrophic destruction as well as an unknown amount of mass sentient¡¯s death, you must build up the mana density of the planet. The System has halted further integration efforts save for yourself in order to prevent said death and destruction. As such as the only of your kind currently able to exist on the planet, your purpose and abilities will be altered in order to match your new reality.¡±
At this revelation, the new core was shocked even more so than before. It could recognize the important task it was given and felt pride at that, but it was also a rather large task for a mostly non-mobile dungeon core. Covering a planet in mana? That¡¯s a task which could easily take decades at its current capabilities. Fortunately the innate immortality of its species meant that time was not much of an issue for it, but it still needed to survive long enough on a non-integrated planet, which meant it had no idea the potential for dangers faced or even how the ground around it would fully react to being sculpted by a dungeon.
Before its ponderings could continue, it felt changes start to undertake on its form. New ridges grew in a way that felt uncomfortable but not painfully. It could feel its capabilities shift, new knowledge of how to utilize them downloaded into its memory. It was a much shorter process than its wakeup, mana now naturally dense in the room. When the process completes, the voice continues.
¡°As an extra to aid you in this world on the opposite end of the environment your kind is meant to live in, you have been granted a one-time use ability to extract non-personal knowledge from the corpse of a previously living sapient being. Utilize your new abilities well to allow The System to seamlessly integrate and bring more of your kind. If you¡¯re unable to survive and complete your new temporary purpose, The System will resume normal integration. Now unlocking normal system access.¡±
And with that, the voice went silent. The core floated there for a moment before having a barrier it didn¡¯t even realize existed lifted from its mind and it was finally met with The System¡¯s normal screen showing up in its perception. The core begins reading its notices with it now on its own.
¡®Error¡ Mana density too low¡ Delaying wakeup¡¡¯
Ah, that explains why it felt so¡ out there, so to speak when it first woke up. Also why its thoughts feel like each one has had to wade through slowly thinning slime too.
¡®... Sufficient mana density created¡ Introduction complete¡ Analyzing core properties¡¡¯
It scans the text, noting the final message it has received so far. Truthfully it was hoping for more answers than what it has been provided so far, feeling rather unprepared as its gaze fell upon the rest of its current sanctum. Sure it innately knew of stone, water, the basics when it comes to materials and even some more exotic ones like mithril, as well as basic structures and the like, but it was surrounded by unknowns.
The walls felt like fake stone, there were no recognizable wooden objects, the metal was unfamiliar, especially as two different items made of what seemed to be the same kind and were clearly here for similar amounts of time were in vastly differing states. Even the shattered glass on the floor felt off. At least the moss on the ceiling and the roots growing through cracks felt familiar, but its domain was limited until its system finished setting itself up, then expansion could begin.
Fortunately, another mental ding brought it out of its uncomfortableness of its unfamiliarity.
¡®Rainbow core detected¡ Outside not found¡ Dungeon expansion enabled, first quests given.¡¯
Quest: Expand your domain to the outside world. Rewards: Unlocking rest of system features, dungeon theme choice.
Quest: Use special granted ability [Knowledge of the Dead]. Reward: ???
It¡ did not like the look of unknown rewards. It also did not like having its theme unable to decided yet either as a dungeon''s theme is what granted it the monster suitable to said theme to defend itself with. After all, a dungeon with lava rooms and water-elemental defenders was a good way for a dungeon to have no defenders, so the system handles deciding what monsters a dungeon should be using for the most part. Hopefully these would resolve rather soon. Still, being confined to just its sanctum was undesirable for any core, so it''s time to expand!
...
It should¡¯ve expected this honestly. There was basically no mana on the other side of the door, so aside from the door itself and the walls, it had to wait for the mana to build up before it could continue. Luckily claiming the sliver of space it could past the barrier meant that it could see how far it¡¯d need to grow to reach the outside.
It couldn¡¯t see anything. The sliver of light it could shine through the cracks in the door barely penetrated the darkness beyond. And with how little mana was in the air, it wouldn¡¯t even be able to plant torches to light the place up! Honestly, it was excited at first but this was starting to get annoying. But, it had nothing better to do, or could do really. Sure it could force the door open to allow the mana to flow better, but the door was rusted shut and it could tell the cost was too much to make it worth it, not to mention it¡¯d probably snap it off of its hinges and then it¡¯d be left without any defense, which was even worse.
Sighing, it did what most cores do when caught with boredom of not having anything to do at that time, and went back into hibernation. Hopefully none of the world¡¯s natives would find it in the meantime while it waited to conquer the rest of its soon-to-be dungeon.
The gem dims as the core returns to slumber, slowly building up the mana density as it crawls across the decrepit structure. Of course, when a thick layer an entirely new world energy washes over previously fully mundane objects created and born in a world devoid of it, things may have a few bumps before calming down.
Puddles of water start to either freeze or heat up seemingly at random before the liquid returns to normal. Metal begins to oxidize rapidly before being fully saturated, then the layer of rust peels and disintegrates in seconds, leaving a scarred, uneven surface in places previously smoother, and other sections where the metal glistens like it''s been freshly polished. Exposed wires which have corroded to the point of not being connected to anything find themselves suddenly electrified, arcs flying and insulator coatings warping before the charge disappears almost as quick as it appeared. Even the concrete walls crack in places from the stresses of being infused with mana, the whole structure threatening to collapse and bury the nascent dungeon but holding on seemingly by threads, the rebar in the walls strengthening the concrete enough to hold itself together.
The process continues, mundane materials reacting esoterically when infused with mana for the first time before settling back into their pre-infused states with varying changes in physical properties or conditions. After hours upon hours of this process, the dungeon core finally stirs once more. Peering through its new domain, it mentally nods appreciatively at the size. The core was one level below where the new entrance to its domain laid, though its mana was hard at work inside of its domain infusing and reinforcing all the existing materials. Not to mention the sprawl of the floors meant it had plenty of floorspace to use when it finishes integrating the structure and increasing the ambient mana density.
As it thought, its perception gazing over the crumbling entranceway to the rest of the world and peering into the outside, it felt something click.
Quest Completed: Entrance formed! Distributing rewards¡
Finally the comforting status screen it instinctively knew the existence of the whole time opened up, and it could look over its stats to try and see just how itself and abilities were affected.
[Unnamed Rainbow Dungeon Core]
Level: 1
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Floors: 2* (NO NEW FLOORS GRANTED UNTIL LEVEL COUNT MATCHES FLOOR COUNT)
Core attunement: Unspecified
Dungeon Theme: Not Set; No Current Options Known
Mana: ERROR Mana density too low to build up!
Creatures: 0/0
Special Creatures: 0/0
Boss Creatures: 0/0
NOTE: SOME SKILLS LOCKED DUE TO INSUFFICIENT MANA DENSITY/LACK OF A THEME
Skills: Mana Generation (SPECIAL) (PASSIVE); Territory Manipulation (LOCKED); Domain Sight; Creation; Destruction; Absorption; Spatial Storage; Analysis (LOCKED); Knowledge of the Dead (x1)
Titles: Herald of The System
¡®Huh¡¡¯ The core couldn¡¯t help but speak to itself. Some things it already figured were the case and as such wasn¡¯t surprised by, like the fact it couldn¡¯t build up mana for its own use until it brought up the ambient mana levels. The lack of choices for the theme though were rather alarming when it looked into it. Without a theme it couldn¡¯t summon creatures or sculpt its territory. After all, what was the point of doing those when whatever theme that was chosen could make those previous actions pointless.
Trying to keep itself from spiraling, it starts looking through the rest of its domain trying to find something to help. Its search comes across two places of note, one on the first floor and one on the second. On the first floor it finds a broken down equipment setup partially caved in. There¡¯s shattered glass, twisted metal, charred wood, and spilled liquid stains everywhere. It doesn¡¯t even know where to begin with figuring out what happened there.
On floor two though, just a few rooms away from itself, there¡¯s a much odder discovery. The room features two piles of human corpses in various states of decomposition. How incredibly peculiar¡
Of course, it could recognize an opportunity when it sees one, and its special bonus skill could be utilized without it even needing to do anything! Combing through the bodies, the core looks for the most intact body present. Most of the corpses have decayed to the point there¡¯s only rotten flesh clinging to bones, but one body stands out to it. Namely, the weird, brightly colored albeit ruined yellow suit it¡¯s wearing and the fact the head, neck, and chest are mostly intact, though discolored and crawling with insects. It can¡¯t puzzle out what it¡¯s made from, but the cause of death is easy enough to figure since everything below the ribcage is just not there. Quite a brutal scene for anyone but a dungeon core.
Focusing on the corpse, it intones the unique skill it was given.
[Knowledge of the Dead consumed!]
[Copying knowledge¡ Done!]
[Discarding personal details¡ Done!]
[Downloading remainder¡]
And like that, it felt like a wave just crashed into it and it was being crushed under a mile of rock at the same time. So many concepts, names, general mythos of this world, and apparently ¡®best¡¯ way to make a ham sandwich all get crammed in at the same time. A literal deluge of what exactly the human knew of everything is, the name of, general ideas of how it was made, the basics of what everything is made of, and an idea of what exactly happened here too.
As quickly as the process starts, it ends. Only a few seconds have gone by but parsing through all that new information feels like it¡¯s been hours. Unfortunately the fact it wasn¡¯t a fresh corpse either meant there¡¯s plenty of holes left needing to be filled, and some tidbits got twisted to the point where it¡¯s blatantly false, like pineapple belonging on pizza (it doesn''t even know what pizza is and yet the information given to it stating so just feels so wrong on such a fundamental level it''s convinced such a combination is not meant to be), but otherwise plenty of knowledge ripe for use.
Taking a moment just to confirm, the core reopens its menu to check its skills.
[Unnamed Rainbow Dungeon Core]
Level: 1*
Floors: 2* (NO NEW FLOORS GRANTED UNTIL LEVEL COUNT MATCHES FLOOR COUNT)
Core attunement: Unknown
Dungeon Theme: Not Set; 4 Options Available (LOCKED UNTIL MANA DENSITY RAISES TO SUFFICIENT LEVELS)
Mana: ERROR Mana density too low to build up!
Creatures: 0/0
Special Creatures: 0/0
Boss Creatures: 0/0
NOTE: SOME SKILLS LOCKED DUE TO INSUFFICIENT MANA DENSITY/LACK OF A THEME
Skills: Mana Generation (SPECIAL) (PASSIVE); Territory Manipulation (LOCKED); Domain Sight; Creation (LOCKED); Destruction (LOCKED); Absorption (LOCKED); Spatial Storage (LOCKED); Analysis (LOCKED)
Titles: Herald of The System
Losing a skill never feels right, even if this is the first time that¡¯s happened in its life.
As it thinks, it realizes something else rather important. It had theme options! In its excitement it ignores the notification on the themes and just tries to open the menu repeatedly to no avail. This damn world and its damn lack of mana! All it wants is to function like a normal dungeon core, is that so much to ask!?
Grumbling, it starts looking over its domain once more, undoubtedly going to need to wait at least another day to start being a proper dungeon. With its new knowledge, it examines its sanctum, now recognizing the utility closet for what it was. It glares disdainfully at the corroded pipes and frayed wires, even more so at the junction box that simply fell off the wall, bits of concrete clinging to some of the still-intact bolts. This place was a mess and it certainly had its work cut out for it.
Returning its gaze outside of its sanctum, it goes over the whole complex once more with an even more critical eye, recognizing what rooms might¡¯ve been in the past now, and being not impressed with the numerous faded graffiti tags. The room on the second floor next to the stairs spoke of someone deliberately smashing the furniture, smashed planks and twisted bed frames clearly showing that rage fueled their destruction, not mere time.
As it looked over the first floor, it came across the partially collapsed room once more, and recognized it for what it was: A lab. More specifically, the ruined remains of a meth lab. A gods-damned illicit drug lab. It''s offended, not by the nature of what the lab was used for, but that fact that it was so incompetently used that the result destabilized the remains of the complex.
Now it was incensed. ¡®THOSE DAMNABLE HUMANS!¡¯ It howled to itself, recognizing some of the scorch marks poking out from behind the rubble as signs of the explosion''s origin, causing the collapse. Even if it wasn¡¯t here at the time, or having even been born yet for that matter, they still blew up its home! Already as a dungeon it knew it would have little trouble killing sentients, that''s just par for the course for dungeons, but this¡
This was unacceptable.
After taking a moment to calm down, but still simmering in rage, it looks over the damage it¡¯d need to repair. Frankly it can recognize that it got lucky, a quick dart of its perception through the floor bringing it face-to-face with a bowing ceiling, the rebar holding the crumbling concrete together being the only thing keeping the lower room from being caught in the collapse too.
Looking a little deeper, it could even find the smashed lower-half of the corpse that piqued its interest, still buried in the rubble. Pretty understandable considering it¡¯s less than an eighth of an inch thick.
When it fully calms back down, it looks over the rest, finding only some new small animal tracks that it couldn¡¯t identify near the entrance and some dead rat burrows, poisoned when the lab was functioning most likely, still holding the skeletal remains of their previous occupants.
Content with having found everything of note it could in the rooms and what little remains of the ventilation and pipe networks, it decides to do something most of its kind don¡¯t even get the chance to do. Moving all of its perception to the entrance, it gazes outside and simply watches, unable to do much more at this point.
Time starts to blur for it as the single yellow sun which brings warmth to this planet moves through the sky, eventually setting and its place being replaced by the planet¡¯s moon. Counting the seconds to busy its mind, it is quite peaceful gazing over the silent forest and quiet night sky. Well, silent in that it can¡¯t hear anything outside of its dungeon, not much it can do about that really until mana imbues the world.
Night passes and the day returns, the core continuing its counting as it still feels it hasn¡¯t quite filled its domain enough.
Hours later, its vision is filled with a new alert.
New Title Acquired: Timekeeper; Successfully keep track of time for a full day down to the exact second. Reward: Accurate clock which can be viewed at will.
Huh. It wasn¡¯t even trying for a title, merely wanting to busy itself. Still titles are titles, even if it didn¡¯t have much of a use for its reward. Getting more will always feel nice, it was sure of it.
SUFFICIENT MANA DENSITY ACCRUED: Unlocking dungeon functions.
Oh? OH! Fucking FINALLY! Now it can finally get down to doing what it was literally made to do in the first place: build its dungeon. Quickly it reopens its menu just to make sure it''s finally happening.
[Unnamed Rainbow Dungeon Core]
Level: 1*
Floors: 2* (NO NEW FLOORS GRANTED UNTIL LEVEL COUNT MATCHES FLOOR COUNT)
Core attunement: Unknown
Dungeon Theme: Not Set; 4 Options Available
Mana: 1/20; Regen: 1/hour
Creatures: 0/0
Special Creatures: 0/0
Boss Creatures: 0/0
NOTE: SOME SKILLS LOCKED DUE TO LACK OF A THEME
Skills: Mana Generation (SPECIAL) (PASSIVE); Territory Manipulation; Domain Sight; Creation (LOCKED); Destruction (LOCKED); Absorption; Spatial Storage; Analysis
Titles: Herald of The System; Timekeeper
YES! Now it could finally get down to business! Quickly its perception moves back to its core, traversing much quicker now, not having noticed before its sluggishness but now with its environment dense enough it is painfully obvious how delayed it was moving previously.
Eyeing its core, it is satisfied to see it now hovering in place, no longer bobbing. It is positively giddy now, and without delaying any further, it opens its theme options and begins to study them.
THE EVACUATION BUNKER: Originally meant to shelter the hapless when the worst came, a mix of poor management and infighting brought ruin to those it was meant to protect. Now nothing can be trusted in its depths. Anything can be a trap, and the souls left behind are well aware of that fact.
Starter creature: Skeletal Undead
THE MILITARY BUNKER: Originally meant to house soldiers and munitions ready to aid its people or defend their home, poor leadership and power struggles ended the protectors lives. Now its depths are roamed by creatures tougher and more capable in fights, and one whose bloodlust from the soldier¡¯s souls prevents them from listening to commands or fears while engaged.
Starter creature: Modern Living Armor
THE RESEARCH BUNKER: Originally used to research beings who never should¡¯ve been made, one test subject¡¯s escape brought death to the bright minds who inhabited it. Now all that advanced knowledge is used for, aside from smarter denizens, is much more complex devices. Complexity isn¡¯t without cost though, and as such the variety can get small.
Starter creature: Flesh Abomination
THE RELIC BUNKER: Its purpose lost to time, this bunker is nothing but a maze of underground ruins. Exploring such an old place must be done with care, lest the structure give way and turn the bunker into a tomb.
Starter creatures: Overgrown Mimics
NOTE: All theme choices have unique effects applied to the dungeon as a whole that will be revealed upon selection.
Decisions, decisions. Each theme has its specialty, and they all have their benefits/drawbacks. Admittedly the lack of options is annoying, but it¡¯ll make do with one of them. Now what to choose?
Evacuation Bunker clearly favored traps and supported more creatures. Research Bunker, though, favored fewer monsters in favor of higher quality creatures possibly capable of independent planning. Could be useful when its dungeon grows larger. Military Bunker sounded more suited to defense and fighting with potentially more effective options. After all it still wasn''t 100% sure on effective defense, but picking that theme would let the system hand craft local weapon and armor designs into its defenses. Finally, Relic Bunker sounded more rounded, with no real drawback or no boost to anything either that it could figure out from its description aside from making the bunker complex it now inhabits into even more of a deathtrap than it already is. Plus there were those effects it no doubt wouldn¡¯t figure out until it picks one of them, unfortunately.
It spends time pondering this choice, it is rather important after all and it won''t be able to change its mind later. Spending some time pondering weighing the pros and cons, it eventually comes to its decision as to what bunker dungeon it shall become.
Spring Cleaning and Initial Building
After a minute of thinking over its options, it disregards the Evacuation and Relic Bunker themes. traps can be bypassed if one knows what to look for after all, and it doesn''t really feel like caving in its own home as a defense method. Thus, it is left with a decision between the Military and Research Bunkers.
It''s a tough choice, both options are rather nice sounding. Eventually, however, it settles on its choice for theme.
''Research Bunker please.''
The core intones its choice, reality solidifying around it as its kaleidoscope of shifting colors adjusts slightly, gray becoming a little more prominent on it. It doesn''t really mind though. After all it''s just a slight cosmetic change, for now anyway.
The dungeon goes back to its status screen, eager to see the restrictions gone from its page.
[Unnamed Rainbow Dungeon Core]
Level: 1*
Floors: 2* (NO NEW FLOORS GRANTED UNTIL LEVEL COUNT MATCHES FLOOR COUNT)
Core attunement: Unknown
Dungeon Theme: Research Bunker
Mana: 2/20; Regen: 1/hour
Creatures: 0/2 (-50% Max Creature Count)
Special Creatures: 0/0
Boss Creatures: 0/0
Skills: Mana Generation (SPECIAL) (PASSIVE); Territory Manipulation; Domain Sight; Creation; Destruction; Absorption; Spatial Storage; Analysis
Titles: Herald of The System; Timekeeper
Ah, well, that''s a pain. Seems like it''s intuition was right, it''s getting fewer creatures to use. Oh well, time to get to work. This dungeon isn''t gonna fix itself after all, and all of its skills are available for use.
With it''s new theme, it gets to work using [Analysis] on every piece of debris left scattered around, watching the items decompose into little glowing motes of mana before that disappears as well and it absorbs just about everything of whatever item it analyzed. Broken chunks of concrete, frayed wire, smashed furniture, if it wasn''t nailed down or apart of the structure, the core ate all the details it could of the item.
Honestly, despite the rather, well, for lack of a better term, utter state of disrepair and destruction, it can admire some of the craftsmanship it''s seeing. Better than what it knows to be the more basic knowledge all dungeons are given when they are born. It thinks it''s going to like this new reality it finds itself on, despite not really having existed in any others before being placed in this one.
After a few hours, it''s already done cleaning up all the debris, shattered furniture, and decomposing corpses. The place is looking better already, now for the hard part: shoring up the walls and ceiling. First thing first, the caved-in room on the upper level. Getting all of its admittedly small mana pool and new-found knowledge of reinforced concrete ready, it starts rebuilding the ceiling. Already dried and set concrete and steel bars of rebar start to grow out of the edges of the hole, dirt shifting as it''s either shoved out of the way or transmuted into concrete and steel. Unfortunately, it turns out making concrete is a lot more mana intensive than it thought at first, its entire pool drying up in minutes. Well, this is going to take a while.
Inches at a time, it slowly mends the collapsed room, having to stop every few minutes for its mana pool to fill back up before resuming the process. After a few cycles of this, it ponders over a better way to go about this. Spending a few hours thinking it over, finally it decides to simply just build the rebar reinforcements first, then add the concrete once all the steel has been laid.
When its pool has refilled and the dungeon puts this new plan to action, progress is much more noticeable, steel carving through the dirt and stone, creating a lattice grid. A few parts even connect to the far wall which has been buried and is partially collapsed as well. Its gem bobs in contentment, happy at seeing the much more visible progress. Another full mana pool later, and the rebar has been laid in full, ready for the concrete to be added and for the gaping wound in its dungeon to be fixed. The concrete is still going to be wicked expensive though. Huh, wicked... That''s a new one, though it feels the word is fitting.
The following two weeks are spent slowly filling in the concrete, bit by bit encasing the steel rebar frame in a foot-thick layer of the special liquid stone. Finally, when the collapsed ceiling and wall are fully fixed, it sags in relief. Finally, it''s all patched up and it can clear out the dirt and debris. After taking a moment, it starts removing all the earth that filled the room, as with the hole patched it doesn''t need to worry about more pouring in. it may be magical but no newborn can support a mountain''s worth of material.
Once all the dirt, rock, and debris finishes dissolving into little motes of mana, it takes a minute to appreciate the new space, the room having doubled in size, the new concrete having a distinctly more clean appearance than its surroundings. The floor is still partially cratered though so it''s going to have to fix that too, alongside all the other slight structural weaknesses.
Carefully, the dungeon begins its most pressing fixes by dissolving the entire area of the floor that has been crushed. Then it moves to the floor below and shores up the ceiling, pushing the slightly bowing concrete back into place before fixing and reinforcing the damaged area. Once that''s done, it packs in the thin dirt layer between floors back to what it should be, no more than half-a-foot thick. The dirt is just over a single mana, the material literally dirt-cheap compared to the reinforced concrete. Finally, it spends another couple days replacing the floor, restoring the room to its former ''glory'' of being a bare room with nothing in it.
With the most pressing of the repairs complete, it moves on the more minor patches, filling in cracks and holes and replaces chunks that broke off the structure. This process is much faster, and once it''s done, the core is proud of its progress, finally ready to begin the much larger scale changes, building it to fit its theme. After all, choosing its theme let The System implant in its mind just how things should look and be roughly arranged, and its eager to get to work.
Quickly, it gets to work with its first room, building a reception room with a wood desk, some steel chairs with thin cushions, and a rug. It''s a rather cheap and simple design, but it gets the job done of a reception for now. It can''t afford to spend too long on just the entrance before adding defenses after all.
Next up, a trap! It looks over what traps are available to it. One is a snapped live high-voltage wire, pretty noticeable, but also incredibly lethal if one is distracted or if the wire is laying in water. There''s also ruptured pipes which can spew a liquid or gas either on an interval or set to a specific trigger, again, something useful to catch someone off guard. It''s third option was rather insidious, however. Rigging a vent to burst open and release a dozen rats would be very effective at terrifying and distracted the weak-willed, and could easily cause someone to stumble or fall into another trap or a monster. Of course, the rats wont be particularly strong, just able to claw and bite and run around a bit before disappearing into whatever nearby nook or cranny, but it''ll still see its uses most definitely.
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As a first trap, however, it decides to go simple, laying a live wire in a puddle about 3/4 as wide as the corridor, right behind the door. Just to make sure the water doesn''t disappear too, it builds a water pipe across the ceiling and has it constantly leak to refill the puddle. There, that''ll do as its first trap.
The corridor itself has some side rooms which will do nice for some extra set dressing, turning the small room on the left into a simple utility closet with some pipe valves and a junction box in place. These ones don''t work yet though until it gets the broken generator working though. It''s much more economical to have something else do the work after all and just use a little mana to keep it working rather than just use mana constantly to generate the electricity and water pressure.
Speaking of which, its next place to check is the generator room. There it looks over all the devices, wires, and machines for the first time, really absorbing the details, and figures its in over its head in fixing this stuff up. There is a lot of machinery here that it didn''t eat up since it was still mostly in one piece, or looked like it, but peering inside the metal bodies reveals just how poor the state of them is in, with what it thinks was a battery stack just having a half-melted interior it can''t even begin to decipher.
It figures it''d rather just cut its losses on that front, and dissolves what it presumes to have been a battery stack, letting The System decipher what it was supposed to be. Next, it moves onto the generator, the most intact machine present. It just needs to mend an axle and repair some gears, belts, and pistons before the diesel-powered machine is able to be turned over without sounding like its eating itself. Its fuel tank also still had enough diesel in it to let it learn how to make the fuel too so it wont run out. The diesel is still expensive though, just like the concrete.
Eager for its first floor to be coming together nicely, it moves to the large room and set up some bare office furniture, wood desks, bare steel chairs, some miscellaneous blank papers, and something new it was given. Waiting for its pool to refill, it summons an [Old Personal Computer System] at one of the desks, consuming half of its pool to create the delicate electronics on just the one object, and then hooking it up to the wiring in walls to power it, alongside some much cheaper to make lights in the rooms'' ceiling and along the hall too.
It adjusts the wiring, getting fed up with some of the buried cables and just pulling it all out of the walls so it can work easier. Routing the main power line from the generator and to the junction box in the utility closet, it then networks out three sets of wires, one for the hall lights, one for the room lights, and one for the computer itself. Getting giddy, it spins up the generator, watching the bulbs brighten everywhere and the computer even flicker on before all the lights, the monitor, and the junction box itself explodes in a shower of sparks and shrapnel. Uh oh...
It''s shocked by the sudden electrical explosions, and gets to work figuring what went wrong. It also snuffs the small fires out, it doesn''t need fire in it right now and it''s thankful it can willingly choose to not smell the effects. The shrapnel also gets cleaned up, it not needing the unnecessary mess right now.
Looking over, it can see the wires melted in several spots, the junction box is also partially melted, and the computer has been turned to worthless slag and will need to be fully replaced. It winces at that last part, remember how costly making it was. Thinking, it tries to ponder just what happened before stumbling across the answer in one of the other machines in the generator room that it didn''t bother with at first, just glancing over it. Looking over it now, it realizes it''s actually the remains of what probably used to be a rather robust transformer system. Obvious in hindsight consider the generator is absolutely massive. There''s no way it can restore the device fully though, but it''ll have to do something as without a transformer, the generator may just simply cause whatever it''s hooked up to to blow up, admittedly not the worst outcome as it can still use the explosions, but it wont be able to control them as well so it wants to remedy that.
It dives in, looking over the scrap as best as it can to figure what it did before it dissolves the pile, clearing the space. It soon learns there was a lot more copper in it than it first appeared, probably from it rusting, and it knows transformers have a lot of copper in them so its sure it was right with it having used to be a transformer. Using its limited knowledge on the subject, it builds a basic but pretty decently large transformer, wrapping copper around a rod of pure iron 2 feet long, repeating the process, then attaching the two rods together using 3-foot rods to make a rough rectangle. Mounting the creation on the wall, the system rewards its efforts with the blueprint of a [Ramshackle Large Electrical Transformer].
Rude... but fitting.
It spends another day mending all the faults and damage from its previous experiment with electricity, then attaching the generator to the transformer before attaching that to the junction box. Now, time for the moment of truth. The generator spins up, bolts of electricity arc on the exposed transformer, and the lights turn on without blasting into pieces. Success!
As if the system has been watching it solely, its receives a notification.
''Congratulations! For creating a functional electrical grid, basic upkeep of electrical items, lights, and traps will be removed while the grid is functional and if connected to it! New trap options unlocked.''
Huh, it didn''t even realize the things had an upkeep, then again nothing was on except for a single sparking wire so it''s sure it can be excused for not noticing. Looking back on it, the one wire trap did require 1 mana every day, so it''s still nice to be able to remove that requirement.
Looking over its new achievement, it spies the new options on its transformer and junction box.
''Junction Box: Rig to explode if tampered with? Will disable electrical supply to attached objects.''
''Ramshackle Large Electrical Transformer: Rig to explode violently if tampered with? Will disable electrical grid.''
Metaphorically shrugging, it enables both options, noting a new mark on them labelling them as trapped visible only to itself. There, now it''s extra secure.
Moving on, it gets to work on pipes and the water pump, having a pair of pipes run down the length of the corridor hanging from the ceiling, and bringing them to the room where the water pump is. fixing the pump is much easier than the electrical system, simply replacing some gears, pistons, and valves, and fixing the pipes and attaching them to the small network, and a water tank, for now anyway. It''ll figure out some kind of flooding trap later. It also hooks the pump up to the grid, letting it actually work when the time comes.
The system is pretty simple, water gets pumped out of the tank, goes down the length of the corridor, goes through the utility closet, then goes right back into the tank. It''s just there more for atmosphere than anything else right now.
Finally, it''s time for the ventilation system. Nothing fancy, just a simple network of ducts with the main duct hanging from the middle of the corridor ceiling, going through reception, then connecting to the already existing exterior vent access. Each room also has a single vent in it near the ceiling. There, now the air can move easier.
With the basics complete for the first floor, it finishes up, adding some more lights before hooking them into the grid, and building up the office some more, adding more furniture, some lockers in a corner, and finally building a barricade in the corridor so anyone entering has to entire the office from one side and exit through the other door to continue deeper. This room truly is shaping together nicely for a first proper encounter.
As it works, another welcome development occurs.
''First floor sufficiently built up! Lab rats will now passively spawn and roam the first floor.''
A large specimen of a rat appears and starts to simply scurry around, sticking to the shadows. It observes the little critter, noting how unhealthy it looks, with a sickly gait and glossed over eyes though rather ferocious looking teeth and claws. A good little denizen is what it is. Surely, they''ll make for nice ambience, plus it doesn''t need to feed them either so no loss in its mind with the rats'' initial showing.
Anyway, no more distractions, time for the first abomination!
Flesh Abominations
The dungeon focuses, excited to get started on creating its first proper defender. As soon as it has enough mana, it summons its very first flesh abomination in the office room. Mana swirls and coalesces for almost 30 seconds, the monster''s form taking shape in glowing light before the glow suddenly dims, revealing the form of the beast it has created all on its own.
It is a brutal looking creature, bearing no skin and with a somewhat humanoid shape. Its exterior is coated in all muscles and bone, and its form is massive. Built kind of like a gorilla, it stands at least 7ft tall, the monster''s torso and arms bulging with muscles, its chest sporting a protective casing of exposed and enlarged reinforced ribs, its bloody skull also exposed, though it doesn''t really have a neck so it can''t turn its head around much. The arms are similar, each barreled appendage wider than a man''s waist, its hands similarly enlarged. It wont be doing much more than open palms and closed fists, but a hulking beast like this wont need to. Finally, the legs. They aren''t nearly as impressive as its arms, but do get the job done. Strong enough to support its weight and move around, but not much more than that. Clearly, dexterity and agility aren''t this monster''s strong suits.
All-in-all, the core is rather satisfied with this specimen of an abomination. Although the head is an exposed weak point, with a comically undersized head and a slightly stronger human skull housing the brain, one strong bash to its cranium would probably do it in, however it would be incredibly shocked if anyone could manage that feat easily and without harm. It has quite a reach, height, and strength advantage over normal men, so it would take a monster of a human to best it in melee combat with no humans yet integrated into The System. Or someone could get lucky with a ''gun'' it has a vague awareness of, but it''s pretty sure arrows and bullets wont manage to do much to its creature, its vitals rather well protected.
Thinking about it, its also mostly sure this monster''s strength is thanks to the theme it chose of Research Bunker too. No way would a similar specimen in a different theme be even on a comparable level. Although it was a bit more expensive than it was expecting too. Oh well, its theme is decided. No changing the past.
Returning its awareness to its monster, it watches in satisfaction as the creature looks around the room its found itself in. As it watches, it notices an option become available for its abomination.
''Turn room into arena?''
Huh... It was not expecting monster arenas so soon. Usually that''s reserved for boss creatures, although this monster is intended to remain in this room so it can see why it''s been given the option to create one so soon. Plus, it''s a special dungeon so it''s probably also a perk of that too just generally speeding things up for itself. Either way though, it''ll take it.
Accepting the prompt, it watches its beast suddenly tilt its head before getting to ''work'' by smashing the furniture to bits. The dungeon can''t help but metaphorically wince at the smashing of so much mana and so many hours going down the drain. Also its nature of not having skin also causes its to splatter blood around the room, giving it a more grisly appearance, which is a nice bonus.
Leaving the abomination to its carnage, it instead focus on the door to the stairwell, knowing its has got to lock it somehow to prevent people just rushing around the lumbering but admittedly slow defender. Locking the door is easy enough, but it can''t lock a door without a key, and what it should make the key is what makes it pause to think. It could do something like a keycard but that has the problem of it not really knowing how to make one. Sure it knows it involves magnetism but it doesn''t know how to make it work. Plus a simple keycard is fragile. That wont do. It could do a simple key, but that''s rather uninspired, plus it can be bypassed by just picking the lock. It''ll do that if it can''t think of anything else, but for now, plotting.
Let''s see... There''s hand or retina scanners but again it has no clue how to make a proper one, or how to even make the ''key'' for that work right with either a severed hand or eye. Either way, that''s out until The System gives it the needed information to make it work. Back to the drawing board.
Perhaps a simple life monitor will suffice? After all it''s easy enough for a dungeon to monitor the lives of those inside of it, even more so of its own creations. It''ll be simple enough to put up a facade of one on the door, although it''ll probably be pretty expensive. Besides, it already has the ability to do so anyway, its just going to need to put a bit more effort into this to make it look good or at least look natural.
With that settled, its rather simple for it to link the stairway door''s lock to its abomination''s life. With that done, it can also feel an outline for how it should make the lock appear, and waits around to refill its mana fully before adhering to that outline, spending a hefty 15 mana overall on the lock.
With the basics done, it looks back in the office, now thoroughly ruined and filled with shattered debris and with a much calmer abomination standing proudly in the middle of the carnage. Its beasts'' heavy fists have even left hairline fractures in the concrete in places, a clear feat to its sheer brute force. The edges of the room are filled with the smashed remnants of desks and computers in varying states of violent deconstruction, and the twisted remains of chairs scattered in as well. The core uses its abilities to gently nudge a somewhat cleared path to the two doors to allow challengers to actually gain access to the room. Finally, it clears a small spot in the far corner of the room from the entrance where it proceeds to create a set of a few steel lockers to house loot in. No good fight goes without reward when its over.
Setting the lockers as loot chests, it watches as the previously pristine metal quickly tarnishes, dents, and rips in a few spots in order to better blend in, alongside breaking the locks so the lockers cant actually lock, then the loot spawns in two of the still usable lockers. In one spawns a steak MRE pack and a spaghetti MRE pack, and in the other spawns a box of 9mm bullets and a box of 12 gauge birdshot slugs. An interesting spawn if nothing else, but its not sure how well that loot will be figured as in this world. At least The System gave it something to use as loot so mercifully it didn''t need to think about that.
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Done fully with the first floor now, it ''steps'' back to admire its handiwork before finalizing the floor fully with it having met The Systems requirements for a finished floor.
''Floor finalized. Locking future expansions, Monster respawn and damage reversal set.''
There, done. Before its sight it watches as weathering, aging, and other miscellaneous cosmetic details are applied the whole of its first floor, making everything seem like natural with its theme of abandonment and decay. Luckily it can still upgrade things, it just cant redesign or expand its entrance outside of its set path. Sure it''s not a long first floor, but it is the first, so it''s not meant to be a hike to get through. When The Systems'' modifications are done, the place almost doesn''t look the same despite nothing having had moved from where it was originally.
''Theme application done.''
With everything done, it admires how its entrance looks now, admiring the handiwork of its creator. It''s as if the place aged decades in minutes, with cobwebs, faded paint, dust accumulation, and even a bloodied handprint or two all present in just the entrance room alone. The rest of the floor is more of the same, except with more bloody patches closer to the stairs one gets. Even the barricade it made in the hall has been improved, with sturdier metal furniture replace some of the more fragile wooden ones, and patches of rust acting like weak welds helping with holding everything together. Truly it''s beginning to fit its theme proper.
it takes a moment more to admire its first floor before moving down to the second floor to continue building itself up. There, left with mostly bare rooms and a simple layout of an L-shaped hallway with some branching areas, the room holding its core at the end of the hall right next to a long-since collapsed staircase leading to further buried floors. First, more defenses.
First, it''s time to create its second defender, another abomination. It builds up a new body, this one seeming much more lithe and lanky than its initial creation and yet costing the same. When the process is done, its new flesh abomination it quite the unique sight compared to its brethren. Standing almost 10ft tall upright and with arms long enough to leave its knuckles dragging along the floor, it has quite the reach. Yet, its only a fraction as strong and wide as the first, although still sporting more strength than the average human. It''s also missing any skin it could possess. Instead, its much more nimble, flexible, and reactive, needing a fraction of the time to react to stimuli as compared to the brute on the upper floor.
Hit with a stroke of inspiration, it quickly builds up the ventilation system, expanding them wide enough that a skinny human could fit through them, the expanded ducts act as a perfect ambush and relocation method for its more fragile defender to use like an ambusher. These vents are also left untrapped.
Materializing some heavy furniture, it barricades the room on the inside of the hallway, blocking up both doors and keeping them from being opened from the hall itself, requiring one to use the vents if they want to access the room. Then, it materializes more furniture inside, making the place more into a security office. It also ups the strength of the doors so they can''t just be broken down, making them out of heavy steel.
Next, putting a lock on its sanctum''s door. This time, it goes with a remote lock, wiring it to a simple lever in the security office on the wall. The lock itself is some heavy steel rods in the doors that are spring loaded so when the door is closed they are forced down into divots in the floor, forcing the door to remain closed. When one activates the lever, the divots rise, pushing the rods out of the floor and allowing the door to open, albeit scrapping the rods on the floor causing plenty of noise. Still, its a strong lock so it doesn''t need to worry about someone prying the door open with just sheer brute strength unless they match its abominations in might, which in that case it has bigger issues.
Now then, time to finish furnishing the floor. Firstly, it finishes up with the security office, adding some more loot lockers to it. This time there''s only one holding loot, that being a loaded and operational M1 Garand rifle. Huh, maybe someone will want that but it thinks its a poor weapon due to its wooden body.
Onto the next biggest room right next to the entrance to the floor. This room it figures should be a break room. It gets to work with simple wooden furniture, cushions on the chairs, a potted plant in the corner, and a smashed and empty vending machine that doesn''t work. Some solid progress if it does say so.
As it finishes the break room, it also realizes something its almost overlooked: security cameras! It''s spent all that mana on monitors and it hasn''t even put up the cameras to connect them to! Not that they''ll be functional, but hey, dungeons needs a solid atmosphere if they want to truly stand out and attract delvers. No one wants to fight for their lives in a barren, empty hole in the ground after all. To properly set up the atmosphere, it needs every item to be clear in its purpose and to not miss obvious oversights like that.
Quickly it gets to work, putting a camera up in every room aside from the closets, and two in every hall. There, that''ll do for placement. Luckily minor adjustments like that aren''t forbidden by The System in finished floors.
With the cameras in place, it looks them over and makes sure they''re in good spots just in case. They don''t work because it doesn''t know how to make them work, but it''s sure that''s fine for now. Time to move onto the other rooms. For the final unused large room on the second floor, it figures locker room of some kind will work, although this one won''t be the loot spawning variety. Can''t be making things too easy on the delvers now can it?
As it works on simply filling the room with narrow wooden benches and steel lockers in a variety of conditions, its newest abomination pokes its head out of a smashed vent grate on top of the wall furthest from the door. ''Good,'' the core thinks to itself, ''it''s exploring the vents. Hopefully it''ll figure out the best ambush spots on its own, it''s always nice when a core doesn''t need to micromanage ones defenders it''s sure. It can''t really check that thought but it''s sure it''s accurate.
Next up, another utility closet in the only remaining room on the floor. This one is dedicated to ventilation though, and is larger than the one on the first floor. It''s not entirely sure how to set it up fully, instead just building a furnace, an AC, and some ductwork to connect them to the already existing system. Altogether, it''s a rudimentary attempt at an HVAC system. The AC doesn''t work, but it thinks it did well on the furnace. That one works, at evident by a brief test run. Except it realizes it built the exhaust into the ventilation system itself. Oops... It''s just gonna leave that off now. If someone turns that on then they can deal with the consequences of flooding the top two floors with toxic smoke. Hey, it''s an accidental trap, there, justified.
Moving on, time to go over some more of the traps and furniture. This floor is almost complete and then after that it''s just a waiting game for delvers. Might be awhile on that front though since it''s pretty sure it''s been several months since the creation of its dungeon and it hasn''t seen a hint of delvers out at the entrance. Just wilderness and the occasional wild animal poking their head in before scampering off to wherever they want to.
Meanwhile
Jasper National Park, Alberta, Canada
Jonathan Bant was clocking into his shift as a janitor and mechanic at the local administrative office of Jasper National Park. He''s a simple man of average build and height, a slight potbelly from a new bar that opened with some of the best burgers and beer he''s had in Canada. Today''s not too special of a day expect for those in law enforcement as it''s the one year anniversary of a massive drug bust from a joins US-Canada operation to squash a drug cartel starting to take root in the Southwestern Canadian provinces. He''s pretty sure, from what rumors he''s overheard as well as the news, that the team got lucky as a convoy holding the cartel''s head honchos was apparently just driving down the highway through the park when an American agent on break recognized the cars and called it in, leading to a pursuit and gunfight that ended quickly when a log truck had a tire blow from a stray bullet and jack-knifed right into the speeding convoy, stopping it as logs flew out of the trailer and buried the cars. Frankly, Jon feels like that this was a moment that almost felt like it''d fit in on Final Destination 2, but he''s not gonna complain about the outcome.
Stepping into the office, he can see a light celebration underway, with a couple extra boxes of donuts out and some of the folks who were a part of the taskforce in some way getting some pats on their backs. Nothing crazy, he''ll just take a donut or two though.
Jon''s not focusing on his coworkers however. He''s instead focusing on what''s coming after his shift. A couple of treasure seekers, including himself, say that there''s a cache the cartel left behind in a hideout they made in Jasper National Park full of riches the government hasn''t found yet. It''s a pretty tall tale and not many believe it, but he''s sure there''s something left behind. After today, he''ll have the weekend to himself to scour the one area he hasn''t checked yet, the Rockies. Jon''s been putting this off as long as possible since he''s no climber, but he''s had no luck anywhere else in the park. He''ll handle it though. Not like he''s got any plans to take on Mt. Robson.
It''s Sunday, and Jon still hasn''t had any luck yet at all! He''s been scouring the base of the mountain range, exploring caves and canyons as best he can without scaling cliff faces or steep rock piles. He''s starting to get frustrated he won''t find anything again. Unless his goal has just been buried in the middle of nowhere, it''s got to be in one of the caves. At least he doesn''t need to deal with mice and rats though, that''d be a pain.
Spending hours hiking along the mountain range, he''s ready to call it in for the day until something spots his eye. Pulling out his binoculars, he scans the landscape until he finds what stuck out to him. There, atop a small bit of ground and shrouded in trees is a bit of concrete and steel reflecting in the moonlight. All of Jonathan''s previous frustrations evaporate as he starts to get giddy. This has to be it. He''s almost ready to run to it until he looks at the ground and spots a problem. There''s a canyon stretching in front of what he''s spotted. His heart sinks as he runs forward, huffing as he looks over the edge and spots a pile of rotting wood at the bottom. Damn, seems like there was a bridge but its collapsed. He can''t see any way to reach the other side either without some specialized gear which he doesn''t has. Shit...
Marking the area on his map, Jon turns back, determined to come back next week ready to get across. Of course, he can afford to gloat a little bit on the forum as long as he doesn''t reveal any detail about where he''s going.
Finally, he''s back. it''s put a bit of a dent in his savings, but this could all make up for it and more. Go Pro on his helmet set to record, he pulls out the longest ladder he could buy at his local hardware store. It''s been hell to drag it through the forest, but for some reason it felt slightly easier after awhile. Maybe he just figured out how to ignore the soreness, he doesn''t really care.
Extending the ladder to its full height, he grunts as he lifts it up vertically before letting it drop on the other side, the end hitting the far ledge and the whole ladder shaking as it rings from the impact. Jumping on it, Jon weighs it down, settling it before making sure it''s secure and then carefully crawling across, taking it slow and steady as he does his best not to look down.
Soon enough, Jon makes it across. The man hugs the ground, kissing the dirt and enjoying being back on stable land, ignoring how he''d have to do it again to go back the way he came. Looking back up, he shakily climbs back to his feet and pushes through the underbrush, his body shivering, he figures in excitement, as an old bunker entrance comes into view.
''Bingo,'' he thinks, a wide smile growing on his face, ''This has to be it! A bunker!'' He''s so excited he doesn''t even think, jumping to his feet and rushing ahead, gripping the slightly rusted door in front of him. It''s a heavily rusted one, but it seems to be more of a hatch and not a pneumatic-powered one like on a more modern fallout shelter which is good for him cause he can''t see a way to open it otherwise from the outside. Plus it''s already slightly ajar, just enough for a small rabbit to fit he thinks.
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Bracing his foot on a solid-looking part of the concrete frame, Jon grabs the handle and heaves. He grunts as his muscles strain, the rusted steel squealing as inch-by-inch, the door is opened more and more. Gradually, he makes headway, jaw clenching until he hears something snaps and then promptly finds himself flat on his ass.
Taking a moment, dazed from the sudden drop, he gets giddy again, seeing the door now almost fully open. Climbing back to his feet, he clenches and unclenches his fists, trying to work the soreness out of them from gripping the handle so hard. Seems he broke the rust off the hinges, he didn''t even know he was strong enough to manage that before!
Stepping forward towards the darkness, he pulls out his flashlight to illuminate the space and then pauses as he hears something whirr up in the distance followed by the lights turning on, albeit flickering and dimly. That... shouldn''t have happened... Is there someone there? There couldn''t be surely? Just a simple look around shows a layer of dust on everything, and the door was practically sealed shut!
Listening closer, he can hear the whirring from deeper within. Sounds like one of those portable generators from Home Hardware except scaled up. Okay... something is definitely off... generators don''t just turn on in abandoned bunkers without someone being present to turn them on. He''s sincerely tempted to turn around right then and there, but if he does then he''s going to be a laughing stock if people hear he found nothing, and he''ll be even more humiliated if someone else stumbles across this place and it turns out the treasure was inside and he missed it because he lost his nerve.
Taking a deep breath, he steels himself and steps in, taking a closer look around and finding the initial room to be some kind of entrance or welcoming area. There''s no clear signage about just what this place was, but the receptionist-looking desk is probably as good of a place to start as any other, seeing as how he can''t see any cabinets or drawers anywhere else. Rifling through the drawers, he is more unnerved how empty they are, finding only dust and cobwebs.
"Creepy as shit..." He mutters to himself, turning around looking at the only other door in the room dead center in the wall opposite to the entrance. It''s just a door, it shouldn''t be freaking him out this much and yet it is. Grabbing the handle, he forces himself to push it open and freezes when he looks into the hall. What gave him pause, was the the furniture barricading the corridor? The dry and faded reddish-brown stains on the walls and floor? The snapped live wire arcing electrical sparks? No, it''s none of those. Instead it''s the single, sickly-looking rat sitting on its haunches, looking as startled as a rat can at his appearance.
Jon''s mind races, as this is the first time in a decade he''s seen a rat, and as any self-respected Albertan can, quickly thinks about how to kill this tiny furry menace instead of hunting for the treasure. He makes the first move, and the rat squeals as it darts away quicker than it seemingly should be able too, running into a nearby vent way too small for him to even consider reaching an arm in. Damn, now he''s definitely going to need to report this place when he gets back to civilization.
Shaking his head, he looks up, taking in the rest of the corridor. There''s only two other doors he can reach, with the sight of the barricade making him pause again. It doesn''t look the most stable, but he''s sure that that has to be proof the cartel was here and there''s probably a way around it.
Turning to the door on his right first, he walks forward, carefully stepping around the puddle before opening the room up, seeing nothing but a small closet. Damn, that''s pretty... underwhelming. There''s literally nothing here except for some pipe valves and a junction box. Opening the thing up shows how much he doesn''t want to touch it anymore, the protective plate missing and the box itself sporting a mix of fuses and breaker switches seemingly at random. Yeah... he''s definitely just going to step away from that and try not to have nightmares about how close he came to electrocuting himself like an idiot.
Walking across the hall, he moves to the only other door still closed and slowly opens it, trying not to wince as the squeaky hinges squeal on him. Nothing happens though, and he sees the room to be much bigger, which is good, and also filled with smashed, shattered, twisted, and scattered debris, which is not good.
As he looks around, he is deafened when he hears something roar, the noise enough to make his ears bleed, and is almost knocked over as the floor suddenly shakes. Eyes snapping forward, he spots something straight out of the nightmares of humanity, a bloodied, skinless beast rushing him. His heart drops as fear takes over.
He screams, hands coming up in a futile attempt to defend himself before a massive fist slams into his midsection, breaking almost every single one of ribs simultaneously alongside his spine, and rupturing most of his vital organs too. If that wasn''t enough to kill him instantly, getting flung headfirst across and hall and into the junction box, the thing detonating into sparks and slagged shrapnel certainly finishes the job.
Jonathan Bant''s smoking, perforated, and pulverized corpse lays there on the ground in front of the now detonated junction box, a look of pain and fear frozen onto his face with the floor plunging into darkness once more. Watching it all, stunned from the sudden brutality and ease at which the human died, is the dungeon.
Aftermath
Delver Killed! 5XP Rewarded
''Well... That just happened...''
The core thinks to itself as it looks over the charred remains of the first human to have found it. If it could put that human''s performance to words, it would be shockingly, almost insultingly disappointing. Not because the human died, no, that just a part of dungeons. No it''s practically ashamed of its first delver for how pitiful they were in it, not even putting up a fight for his life and dying in a single hit. The System even acknowledges this failure of a delver by only rewarding it 5XP for the death when it knows sapients should normally reward twice that for death if they were actually worth something. Maybe it''s just a caveat of the planet not being integrated yet, but then again that human could''ve just been that pathetic. If that human''s XP worth is the benchmark for this planet then The System really has their work cut out for them. At least his corpse will fuel further growth.
Putting aside the rest of its emotions, it absorbs the corpse and everything on it, cleaning up the mess left behind and restoring everything to how it was. Next it starts sorting through the objects the human had on him, appreciating the somewhat quality, albeit as far as it knows cheap, craftsmanship of them, figuring it can use them to refine future levels. Inspecting the electronics, it also studies how they work, taking its time to see how it ticks.
Spending almost a full day inspecting every circuit and wire in the cellphone alone, as well as another day on the flashlight and tools, it thinks it has a better grasp of more fine nonmagical circuitry, wiring, and lighting. First things first, Renovating the junction boxes! It realizes now they might be a little too shoddily put together and figures it can make them look like they actually were built properly now. After that, it''s going to work on the cameras, try to get them actually functional instead of just looking nice.
Meanwhile at Jasper National Park
Angela is sitting in her 2007 Toyota Corolla, nervously biting her fingernails. John was supposed to have been in today, and the man is nothing if not diligent. He almost never misses work, and the one time he did after breaking a finger from having it crushed by a paint can didn''t keep him out long as he was in the next day with a cast on his finger. Now he''s missed the past two days he should''ve shown without as much as a text and she''s worried for her friend. Taking a minute to calm her nerves, telling herself he probably just lost his phone, she calls the local non-emergency number and asks for a welfare check at his home. Telling herself it''s all fine, she gets out of her car and heads back into the office, ready to end her lunch break.
1 Week Later
Finally, it works! It has taken quite a bit of trial and error, and some reverse engineering from the circuit boards in the computer template it''s got, but finally it got an actual live feed going to the security room from one of the second floor cameras. Now to duplicate that a dozen times to hook the rest in.
...
This is going to take awhile isn''t it? Sigh... Well, time to get to work then...
Meanwhile at an Undisclosed Warehouse
"God fucking dammit!" A burly American yells as he slams a fist onto the weathered plastic folding table, almost breaking part of it. He is absolutely incensed.
"B-Boss, listen, we don''t-" A nervous, and noticeably smaller in size Canadian national crook starts to stammer out before being cut off by the aformentioned table being thrown to the side, crashing against the wall and scattering everything on it. Damn, there was 10 grand in loose cash there, and he''s probably going to made to pick it all up and then count it again.
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"YOU DON''T WHAT?! YOU DON''T REALIZE WE MISSED A GODDAMN STASH WHEN CLEANING UP AFTER LAST YEAR''S FIASCO?! FUCK!" The American yells, punching the wall behind him and putting his fist through the drywall. He takes a moment to calm down somewhat, thinking over everything''s thats happened. After the decapitation strike that caused the feds to get all of their gang''s head members either shot dead or killed in vehicle wrecks, everything''s been a mess. He''s currently holed up in their Vancouver headquarters, using a hidden basement beneath a shell truck company warehouse.
It took less than 3 months for the various cartels and smaller gangs back home to cannabalize their holdings and turf, a feat made easy when the traitor sold addresses to their rivals. They''ve lost everything back in the US, and are only holding together in what little holdings they''ve gathered in Canada. He cut off that rat-bastard''s limbs before throwing his screaming soon-to-be corpse into an abandoned quarry, figuring that sent a message to whoever''s not dead.
When he took control in the power struggle, he cleaned house, removing everyone who had disloyalties, then worked to claw their way back to the limelight, slowly working to take control over Western Canada. Thank god their main supplier is still in business, so he''s not completely screwed yet. It helped that there were several drug and cash stashes left around that they could collect to help rebuild. He thought they got them all but APPARENTLY they missed one.
Pinching the bridge of his nose, he faces the quivering underling. "Tell me, where is the asshole?" He commands with a gruff voice.
The Canadian, shking only slightly, readies to respond. That''s a feat the two enforcers also in the room can be impressed by, most low-levels usually are giving a panic attack by the American''s rage. "He-... He''s some nobody janitor at the Jasper National Park ranger''s office... Apparently he disappeared a week ago-" Anything further is cut off by his windpipe being crushed in signle fist by the mountain of a man in front of him.
The American is absolutely dripping in bloodlust now. "You''re telling me, some fucking janitor found MY MONEY and just fucking DISAPPEARED!? GOD FUCKING DAMMIT!" His rage is back in full force now. "THAT BASTARD COULD BE IN GODDAMN COSTA RICA BY NOW!"
He throws the burgalar throw the door and out into the dank hallway. The Canadian is just thankful to not have any broken bones, but he can tell he''s going to be out of commission for a week. Suddenly a boot is planted on his chest before he can get up.
"What. Is. The. Bastard''s. Name?" The American says, each word dipping with venom. The Canadian can barely studder out the answer. "Jon-... Jonathan... Bant..." He gasps out.
The boss looks over to whoever else is present, yelling so everyone in the building can hear. "FIND ME THAT BASTARD JONATHAN BANT! WHOEVER GETS ME MY MONEY, OR THE INFO WHERE IT IS, GETS A BONUS! NOW FUCKING MOVE!" He commands, being met with a mix of ''Yes sirs'' and scampering feet. He is a brutal gang head, but he also makes sure to pay enough to ensure loyalty and zipped lips. He would hate for a repeat of before after all. Stingy bastards.
Later at the Dungeon
There, done. The camera network is fully functional. It does more than just look pretty though. The lanky abomination can use it to see how the delvers will be or where they are, or if a delver finds it, so see where other monsters are. A double-edged sword but one it thinks will be fine.
Now, improvement time. First, it reviews the junction boxes, looking over how they look. It does admit the part that actually matters, the functional part, is rather haphazard and could use improvements. First, organization. It starts rearranging the switches and fuses, making some neat rows, which also allow it to fit more in there. With two neat columns of breakers and a row of fuses along the bottom, it can feel the blueprint update, giving it easy access to update the rest present. Would''ve been nice to use for the cameras but admittedly they aren''t of good enough quality yet to warrant that yet. Hell, the feeds are barely black and white.
When the rest are upgraded, it figures now it''ll work better at tricking unwary delvers. After all it''s gotta kill at least one of them that way as intended before it feels good about trapping them.
Meanwhile at Jasper National Park
It''s been official for awhile now. Jon''s gone.
Well, not dead, just missing. Angela doesn''t feel better about that though. It''s been over 2 weeks. She''s spent enough time around law officials to know that at this point and with no word from Jon or potetial kidnappers that he''s almost as good as dead.
God... She does sincerely hope he''s ok, but she thinks it''s time for her to take some time off to mourn. He was a good friend, she thinks. He wasn''t the most sociable person but he wasn''t a dick either.
Today though, it''s just another day at the office. Hopefully she can get through it fine, but the tear on her cheek and more somber mood in the air says otherwise.
Proper Discovery
This day is going pretty piss-poor. Mostly because of the weather. There''s a cold snap rolling through, it''s raining, and he''s in the middle of a forest looking for a probably empty cache to hopefully find something. Andy grumbles to himself, clutching the Walkie-Talkie in his grip as he shivers. Right now, he''d love nothing more than to be back in Vancouver, sitting in his apartment next to a space heater running full blast and with a jambuster and some KD. The wet socks are of no help either, squishing with every step. Frankly, his only saving grace right now is the weather keeping all the bugs off of him. Plus somehow they haven''t gotten any attention from the local mounties either so that''s good too.
Suddenly, the radio crackles to life as one of the other members searching this forest speaks into it. Quickly, Andy brings it to his ear to listen in, hoping it''s not some hoser being a dumbass and radioing in just to complain to literally everyone else who can hear them. That got old quick after the first few times. Lucky for him, it''s not someone complaining for once. Seems someone actually found something.
Crrk! "Hey! Uh... I think... might''ve found something eh? Found a hidden valley in the mountains and there''s a ladder going across it, didn''t cross it yet, just wanted to ask if any of yous set it there." The voice states. After nothing but denials of anyone having put it there, Andy starts to get a little excited. They might''ve finally found something. Finally, one of the heads asks where the original caller is so a couple of the others can get to him and help him check out the area.
"Uh... not too sure, I don''t think this mountain is named eh. I''m between Mt. Columbie and Hamber so if you reach one of those then you''ve gone too far eh. It''ll be tricky to spot the opening so keep your eyes wide as well eh." Andy thinks over that location, realizing it''s basically on the other side of the highway that cuts through the middle of the park to him so he just shrugs and starts to trek back to his car, thinking about the two-four he''ll be grabbing so him and some of the others can unwind after this boring day. Sure it''s a little early to call it now but it''s getting late anyway and no one wants to search a forest at night.
After about 15 minutes of walking, Andy''s radio crackles to life again. A different voice is talking this time. "Jesus Murphy! we just pushed past some brambles on the other side and there''s a whole bunker here! Door''s ajar, eh? We think our little mouse might''ve been here!" They call out, followed by a lieutenant responding, telling them to check the inside while he heads over there with some others. Andy clips his radio to his belt, leaving it on so he doesn''t need to carry the thing since he''ll clearly have nothing to say. Better to keep it on though incase he needs to hear something.
Andy just continues walking back to his car when his heart drops at the sight of it. There stands a pair of mounties next to his car which was currently in the process of being loaded on a flatbed. In his negligence, he parked partially on a pedestrian pathway, so he''s pretty sure why they''re loading it up. At least, that''s the case until he notices someone decided to smash it up as well, the windows shattered and tires slashed.
"Oh shit!" Andy says, hands on his head as he walks up to the remains of his care. Sure it wasn''t a nice car but it was his.
One of the mounties looks up at him. "You''re car then, eh?" He asks, sticking his thumb towards the car. Andy nods, wordless. "Well at least we got one of the vehicles owners then," the mountie continues to his partner before turning back to Andy. "We caught some teens smashing up vehicles in this lot for fun. They probably thought no one would catch them but we did, so you don''t need to worry about-" The mountie is cut off by the walkie on Andy''s hip suddenly crackling to life.
"Fuck yeah! This looks like the place that Bant bastard might''ve found! There''s some gear here with his name on it, eh. Wonder why he left it eh?" Now both mounties are looking at Andy with rapt attention, the man starting to tremble under their intense gazes.
"Did that walkie just mention finding Bant?" "It did." "And he''s not a cop?" "Nope." "Right..." They speak to each other. "You are coming with us to answer some questions. Understand, eh?" One of them tells him. Andy just gulps.
"This is Officer Cois. Just got a lead on Jonathan Bant''s disappearance whilst responding to a vandalism call. Requesting backup at Jasper National Park''s Maligne Lake to secure the suspect, and for addition units to meet up on the southeastern end of Hamber Park. Suspect is member of Rocky Powder gang, and confirmed they found his trace at a bunker between Hamber Park and Mt. Columbie. Can also confirm large gang presence currently in the park, proceed with caution." Officer Cois speaks into his radio while partner guards the now-cuffed Andy. They don''t exactly have a way to transport him safely, save for trailing him behind a horse like it''s the American Wild West, but that''s not exactly an idea any of the three want to do.
"I know, just happy we might actually have something." He continues in the radio, a little less strict now. "Careful when you tell Angie, she didn''t take his disappearance the greatest." The mountie finishes, putting his radio away. Looking back at the sniveling man on the ground, he just sighs, rubbing his forehead. "This is going to be a nightmare. Hopefully our American friends bring some of their toys with them, and everyone''s got their shit-kickers on, eh. Something tells me this won''t be a clean bunch of arrests eh?" He says to his partner, the more stoic man just shrugging. He was never much of a talker but a good guy so Cois puts up with him. Hopefully transport shows soon so they can move to the search area. mounted cops are better in a forest that foot patrols after all, and they can''t use helicopters as that could alert the gang the police are onto them.If you encounter this story on Amazon, note that it''s taken without permission from the author. Report it.
At the bunker, Jones isn''t having a great time. He and about 5 others are sitting around the rusted entrance, waiting for the ones who went in to come back. They''re just doing that to make sure the place is actually empty, don''t want any nasties to jump out at the rest or have some leftover trap take out everyone''s legs. That wouldn''t be pleasant. The issue is, though, the fact that looking inside from the entrance gleams a place which, to him, doesn''t look like an abandoned gang stash site. Frankly, the place looks like some kind of bunker meant for experiments or the like. At least the air is nice, feels like he''s back at his prime back at university when he felt like king of the world.
It''s also a slight issue with it having been several hours since he sent in a small crew to clear the place, and is wondering where they are. Him and the others are starting to antsy with the sun having mostly set, bathing them in shadows. The lanterns help keep things visible but no one brought a fire starter with them. Well, a few of them are armed, but starting a fire with a gun doesn''t seem like a smart idea.
He pulls out his radio, hoping someone inside can hear him when he''s stopped by sudden yelling as several flashlights suddenly appear trained on the small group of gangsters. "Police! Hands up! You are under arrest!" Someone shouts out. Jones drops his radio and lifts his hands. He''s not an idiot and can clearly see he''s surrounded, outnumbered, and was caught unaware. Frankly, a terrible situation for a criminal to be suddenly caught in.
One of his subordinates apparently either can''t tell the obvious or doesn''t want to get taken without a fight, whipping out a pistol to try and point it at the nearest cop. His resistance is short lived as an officer with their gun already trained on him drops him with a short staccato of gunfire. No one else resists.
Jones grumbles to himself as he''s forced to his knees, searched, disarmed, and cuffed. This was a disaster.
Officer Cois is relieved, this was a much simpler affair than he thought. Sure one guy was an idiot and is currently being airlifted to the nearest hospital, but aside from that this was a relatively easy arrest. His horse probably isn''t too pleased with being left behind across the ravine though, but they couldn''t set up any proper temp bridges across it before arrest the crowd on the other side. With that done though, all they''ll need to do is put one up, then escort them back to the nearest clearing that transports can reach.
Yeah... This is just going to be a long march. Hopefully Sargent Carrots doesn''t mind.
Heh, just thinking about how his mount outranks him is already helping improve his mood. It''s been 4 years but he can never grow tired of that tradition. Or maybe its how the air in this small clearing feels much cleaner than normal.
Actually, wait, why does he feel like he just had a coffee? "Hey Jacobs!" He calls out to a nearby swat officer whose walking past with a slight pep to his step. The man pauses, looking at him. "What''s up, eh?" "Just wondering, is it just me or do you suddenly feel like you just had a strong coffee?" Cois asks. Jacobs thinks for a minute. "I wouldn''t say coffee, but now that you mention it, I do feel a lot better than I''d think after hiking through a forest in combat gear." He responds after a short contemplation.
Officer Cois thinks about that for a minute, then shrugs. "I don''t know. Maybe it''s just my imagination eh? We did just have a much better mass arrest than I''d think eh. Anyhow, I better got help with guarding the bunch as we escort them back to civilization eh. Good luck with finding the group still in there eh." He says to Jacobs, who just waves in response before jogging off to group up with the rest of the team about to enter the bunker. No one went in yet, but they did close the door as softly as possible, not wanting those inside to take shots at the officers as they secured the outside. Only one way in or out though so they''ve got some time to prepare.
The dungeon is enjoying it''s most recent meal. It was a bit aggravating at first, the challengers spending almost 30 minutes on the first room alone before moving on to the hall, where they did the same thing. Thankfully though, they did close the door behind them after entering the hall, and looking over that group huddled outside, it helped make everything much more soundproof than it normally would be. Mana truly is a wonderful thing.
It got it''s entertainment too after they entered it''s first abominations arena with fear on their faces. Plenty of screaming, some gunshots, and the noises of bodies being broken later, It''s consumed another 5 lives in about just as many minutes. The abomination truly is a terror, though it didn''t kill them all. No, the last one tried to bolt but forgot about the electric trap and stepped in it, then was promptly hit with a strong enough current his hair caught fire and he just dropped like a brick, skidding across the floor. Thus ended the first party to enter.
After such a display, it even levelled up!
[Unnamed Rainbow Dungeon Core]
Level: 2
Floors: 2
Core attunement: Unknown
Dungeon Theme: Research Bunker
Mana: 20/20; Regen: 1/hour
Creatures: 0/2 (-50% Max Creature Count)
Special Creatures: 0/0
Boss Creatures: 0/0
Skills: Mana Generation (SPECIAL) (PASSIVE); Territory Manipulation; Domain Sight; Creation; Destruction; Absorption; Spatial Storage; Analysis
Titles: Herald of The System; Timekeeper
[Select Boon!]
[More mana] [New creature type] [Unlock special creatures]
Oooo! it even got a boon. These are always nice, but for the first on, it feels mana is best. It''ll need more mana for better creatures after all. After though, new terrors to inhabit it along with its new floor will be perfect~ Especially with that growing crowd outside, it might level up before the day breaks!
[Unnamed Rainbow Dungeon Core]
Level: 2
Floors: 2
Core attunement: Unknown
Dungeon Theme: Research Bunker
Mana: 20/40; Regen: 1/hour
Creatures: 0/2 (-50% Max Creature Count)
Special Creatures: 0/0
Boss Creatures: 0/0
Skills: Mana Generation (SPECIAL) (PASSIVE); Territory Manipulation; Domain Sight; Creation; Destruction; Absorption; Spatial Storage; Analysis
Titles: Herald of The System; Timekeeper
WHAT IN THE FUCK IS THAT!?!?
The Emergency Response Team preps themselves just outside the door, readying weapons and checking gear. Hopefully, this''ll be a clean sweep. Even better if the 5 confirmed inside are waiting at the entrance and don''t put up a fight, but they''ll make do with whatever happens. Jacobs is part of this team, doing final checks, making sure nothing happened in the last 10 minutes from the previous check. Mostly just making sure nothing fell out of a pocket or anything like that. Plus there''s a pair of American SWAT officers joining them who brough breaching tools along. Honestly, Jacobs is a little excited to see them use one of those C2 charges brought along if the opportunity arises.
Everyone gathers in position right by the front door to the bunker, doing final checks on their weapons, making sure everything is loaded now. For the main entrance, they''re going to have to just swing the door open since no one brought something which could breach the blast door. Lucky for them, it''s unlocked, so with the youngest on the team braced against the handle, they prep for the squad leader to give the signal.
The squad lead, a veteran of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, breathes once before giving the command, the whole team bursting into action. The rookie grunts, the heavy door swinging open as the man behind him tosses a flashbang in. Once that grenade goes off, the 7-man team floods in, each with guns drawn, sweeping the room for any contacts.
The room itself is empty, leaving little to find aside from the dusty furniture and only other exit to the room being behind a desk. Odd to find a reception room in a bunker under a mountain, but no one has the chance to ponder much before the sound of the door slamming shut behind them startles them all. Everyone spins around wondering what the fuck just happened, whilst the squad lead quickly moves to the door. He pushes on it, and they all breathe a small sigh of relief as the door easily opens again, still unlocked. Good, last thing anyone needs is to get accidently locked in an abandoned bunker.
After verifying with those outside that they''re still good to continue, he moves back to his previous position, everyone else getting ready to breach the next door. None of them are startled when the door closes once more behind them, knowing it''s not locked.
This time, a couple of swift kicks are delivered to the wood door, snapping its hinges and breaking it inward before two officers the same rank as Jacobs examine the room beyond from opposite sides, SMGs pointing inward.
"Clear of contacts. Just a hallway, two doors, and a large barricade at the end." One of them calls out followed by the rest filling in. Sure enough, it''s a rather short hallway on account of a massive pile of furniture having been used to barricade the way deeper. On glance shows it won''t come undone easily.
"Watch the puddle." One of his teammates calls out, the rest carefully stepping around it. No one wants to get shocked after all. As they walk, Jacobs hears something any Alberta native should despise: the squeaking of a rat. He grimaces, knowing exterminators are going to have to come here soon to deal with that before it can escape.
Coming up to the two doors just before the barricade, Officer Leank moves up to the door on the left first, pulling out the wand. Well, it''s an extendable camera than can be used underneath doors to check the other side, but everyone calls them wands. "Can''t see much, looks like an office space but it''s absolutely trashed, broken furniture everywhere. No suspects." He calmly calls out before retracting the wand and moving to the right. "Utility closet. No suspects present."
With that info, they get ready to breach into the office. Due to the barricade though, everyone has to stack up on the left side away from the handle, and due to the current tactic being shock and awe, it''s time for the Americans to shine. One of them, an Officer Erics, pulls out a C2 charge, planting it on the door right above the handle whilst everyone else braces.
Holding out the clicker that sets off the charge, Eric braces right behind Leank whilst Jacobs stands ready with a flashbang, the pin already pulled, spoon held only by his grip. "Go, go, go!" the lead calls out. A blast sounds out as the door is flung off its hinges and into the room, lights flickering as the explosion jostles some bulbs. Before the smoke clears, Jacobs lobs the grenade through the now wide-open doorway. Once the second explosion sounds, everyone quickly charges in through the lingering smoke, guns ready.
The room is dark, barely lit by light streaming in from the hallway. Seems the breach might have knocked out the lights. Erics spots something as he calls out "Freeze! Lemme see those hands fucker!" Jacobs and everyone else quickly points at what Erics saw, lasers training on it, seeing the figure too. Jacobs doesn''t feel right though, that shadow looks massive.
Almost as if to confirm his fears, the lights flicker back on, and the thing roars, looking massively pissed off somehow. "Jesus Murphy...." the rookie says, everyone else silently agreeing with him as it FUCKING LUNGES AT THEM!If you stumble upon this tale on Amazon, it''s taken without the author''s consent. Report it.
Everyone freezes before triggers are pulled. No one trained to see something that looks at home in a horror movie to be real. Every weapon fires at once, a spray of bullets shooting out. Many go wide from it''s speed, but enough hit center mass to stagger it. It just gets more angry though, 9mm from MP5s clearly not doing much aside from cracking some exposed bones, and the Remington wielded by Leank is of similar effectiveness. It charges once more, this time hurling shattered furniture at them.
Now the room devolves into chaos, men moving to dodge hurled furniture whilst others try to get some distance, spraying lead at the monster like their lives depend on it, because it does. Jacobs runs to the right, watching as the rookie is too slow and gets crushed by some of the flung debris, getting impaled through the gut and buried beneath it. "HOLY FUCK!" "JESUS MURPHY!" "WHAT IN THE FUCK IS THAT!?!?" "SHOOT IT! SHOOT IT IN THE FUCKING FACE!" "GODDAMMIT!" The room fills with panicked cries barely heard over the chorus of automatic gunfire.
Jacobs can only struggle to reload as quick as he can whilst hearing Leank scream in defiance. "DIE YOU MOTHERFU-!" His yell is cut off with a sickening crunch. Jacobs doesn''t look, focusing on inserting the mag with shaky hands, wincing as it roars again before charging another of his friends.
The squad leader tries to restore some discipline, but his fear can be heard in his orders. "DON''T SPRAY! AIM YOU DUMB- GAH!" Jacobs sees as a stray bullet hits his commander in the leg. Breathing heavily, he tries to steady himself and take aim at the thing''s head, but it''s a small target on the monster.
"FUCK!" "SHIT!" Two mean yell in panic as it grabs a locked from the wall and hurls it at them. Neither are lucky enough to dodge it, one having his chest caved in, killing him instantly while the other has an arm almost amputated by the sharp metal, bone expose. Jacobs pulls the trigger, trying to fire a controlled burst, but misses most of his shot miss their intended target.
The thing swings a fist at Erics, who was unlucky enough to stumble close to it. "WAI-" His final cry is cut off by his head getting removed from his shoulders. The squad lead dumps a mag into its back as the abomination turns its attention to Jacobs. He can do nothing but watch though as the bleeding and wounded monstrosity slams its fist on the floor, making Jacobs stumble and fall onto his ass.
Now with its quarry on the ground, Jacobs panics as it charges at him, holding the trigger down as it rushes. "SHIT! SHIT! SHIT!" Just before it reaches him though, he gets lucky. A bullet gets it right in the eye, fatally wounding it. The creature''s hands grips its'' head as it cries out in anguish, Everyone still conscious slapping their hands over their ears as it bellows. It staggers, falling over and just narrowly missing Jacobs, crushing a nearby desk instead.
Breathing rapidly, gun clicking empty despite still being trained on it, Jacobs'' mind struggle to catch up with the sight of the abomination not moving. When it registers though, he remembers all the sights of his teammates being slaughtered and wonder. He hurls, coughing as his stomach empties itself onto the floor.
Once he''s done with that, he remembers there''s still survivors with him. Quickly, he rushes to his feet, looking around the carnage. His commander, no, Derrick, is applying a tourniquet to his let, stemming the bleeding. He''ll be fine. Looking around though, there''s only two other possible survivors, the rookie, Matthew, and the other American, Gregory if he remembers right.
Gregory is closer, so he''s first. Rushing over as fast as his shaky legs will take him, Jacobs checks the man out. sadly, it looks like he bled out, unable to deal with the bleeding in time in the chaos. It may have barely been more than a minute since it happened, but he''s laying in a massive pool of blood and he doesn''t have a pulse. Another man down.
The just leaves Matthew. This was his first serious mission, and he''s not doing good right now. He''s still alive though, a relief for Jacobs, but they need to deal with the injuries now.
Derrick walks up behind Jacobs as he pulls the debris off Matthew as quick as he can, the lead of the now decimated team trying to radio in for support. Nothing is coming through though, just static.
Coughing up blood, Matthew grabs Jacobs'' arm, making the man stumble as his efforts are interrupted. "I... I can feel... the weight... it''s buying... time..." He tells Jacobs. It seems he had an artery nicked, and the weight of a shattered desk on his chest is working to stem the bleeding. He''s still mortally wounded though, and in their remote location, likely won''t survive the journey to the nearest hospital.
"Tell... Tell my little girl... daddy loves her... and will always... be with her..." He says to Jacobs, the man having silent tears stream down his face. Suddenly the man is hit with a coughing fit, blood filling his mouth. "No no no NO!" Jacobs yells, resuming efforts to free the man as he falls still. Derrick sighs, leaning down and checking his neck for a pulse. After a minute, his head falls as he grabs Jacobs, pulling him away from the corpse.
"Get it together!" He commands his last surviving subordinate, forcing the man to get steady on his knees as the weight of what happened sets in. The room is silent save for the buzzing of the lights. They stay like that for a minute before Jacobs climbs back to his feet and helps Derrick limp to the entrance, leaving that damned bunker. He doesn''t want to leave his squad mates behind, but it''s just him and his wonder commander, so he leaves the corpses to be picked up when they clear this cursed hole in the ground.
They walk out in silence, tuning out the world as they stagger back out of the front door. Jacobs only feels worse as after setting foot outside, his body feels better, the sensation causing him to stumble, and judging by Derrick''s shocked reaction, he felt it too. If only it didn''t come at the cost of their friend''s lives.
Numbers Go Up
The dungeon is absolutely giddy with excitement. This night was amazing for the dungeon! Two separate groups of delvers repulsed in short order, 10 deaths total, it feels practically ecstatic. Especially because these were proper armed delvers whose challenge could actually fuel its growth, giving it the addicting feeling of growing in strength. With that, it quickly turns its attention to its system notifications.
LEVEL UP!
Max floor count: +1
Max monster count: +2
Growing bigger is always a good thing for a dungeon, but before it goes about excavating further into the earth, there''s one more thing it needs to check.
[Unnamed Rainbow Dungeon Core]
Level: 3
Floors: 2/3
Core attunement: Unknown
Dungeon Theme: Research Bunker
Mana: 21/40; Regen: 1/hour
Creatures: 2/4 (-50% Max Creature Count)
Special Creatures: 0/0
Boss Creatures: 0/0
Skills: Mana Generation (SPECIAL) (PASSIVE); Territory Manipulation; Domain Sight; Creation; Destruction; Absorption; Spatial Storage; Analysis
Titles: Herald of The System; Timekeeper; Bloody Scary
[Select Boon!]
[More mana] [New creature type] [Unlock special creatures]
Well, time to make another choice. More mana is never a bad decision but it''s going to ponder more than just base impulse. Creatures, likewise, are always worthwhile to invest in, either unlocking new ones to fit niches, diversify enemies so delvers can''t just find a weakness to exploit on a sole defender type, or a litany of reasons. Although so far its creatures have shown to be more than lethal enough for now, so perhaps it can hold off on specials just yet. Bit too small for wandering bosses.
Of course, while it thinks, it cleans up and gets ready for the next group to come, dissolving the corpse and absorbing the new pieces of equipment and weaponry to see how they''re constructed in order to replicate them. The last group had a lot more sophisticated weapons and tech on them, but clearly weren''t suited for its massive first floor boss. Pity for them but it needs to be stronger than newborn dungeons should be.
Either way, it figures getting a new creature to add to its repertoire could help. With that, it selects [New creature type] this time, resolving itself to stick with mana until level 5, when it knows it''ll get something special then. It can''t say why, but it just knows every 5 levels is going to be special for it.
New Creature Type Selected! Pick your monster:
Flesh Puppeteer
Ooze
Carnivorous Plant
Solid options which could work a myriad of ways. It''ll need to think on which one it''ll pick, lucky for it dungeons aren''t expected to make decisions as soon as they come up, having 1 standard year at most before a choice is forced, so it''s got time to think on its options. Good thing it isn''t forced to make these choices blind either, that would be annoying, but the system doesn''t want any living thing to be crippled because it had to make an uninformed choice. Of course it wont give options that are awful, but sometimes situations require one specific option to be picked.
Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
Flesh puppeteers are middle of the ground of it options it thinks. Those creatures need a body to steal after all, the delver parasites. Lucky for the dungeon dungeons aren''t made of flesh so the things are quite fine in its eyes. Plus one could pilot multiple bodies, albeit those ones are stronger than it could probably field at this time.
Oozes. A staple of magical worlds everywhere. Slow, but with incredible versatility, flexibility, and the option for one to become many if it can grow and consume enough. Or just become one big ooze, that''s certainly an option too.
Carnivorous plants could be good for a greenhouse-type of floor with a more open plan though. They don''t tend to be very mobile though, with the one which can relocate needing to grow a lot first, but they can tear a man apart. Multiple mouths which can move independently on a single plant too can be done too instead of one big one. Kind of like a plant hydra except the heads don''t really regenerate.
Either way, it''s got time to think. First thing first, digging out the new floor. This one is going to be a bit more open than its first two floors. Just one big floor. Instead of stairs to and from this floor too, it''s going to build an elevator from the second all the way to the fifth when it gets it. A single-use key to unlock the elevator on each floor allowing it to either move one floor deeper to the next one or go all the way back to the top, that that should work nicely.
Perhaps it should modify the previous floors to include this, but that''s not really a worry of it. Besides, no one will be able to get under the elevator anyway so it doesn''t really matter. The stairs shall stay. For now.
The excavation is mostly monotonous, the core spending days to dig, build, and reinforce. The core room remains as it is for now, the core planning to move it deeper when the floor is actually done. Lucky for it though it''s long wait between building floors has allowed mana to suffuse the ground enough that the stone it''s digging into is much more receptive to its will than before.
Not much excitement happens in it either as it works to expand. Just a team of much less combat-looking delvers came in a few hours after the previous survivors left who fled as soon as they saw the door to the first floor''s arena. Odd, but it doesn''t really care about the strangeness of action of those delvers. They clearly weren''t coming to fight, and left before they could do much of anything aside from open a door, so no reward for them either.
The day after, it felt an itch on it''s entrance. It took a moment to see what was happening. Seems like they were welding its entrance shut. Guess they don''t want to delve. Fine. All the better for it even because it can finish the third floor without worry then just simply undo the welds when it''s ready. After all, it gets some extra leeway with the system if it''s entrance is close due to outside actions. The weld is going to itch until it clears that up, but it''ll endure. Crystal''s bane isn''t a small itch.
The third floor progress is coming along nicely. It is slow going due to its still somewhat low mana limit and regen, but the excavations are coming along steadily. The room is going to be about 50% larger than the second floor in total, and the core is mostly finishing up with the digging after almost a month at it. The concrete and rebar, though, is going to take much longer though due to how expensive those materials are to make relative to plain stone, but they are much more resilient than normal dungeon stone so it''s not like it''s getting scammed on the cost or anything.
As for the more general room design, it knows what it''ll do for whatever creature choice it makes to inhabit this floor. The part closest to the elevator will be a ''welcoming area'' of sorts, identical on each of the floor variations it has planned. Just a few desks, some computers, lockers, and things like that. Maybe a bench or two. Certainly a partition though to mark it off from the rest of the floor. There''s also going to be vents hanging from the ceiling over the entire floor, the slightly raised ceiling allowing hanging vents to be fit in without worry.
As for the floor itself, there''s two similar ones and a more unique third option planned. An office space like on the first floor''s arena, but much less smashed to bits for the flesh puppeteers. Some kind of office space, but with clear glass cylinders and various chemicals for the oozes, something to let them sample various acids and chemicals to replicate within themselves. Finally, a greenhouse would be perfect for the carnivorous plants, plenty of camouflage for them there.
No rush to pick though, first it''ll need to actually finish reinforcing the floor before it can build the hazards themselves. Devise some new traps for it too perhaps as well. Can''t go too crazy, these won''t be able to summon critters or anything, but rigging something to collapse should be easy enough.
Decisions, decisions... probably one of the least fun things about life, it thinks: decision paralysis.